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Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

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Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#191

Post by scylla »

scottious wrote: post #111
scylla wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will the people who continuously rationalize cars justify that they are destroying a profession - horse carriage driver - that was fun and profitable ? How will the people who continuously rationalize the Internet justify that they are destroying a profession - travel agents - that was fun and profitable? If we blocked every possible innovation because it lowered the fun of something existing we'd never have prog…

cars are not exactly a success story. Both of your examples (cars and internet) are things that had some great applications but also have been mis-used or over-used. cars: people now live completely car-dependent lives and drive way too much. our infrastructure cannot handle people driving so much and it's extremely expensive and bad for our health and terrible for the environment internet: well... obviously... socia…

Even if you believe that humanity would have been better if a some global dictator could have stopped the Internet and the Internal combustion system, that's simply not how society works.

If you want another analogy, it's like Feudal Knights complaining about the introduction of the crossbow. Not only were their efforts doomed to fail even the question became irrelevant with the unstoppable march of technological innovation.

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#192

Post by mvdtnz »

rsweeney21 wrote: post #179
Anon1096 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you have 0 insight into the work that the ads, ranking, apps, and sales teams do to keep the gravy train flowing and even expanding 30% every year. If Meta fired even just half the ranking workers, the recommendation models (both ads and feeds) would very quickly become stale and start shedding many Fortune 500 companies worth of revenue.

I'm guessing you have 0 insight into how monopolies work.

What monopoly do you suppose exists here?

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#193

Post by bevekspldnw »

Anon1096 wrote: post #124
rsweeney21 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also work at Meta. The chaos and instability is awful. But I think they could fire pretty much everyone and the ads business would still continue to grow at nearly the same rate. I think it will take a very long time for leadership to feel the effects of what they've done.

I'm guessing you have 0 insight into the work that the ads, ranking, apps, and sales teams do to keep the gravy train flowing and even expanding 30% every year. If Meta fired even just half the ranking workers, the recommendation models (both ads and feeds) would very quickly become stale and start shedding many Fortune 500 companies worth of revenue.

…Or the ML team is just going to eat all those juicy screen recordings of those teams doing their jobs and can them in 12 months.

Your days are numbered, Zuck will get rid of you the second you’ve finished producing training data.

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#194

Post by bevekspldnw »

foobar_______ wrote: post #123
glaslong wrote: post #8

Currently at Meta. This place has always been a bit ruthless in the 8+ years I've been around to observe. But the article is accurate. Never seen people this universally fed up. I thought tech was too cushy for it to happen, but there's serious collective action posting out in the open all over the place. It's also never been more cutthroat, backstabby, scope-grabby, political, and uncertain. There seems to be a flyw…

Serious question - I know this will come off as inflammatory but I am genuinely curious. Do you ever talk to coworkers about the addictive, polarizing nature of Meta recommendation feed algorithms? There is pretty solid research around teen health (specially girls) around how many problems it causes. Is the pay just so good you turn a blind eye? Honestly, I can understand that if I am being honest. But I don't see as…

I lived and worked in SV for several years. Basically people don’t see anything they do as wrong and have no concept of shame.

It’s a combination of learned obedience to authority and greed.

You just take a bunch of people who made all A’s in school by doing whatever they were told by authority figures, give them new authority figures who give them new “homework” (monetize suicidal ideation), and the money to buy a car they can post on Insta and you’ve got a BigTech workforce.

To be honest it’s pathetic to watch up close.

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#195

Post by throw-the-towel »

desolate_muffin wrote: post #174
delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP and never worked at Meta, but according to Sarah Wynn Williams’ Careless People, the incentive is not so much the pay, it is the options. If you get in and leave before x number of years or get fired (not 100% sure how it works) you will lose the golden ”never having to work again” -ticket. Apparently it keeps people pretty meek and helps silence the jiminy Cricket in the backgrpund.

Not really how it works anymore. Everyone just gets 4 year RSU grants with an even vesting schedule and no lockout period, and it has been that way for a long time now. I've never really heard of anyone at Meta getting options (maybe possible for execs?). That said, with enough stock growth, the stacking RSU grants can still enter into "never having to work again" territory depending on your role/level and how many g…

For some people (myself included), "options" is an informal name for RSUs.

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#196

Post by upupupandaway »

maxwellito wrote: post #4

I have a genuine question for Meta engineers: what were you hoping to gain by working at this company? What motivated you, and what were your aspirations?

I had an offer for $1.2m / year for an M2 position in a MCOL location in the US. So this is the answer. Money.

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#197

Post by bossyTeacher »

rwmj wrote: post #32
glaslong wrote: post #8

Currently at Meta. This place has always been a bit ruthless in the 8+ years I've been around to observe. But the article is accurate. Never seen people this universally fed up. I thought tech was too cushy for it to happen, but there's serious collective action posting out in the open all over the place. It's also never been more cutthroat, backstabby, scope-grabby, political, and uncertain. There seems to be a flyw…

Are they going to unionise?

In the current economic and political nightmare, it's highly unlikely. They should have unionised during the zirp era when they had all the power. Meta has all the power now.

The best time to strike is when you are strong not when you are weak. All those golden handcuffs were highly effective.

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#198

Post by delis-thumbs-7e »

desolate_muffin wrote: post #174
delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP and never worked at Meta, but according to Sarah Wynn Williams’ Careless People, the incentive is not so much the pay, it is the options. If you get in and leave before x number of years or get fired (not 100% sure how it works) you will lose the golden ”never having to work again” -ticket. Apparently it keeps people pretty meek and helps silence the jiminy Cricket in the backgrpund.

Not really how it works anymore. Everyone just gets 4 year RSU grants with an even vesting schedule and no lockout period, and it has been that way for a long time now. I've never really heard of anyone at Meta getting options (maybe possible for execs?). That said, with enough stock growth, the stacking RSU grants can still enter into "never having to work again" territory depending on your role/level and how many g…

Yeah, perhaps equity would have been a better word choice. Not a finance guy me.

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#199

Post by fooker »

ryandrake wrote: post #126
bradlys wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is getting $700k tc for senior eng outside of speciality AI roles. That’s beyond even staff level. You can stay at the company and get stock appreciation up to that but you’re not getting a new hire offer at $700k below staff level. (Even for staff, it’s high)

If you look at HN salary threads and self-reported salary websites, then everyone in tech makes $700K, drives a Maserati and owns a vacation home in Tahoe.

A used Maserati is just 15k and you can’t afford the mortgage on a Tahoe vacation home on a 700k salary, so I’d say your made up stereotypes are a bit off in both directions :)

For future reference, here’s all that’s needed to exhaust a 700k TC without liquidating much in assets: Bay Area mortgage, private school for a kid or two, 3-4 family vacations.

Re: Meta's New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale

#200

Post by insane_dreamer »

osaariki wrote: post #143
simpaticoder wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than donating 5-6 figures, what about saving enough cash to live on? Roughly speaking you can "make" ~$200k/year on $5M in T-bills. You could live comfortably in the US or Europe, or basically like a king anywhere else in the world. You could work on the software you want, even pro-bono, and walk away any time. I believe this is called "F U money".

That 200k is a reasonable amount to start withdrawing from a 5M portfolio (exactly the 4% rule from the Trinity study [1]), but you’ll want to adjust it for inflation every year. My favorite tool for planning these strategies is TPAW Planner [2], which visualizes the distribution of withdrawals under various market outcomes. It’ll also suggest a portfolio of stocks and bonds that’ll be safer than just T-bills, which…

see TIPS (inflation adjusted t-bills)
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