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Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

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Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#131

Post by mhoad »

hansworst wrote: post #113
mhoad wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And just think all it took was a couple of genocides, breaking society and becoming one of the most despised people in the world.

I’m not really sure if I agree with this argument against Facebook. It’s true that Facebook had a part in this, but the same can be said for any kind of media for any given historical conflict. Here’s an article describing the effect radio had on the rise of Hitler: https://daily.jstor.org/an-affordable-radio-brought-nazi-pro... A few years before these genocides, western media were praising Facebook for its role in…

I think there are some pretty meaningful differences here where Facebook has been repeatedly made aware of these problems prior to the fact and has consistently responded in the exact same manner by refusing to take any meaningful action and only trying to solve things in so much as it is a PR problem for them.

It wasn’t even indifference, they actively undercut and mislead all of the supposed checks and balances they assured everyone were enough both internally and externally. When confronted they have lied to their internal teams, they have lied to lawmakers, they have lied to investors. It is always the same response. There is no room left to leave this as a “mistake that fell through the cracks”.

It’s a pattern of behaviour that now spans many years and many incidents. All it has shown is that they appear both incapable and unwilling of reform and should be treated as such.

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#132

Post by SilverBirch »

rusk wrote: post #97
thrwawayacc wrote: post #12

amazon manager here: it's the same with us. our director gave told us to manage out more people this year to hit our revised headcount targets for next year. there are no layoffs, just larger-than-normal targets for managing out people. I talked with friends across various orgs and the targets seem to range between 10% to 25% for different teams (as opposed to 5% for normal years).

“Manage out” sounds suspiciously like “constructive dismissal” to me. Not only unethical but illegal to varying degrees across many jurisdictions. Could get pricey!

There's a massive difference between constructive dismissal and managing out. Managing out can often be as simple as a manager saying "Hey, your performance isn't great your not on course to get any bonus or raise this year" and the employee deciding "Fuck this, I'm off". Instead of in normal times, where you're trying to retain people and the conversation is often "Hey, you're making really good progress but there's just a few areas we need to work on which is why your compensation isn't quite where you would like it".

There's a thousand reasons people stay or leave companies and just slightly adjusting how much you're working to keep people can often be the difference in the attrition rate.

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#134

Post by ulfw »

solidasparagus wrote: post #75
gsatic wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is still a fool. He says he wakes up everyday felling like he is getting punched in the stomach. What more proof do you need?

You don't have to like the man but, I think it's pretty clear that running any global social media company is miserable and filled with impossible decisions + people who will hate you no matter what choices you make. It sounds like many social media CEOs would agree that it's like getting punched in the stomach every day

Then why do it? What for?

It's not like he won't be a millionaire if he just owns a large part of Facebook instead of running it.

I don't understand your argument.

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#135

Post by Pinegulf »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #86

Sad for the employees but a little part of my heart perks up whenever I hear any story of Facebook failing in any way.

Question is 'what will replace it?'. Hopefully something better, but current competition isn't exactly better than FB when it comes to morals.

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#136

Post by paganel »

noncoml wrote: post #3

Maybe Zuck should put himself on PIP as it’s obvious he needs support. He had a money printing machine and managed to fuck it up.

He's too busy attending private gladiator-like fights (which the article mentions, btw). I know the FB pay is pretty damn good, but I guess it still sucks to see your CEO doing that while your job with the company might be on the line.

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#137

Post by sverhagen »

benreesman wrote: post #123
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #86

Sad for the employees but a little part of my heart perks up whenever I hear any story of Facebook failing in any way.

As someone who quit FB with a great deal of unvested stock, I've got more skin in the game than most as to the complex question of FB's culture, management, and impact in the world. I paid a lot of fucking money for a very nuanced answer to a very complex question about whether or not I felt I wanted to be there at that time. So, from a position of vastly superior knowledge to the typical HN peanut gallery, I agree t…

You seem to be suggesting that we're not entitled to opine about Facebook since we don't know the detailed internals or can't grasp the complexity, but I think that OP captures a broadly carried sentiment that Facebook's impact on society, on balance, is negative. And one internal I'll comment on, regardless of not being an insider: the downsizing through performance reviews feels very dishonest.

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#138

Post by benreesman »

chottocharaii wrote: post #128
benreesman wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who quit FB with a great deal of unvested stock, I've got more skin in the game than most as to the complex question of FB's culture, management, and impact in the world. I paid a lot of fucking money for a very nuanced answer to a very complex question about whether or not I felt I wanted to be there at that time. So, from a position of vastly superior knowledge to the typical HN peanut gallery, I agree t…

Oh come off your high horse. The comment reflects the sentiment of many a commenter. Your choice to forgo your stock is neither here nor there. I hope your salary was enough to live comfortably after finishing

I'm still working 20-something hours at pushing 40 precisely because that stock had been the retirement plan. I don't regret it, it was the wrong place to be at the time for me after thinking deeply on it.

And people with more knowledge throwing up a caution flag when people with less knowledge go all 1-bit is a pretty core value on the site. It's not a high horse, I get out of line on here more often than I'd like, but I also appreciate it when people tell me to cool it.

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#139

Post by initplus »

pavlov wrote: post #9
jstx1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The market could only sustain $150,000 a year salaries for grads fresh out of college for so long before someone somewhere along the way ran out of money. It seems a bit arbirtrary to pick high salaries as the reason for it. And to not blame spending billions on unprofitable projects like the metaverse, or having their profits affected by Apple's restrictions on tracking, or the steady decline in user experience. o…

Hiring graduates at $200k is a major part of where the money goes when you’re spending billions on unprofitable software projects.

Those projects aren't unprofitable because production costs are too high. The projects are unprofitable & failing because Facebook is struggling to execute on their grand plans, and are having their traditional core business eaten by a more nimble upstart competitor (TikTok).

I'm sure FB would love to be able to spend 2x on salaries if it came with a guarantee of turning the metaverse into a successful business venture, or of grabbing all the attention hours currently flowing to TikTok.

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#140

Post by benreesman »

sverhagen wrote: post #137
benreesman wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who quit FB with a great deal of unvested stock, I've got more skin in the game than most as to the complex question of FB's culture, management, and impact in the world. I paid a lot of fucking money for a very nuanced answer to a very complex question about whether or not I felt I wanted to be there at that time. So, from a position of vastly superior knowledge to the typical HN peanut gallery, I agree t…

You seem to be suggesting that we're not entitled to opine about Facebook since we don't know the detailed internals or can't grasp the complexity, but I think that OP captures a broadly carried sentiment that Facebook's impact on society, on balance, is negative. And one internal I'll comment on, regardless of not being an insider: the downsizing through performance reviews feels very dishonest.

I proposed that the GP should strive for a more substantial critique, not that they should say nothing.
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