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Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

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Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#151

Post by coldtea »

brucethemoose2 wrote: post #11

I would not invest in Meta's metaverse future. It feels like Windows Mobile. Meta has the early start, money, captive audience and enthusiasm, but they don't have the hardware/software edge (that Apple coincidentally also has this time around) to really make the idea work. The headsets are not going to revolutionize much running Facebook games on budget Qualcomm SoCs, and Facebook cant buy an Unreal Engine or an M2 P…

>Meta has the early start, money, captive audience and enthusiasm, but they don't have the hardware/software edge (that Apple coincidentally also has this time around) to really make the idea work

I don't think they have any concrete "idea" either, except "let's make some metaverse".

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#152

Post by coldtea »

winrid wrote: post #138
ehnto wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have the enthusiasm I don't think, and I believe that is where it falls flat. The technology is not currently something that everyone wants and definitely not something everyone needs. VR is not good at general computing yet, and the form factor and way you engage with it means people won't be using it in the same way they use TVs, game consoles or smart phones. Mass adoption takes apealing to the lowest c…

People just don't want to wear a headset. I mean, some do. It's neat. But hard to motivate your employees to build something great when you say it's "the way people will work in the future" when obviously nobody wants this except the bosses.

Not even the bosses.

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#153

Post by coldtea »

nivenkos wrote: post #144
zmmmmm wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the tipping point is closer than you may realise. There has been material progress in form factors in the last year or so and we are not nearly done with the improvements that are on the radar. Once we hit a certain point with the form factor, quite a wide range of use cases will become a no-brainer (for example, sitting on the bus with it).

> for example, sitting on the bus with it You'd use an $800 device (with limited awareness of your surroundings) on the bus?

Why not? A surefire way to win the coveted Darwin Award

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#154

Post by ratorx »

lumost wrote: post #20
AlphaCharlie wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only higher than other big tech companies because they have so much difficulty hiring new grad. it's what's holding the funnel together, the moment comp drops compared to the others they will lose a ton of candidates.

This is the case across most Big Tech. If not for compensation, why would you choose to work in a large organization? Tech productivity peaks somewhere around 500-2k engineers in an org, by the time you hit 10-50k different groups look like different companies in terms of coordination tax.

For me, it’s because I liked systems stuff at university. Scaling to and beyond the level of FAANG is pretty interesting and I’m not sure where else I would have been able to work at that level. It’s also quite nice to be able to really dive deep into a specific area, although more diversity wouldn’t have been bad (for building longer term skills)

Engineer productivity mattered a lot less, because straight out of university it’s not like I knew enough to be productive from the start anyway.

Compensation-wise, finance tech pays a lot better, although is most cases it is a WLB tradeoff.

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#155

Post by KyeRussell »

lordnacho wrote: post #85
htag wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since ~2016 Meta employment has signaled to me that someone values high compensation above anything else. This view has become so popular that choosing to work at Meta indicates you are fine broadcasting this signal. There might be some exceptions for those working on Oculus, but it's not a blanket exception.

I'm not sure that's entirely fair. Whatever you think of the company that's no denying they have interesting problems to work on, such as AI, plus ordinary big tech scaling. Plus you don't know whether a person even had other offers.

Yes. That’s how signals work.

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#156

Post by astrange »

ReptileMan wrote: post #100
htag wrote: post #4

I imagine Meta has a harder time recruiting then their peer companies, because of their reputation and the moral hazard. I wonder how much investment it will take them to get staff levels back to where they are now. It really feels like they are peaking as a company.

They are better than Apple and Google. Worse than new twitter. If I was to try and work for something - would be twitter. Seems like after all the self righteous people are out - it can have this old school atmosphere.

I'll be surprised if Twitter is still running by next year. They're still laying people off and turning off any feature that requires paying a vendor.

And how can you be more self righteous than Elon's friends who just tweet about "the woke mind virus" all day?

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#157

Post by robertlagrant »

nivenkos wrote: post #144
zmmmmm wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the tipping point is closer than you may realise. There has been material progress in form factors in the last year or so and we are not nearly done with the improvements that are on the radar. Once we hit a certain point with the form factor, quite a wide range of use cases will become a no-brainer (for example, sitting on the bus with it).

> for example, sitting on the bus with it You'd use an $800 device (with limited awareness of your surroundings) on the bus?

I would. Having an app on it that tells me when to get off the bus without having to check my phone 10 times would be worth it.

Bonus points for the experience being transformed into a Hogwarts Bus journey.

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#158

Post by foldr »

mrphoebs wrote: post #70
moomoo11 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and I'm a staff+ level engineer who has worked at darling unicorns and big media/tech and made a ton of money. I earned that equity payoff. Now I'm working on my own projects and paying for myself to live in SF, so you're free to have whatever opinion. I know what I'm saying, and out of a dozen plus managers I've worked with over just the last 6 years (re-orgs because they have way too much time on their hands)…

I don't know why you feel the need to give people your background/ability/level to bolster your argument. I'm sure you can string together a coherent argument without the need for an appeal to authority. I'm not calling you a junior engineer, merely observing that the quality of the argument you are making being worthy of a junior engineer's rant. >The bigger companies get, the worse quality of talent that comes in.…

>I don't know why you feel the need to give people your background/ability/level to bolster your argument.

I think it's because you said the following:

> ... what reads like a junior engineer's half baked rant on the uselessness of engineering managers.

I agree the person you're replying to is ranting a bit, but that comes across as saying "you're wrong because you don't have enough experience".

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#159

Post by astrange »

airstrike wrote: post #16
mjfl wrote: post #3

Facebook is copying the blue check thing from Twitter. I wonder if Zuck will also copy firing 75% of the staff.. lol.

I mean, twitter.com seems to manage to continue running fine with only 25% of staff left. I'm sure others are looking at that and going "hmmm"

The ad quality is pretty majorly degraded since they laid off all the account managers. Not that it was good in the first place.

And you can't have SMS 2FA and the employees can't have Slack anymore because they can't afford it.

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#160

Post by astrange »

adamlgerber wrote: post #118
gnicholas wrote: post #94

I find that my FB feed is roughly 50% ads. Sometimes there are two, or even three ads in a row. I barely use it anymore (and I've literally never clicked on an ad). I wonder why FB thinks people will use their product when it is half advertisements. People watch 21 mins of TV with 9 mins of commercials, and they would revolt if it were 15/15.

Its not that I don't believe your general point but I would be interested in evidence that you're getting more than 1 in a row. I am $50MM+/year spender on Meta ads and while I know that ad load is up I don't think its up that much where ads run alongside each other. If you can show me evidence of this I will make a big fucking deal of this to Meta.

I get a normal amount of ads on Instagram, but half of them are for tshirts with a video of a shirtless fat guy, and the other half are for Viagra. It ignores me every time I dismiss them.
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