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Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

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Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#371

Post by fooker »

yodsanklai wrote: post #246
paxys wrote: post #217

So in the first two weeks of the year Zuck has announced: - Replacing their global policy chief with the company's highest ranking Republican. - Appointing Dana White to the company's board. - Changing content policies to be aligned with the incoming administration. - Elimination of DEI programs in hiring. - Removing tampons from men's restrooms. - Defending all this in a 3 hour Joe Rogan interview. Ranting about the…

I know Zuck wasn't super popular on HN, but until these recent events, I saw him as someone generally reasonable and pragmatic. I can understand that he had to compromise with Trump in order to protect his wealth and company. But it's clearly more than that. I wonder, does he even have values on his owns? will he reinstate the tampons if democrats win in 4 years? My guess is that he's slowing been adhering to the Tru…

You don't see being friendly to the new US administration being pragmatic ?

Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#372

Post by hnthrowaway6543 »

xracy wrote: post #369
hnthrowaway6543 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure. This is a great model to adopt if you believe corporations exist to destroy people. corporations exist to make money, or maximize shareholder returns, depending on how you look at it. corporations don't exist to make people happy or solve the fundamental societal issues with capitalism. there's merit to discussing that as a separate topic, but in the context of "capitalism exists and you are operating a busin…

Gosh, Okay, we can only criticize corporations in the very limited avenues where we discuss specifically how they're meant to make money. Not in any of the other ways those goals lead to questionable decisions.

it's not really a questionable decision though. in the absence of morals, which is what we have in a capitalist society, the way to maximize the success of a corporation is to remove low performers and replace them with high performers. that's common sense. criticizing a company for doing this because it "destroys people" is misplaced anger, as you should be criticizing the system the company operates in, which again, is a whole other discussion

Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#373

Post by downrightmike »

leidenfrost wrote: post #275
downrightmike wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why we say that we hope you get everything you voted for. Because it will back fire on you first. It always has, and it always will, not our fault you can't learn from your mistakes.

Is that a quote? I'm not American.

They voted for a bunch of horrible people to do horrible stuff, which consequentially will negatively affect those voters the most.

Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#374

Post by narnarpapadaddy »

psb217 wrote: post #366
narnarpapadaddy wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relative to your competition. Performance is only adequate if it’s at least as good as the engineers of the other players in your industry. Otherwise, you’re losing ground. As long as anyone in your market space is actively trying to manage their engineering talent (recruiting your top performers, releasing low performers, being more selective in hiring) so must you just to keep pace. An “adequate” engineer may make…

The sorts of decisions and results that make a company the size of Meta succeed or fail happen above the levels of the folks who will get cut. Most of the net value produced by individual engineers is determined by which projects they're on, rather than whether they're good at their job. A savy entrepreneur with a few engineers worth of openai credits can create more value in a week than a median FAANG middle managem…

Personally, I think it’s both. Yes, the strategy is important but it’s nothing without the ability to execute. And we’ve all worked with the god-tier engineer who creates never-ending boondoggles because they can. And, yes, the larger the org the harder it is to get both strategy and execution aligned at once.

Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#375

Post by colin_jack »

darth_avocado wrote: post #298
hnthrowaway6543 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bad hire doesn't necessarily mean bad/stupid/incompetent person, it just means bad hire. might not be a fit for the role, might not be a fit for the company. for example, i freely admit i was a bad hire at Google because i got demotivated by big corporate/political bullshit getting in my way, it just wasn't for me. then i went to a 20 startup and, in the words of the CEO, "saved the company" and scaled it to 200 peop…

But firing people for performance is framed as the person is bad/stupid/incompetent. The problem with the 5% quota is that it doesn’t necessarily mean you get rid of 5% bad fits. It often results in arbitrary top down push to fire x number of people in the org, which then translates to people with most political prowess keep their jobs and their headcounts while competent people get gaslighted, overworked and eventua…

Also since we are mentioning Google, they had some interesting to say in one of their books [0]:

"Ratings, although an important way to measure performance during a specific period, are not predictive of future performance and should not be used to gauge readiness for a future role or qualify an internal candidate for a different team. (They can, however, be used to evaluate whether an employee is properly or improperly slotted on their current team; therefore, they can provide an opportunity to evaluate how to better support an internal candidate moving forward.)"

[0] https://abseil.io/resources/swe-book/html/ch04.html#challeng...

Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#376

Post by latexr »

matwood wrote: post #342
paxys wrote: post #217

So in the first two weeks of the year Zuck has announced: - Replacing their global policy chief with the company's highest ranking Republican. - Appointing Dana White to the company's board. - Changing content policies to be aligned with the incoming administration. - Elimination of DEI programs in hiring. - Removing tampons from men's restrooms. - Defending all this in a 3 hour Joe Rogan interview. Ranting about the…

> Is this history's most bizarre midlife crisis? What is going on with this man? He's the definition of a perpetual beta trying to be alpha. I would love to spar with him in BJJ sometime. After you train for awhile you can lock up with someone and immediately feel who they are. An alpha stays calm and relaxed, never panicking even as they are being put to sleep [1]. He went into BJJ hoping to become alpha and it just…

> He's the definition of a perpetual beta trying to be alpha.

That’s not a thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ti86veZBjU

Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#377

Post by latexr »

paxys wrote: post #217

So in the first two weeks of the year Zuck has announced: - Replacing their global policy chief with the company's highest ranking Republican. - Appointing Dana White to the company's board. - Changing content policies to be aligned with the incoming administration. - Elimination of DEI programs in hiring. - Removing tampons from men's restrooms. - Defending all this in a 3 hour Joe Rogan interview. Ranting about the…

> Defending all this in a 3 hour Joe Rogan interview. Ranting about the lack of "masculine energy" at the company.

Was it as excruciatingly cringeworthy as it sounds? I don’t want to give them the view or spend three hours of my time on that, but I’d take a highlight of the weirdest moments.

> Is this history's most bizarre midlife crisis? What is going on with this man?

It feels like he suddenly became a Musk fanboy and wants to mimic him. Maybe because Zuckerberg completely failed at going into politics when he dipped his toes in it in the past and Musk just got his candidate elected.

Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#379

Post by nh23423fefe »

paxys wrote: post #217

So in the first two weeks of the year Zuck has announced: - Replacing their global policy chief with the company's highest ranking Republican. - Appointing Dana White to the company's board. - Changing content policies to be aligned with the incoming administration. - Elimination of DEI programs in hiring. - Removing tampons from men's restrooms. - Defending all this in a 3 hour Joe Rogan interview. Ranting about the…

Why not just assume the simplest thing, the positions companies take under Democrats are fake and so are the positions under Republicans.

To imagine that, "the mask is off" is absurd.

None of those bullets points are crises.

Re: Meta announces 5% cuts in preparation for 'intense year'

#380

Post by psunavy03 »

latexr wrote: post #377
paxys wrote: post #217

So in the first two weeks of the year Zuck has announced: - Replacing their global policy chief with the company's highest ranking Republican. - Appointing Dana White to the company's board. - Changing content policies to be aligned with the incoming administration. - Elimination of DEI programs in hiring. - Removing tampons from men's restrooms. - Defending all this in a 3 hour Joe Rogan interview. Ranting about the…

> Defending all this in a 3 hour Joe Rogan interview. Ranting about the lack of "masculine energy" at the company. Was it as excruciatingly cringeworthy as it sounds? I don’t want to give them the view or spend three hours of my time on that, but I’d take a highlight of the weirdest moments. > Is this history's most bizarre midlife crisis? What is going on with this man? It feels like he suddenly became a Musk fanboy…

Supposedly he actually talked about both "masculine energy" and "feminine energy" being valuable as opposed to the modern corporate environment being "neutral" or "neutered," so take that for whatever.
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