Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 223 posts

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

#161

Post by glaslong »

foobar_______ wrote: post #123
glaslong wrote: 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…

Serious question - I know this will come off as inflammatory but I am genuinely curious. Do you ever talk to coworkers about the addictive, polarizing nature of Meta recommendation feed algorithms? There is pretty solid research around teen health (specially girls) around how many problems it causes. Is the pay just so good you turn a blind eye? Honestly, I can understand that if I am being honest. But I don't see as…

Frequently! It used to be tolerated (even encouraged) internally, and many people are pushing hard against such things all the time. These days it's a good way to get targeted for layoffs though, so I'm assuming our days are numbered.

There are a lot of folks who also really do not care and are just here for the money though. The large majority, if I were to guess.

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

#162

Post by chronogram »

jjulius wrote: post #25
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #11

I guess it's a sign of the times. I was just reading the old speech by John Barlow, in another post[0]. Sort of dovetails with this. I spent the majority of my career at a camera manufacturer. I probably made half of what I could have made, anywhere else, and there were lots of issues, caused by bureaucratic overhead, heavy-handed QA, and cultural misunderstandings. But not once, during almost 27 years, did I wonder…

>I probably made half of what I could have made, anywhere else... Peace of mind over peace of wallet for me, every time.

Peace of mind largely depends on peace of wallet for a lot of people. Imagine a life without a care for accommodation or travel. Suddenly you can go wherever you want whenever you want and work on whatever you want without a care.

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

#163

Post by toasty228 »

ryandrake wrote: post #126
bradlys wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is getting $700k tc for senior eng outside of speciality AI roles. That’s beyond even staff level. You can stay at the company and get stock appreciation up to that but you’re not getting a new hire offer at $700k below staff level. (Even for staff, it’s high)

If you look at HN salary threads and self-reported salary websites, then everyone in tech makes $700K, drives a Maserati and owns a vacation home in Tahoe.

700k a year and not finding anything else to buy than a maserati is the saddest thing ever

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

#164

Post by QuantumGood »

rsweeney21 wrote: post #36
glaslong wrote: 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 work at Meta. The chaos and instability is awful. But I think they could fire pretty much everyone and the ads business would still continue to grow at nearly the same rate. I think it will take a very long time for leadership to feel the effects of what they've done.

Some Facebook ad forums have gone from frustration to extreme hyperbole (e.g. death penalty for Meta execs). The "you're doing it wrong" replies have also shifted to more of "having the same problem". We would like to advertise again on Meta, but it looks quite scary to start again. We've even received two bills from Meta, though we have not advertised since 2020. Contested one and got a discount, the other was smaller and I didn't contest. Trying to disconnect everything currently.

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

#165

Post by dogleash »

Anon1096 wrote: post #124
rsweeney21 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also work at Meta. The chaos and instability is awful. But I think they could fire pretty much everyone and the ads business would still continue to grow at nearly the same rate. I think it will take a very long time for leadership to feel the effects of what they've done.

I'm guessing you have 0 insight into the work that the ads, ranking, apps, and sales teams do to keep the gravy train flowing and even expanding 30% every year. If Meta fired even just half the ranking workers, the recommendation models (both ads and feeds) would very quickly become stale and start shedding many Fortune 500 companies worth of revenue.

When I read parent say "pretty much everyone", I assume the hypothetically not-cut people are still a thousands large skeleton crew keeping the cash cow fed and happy. What did you think they meant? 3 execs and an janitor?

I'm sure whatever your role at facebook is, it is very important. There are people who recognize how valuable your contributions were/are/will be. You probably won't find that validation on HN.

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

#166

Post by carabiner »

Freedom2 wrote: post #160
georgeburdell wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The median of its employees’ geographies is China. That’s how it got worse than your average maturing Bay Area company

Interesting. Could you elaborate on any specifics for this claim?

996 culture, and Zuck has a particular fondness for China, Chinese people due to his wife.

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

#167

Post by zeroonetwothree »

ninininino wrote: post #23
glaslong wrote: 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…

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?

Zuck probably has ADHD (or something like that). If you have experienced it or know people that do then you know that you tend to have tons of random ideas that seem good in the moment but a few days later you realize weren’t that great.

Now imagine every time one of these ideas happen a 2000+ person org immediately starts pivoting to work on it as its top priority.

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

#168

Post by zeroonetwothree »

elorant wrote: post #91
bluecheese452 wrote: post #38

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.

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.

Wasn’t this like 14 years ago? So not sure it really contradicts the comment you reply to.

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

#169

Post by dominotw »

rsweeney21 wrote: post #19
maxwellito wrote: post #4

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. 1) Work with top minds in ML 2) Money But I have enough money now and no amount of more money (that Meta could reasonably offer for my role) would make it worth staying. This place sucks now.

If you are working with top minds in ML then you must be a top mind yourself that can get equal or more money at any of the ai labs.

So i doubt you are really "working with" top minds at ml meta.

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

#170

Post by Anon1096 »

coldpie wrote: post #156
spongebobstoes wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in both cases you're making a deal to enrich "the devil" to enrich yourself could your business simply make less money? could you find other ways to achieve your business goals? could you put in more work for lesser results? these are the same choices you're asking others to make about their employment

I understand what you're saying, but no, I don't agree. These companies have positioned themselves so that it is often unavoidable to do business with them. If you have a visual arts business you are more-or-less required to have an Instagram account, and maybe even advertise on it. It's where your customers and business partners are and if you want to participate in that space, you're handicapping yourself so severe…

It's interesting you call these sites and advertising opportunities absolutely necessary for things like visual arts businesses and yet don't think they are doing any good in the world. If the ad spots and targeting didn't exist then niche internet-ads-dependent businesses also would not.
Post reply on HN