Why would any candidate consider Meta for their career when the CEO flounders money and then lays off recklessly.
I was offered $1.15m a year to work there back in 2022. That's why.
and you said no?
Meta tells staff it will cut 10% of jobs
891–900 of 923 posts
Re: Meta tells staff it will cut 10% of jobs
#892Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm tired of this American exceptionalism. Success is not only about money. It's about making a positive impact on the world for everyone. This is where the big tech companies deeply fail. America poisons the world with pollution (eg pulling out of Paris Agreement), misinformation, promoting discord as 'engagement', unnecessary military engagements and screwing up the rest of the world. And really, abdicating 'leader…
Billions and billions of people willingly use these products. Are you saying they use them because they are bad for them and they don't like them and don't value them?
No they use them because they are addictive, intentionally. But they reinforce negative emotional content because it is more engaging. This is what causes all the polarisation in society, what gave us Brexit and Trump. See for example the book Careless People, it describes how Facebook set up a huge consulting operation with the Trump campaign to get him into office.
But they are bad for society, it's not for no reason that a lot of countries are trying to ban them for the younger generations now, similar to smoking.
Re: Meta tells staff it will cut 10% of jobs
#893Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where is the Silicon Valley of Europe? I'll wait for your answer.
I think it’s to their credit that they don’t have one and instead got cern. A bunch of shitty crud apps made by mediocre rent seekers that got rich on tax avoidance, gov money + research, and low interest rates vs actual ground breaking research that benefits humanity. Silicon Valley is probably the worst thing that happened to humanity between the 2008 crash and Covid. People have been figuring it out but not after…
100% agree with this. I think where it really went wrong is around 2005 with Google, Facebook etc. Adtech, engagement-driven social media.
Re: Meta tells staff it will cut 10% of jobs
#894Earlier quoted context omitted.
The severance that is paid out is money that could have been paid out to owners (him)
No they couldn’t because the severance is paid out of the money the budget set aside for wages for the year. So out of the 12 months, they give 4 months to the laid off worker and Facebook pockets the other 8 months.
Facebook could give zero severance, "pocket the full year budget" to use your phrasing, and distribute it to owners as a dividend. The severance comes directly from cash that could have been distributed to owners, as GP originally said.
Re: Meta tells staff it will cut 10% of jobs
#895Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, let's continue the analogy. The house cleaners weren't the problem. They are the best of the best at cleaning the pool. You have the pool but now want to get rid of the pool. You thought you liked the pool but you don't. It was your own mistake for wanting the pool and changing your mind. Would you fire yourself from the house? You did make a mistake.
The missing bit is where you say "I take full responsibility for this situation", to the cleaners who's lives are impacted by this significantly more than yours. > Would you fire yourself from the house? You keep pushing this false framing/binary for some reason. You made a bad call, you lost the money, that's a given (a passive if you will). Where's the active "taking responsibility" part? That's the main critique.
> The missing bit is where you say "I take full responsibility for this situation"
> Where's the active "taking responsibility" part?
But what is the implication of taking full responsibility? What actions would he be taking for "taking full responsibility"?
I don't think you meant you merely wanted the performative sound of "I take full responsibility for this situation" to come out of his mouth.
Without actions, the words mean nothing.
So, what would be the actions you were looking for here? I don't quite get it.
Re: Meta tells staff it will cut 10% of jobs
#896Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well if they’ve learned that much it’s a good thing. The remaining piece is to speak with some personal references to verify they did some real work.
>The remaining piece is to speak with some personal references to verify they did some real work. Not a thing where I am. You can BS your way in these jobs and so many people did. There's no LEETCODE for management positions, just bullshitting smooth-talk and using your connections (nepotism).
Well, quite frankly, you work in a shitty place then that doesn't know how to competently interview for these positions.
There are real differences in the knowledge and work behavior of great PMs and the bullshitters, and it's usually not that hard to tease out the bullshit in an interview if you know what you're doing.
Re: Meta tells staff it will cut 10% of jobs
#897Earlier quoted context omitted.
These West Coast tech companies had some of the highest salaries on the planet, so yes, they took employees from other locales/areas. But also, while there have been layoffs in engineering teams, Ive seen a lot of "support staff" get absolutely obliterated. Things like "agile coaches", "technical project managers", UX testers, marketing roles, etc. etc. While I've seen most of my laid off soft engineer friends find n…
> A lot of them were making low 6 figures 10-15 years ago, and now many of them have no hope of making that much in their careers again because companies have vastly reduced the number of those roles. I moved to the Seattle area during the dotcom boom. Within 18 months I was unemployed. There was DEFINITELY a feeling, like the whole “internet” thing might have been a bubble. I helped a friend move to Pleasanton CA an…
I'm not at all saying that tech is somehow "dead". What I am saying is that many of the non-engineering roles that were popular in tech over the past 15-20 years are either going away or will continue with vastly reduced numbers of people. If you're someone who did agile training for the past 15 years and are now in your 40s and were laid off, I sincerely doubt you'll be able to get a job as an agile coach before the end of your career that pays as much as in the 2015-2020ish timespan.
Re: Meta tells staff it will cut 10% of jobs
#898Earlier quoted context omitted.
The missing bit is where you say "I take full responsibility for this situation", to the cleaners who's lives are impacted by this significantly more than yours. > Would you fire yourself from the house? You keep pushing this false framing/binary for some reason. You made a bad call, you lost the money, that's a given (a passive if you will). Where's the active "taking responsibility" part? That's the main critique.
> The missing bit is where you say "I take full responsibility for this situation" > Where's the active "taking responsibility" part? But what is the implication of taking full responsibility? What actions would he be taking for "taking full responsibility"? I don't think you meant you merely wanted the performative sound of "I take full responsibility for this situation" to come out of his mouth. Without actions, th…
> I don't think you meant you merely wanted the performative sound of "I take full responsibility for this situation" to come out of his mouth. Without actions, the words mean nothing.
100% agree, and that's precisely the critique towards Mark as those words presumably came out of his mouth.
> So, what would be the actions you were looking for here?
Claw back his executive compensation, forfeit bonuses for the fiscal year and use that to fund better severance / transition support? There's smarter people than me who can answer this, I am merely pointing out and ridiculing this fake accountability and moral theater.
Re: Meta tells staff it will cut 10% of jobs
#899Earlier quoted context omitted.
No they couldn’t because the severance is paid out of the money the budget set aside for wages for the year. So out of the 12 months, they give 4 months to the laid off worker and Facebook pockets the other 8 months.
Facebook could give zero severance, "pocket the full year budget" to use your phrasing, and distribute it to owners as a dividend. The severance comes directly from cash that could have been distributed to owners, as GP originally said.
They don’t give severance to be nice, severance is hush money. To get the severance employees have to agree to forgo any legal claim they could have with the company.
They have calculated that it’s cheaper to offer this money than to have to pay lawyers to defend the company from pissed former employees seeking to drag the company to court.
Re: Meta tells staff it will cut 10% of jobs
#900Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook could give zero severance, "pocket the full year budget" to use your phrasing, and distribute it to owners as a dividend. The severance comes directly from cash that could have been distributed to owners, as GP originally said.
They don’t give severance to be nice, severance is hush money. To get the severance employees have to agree to forgo any legal claim they could have with the company. They have calculated that it’s cheaper to offer this money than to have to pay lawyers to defend the company from pissed former employees seeking to drag the company to court.
This is an entirely new claim from the one you made earlier and somewhat divorced from your original line of questioning around severance (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47885133).
Ultimately, regardless of whether the severance is generous or just a calculated ploy to keep former employees quiet, it comes out of shareholders' pockets.