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Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

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Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#161

Post by Moldoteck »

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"

imo working fine is a stretch and I don't mean outages. This month I've encountered a lot of strange bugs in the app. Sometimes it'll just not load new content, sometimes it's notifying that somebody posted something, but on press, nothing new is shown, strange things related to retweets. I don't really remember so many bugs before musk

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#162

Post by yodsanklai »

moomoo11 wrote: post #18
abledon wrote: post #15

Engineering Managers will also begin to code again [1] [1] https://twitter.com/TitterTakeover/status/162873730347973836...

This whole management heavy culture needs to F off. 9/10 people who wants to be a manager are awful as software engineers and they know this is the only way they can stay in the game. Out of those who do become engineering managers it seems all they do is talk a bunch of nonsense and add tremendous levels of roadblocks because they suck at understanding the actual technical problems and I’ll be honest. They’re usuall…

> Get rid of eng managers. > Put in a team lead and a few people.

What's the difference between a team lead and a manager?

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#163

Post by rospaya »

AstixAndBelix wrote: post #126
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…

you realize every single thing you said would have been true when talking about the first smartphones? The iPhone in 2007 was not a good general computing device, and people were made fun of for looking like dorks because they stared constantly at their screens. And yet here we are, in a future where smartphones diligently satisfy all of consumer's needs and zoning out by looking at your black slab is normalized.

We stared at our screens long before 2007, but started doing it more when big screen smartphones became popular. VR adoption is negligible - less than 10 million devices were sold last year, there's no precedent or proof the masses want it.

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#164

Post by zmmmmm »

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?

With some kind of pass through, 100%

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#165

Post by khamba »

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

I felt it was justified after you called their opinion a "junior's" rant.

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#166

Post by Nextgrid »

piva00 wrote: post #92
airstrike wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

Bots are even more insidious than before, I deleted my account and now only use it to follow breaking news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and I constantly get errors, videos not loading, glitches on the page. Not sure what you mean "running fine", I'm dreading opening Twitter links because it got so frustrating... It's attrition, it's slowly degrading. It's definitely breaking, in my experience.

> Bots are even more insidious than before

Not sure if that's actually caused by the recent changes as opposed to confirmation bias or merely the renewed attention that Twitter recently got.

I wouldn't comment on their moderation being better or worse since the acquisition considering they were already at zero as they couldn't even regex-out very obvious crypto scam tweets in reply to high-profile accounts.

> I'm dreading opening Twitter links because it got so frustrating

Me too, though that has nothing to do with the acquisition and was just as bad as before - something to do with justifying having dozens/hundreds of frontend engineers so they shipped a monster weighing megabytes to display ~300 characters of text.

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#167

Post by cassianoleal »

shaunsingh0207 wrote: post #120
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…

VR isn't good at general computing because noone has really embraced the form factor and given it the attention it needs. The issue is, meta is not doing that. Hopefully the upcoming apple ar/XR/vr stuff will be a bit better. The oculus go failed terribly, because no-one made content for it. Microsoft's attempt at arm laptops failed, because no-one made applications for it. Apple was able to convince people it was wo…

> Apple was able to convince people it was worth considering arm

I'm not sure I'd phrase it this way. What Apple did was just great engineering and planning, along with a user focus. Also the fact that it was either embrace ARM or leave. :)

What I mean by that is, they launched their ARM/Apple Silicon line of computers and cut off their ties with Intel. They managed to get people buying the new ARM computers by providing an excellent user experience and incredibly good backwards compatibility with the older Intel binaries via Rosetta2. They also started rolling back some of their unpopular decisions of prior years - namely dropping all but USB-C ports and MagSafe. They also started providing Pro laptops without the dreaded TouchBar (yes, some people like it but I don't think numbers are much in its favour).

Then they engaged with the developer community and their users to help everybody transition.

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#168

Post by cassianoleal »

reidjs wrote: post #134
schnitzelstoat wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it may be popular among kids too - look at Roblox, Fortnite etc. But for adults.. well after staring at a screen all day the last thing I want to do is stare at another screen, I'd rather lift weights or play guitar or whatever.

Why do you have to stare at a screen all day as an adult?

As with everything else, it doesn't apply to every adult all the time.

That said, most adults need to work in order to survive. Couple that with the fact that most jobs these days are done either directly in front of a computer or using some screen-enabled device, and it's not hard to see that most adults will have been staring at a screen all day most days.

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#169

Post by AstixAndBelix »

rospaya wrote: post #163
AstixAndBelix wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you realize every single thing you said would have been true when talking about the first smartphones? The iPhone in 2007 was not a good general computing device, and people were made fun of for looking like dorks because they stared constantly at their screens. And yet here we are, in a future where smartphones diligently satisfy all of consumer's needs and zoning out by looking at your black slab is normalized.

We stared at our screens long before 2007, but started doing it more when big screen smartphones became popular. VR adoption is negligible - less than 10 million devices were sold last year, there's no precedent or proof the masses want it.

You didn't stare at your computer while you were on a date in a coffee shop or while you were hiking in the woods.

Also there is a precedent: decade of successful science fiction that has made people drool about the thought of VR

Re: Another Round of Layoffs at Meta

#170

Post by acdha »

AstixAndBelix wrote: post #126
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…

you realize every single thing you said would have been true when talking about the first smartphones? The iPhone in 2007 was not a good general computing device, and people were made fun of for looking like dorks because they stared constantly at their screens. And yet here we are, in a future where smartphones diligently satisfy all of consumer's needs and zoning out by looking at your black slab is normalized.

I don’t think the comparison makes the point you’re trying for: iPhones became part of people’s lives quickly – I remember executives suddenly pushing for mobile websites – and people who had them used them heavily & inspired other people to buy them.

VR costs more and has been on the opposite trajectory: the only thing you ever hear people be excited by are a handful of games (and maybe VRChat for a few communities) and the way it requires dedicated space & excludes other people means that even the enthusiasts I know don’t really use it much. I think decades of sci-fi created some demand but I think it’s still in the Palm Pilot era, especially for the number of devices purchased by people who thought they’d use them more.

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