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Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

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Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Zuck just too...neurodivergent or lacking in social awareness or low EQ or whatever the case may be to understand morale? Or just so cut-throat/trusting that people who don't currently work there want the META paycheck badly enough that even if morale is horrible they can just backfill departures?

This is the guy who tried to make the metaverse a thing. He has been out of touch for decades now.

He's also the guy who bought Instagram for $1bn and turned into a $70bn behemoth. If that's out of touch then I don't know what the opposite would be.

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#92
post #85
post #8

Currently at Meta. This place has always been a bit ruthless in the 8+ years I've been around to observe. But the article is accurate. Never seen people this universally fed up. I thought tech was too cushy for it to happen, but there's serious collective action posting out in the open all over the place. It's also never been more cutthroat, backstabby, scope-grabby, political, and uncertain. There seems to be a flyw…

I also hear from people I know at Meta that there is a very strong push to use AI to speed up developer work. One person I know complains that their velocity is slowed down because they have to fix some of the slop that gets checked in as code review is too lax about AI generated code. My guess is that if the planned layoffs remove these "underperforming" devs that are actually fixing AI introduced bugs at the detrim…

Definitely happens. Many meetings about what to do with the avalanche of vibe diffs from PMs that take organic SWE eyeball time to review hah

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the guy who tried to make the metaverse a thing. He has been out of touch for decades now.

Exactly. The yes man culture must be pretty hard near him.

It's really hard to tell if an idea is bad without trying it out first. Zuck's runway was unusually long. And who knows? Maybe he should have stuck with it a while longer. We cannot say for certain that it would always have failed.

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Zuck just too...neurodivergent or lacking in social awareness or low EQ or whatever the case may be to understand morale? Or just so cut-throat/trusting that people who don't currently work there want the META paycheck badly enough that even if morale is horrible they can just backfill departures?

The word is, Zuck is going through his midlife crisis (42 yo) and wants a tougher, more driven, and more masculine environment. Zuck has been pro-Trump for a while, and palling around with MMA guys. He's also open to importing 996 culture because of his appreciation of China, which stems from his Chinese wife.

I think he is playing the political game and will be pro who ever is in office to protect his baby

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#95
post #8

Currently at Meta. This place has always been a bit ruthless in the 8+ years I've been around to observe. But the article is accurate. Never seen people this universally fed up. I thought tech was too cushy for it to happen, but there's serious collective action posting out in the open all over the place. It's also never been more cutthroat, backstabby, scope-grabby, political, and uncertain. There seems to be a flyw…

Meta is a scourge of a company.

You literally work for a guy who, talking about the user data he dubiously acquired, that said "they trust me, dumb fucks".

It's hard to feel sorry for workers who chose that road, the writing was on the wall.

And to be very well paid to create the biggest spying tech on the planet, making doomscroll addictive, ads that serve scams, AI slop everywhere, and being accused of having participated in election manipulation.

At some point, I call it poetic justice, and I wish there were more of that.

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#96

I have a genuine question for Meta engineers: what were you hoping to gain by working at this company? What motivated you, and what were your aspirations?

I work at Meta (for now…) I really care about VR and had the opportunity to work at Reality Labs. They paid to relocate my family to the Bay Area, where I was able to get better medical care for an autoimmune disease. I interviewed at other companies too but it was late 2022 and hiring freezes eliminated my other opportunities. So my motivations were: - Working on something I care about - Getting to the Bay Area and…

Rather than donating 5-6 figures, what about saving enough cash to live on? Roughly speaking you can "make" ~$200k/year on $5M in T-bills. You could live comfortably in the US or Europe, or basically like a king anywhere else in the world. You could work on the software you want, even pro-bono, and walk away any time. I believe this is called "F U money".

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#97
post #8

Currently at Meta. This place has always been a bit ruthless in the 8+ years I've been around to observe. But the article is accurate. Never seen people this universally fed up. I thought tech was too cushy for it to happen, but there's serious collective action posting out in the open all over the place. It's also never been more cutthroat, backstabby, scope-grabby, political, and uncertain. There seems to be a flyw…

Okay. Dumping my $META stock

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#98
post #8

Currently at Meta. This place has always been a bit ruthless in the 8+ years I've been around to observe. But the article is accurate. Never seen people this universally fed up. I thought tech was too cushy for it to happen, but there's serious collective action posting out in the open all over the place. It's also never been more cutthroat, backstabby, scope-grabby, political, and uncertain. There seems to be a flyw…

Meta is a scourge of a company. You literally work for a guy who, talking about the user data he dubiously acquired, that said "they trust me, dumb fucks". It's hard to feel sorry for workers who chose that road, the writing was on the wall. And to be very well paid to create the biggest spying tech on the planet, making doomscroll addictive, ads that serve scams, AI slop everywhere, and being accused of having parti…

A dumb thing Zuck said when he was in college pales in comparison to the horrible stuff he's enabled as a fully formed adult who should know better.

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#99
post #84

Hey Meta folks, remember that time when Facebook: - harvested user data which helped a company manipulate a US election and the Brexit outcome? - played a role in spreading hate speech, which was used to support a genocide in Myanmar? - harmed the mental health of a generation of young people. Just highlighting some data points. I'm really not suggesting you stand up for yourself and do something that might harm your…

Wonder when Americans will apply this to themselves with their own government which does far worse things everyday instead of posting these comments.

You have much less control over what the government does than choosing your job. I have rejected job offers from both facebook and google. If FAANGS want you, you have the choice of employers. And you chose.

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#100
post #8

Currently at Meta. This place has always been a bit ruthless in the 8+ years I've been around to observe. But the article is accurate. Never seen people this universally fed up. I thought tech was too cushy for it to happen, but there's serious collective action posting out in the open all over the place. It's also never been more cutthroat, backstabby, scope-grabby, political, and uncertain. There seems to be a flyw…

It's easy to keep employees happy with good pay and benefits and a nice work environment, as long as the work is reasonably ethical and life-affirming and generally compatible with human well-being. Meta hasn't been any of those things in quite a while.
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