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Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

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Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#61

Post by a34729t »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #43
fusslo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the ceo of a former company I was at demanded a rebrand like 6 months after our internal rebrand. Cost ~500k-800k USD. Turned out he was schtupping the vp of the design company (his wife told the admin assistant during the divorce)

I wouldn't be surprised if a much larger proportion of big business and politics boiled down to this Yeah there's lots of ethics rules and stuff about it but we've seen how little the upper class cares about that Whenever a big business deal goes down, I tend to assume someone's getting sex or money out of the deal Frankly there's already just so much corruption that we know about and it seems unlikely we know about…

A friend of mine has actually posited a variation of this as way to predict the outcomes of legal cases

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#62

Post by chvid »

Facebook and Instagram are such strong businesses that they could completely stop development work and the businesses would still be unbeatable monopolies for years to come.

But what I don’t understand is how screen recording / keyboard recording is useful AI training data?

It seems like a lot cost and a lot of pissing off people for something that is actually not very valuable.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#63

Post by KaiserPro »

peanut-walrus wrote: post #23

Turns out you don't actually need top-tier engineering talent if your only business is selling ads to scammers to prey on the elderly?

You need a set of good lead engineers in monetisation who can hide the fraud well enough from the rest of the company

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#64

Post by pavel_lishin »

chvid wrote: post #62

Facebook and Instagram are such strong businesses that they could completely stop development work and the businesses would still be unbeatable monopolies for years to come. But what I don’t understand is how screen recording / keyboard recording is useful AI training data? It seems like a lot cost and a lot of pissing off people for something that is actually not very valuable.

One thing I've learned over my career is that engineering seems to matter so little to a business's success. As long as the engineering problems and failures aren't so bad that the salesfolks will get crucified in the town square and convince customers to leave, then seemingly everything can eventually be duct-taped over.

Obviously this isn't as true for things where it truly matters - encryption software, financial software, etc. - but it's amazing how little engineering excellent has to do with a company's success.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#65

Post by tracker1 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #43
fusslo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the ceo of a former company I was at demanded a rebrand like 6 months after our internal rebrand. Cost ~500k-800k USD. Turned out he was schtupping the vp of the design company (his wife told the admin assistant during the divorce)

I wouldn't be surprised if a much larger proportion of big business and politics boiled down to this Yeah there's lots of ethics rules and stuff about it but we've seen how little the upper class cares about that Whenever a big business deal goes down, I tend to assume someone's getting sex or money out of the deal Frankly there's already just so much corruption that we know about and it seems unlikely we know about…

Hey, the VP is driving a new Ferrari... right after a new 8 figure deal.. weird.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#66

Post by Groxx »

Because it's safe to do so now, anyone on a visa is immediately in an extremely uncomfortable position if they lose their job. They won't leave. And anyone else who does voluntarily gives up on layoff packages.

See also Twitter when Ol' Musky rolled in.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#67

Post by vanuatu »

chvid wrote: post #62

Facebook and Instagram are such strong businesses that they could completely stop development work and the businesses would still be unbeatable monopolies for years to come. But what I don’t understand is how screen recording / keyboard recording is useful AI training data? It seems like a lot cost and a lot of pissing off people for something that is actually not very valuable.

Computer use

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#68

Post by mth1234 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #55
xnx wrote: post #42

Is Meta the same story as Twitter? Two companies with way more highly paid engineers that are needed to maintain a mature social platform and ad network? Funny how both reorgs were done in about the most expensive way imaginable. Twitter through overpriced acquisition, and Facebook through technological adventurism.

Note that both kneecapped their previously quite open APIs, too.

Can’t really win here. If Facebook doesn’t have open APIs, it gets accused of being a walled garden and hoarding data. If it builds those APIs and lets third parties act with the same permissions as the authenticated user that gave permission to that third party, it gets Cambridge Analytica.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#69

Post by jazzpush2 »

This sounds bad to say, but it's difficult to feel bad for any meta engineers who lost their jobs.

You undoubtedly had other options, yet you chose to work for one of the most well-documented do-bad-for-the-world organizations on the planet. Former employees will deflect and make the comparison to United Fruit workers, despite the obvious difference in employee-optionality and influence.

You made your bed. I hope your organization gets destroyed. I hope you reflect on the damage you've caused the world.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#70

Post by ironman1478 »

Having worked at meta, something I noticed is that the orgs that were well run were ones that were bought. WhatsApp, reality, insta, etc. I worked in an org that was not associated with those products and was purely homegrown and it was awful. Things got done but horribly inefficiently due to over hiring and extreme requirement and schedule shifts.

I believe that the cultures that were developed outside of Meta are used to launder the image that meta as a whole has a good engineering culture.

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