Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#401

Post by papito » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 12:41 PM UTC

duped wrote: post #282

piva00 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even including the retail employees, Apple's footprint is barely double the size of Facebook. I agree that it's really bizarre how wasteful FB's operations seem to be compared to Apple's. What an unimaginative company...

If they didn't work for meta they'd be working on something that might be competing with meta

No one is going to challenge Facebook head on. Google tried and flamed out. Zuckerberg is afraid of new forms of social media that will expedite the death of Facebook. This is why he bought Instagram. Was it really a competitor? Nope. But it was the new thing the kids were flocking to.

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#402

Post by papito » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 12:54 PM UTC

f1shy wrote: post #359

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…

And whatsapp

WhatsApp and Instagram, both acquired by Facebook, were actually a gold standard in lean development. 1o to 30 people for a massively popular product.

If these companies were creating sprawling and unnecessary micro-service-based infrastructures, they would have easily needed headcounts 10 times as large.

So it's really a case in point that Facebook is ultra-wasteful.

Re: Facebook reportedly laying off thousands of employees

#403

Post by randomsearch » Tue, Oct 11, 2022, 6:46 PM UTC

ferdek wrote: post #129

randomsearch wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s like music. Most bands are capable of a great album, but the truly incredible artists can move from genre to genre constantly reinventing themselves. To create an org that can do the latter (hello, Apple) seems incredible difficult, but it always seems to involve exceptionally creative leaders. So the secret I think is to sell you mega status Facebook Borg and start afresh in a different area without the baggage…

> can move from genre to genre constantly reinventing themselves Sounds a little bit like Nokia, more than Apple. Paper mill, cable products, rubber boots, tires, TV, mobile phones... ;)

Ha, I’d say Nokia is more like a musician who becomes a farmer then an astronaut and then works in a pub. A bit random.