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'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

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Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#911

Post by krageon »

shanusmagnus wrote: post #744
pojzon wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really have trouble understanding why ppl should dream about labor / fulfilment at work. There are so many ways to find a real meaning. Be a great person, help others, read a book, do yoga, help kids with homework, plant a tree, build something with own hands, grow food, clean-up trash. So many things to keep you busy. Work is just a necessity to do something that actually matters in the longer run (for majority at…

I assume because you literally spend most of your life there, and if it doesn't mean something, that is ... awful? I mean, there have been times / places in history where you work so that you have enough money to not die; and you enjoy your life with whatever pittance is left afterward. I doubt anyone reading this website is in such a time or place.

Basically every corporation you can work for will have you doing something meaningless (and is dedicated to a meaningless pursuit besides). As the world population shrinks in the deep future, perhaps that will change - but right now it definitely will not.

As such, I have trouble seeing why you'd think any work you do means anything. Most likely it doesn't and that's okay. It is not within your control to have meaningful work available. It is within your control to have a healthier attitude towards your workplace and your work.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#912

Post by origin_path »

deeptote wrote: post #532
tomuli38 wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, Netflix doesn't cull the herd — they get rid of good (but not excellent) performers too. The article is talking about actually cullung the herd and getting rid of the mediocre performers who previously could skate by.

Yeah true, but this coming from the likes of Facebook and Google, two companies well known for warehousing talent... it mostly just comes across as tone deaf and naive. For years they've literally hired very smart and capable people, and then shoehorned them into working on some ad-tech engine that an intern could do, just so they didn't work for a competitor. And now they're angry that their employees "don't work ha…

The idea these firms hire people just to stop them going to competitors is popular on HN but I never saw any evidence of it when I was there.

Trophy hires? Sure, occasionally, but they were all doing stuff for the company. And the idea there was some sort of policy is wrong. It may look like that from the outside though, because there was never a strong connection between hiring and need.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#913

Post by krageon »

naravara wrote: post #212
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember the engineers on my team from HQ explaining to me that my proposed stand-up meeting schedule wouldn't work beacuse their intramural basketball league scheduled their games for that time. Meanwhile, in our low-perqs atmosphere in NY, distractions were limited and productivity was high. We also all made money. Your standup meeting could've been an email. Their immovable basketball game (quality of life) is…

Of all the types of meetings that could be emails, stand-ups are at the very bottom of the list. A well run, efficient stand-up can head off a day's worth of productivity sucking emails and Slack messages with a 10 min conversation.

I'm sure you're aware of this, but 99% of standups are not this way. Given that, it's safe to assume that wherever you are, they don't need to exist. The odds are quite simply much better.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#914

Post by djur »

mikhael28 wrote: post #113
neves wrote: post #73

> Zuckerberg noticed that it was getting harder to get all the employees to attend a meeting as they were sometimes taking time out in a day for personal work. > “There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the head count we have. [We need to] create a culture that is more mission-focused, more focused on our products, more customer-focused, Ohhh! Two declarations based in…

Honestly, I'd be pissed too if I was Zuck. I'm a goddamn billionaire - if I invite you to the meeting, idgaf what you are doing unless someone died - get on this goddamn Zoom call. And even then, they better have been important! Dogs, cats, idgaf, get on this goddamn Zoom call! Then, because I'm a genius who singlehandedly started Facebook by myself, I extrapolate this thought to its logical extreme and start intimid…

This is a good reason not to let billionaires run companies.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#916

Post by gorgoiler »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #906
gorgoiler wrote: post #858

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. Slashdot was groundbreaking for many things, especially so for categories. I wouldn’t mind having the ability to filter HN replies to “+5 Insightful” and drop anything else marked “Contrarian”.

what's wrong with contrarian view, or perhaps you just want to read things you agree with only.

“Contrarian” in this sense means someone who disagrees on purpose, at best for hypothetical intellectual jousting, and at worst to simply act as a troll.

In either case it’s not very interesting to read threads of people practicing their debating skills.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#917

Post by origin_path »

3pt14159 wrote: post #390
qqtt wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are surfacing it in a weaselly way which absolves them of personal responsibility. In reality, they approved the strategic direction of the company and signed off on the outrageous hiring plans. They were responsible for fostering a culture of execution and measuring the results of their teams. They were responsible for ensuring their investments were paying off. Instead of messaging that "As CEO, we did not inv…

I heard from former, recently departed Facebookers that their standards for hiring dropped quite a bit during the pandemic. If I had to guess why Zuck isn't happy, it's that the new hires plus the increased organisational bloat of such a massive amount of new hires didn't materalize into spreadsheet numbers that looked good.

Any idea why these companies all ballooned in size so much during the pandemic? Was it purely about more time spent online = more money = more hiring or was there some actual strategy behind it?

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#918

Post by ungamedplayer »

boredtofears wrote: post #758
darth_avocado wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a dead weight and I’ll never be, but I also do absolutely bare minimum to not get fired. And by bare minimum, I mean, I will always finish my work in the time it is expected to be finished. And if the expectations are higher, I’ll move on to another job. I do this as a way to get back at corporate America. Too many companies get away with sucking out their employees dry and firing them once they can’t meet t…

Getting back at corporate america by sacrificing your own ambition seems like a pretty unfulfilling and ineffective strategy.

Corporate doesn't even notice this guy.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#919

Post by origin_path »

cletus wrote: post #560

Once again, companies blaming strategic problems on ICs rather than real culprit: leadership. Or, rather, the lack thereof. Having worked at both Google and Facebook I can tell you it's contradictory because in some cases you have an embarrassment of riches, hundreds or even thousands of heads, virtually unlimited resources (CPU, storage, networking), etc. Some make sense like Google+. I mean it was a failure and pro…

Chrome wasn't an acquisition, unless you count the company that only made sandboxes. But that hardly counts.

Photos wasn't really an acquisition. Yes they acquired Picasa but Google Photos has no real connection to Picasa.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#920

Post by coffeeblack »

khazhoux wrote: post #803
austinjp wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depresses me no end that someone can see poor performance, laziness etc only as a trait others possess, and not as a reaction to circumstance that they themselves might experience one day. I guarantee that anyone -- anyone -- can find themselves viewed as substandard. It's truly disturbing when Zuckerberg says something so dystopian, and people 'in the trenches' call for more.

> It's truly disturbing when Zuckerberg says something so dystopian, and people 'in the trenches' call for more. Or maybe people here on HN are sick of finding --in team after team-- those 1 or 2 people who take forever to finish their work and drag the whole team down.

I don’t care about people who take forever. Or who don’t know things. What I dislike is people who don’t care. Who write just shit that then breaks all the time or has to be fixed by others. If you are slow, take your time. But please care enough to write quality code.
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