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Ex-Facebook engineer mocks the culture and jokes about how he was fired

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Re: Ex-Facebook engineer mocks the culture and jokes about how he was fired

#41

Post by HenryBemis »

claudiawerner wrote: post #29
Shaddox wrote: post #21

In my experience of working for corporations, all of them tend to be cult-like. Office politics: bringing down others to cut ahead, cutting deals, favoritism, etc. are the norm and your work and quality of it matters very little in the long run as long as you can deliver something on time. The difference lies in perception. Or to put it more elegantly, if you like (or at least can tolerate) that specific flavor of Ko…

This has been noticed for a while now, to the point where there are various theories as to how corporations (and companies in general) are able to persuade people not only to do a service in exchange for money, but to adopt the desires of the company for themselves, to see "a job well done", and go above and beyond, even sacrificing compensation for some time for the company. It's fascinating from a social psychologi…

I've worked in large corporations most of my life. Each is its own ecosystem. The top dogs use their staff as minions. The tough minions get an attaboy. The weak (normal humans with a soul) leave. It is a self cleaning/adjusting system, no need to fire anyone, most people quit for softer/calmer/humane companies.

In these large companies the #1 employee is the one who crushed everyone else on their path. No strange that many high-performers are sociopaths.

Re: Ex-Facebook engineer mocks the culture and jokes about how he was fired

#42

Post by HenryBemis »

Oras wrote: post #27

Not far much from what he's doing on Youtube, isn't? Posting clickbait titles, crazy thumbnails .. etc to get views, likes and comments to rank up. I'm not defending Facebook nor attacking Shye, I just want to say that rules are pretty much the same for different games so why criticising one and accepting the other?

To add to what Juliate commented, one is a single person, even if he messed up at his work and was dismissed for bad performance and not for the YT channel..

And on the other side we have this CANCER called Facebook, which is managed by a gang of managers that respect nothing and nobody.

And the fun part that nobody commented (I think) is that YT is another brutal violator of everything-privacy, and YT is one main tool in their toolbox.

Edit: removed semi-foul language

Re: Ex-Facebook engineer mocks the culture and jokes about how he was fired

#43

Post by fareesh »

I've been following this guy for around 1 year or so. Really funny guy, the content is enjoyable more than informative. The moment he said "politics" in his last video I hoped he wouldn't be getting a visit from the activist press, now it looks like he's on the radar and at risk of getting the pewdiepie treatment

Re: Ex-Facebook engineer mocks the culture and jokes about how he was fired

#44

Post by dominicr »

zbuf wrote: post #20

There's something ironic about the criticism of Facebook internally as a popularity contest, then making $500,000/year from advertising on your popular YouTube channel.

I heard it as a criticism of deciding work decisions based on popularity, with product choices, technical implementations, etc... based on facebook likes, not real deciding factors. Which is very different from growing a YouTube audience.

Re: Ex-Facebook engineer mocks the culture and jokes about how he was fired

#45

Post by dominicr »

djmips wrote: post #17

“It’s kind of this game for people to get as many likes and comments on their posts,” he said. “If you’re into popularity contests, if you thrive in that type of environment then you’ll probably do really well.” - Well that's exactly the game he's into with YouTube... so then why did he get fired?

Because a work environment and YouTube are very different places. Work decisions such as promotions, product choices, technical decisions, etc... shouldn't be largely driven by facebook likes.

Re: Ex-Facebook engineer mocks the culture and jokes about how he was fired

#46

Post by emptyfile »

Oras wrote: post #27

Not far much from what he's doing on Youtube, isn't? Posting clickbait titles, crazy thumbnails .. etc to get views, likes and comments to rank up. I'm not defending Facebook nor attacking Shye, I just want to say that rules are pretty much the same for different games so why criticising one and accepting the other?

Because a programing job isn't supposed to be similar to posting videos online???

Re: Ex-Facebook engineer mocks the culture and jokes about how he was fired

#47

Post by Dowwie »

mav3rick wrote: post #39
high_derivative wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do not argue like this on hn. I did not say shitty. Clearly, there are strong benefits including pay, career development, network, benefits. Everything comes at a price. They price of that is the psychological pressure of a highly politicised environment with many subtle layers which can be hard to navigate for many. My SO works in healthcare and their job is arguably tougher in every possible dimension even t…

My problem is with any issue or article about these companies is not evaluated on merit. It's all conflated with one or the other issue. There are many people happy at these companies as well and some who really like the culture.

Hacker News isn't free of the popularity contest and groupthink that its commenters try to use as issues at these organizations.

Re: Ex-Facebook engineer mocks the culture and jokes about how he was fired

#48

Post by gorzynsk »

dominicr wrote: post #44
zbuf wrote: post #20

There's something ironic about the criticism of Facebook internally as a popularity contest, then making $500,000/year from advertising on your popular YouTube channel.

I heard it as a criticism of deciding work decisions based on popularity, with product choices, technical implementations, etc... based on facebook likes, not real deciding factors. Which is very different from growing a YouTube audience.

What works for gaining viewers on YouTube will not work when you have to decide on highly technical manners in software development.

For one purpose likes are useful, for other purposes they are absurd.

Re: Ex-Facebook engineer mocks the culture and jokes about how he was fired

#49

Post by Traster »

zbuf wrote: post #20

There's something ironic about the criticism of Facebook internally as a popularity contest, then making $500,000/year from advertising on your popular YouTube channel.

Or to put it another way, if you work hard get a good degree, get a job at a top tech company and then find out your success boils down to the same skills you need as a youtuber, you may as well just quit and go be a youtuber - especially since being a youtuber could pay better and you don't have to pretend to add features to facebook.

Re: Ex-Facebook engineer mocks the culture and jokes about how he was fired

#50

Post by lasagnaphil »

Juliate wrote: post #34
Oras wrote: post #27

Not far much from what he's doing on Youtube, isn't? Posting clickbait titles, crazy thumbnails .. etc to get views, likes and comments to rank up. I'm not defending Facebook nor attacking Shye, I just want to say that rules are pretty much the same for different games so why criticising one and accepting the other?

Because in one instance, it's a one-man-show, in the other, it's a giant international company?

Let us celebrate this small moment of poignant joy of him being able to give a big “fuck you” gesture to Facebook, before he realizes that the very platform that he was able to express that sentiment is actually owned by Google and he hasn’t really escaped the wrath of Silicon Valley tech companies at all. (Maybe he’s even worse off than before; his labor as a Youtuber isn’t protected by any law at all, and he can lose his job at any moment with a touch of a Google employee’s algorithm.)
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