Zuckerberg 'Admits' Meta's Layoffs Were Ineffective

Post by dietr1ch » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 1:42 PM UTC

hintymad wrote: post #207

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #45

I wonder when (if ever) the companies realize that demoralizing your workforce (and destroying that sector of the job market) doesn't have only advantages. I know plenty of people that reacted with the desired fear, putting in long hours to avoid layoffs, willingness to accept lower pay because the job market sucks, etc. - but I think there are also plenty of the the mythical 10x engineers that just checked out, stop…

This seems a pretty distinct corporate culture in the US. The companies pamper you in the boom, but dump you in the bust. When times are good, they shower you with perks yet when times are slightly bad, they lay you off like a replaceable line item. This is quite different from Europe or Japan, for instance.

Post by sometimelurker » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 3:49 PM UTC

4fffsa wrote: post #221

sometimelurker wrote: post #186

I'm gunna say something crazy sounding that might be insensitive but is really obviously true to anyone that thinks about it for a few seconds. Meta throwing away a ton of really good talent is probably better for the world by a large degree. It is better if less very smart people work for them. We do not need more tracking algo's and unsafe uninterpretable AI (search 'meta coconut latent reasoning paper') made by a…

This is gonna sound evil but idc. If I hire ex-Meta guys its for one reason only: squeeze them dry to repent their sins. Literally squeeze, squeeze... and squeeze and til they quit. Personally I wish others would do it too. Working there is a choice.

Post by RavlaAlvar » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 5:03 PM UTC

glaslong wrote: post #191

glaslong wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a theory of this based mostly in time working in Meta's RL org on VR and Wearables (disclosure).... There's a fundamental comms issue, I think, where you can only broadly communicate the least common denominator of what every involved person will understand. The "imperative decrees lacking nuance." This is doubly hard if the thing is New, so it isn't broadly understood by default in the collective professions…

Technically I think there IS another org struct that helps, but it's impractical for a number of Big Corp reasons. A broad studio-like portfolio, where you mostly stay hands-off and willing to burn a ton of money in directions that won't work, and accept that they are out of your control. Stochastically let the best 10% of isolated plays rise on their own while 90% fail. I think the VC model tends to do this relative…

Post by 4fffsa » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 6:12 PM UTC

sometimelurker wrote: post #234

4fffsa wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is gonna sound evil but idc. If I hire ex-Meta guys its for one reason only: squeeze them dry to repent their sins. Literally squeeze, squeeze... and squeeze and til they quit. Personally I wish others would do it too. Working there is a choice.

ok, that is evil because this would inflict pain on people to no overall benefit. this is equivalent to saying "prisons should torture the worst criminals", which would be insane > Working there is a choice look into non-competition clauses, there's a real chance its not. also people who work there are not somehow vastly less moral than those that work at Google ect

Post by sarchertech » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 12:43 PM UTC

seanclayton wrote: post #239

sarchertech wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prohibition against unjust killing is pretty much universal. What is or isn’t unjust is variable, but all societies have the concept of and prohibition against unjust killing. It’s true that if AGI is easy for a small group of people to build prohibition isn’t really possible. But if AGI takes a massive data center and billions of dollars, it could be.

Killing has existed since the dawn of life. Heck, single celled organisms 'kill'. It makes sense for that to be a globally-recognized sentiment. You make a grand claim when you think that in 50 years that 'all forms of AI is bad' will become an equally globally-recognized sentiment as 'all forms of unjustified killing is bad'. I doubt it. Why do you believe it's possible?