Facebook has struggled to hire talent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal

Post by JohnFen » Fri, May 17, 2019, 4:27 PM UTC

gspetr wrote: post #190

_hardwaregeek wrote: post #170

As a current student, I'm actually surprised by this. Maybe I just hang out with evil people, but I don't get the impression most young programmers care that much about ethics. Or they claim they do, but then the 6 figure salary, cushy benefits and signing bonus wins them over. Perhaps there's other reasons? I do joke with my friend who works at Bloomberg that the "evil" finance view has now flipped completely. Bloom…

Age is a proxy for putting value into such concepts as "ethics". When you're more or less senior and have your basic needs met, then you can afford to be picky on what you work. Fresh grads might not care because it takes to know evil to know good (see the story of the original sin and Tree of the knowledge of good and evil), and work experience is like a separate life experience. Heck, I've heard a theory that you s…

Post by JohnFen » Fri, May 17, 2019, 4:35 PM UTC

bradlys wrote: post #396

JohnFen wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean... does any startup when compared to FAANG? Yes, in my experience. Unless, as you mentioned, you count stock options or similar (which I don't).

You should really count them. They're basically cash after you vest with a public company. Startups have a very low chance of that stock becoming worth anything even after it vests. Comparing faang compensation at $300k tc vs $180k salary plus Monopoly money... Faang wins often enough since you never get enough stock in startups for it to be really worth it. (Short of being a founder)

Post by screye » Fri, May 17, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

citrablue wrote: post #220

GCA10 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google makes a lot of genuinely useful products and services. We've all got to wrestle with the privacy tradeoffs of "free" maps, "free" email, "free" Android, etc. But at least the satisfaction of using well-built tools to accomplish more is enough of an offset to many people. Facebook is much more likely to be seen as a guilty pleasure, or a marvelous time-waster, or something else that's a bit farther down the uti…

Perhaps in some countries/demos. I'd bet Instagram and WhatsApp for free, basic communication are seen as much higher utility in a significant amount of the global population.

Post by screye » Fri, May 17, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

bryan_w wrote: post #405

adjkant wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of cool tech, Apple/Google absolutely are a cut above Facebook now in my experience. Microsoft used to be below, now they rose as they embraced more open source and modern tech, I'd probably put Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon even in the cool category these days while Facebook was stereotypically above Microsoft before. Amazon, depends who you ask for a definition of "cool" from more so.

You may have forgotten that Facebook owns oculus and is doing some pretty cool things in the AR/VR space

Post by gonehome » Fri, May 17, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

finnthehuman wrote: post #373

gonehome wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a detailed nuanced piece about how FB handles some of this complexity check this out: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/02/men-are-scum-inside-... FB has its problems, but I generally find the negative press overstated and wonder if Zuck's approach to interact with the press and congress actually backfires (compare to the other companies which largely ignore them). I appreciate how often he talks to the press…

>For a detailed nuanced piece [...] I don't see any nuance, I see invented complexity masquerading as something sophisticated. This article is written as if they're trying to suss out the perfect boundaries along which to apply censorship. That frame of thinking is a con. They will never have a perfect censorship implementation because there is no win state. Let me back up: As you read this, facebook has a censorship…