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Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

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Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#281
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect that's the real reason for the US and Europe's "all-in" hardline over Ukraine: signalling to China about Taiwan. Because pursuing a similar strategy with China would be substantially more expensive, in terms of treasure and blood, for both sides. But the critical date there seems to be 2030-2035 based on military preparations.

Absolutely. The entire thing is absolutely about China. Russia is a broken country that would have no significance beyond its hydrocarbons and nukes. China is an economic superpower and growing world power. Very soon it could replace the US as the primary driver of globalism. If the west had shown itself as disunited, it would have been time for China to take center stage in world affairs for the next hundred years.…

China doesn't have another generation. They'll be going into a very stark population collapse that's worse than what Japan is experiencing now, where adult diapers outsell baby diapers. I expect that China's economy and influence will take the shape of an upside-down U, with the peak in the next decade. If they're going to move on Taiwan, they cannot wait forever. They came close to catching up the US, but I don't think they will achieve it.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#282
post #161

> “I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by now, but from what we're seeing it doesn't yet seem like it has, so we want to plan somewhat conservatively,” Zuckerberg said. A Meta spokesperson declined to comment. The economy is stabilizing. It's being weaned off of ultra-loose money for the first time in years. The stock market is starting to behave more rationally, demanding that a company whose…

A little dated [2018], but still rings true: The average tenure for engineers at many major tech companies is ~3 years. Thus, you'd expect new hires at a rate of 30% annually just to maintain staffing levels. To determine headcount growth you, should look at year-over-year changes in total employee count, not just the number of new hires. TLDR: Meta's new-hire rate is not atypical. https://www.businessinsider.com/ave…

Based on my limited observations having been in a similar situation for a year, I would guess the average tenure is Equity Award Years less percentage of people who get fired in less than the value of Equity Award Years.

It’s a good way to keep reinventing wheels.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#283
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and Taiwan situations Let's hope we don't get a Taiwan situation on top of all of the other stuff that's going on. That way lies WWIII.

I expect that's the real reason for the US and Europe's "all-in" hardline over Ukraine: signalling to China about Taiwan. Because pursuing a similar strategy with China would be substantially more expensive, in terms of treasure and blood, for both sides. But the critical date there seems to be 2030-2035 based on military preparations.

That may very well be the intent, but it seems to be backfiring. Go look at this very recent German Marshal Fund survey polling atlanticist countries with section on PRC invasion of TW.

https://www.gmfus.org/news/transatlantic-trends-2022

TLDR: negligible (average 4%) consider sending arms and even less (average 2%) consider sending troops. As if delivering either is possible to an island within overwhelming PRC military advantage. US highest at 8%, which is hilariously low given White House deterrence efforts. 32% considers joint sanctions. 35% only diplomatic efforts to end conflict. 12% do nothing. PRC is looking at these numbers and rubbing hands with glee.

Also consider UKR/RU conflict is already putting EU competitiveness into the shits with trend likely to continue. Pre-war PRC was worried about EU acting as potential spoiler via US coordination, but now EU is so weak that they're even more geopolitically irrelevant. Meanwhile PRC gets dependable energy partner in RU and increased influence in central Asia / MENA / global south who sees the hypocrisy in western response when a western country is attacked. India is even more reticent about militarizing QUAD. JP economy is going to shits, even if they wanted to increase military spending, they likely can not afford to.

Also notice youth are substantially less PRC. In 2030+ time frame, we're like to going to see extremely war wearing societies with polity shifting less anti-PRC at all cost, digging out of economic cesspit who will have even less appetite to sanction a much larger trading partner like PRC. These signalling are having less and less impact coming as EU weakens. As for US, PRC factored in US intervention in TW scenario anyway. It's not deterred but building up massive nuclear arsenal to follow RU's nuclear coercion strategy.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#284
post #161

> “I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by now, but from what we're seeing it doesn't yet seem like it has, so we want to plan somewhat conservatively,” Zuckerberg said. A Meta spokesperson declined to comment. The economy is stabilizing. It's being weaned off of ultra-loose money for the first time in years. The stock market is starting to behave more rationally, demanding that a company whose…

> which offers no dividend be valued accordingly.

FWIW Meta has apparently done $15 billion in buybacks this year which gives them a 4% yield at current cap. Investors generally prefer buybacks to dividends because of tax advantages, so this should actually have helped their stock more than a 4% div yield would.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#285
post #71

Our startup spends a little bit on Facebook Ads (across FB, Instagram, etc). It's very clear over the past few months that there's trouble in the ads engine. Attribution is a mess, ad efficiency fluctuates randomly, the UI and API are flaky. I don't know whether this is a result of the ios privacy changes, the broader economy affecting ad spend, or internal issues... Maybe a mix. But it's clear that Meta's main reven…

They've gotten so damn greedy. On the mobile app literally over half my feed is ads.

49% ads, 49% content, 2% "news feed isn't available right now" if I scroll too far (a couple dozen screens). Been like this for ages.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#287

My heart goes out to anybody losing their job, but it's always fantastic to see bad things happening to Meta.

I wonder what the effects of Meta failing would have on society? I can’t think of competing social network for people to migrate to. Would topic forums see a rise in popularity again or would sites like Reddit draw in some of those users.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#288

It should be both reassuring & unsettling to know that even experts can't forecast the future. FB / Meta made two large stock bybacks, one with cash and one with debt, at a very high premium. Just in case you may feel bad for your investments, just remember no one can forecast the future.

> FB / Meta made two large stock bybacks, one with cash and one with debt, at a very high premium. I don't know enough to understand if that is clearly a bad move or if maybe they had a different strategy. I mean if they wanted to buyback their own stock it seems that they are not in a position to time the market. Waiting to buy low feels like they are shorting themselves.

They did heavy handed repurchases during the quarter where they saw the first active user dip, before announcing it, then barely did any in the following quarter after the stock took a 40% dive. I'm still bullish Meta, but their capital allocation with regards to buybacks was horrendous to say the least.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#289
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. The entire thing is absolutely about China. Russia is a broken country that would have no significance beyond its hydrocarbons and nukes. China is an economic superpower and growing world power. Very soon it could replace the US as the primary driver of globalism. If the west had shown itself as disunited, it would have been time for China to take center stage in world affairs for the next hundred years.…

China doesn't have another generation. They'll be going into a very stark population collapse that's worse than what Japan is experiencing now, where adult diapers outsell baby diapers. I expect that China's economy and influence will take the shape of an upside-down U, with the peak in the next decade. If they're going to move on Taiwan, they cannot wait forever. They came close to catching up the US, but I don't th…

Is there any other country that ever showed anything other then upside-down U in terms of economy strength and influence. To best of my knowledge every country, empire or society rises and eventually falls. Probably the best known example is Roman empire but every other society I can think of exhibits same pattern.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering if there is a correlation between hiring engineers who spend their lives memorizing leetcode hard problems and a company's ability to innovate and execute? Did they really optimize for hiring the top 0.001% of engineers or it's just that the fish is rotten from the top.

It seems to me that the selection process favors Indian and Chinese engineers who are used to cramming for rigorous entrance exams to top universities.

Nah, it's the whites who the hiring market favors.
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