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Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

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Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#321

Post by countvonbalzac »

madduci wrote: post #298
pembrook wrote: post #172

It’s crazy to me how Facebook has so many employees when their entire business is basically managing 3 software products (Facebook, instagram and the advertising platform). Meanwhile I think Apple has about the same number of employees if you subtract the retail Apple store workers. Yet, Apple’s business is comprised of managing, and this is only a rough guess: - 30+ hardware products and their supply chain, marketin…

Many businesses have the "not invented here" syndrome, i believe they have many employees doing yak shaving or writing tools/libraries to support the business. Examples are osquery, folly and contributions to Apache Thrift as well, just to mention a few.

They did slightly more than contributions to Apache Thrift :)

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#322

Post by markoman »

marban wrote: post #179
pembrook wrote: post #172

It’s crazy to me how Facebook has so many employees when their entire business is basically managing 3 software products (Facebook, instagram and the advertising platform). Meanwhile I think Apple has about the same number of employees if you subtract the retail Apple store workers. Yet, Apple’s business is comprised of managing, and this is only a rough guess: - 30+ hardware products and their supply chain, marketin…

Adobe, on the other hand, with its ~26k headcount is juggling an astonishing range of products and services it seems.

It also has to be considered that Adobe has a large number of developer contractors that aren't included in the employee headcount, yes?

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#324

Post by skyyler »

wa_throwaway wrote: post #312
ak_111 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is more crazy if you remember when they bought whatssapp it was less than 20 employees supporting a billion user. And the app doesn't look like it changed that much since it started being supported by 10,000 employees (guessing).

> And the app doesn't look like it changed that much... You didn't intend it, but that is a complement of the highest order. Thanks! Those who've worked on large systems over many years will understand what I mean.

I can see what you're getting at here but in this case, a lack of changes is NOT desired or virtuous.

WA is being left in the dust by messaging platforms that actually care about shipping a quality product.

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#325

Post by davchana »

e-clinton wrote: post #201
hfbff wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in the USA? iMessage is only really relevant in the USA. Meanwhile, Whatsapp is huge in Latin America, Europe, Africa, parts of Asia

I’d rephrase as “In the US, only iMessage is relevant”

I am in US, from an Asian community; & people in my circle who own an iPhone still prefer Whatsapp for like 100+ msgs a day. Never saw them using iMessage even for other iPhone users.

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#326

Post by mrguyorama »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #143
bayraktar wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting myself "managed out" at the expense of all of those things would be hugely problematic. Agreed - and corporate life often gets that way. But another way of looking at the payoff matrix might be: "I've got kids to support - and that means having parents they can trust, and look up to in this chaotic and morally ambivalent world. Even if it means we might have to work a year or two more before being able to ret…

>I've got kids to support - and that means having parents they can trust, and look up to in this chaotic and morally ambivalent world. that's a high level of Maslow's hierarchy there, especially in the U.S with few support nets heading into what will probably be a really bad recession.

If you work in this industry and don't have at least a year's pay squirreled away, where the hell is all your money going?

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#327

Post by ryandrake »

joenot443 wrote: post #196
votepaunchy wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do I understand correctly, you are saying that 5-20% of your employees will quit after having a conversation simply noting that he or she will not be receiving a bonus or raise this year, or similar? That’s really quite tenuous, especially in this economy.

As a minor anecdote, I'm a FAANG SWE and if I was told I wouldn't be receiving a raise OR bonus this year, I'd absolutely start looking for other work. Most FAANG employees get recruiters reaching out daily, the thought of greener pastures is always on their mind.

I think it highly depends on the current economic environment. During the past 10+ years of bull market, suddenly losing your raise or bonus would immediately cause people to start looking for a new job. When a recession is on the horizon, with expected job market tightening, people are more likely to accept it, hold on to whatever job they have, and ride it out.

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#328

Post by colinmhayes »

randomsearch wrote: post #285
towaway15463 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is their bet on VR misguided in your opinion?

The timing is too early and the product and the company are mismatched.

Facebook is the perfect match for vr. Vr is inherently a social experience, so is facebooks.

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#329

Post by c-cube »

skyyler wrote: post #324
wa_throwaway wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the app doesn't look like it changed that much... You didn't intend it, but that is a complement of the highest order. Thanks! Those who've worked on large systems over many years will understand what I mean.

I can see what you're getting at here but in this case, a lack of changes is NOT desired or virtuous. WA is being left in the dust by messaging platforms that actually care about shipping a quality product.

Says you. Lots of people like software that keeps working reliably over the years. I know I do. The only valuable updates to WhatsApp are when new emojis are added ;). For the rest it already works very well, why break it or redesign it?

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#330

Post by colinmhayes »

matwood wrote: post #187
fny wrote: post #23

Facebook employs over 58K people. This is not a big deal especially considering tech went on a * massive* hiring binge recently. [0] Facebook had a recruiting crisis in 2021: https://www.protocol.com/workplace/facebook-docs-hiring-recr... [1] Facebook aimed to hire 10K Europeans for metaverse in 2021: https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-plans-hire-10000... People underestimate just how much COVID and the rapi…

In effect this is the end of covid season layoff. Peloton wasn't the only company who made investment mistakes during covid, just very visible. Many big companies greatly over hired during the same period. Now they need to correct course.

I’d be hesitant to call this an investment mistake. It was a gamble that covid would permanently change tech consumption habits and that would create new opportunities for big tech. So they hired people for those new unforeseen opportunities. maybe some of them didn’t pan out. Maybe others did but no longer need as many employees. Either way, hiring a bunch of people just to lay them off was clearly at least an option if not the main plan.
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