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Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

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Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#161

Post by serf »

lelanthran wrote: post #127
jazzpush2 wrote: post #69

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 you…

> 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. One day, when there is no job for you, you will look back on this moment and chide your past self. There is no organisation that has their hands clean. Not even the one you work for.

>One day, when there is no job for you, you will look back on this moment and chide your past self.

people say this as if having principles will leave you jobless inevitably, but there is so much evidence to the contrary that this rings more hollow the older I get.

I agree with your overall concept of empathy towards others, I disagree with the premise that all organizations are unethical and that there isn't room for the morally principal'd and employed in this world.

contrarily I believe that a morally principal'd and skilled engineer is so rare in this world that there are a few organizations that would snap up every single one they could find if the network was there to find them.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#162

Post by serf »

Hamuko wrote: post #141
lelanthran wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. One day, when there is no job for you, you will look back on this moment and chide your past self. There is no organisation that has their hands clean. Not even the one you work for.

I imagine the stupid enterprise business software I make is way less bad than "our algo is making teenage girls kill themselves".

yeah except that isn't how it's presented.

social media boards don't go creating slides and mission statements that mentions those second order effects.

most go something like: "Connecting people and souls through the technologies that empower every day life."

rather than

"Let's get Susie to jump off a bridge for yuks."

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#163

Post by gr_norm »

jazzpush2 wrote: post #69

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 you…

I am completely willing to forgive Meta (and Palantir etc) employees who quit their job and donate their blood money (all wages above some low multiplier of median US SWE salary, adjusted for cost of living) to a reputable charity of their choice. Preferably one focused on repairing the incredible harm inflicted on other humans to which they have been a proactive and willing accomplice. Anything less than that does not constitute genuine remorse; we do not let millionaire criminals keep their illicit earnings because they apologized on the stand.

That nearly none will do this (I suspect most would be irritated at even the suggestion) tells you all you need to know about them.

edit: The disagreement is unsurprising, but I'd like to hear the reasoning against this. If you truly believed you'd wronged humanity at a job you voluntarily took for its high pay over all the others you could have easily gotten, keeping the exorbitant excesses of money should be unpalatable to you. That's how having a conscience works. Anything else is just a vacuous attempt to regain social standing.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#164

Post by laweijfmvo »

layer8 wrote: post #59
vanuatu wrote: post #38

"It’s literally the gulag" - okay this was a funny comment its unclear to me why they need their model to be the best at coding (maybe to build an internal technical moat?)

Because coding appears to be the most monetizable use of AI, for some time to come.

but who’s going to pay Meta for it?

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#165

Post by techblueberry »

slibhb wrote: post #160
jazzpush2 wrote: post #69

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 you…

The idea that facebook is this "well-documented do-bad-for-the-world organization" that has caused "damage to the world" is a perfect example of scape-goating. When you step back and try to explain exactly what the company has done that's so bad, there's nothing there.

> The idea that facebook is this "well-documented do-bad-for-the-world organization" that has caused "damage to the world" is a perfect example of scape-goating.

True, none of us are innocent.

> When you step back and try to explain exactly what the company has done that's so bad, there's nothing there.

WTF?

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#166

Post by thepryz »

jazzpush2 wrote: post #69

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 you…

Sorry, but your rant comes from a place of naive privilege when you assume meta engineers all had options.

I know a number of people that accepted roles with companies they vowed never to work for after being laid off and unemployed for a year. The reality is that when you look at tech in abroad context, there really are very few ethical and/or noble companies.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#167

Post by bla15e »

slibhb wrote: post #160
jazzpush2 wrote: post #69

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 you…

The idea that facebook is this "well-documented do-bad-for-the-world organization" that has caused "damage to the world" is a perfect example of scape-goating. When you step back and try to explain exactly what the company has done that's so bad, there's nothing there.

it's not a perfect exampe of scape-goating of the goat is still alive

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#168

Post by stephbook »

layer8 wrote: post #59
vanuatu wrote: post #38

"It’s literally the gulag" - okay this was a funny comment its unclear to me why they need their model to be the best at coding (maybe to build an internal technical moat?)

Because coding appears to be the most monetizable use of AI, for some time to come.

It's also not like Meta could train it for content moderation, translation or judicial expertise even if it wanted to. They have software engineers idling, not translators.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#169

Post by pessimizer »

michaelt wrote: post #158
marssaxman wrote: post #92

"If you log into your personal bank account, does the tool track you? What about when you’re writing a personal email, or responding to a personal call?" Why would you ever do such a thing on a device controlled by your employer? I guess there's a whole generation of devs who don't remember the Microsoft antitrust trial, and haven't learned the "anything you do at work may come out in discovery" lesson.

> Why would you ever do such a thing on a device controlled by your employer? It is in fact common to do personal things on work PCs. The senior manager spending 5 days visiting that foreign office is logging into his personal netflix account, and video calling his wife and kids. He ain't carrying a second laptop to do it. That middle manager, with a report who needs a widget delivered tomorrow, and purchasing aren't…

You seem to have selected specifically people who are not likely to know the full implications of their behavior, and I agree with you.

I don't even like doing stuff like this on my phone.

Re: Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

#170

Post by layer8 »

laweijfmvo wrote: post #164
layer8 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because coding appears to be the most monetizable use of AI, for some time to come.

but who’s going to pay Meta for it?

??? The same market that is paying for Codex or Claude Code, if Meta offers competitive services.
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