Meta tells staff it will cut 10% of jobs

Post by mswphd » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

121789 wrote: post #117

Forgeties79 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given facebook/Zuckerberg’s history it’s tough to give them the benefit of the doubt. From day one it’s been ruthless, harmful ambitions and business practices. It is a bad company that does bad things. They also burn capital at insane rates on projects nobody wants then fire everybody involved (see: the metaverse, the very reason they rebranded to that dumb name)

I can pretty much agree with everything you said in the first line but for the second, I guess I don't consider that terrible? they make risky bets, pay people tons and tons of money to try them, then if it doesn't work out they shut down the projects and let the people go? that feels like every startup except the employees actually get compensated. if that's driving the extra layoffs, it's hard to feel too bad for p…

Post by XorNot » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 9:53 PM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #276

oytis wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple makes cutting edge hardware, at least two operating systems and lots of user applications. Google makes search, cloud, a decent office suite with the largest mail server in the world and of course cutting edge AI. It's easy to see why either of them needs twice as many people as Meta

Whatsapp powers entire economies, outside of North America. And then there's Instagram. If we're going by that reasoning, Meta's undersized.

Post by oytis » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 9:54 PM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #276

oytis wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple makes cutting edge hardware, at least two operating systems and lots of user applications. Google makes search, cloud, a decent office suite with the largest mail server in the world and of course cutting edge AI. It's easy to see why either of them needs twice as many people as Meta

Whatsapp powers entire economies, outside of North America. And then there's Instagram. If we're going by that reasoning, Meta's undersized.

Post by singpolyma3 » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 9:55 PM UTC

drivebyhooting wrote: post #247

pembrook wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has worked at big tech (and interviewed fellow big tech workers), I can confirm this is pretty typical. People from Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, etc...it's all the same. Given the size of these organizations (anywhere from 100K-300K employees if you include contractors), there's a vanishingly small chance the individual you're interviewing had influence or responsibility over any important thing spe…

Given how inefficient Meta et al are, why do the pay so much more than the nimbler smaller companies? (Rhetorical question, I already know the answer: monopoly and regulatory capture) Of course those engineers would rather have more meaningful work if it came with similar compensation and work life balance.

Post by compiler-guy » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 9:58 PM UTC

rsanek wrote: post #255

hintymad wrote: post #205

Let's be honest, Meta over hired. Big time. If anyone ever interviewed a few Meta engineers, he would easily see that a large percentage of them had really small, and sometimes bullshit scopes. As a result, such engineers couldn't articulate what they do in Meta, couldn't deep dive into their own tech stacks, nor could solve common-sense design questions when they just deviated a bit from those popular interview ques…

Meta has about 10% more employees now than they did at the end of 2021. They currently have less than half the employees of Google or Apple; only a third of Microsoft. If you're right, the rest of big tech is in a much worse position.