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Facebook Businesses

Meta Cuts 11,000 Jobs (fb.com) 183

Mark Zuckerberg, in a blog post: Today I'm sharing some of the most difficult changes we've made in Meta's history. I've decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go. We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1. I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I'm especially sorry to those impacted.

At the start of Covid, the world rapidly moved online and the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth. Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected. Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I'd expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.

In this new environment, we need to become more capital efficient. We've shifted more of our resources onto a smaller number of high priority growth areas -- like our AI discovery engine, our ads and business platforms, and our long-term vision for the metaverse. We've cut costs across our business, including scaling back budgets, reducing perks, and shrinking our real estate footprint. We're restructuring teams to increase our efficiency. But these measures alone won't bring our expenses in line with our revenue growth, so I've also made the hard decision to let people go.

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Meta Cuts 11,000 Jobs

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  • by mobby_6kl ( 668092 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @06:44AM (#63037943)

    Metaverse loses 11,000 daily users

    • by korgitser ( 1809018 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @07:34AM (#63038053)
      Also, I cannot figure out why is he letting the talented employees go. One would think that surely, the smart move s to let go the untalented employees...
      • Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @07:40AM (#63038065)

        the smart move s to let go the untalented employees...

        No.

        The talented employees work in R&D, which is an expense.

        The untalented employees staff the advertising system, which is where the revenue is generated.

        You don't fire your money-makers.

        • by Revek ( 133289 )
          Don't forget those working the moderation team who can't understand basic snark.
          • by redback ( 15527 )

            they probably don't speak english as a first language.

            • The usually do, but are part of the imaginary friend fandom.
            • Re:In other news (Score:5, Interesting)

              by AleRunner ( 4556245 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @09:12AM (#63038265)

              they probably don't speak english as a first language.

              Apparently the biggest problem is the opposite. These people do speak English and mostly only speak English. They only recruited for English language moderation and now the bots and misinformation spreaders mostly work in other languages. They hope that people won't notice that this means most of the world's population is getting massive misinformation.

          • Re:In other news (Score:5, Informative)

            by derplord ( 7203610 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @10:13AM (#63038389)

            The what now?

            I've been trying to reach someone in support to get my wifes account unbanned because she made the mistake of linking accounts (Instagram and FB) and adding our sons IG to it - IG decided that it was an "underaged account" and banned both her IG and FB. In almost 2 months I have been able to reach absolutel no fucking one.

            There's literally no one you can contact.

        • You don't fire your money-makers.

          Also, don't set fire to your money-maker

        • by shanen ( 462549 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @11:24AM (#63038581) Homepage Journal

          Parent already modded up, but the angle I was looking for in the discussion involves the mobility of the best employees. However I think Twitter is the best source for good people just now on the theory that Twitter must have hired some competent people to keep that mess up and running for this long. In terms of resume padding, "I worked for Zuck" might look okay, but still leaves questions about why you left the company. It might even be your fault.

          But in the case of Twitter, all the blame goes directly to Musk. #HeilElon! If you didn't get fired, then you must be really great. If you got fired and asked to come back, then you might be even greater. And even if you got fired for good reason you still have the perfect response for why you're looking for new work: "Because Musk is an idiot and he is flushing the entire mess."

          [So it looks like "Twitter" is the keyword I should be searching for?]

          • by keltor ( 99721 ) *
            I'm sure there's tons of very talented people at Twitter, but Twitter also just doesn't seem like a 7500 person company. Of course "Meta" doesn't seem like an 85,000 person company ...
        • by keltor ( 99721 ) *
          I once worked for a company that figured out they needed to fire about 500 people, someone came up with the idea of firing our Sales Reps + Field Marketing because we could then just fire like 170 people at the same cost (due to sales bonuses). We also had order sales (call ins) so we would still sell stuff. There was a dip in sales for about 3 months but in the end the company recovered and we made more money.
    • If all of FB's money is on a "AI discovery engine", then all of the really innovative people at FB are gone. (Or maybe were never there?) Come on, Meta. Do you even ask what the users want?

      • Re: In other news (Score:5, Insightful)

        by larwe ( 858929 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @09:20AM (#63038289)
        Why would anyone at Facebook give a tinker's curse (as my mother used to say) about what Facebook users want? They only care about what advertisers want, because advertisers are the only people giving Facebook money. Sometimes "making advertisers happy" leads to changes that make users happier, maybe - but they are not causally linked goals, at all. Do not confuse "user" (costs me money, consumes my resources) with "subscriber" (pays for a service, pays me more than it costs to provide that service, earns me money).
        • Re: In other news (Score:5, Insightful)

          by SomePoorSchmuck ( 183775 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @10:44AM (#63038497) Homepage

          Why would anyone at Facebook give a tinker's curse (as my mother used to say) about what Facebook users want? They only care about what advertisers want, because advertisers are the only people giving Facebook money..

          In the desert there is an oasis run by a cabal of hyenas and lions
          The hyenas promote it as a gathering place for gazelle, antelope, impala, etc.
          The lions love the oasis because it's an easy source of prey animals in large numbers. Saves the lions the trouble of hunting in the vast plains/dunes.
          Lions can't be seen running the oasis because then there wouldn't be enough concentration of prey animals.
          The prey animals come to the oasis because... well, other prey animals come to the oasis. Their instinct to move in herds compels them.
          Most of the prey animals are too distracted by the pleasure of drinking from the pool of water and chewing the greenery around the water to notice the predators watching them.
          Some of the prey animals know the danger, but the movement of their herd and their thirst/hunger compel them to come anyway.
          The lions get guaranteed daily kills, and in return they leave a percentage of already-killed carcasses for the hyenas.
          The hyenas get to truthfully claim that they've never killed any prey animals. In fact they just want the prey animals to enjoy the oasis.
          The hyenas make sure the oasis looks attractive from a distance and all the prey animals look happy and well fed/watered.
          The hyenas get to eat prey meat without having to do any of the physical labor of hunting/killing.

          If the hyenas want to continue getting easy access to meat in exchange for a little groundskeeping and publicity work, they must give a tinker's curse (as your mother used to say) about what prey animals want.
          No prey animals, no lions.
          No lions, no easy meat access.
          No easy meat access means the hyenas lose their cabal and have to go hunt in the open desert/plain where they will not only have to work much harder to secure protein sources, but they will be directly competing with the lions for the same kills.

          • Re: In other news (Score:4, Interesting)

            by larwe ( 858929 ) on Thursday November 10, 2022 @01:40AM (#63040367)
            It's 00:30 local time, so I'm not going to attempt to frame this in terms of your metaphor, but: Yes, I'm fully aware of what you're talking about. What I am saying is that the ONLY THING Facebook cares directly about is how its experience is for its _customers_. The entities who pay it money. Everything it does is an attempt to get those customers to loosen up another check in Facebook's direction. "Keeping Facebook services as sticky as possible" is a goal only viewed through that lens, and the actual user (not customer) experience of the site is only an indirect goal. For example, as a user of Facebook I don't give a damn about their attempt(s?) to clone TikTok, nor do I care about their ongoing desperation to have people interact more with video content in general, yet every day the top 1/3rd of my screen is wasted by a huge tile Facebook dumped there to try to get me to interact with their Stories or Reels or whatever. As a user of Facebook, I want to delete that tile and never see it again, because I will absolutely never care about it. Customers of Facebook, however, are told that users who interact with video content stay on the site longer per visit and are exposed to more ads. So Facebook continues to wave that thing in my face, and that of other users, to our annoyance.
  • We'll still hear employers whine they can't find people to fill empty positions. Especially in the tech field.

    • Re:And yet (Score:4, Informative)

      by El_Muerte_TDS ( 592157 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @06:52AM (#63037955) Homepage

      Doesn't mention that these are 11k tech jobs.

      • Doesn't mention that these are 11k tech jobs.

        Which is why my statement covers both sides. Clearly there will be tech jobs cut at Meta just as there will be support and other jobs.

        Granted, if you're a janitor you can't work remote, but it's highly likely not all these jobs are based at Meta HQ. They're probably spread around the country and possibly the world. But we'll still hear whining from employers.

        • Re:And yet (Score:5, Funny)

          by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @07:05AM (#63037985)

          These aren't security guards or bar tenders either. Job shortages are actually quite specific despite your attempts to generalise a complex topic.

          Hint: The companies letting people go are not the ones complaining about being unable to fill spots. Except for Apple specifically filling the lead design role.

          Have you ever thought of downskilling? Maybe you're sick of earning $100k and would rather slog for minimum wage? If that sounds good to you then there's an industry with a skills shortage who will welcome you with open arms.

          • by larwe ( 858929 )
            That's part of it, but not all of it. Even if the skillsets were the same, there's a whole complex cost of living structure that has accreted around "huge numbers of very highly paid tech jobs fueled by ephemeral ad-dollars". A Facebook tech stack employee would be VERY useful and EASILY able to slip into many other tech stack jobs around the country - but most of them probably can't, or at least can't without considerable personal pain, because their entire lives are structured around a certain dollar burn
          • One of the more enjoyable jobs I've had was cleaning office buildings. It's not as glamorous as writing software for blood diagnostics - which also has the side benefit of saving actual lives - but I didn't get so stressed out that I got health issues from it. Do your thing, no one messes with you, and you can see the results of your work immediately. Pay's not great, but that's the tradeoff.
      • Middle management and platform manipulation clerks.

        The guys who keep the servers running are fine.

        Imagine that Facebook is a website that needs 120,000 people to stay running!!! It's incredible.

        3500 should be sufficient.

        • Imagine that Facebook is a website that needs 120,000 people to stay running!!! It's incredible.

          3500 should be sufficient.

          And I have clients that expect a team of 5 to build a Facebook or a Gmail in 3 months.

    • The missing half of that sentence is "for the low contract wages we want to pay"
  • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @06:56AM (#63037961) Homepage Journal

    You know, the one thing that actually led to this? He's been throwing away money on something statistically nobody asked for, with no chance to actually succeed.

    • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @07:12AM (#63038001)

      Investment in the Metaverse (to the tune of far less than many other company's R&D budgets may I add) has nothing to do with the wide spread economic conditions. Certainly the Metaverse isn't causing Twitter's jobs cuts, Microsoft or Apple's hiring freeze, job cuts in startups https://financialpost.com/fp-w... [financialpost.com], it didn't cause Robinhood's 10% workforce cut, or the job losses at Netflix. Legless VR models in a shitty app didn't cause Bird to cut 1/4 of its staff, or Tiktok, Lyft, Unity, Patreon, etc etc etc. Notice I didn't mention shitcoin peddlers? Well we all assume they would fail anyway and there's been brutal job cuts there too, also not the Metaverse's fault.

      The Metaverse is a shit idea.
      An infinitely worse idea is doing absolutely nothing while your company slowly sinks into irrelevance.

      • by Whateverthisis ( 7004192 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @09:31AM (#63038317)
        It's one thing to say that economic conditions are focring tech to cut workers, which is a true statement.

        Meta is a different case though. a 70% drop in corporate value would get any CEO thrown out, and the only thing keeping Zuckerberg in the top seat is his sweetheart shareholder deal. And that drop is due to 2 things: 1) revenue drop on advertising due to Apple's opt-in to tracking policy, which isn't his fault but they should be focused on fixing that, and 2) an inordinately high expense in R&D directly related to Metaverse building, which is his fault.

        So no Meta's woes are heavily influenced by Metaverse spending; there are other factors but the current situation is Zuck can do what he wants, the investors can't influence the direction as relates to their value, and so they're selling off their shares and getting out because they don't believe in the Metaverse. Thus the stock drop, and thus the need for layoffs.

    • by Shimbo ( 100005 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @07:12AM (#63038003)

      What gets me is how anyone could think that than pandemic had ushered in a new era of peace and prosperity, rather than just being a bubble for online stuff because everything else was shot to hell.

      Zuckerberg is so deep in the metaverse, he can't tell he needs to pull his head out his ass and look around at the real world sometime.

    • by Somervillain ( 4719341 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @08:26AM (#63038171)
      He invested 8.5% of 2021's revenue. It's much more than metaverse investment that made him cut costs and lay of 13% of his workforce. I don't give a care about the metaverse. As you said, "statistically nobody asked for"...including me. However, his fundamental business model is under siege and if you're familiar with Facebook, it is a wasteful company...not as wasteful as Google...but there's a lot of fat to be trimmed.

      For those outside a tech town, FAANG is famous for good pay, amazing perks that make it seem like they're running and adult day care, and talent hoarding. When these places contact me, they can't tell me the job. They just want to hire a generic body. I've heard people passionately defend this practice, which I call "developers as stem cells." The theory is hire REALLY SMART people and they'll adapt and become experts at whatever task you assign to them.

      If you actually write code for a living, you know this is a huge clusterfuck. This is like taking a brilliant heart surgeon and saying..."today you're an obstetrician....go deliver some babies." ...and then 3 months later "OK, spring is our slow period for births, so now you're an elder care specialist." It's disrepectful to the craft and thus you get an impressive, but wasteful, ballet of geniuses learning to become competent...when you could have just hired a competent and experienced expert and gotten the task done in half the time with 10x the quality at a fraction of the cost. I have seen SOOOOO many problems from overconfident JavaScript/Java devs designing DB schemas. I am sure UI folks hate it when server-side programmers like me design layouts in CSS. I know enough to get it done, but it takes me 5x as long and I am never confident I am following best practices. With SS Java + RDBMS services...I very much know the best practices, how to get the job done, and how to design to keep maintenance costs down and performance high...skills I learned over decades of writing code every day. FAANG often wants you to throw that away and be a stem cell.

      However, more importantly, when I've interviewed or when my friends get hired there, they almost never know what they'll be doing. They just hire smart people and figure out what to do with them later. They've poached some of our best and with one, for example, for the first 3 months, she had no clue what she'd be doing. She texted me way more than I ever heard from her when we sat 4 seats down from one another. She got bounced into different roles and divisions and is a talented and motivated programmer.

      Hoarding talent so no one else can grab it is expensive...even if you're not giving them gourmet meals 3x a day and weird perks, like wine on tap in the office.

      Working for FAANG is like a roaring-20s-grade party. People like me have been saying it has to end...for about 10 years now. Good for them for making it last so long and still being profitable...but yeah, once you're in real trouble, maybe you don't need expensively decorated colorful childlike offices? Maybe you can just feed people ordinary instead of EXPENSIVE gourmet food (our local Google office had a sashimi bar and ostrich burgers the last time I was there)? Maybe you hire people after you've identified a role and work on hiring good professionals with relevant experience instead of just hiring smart people and telling them to adapt in a Hunger-Games type environment?

      Facebook could get by with this when Instagram and Facebook were popular and beloved, but they're not any more. Most people dislike facebook. They use it because they have to. 5-10 years ago, 75%+ of my friends were posting monthly if not sooner. Now, maybe 10-20% have posted anything in 2022. I haven't. Every time I look at someone's profile wondering what they're up to, I see posts from 3-5 years ago. Maybe we're losing interest in social media? Maybe the election stuff and seeing the political crossfire when logging in has made people want to do anything but sign on to facebook (that's why I stopped)? Maybe that Apple/Google "Do not track" was a really fatal blow to their business model?

      The metaverse is a laughable joke, but only a small portion of the story of their downfall.
      • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @08:45AM (#63038215) Homepage Journal

        I don't have to write code for a living to know what mass layoffs do. Even where no code is being written, you're still throwing away institutional knowledge. In any given shop there's usually a minority of people who know all the things, and if you get rid of them you're going to have to learn them again. And when there is a lot of complexity, nobody knows all the things, so there's never just a core you need to keep.

        However, Facebook was generally profitable before the Metaverse bullshit, and their stock was doing well. But Wall street is not reacting well to Zuckerfuck blowing that wad of cash. It led directly to the stock slump, which led directly to these layoffs, so blaming anything other than the Metaverse push is nonsense. It's signaled to the shareholders that Zuck is out of good ideas.

      • All the super fancy perks are a business decision. When we were much younger my brother and I would drool over the lavish benefits offered by the Googles of the tech world. Free food? FREE LAUNDRY?!! But then we grew up and realized that stuff has a purpose. That purpose is to remove every possible reason they can think of that would require you to leave and keep your butt in that seat. That stuff doesn't scream crazy cool employer, it screams "come here and have an unhealthy relationship with work."

        If y
      • by ljw1004 ( 764174 )

        When these places contact me, they can't tell me the job. They just want to hire a generic body. I've heard people passionately defend this practice, which I call "developers as stem cells." The theory is hire REALLY SMART people and they'll adapt and become experts at whatever task you assign to them. If you actually write code for a living, you know this is a huge clusterfuck. This is like taking a brilliant heart surgeon and saying..."today you're an obstetrician....go deliver some babies."

        You've misunderstood. You get hired as a generic body, sure, and you go into "bootcamp" for a few months to get up to speed internal tools, patterns, codebases, business needs. At the end of bootcamp you'll try out various teams, try out some of their tasks, sit with their folks for a few days, and see what you choose. You'll still land in a team that fits your interests and expertise. The difference is that now you can make a better-informed choice about which team to pick.

        Following your analogy, the brill

      • I am sure UI folks hate it when server-side programmers like me design layouts in CSS. I know enough to get it done, but it takes me 5x as long and I am never confident I am following best practices.

        That's because layout/style and code development are two completely different skillsets. Good developers with strong foundations and a desire for continuous education can shift between multiple code development platforms with very little friction, be quite productive, and produce effective software.

        However, I

    • What do you expect from a crackpot who thinks he can upload his consciousness and achieve digital immortality. If youre not in the meta-verse who the fuck is he gonna talk to? Finally somebody is separating him from his wallet.
    • by DrXym ( 126579 )
      It could have succeeded if the metaverse was anarchic fun. Something that draws people onto it to hang around, meet friends, dress in avatars, goof off, play games. Imagine an MMO or Fortnite experience. If they had sense they'd even make the game run in 2D so there is no barrier to entry although there would be an incentive to use VR to play it properly. Massive potential to make money even if the core experience is free.

      Instead Zuckerberg thought people wanted to hire conference rooms and lame minigames

      • It could have succeeded if the metaverse was anarchic fun.

        Twitter is currently showing how much advertisers like anarchy.

    • People still invest in cryptocurrencies and they have no tangible value.
  • by Smid ( 446509 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @06:59AM (#63037965)

    A company who's job is to wish people happy birthday and elect fascist governments could be so uncaring?

  • by AkIonSight ( 9854034 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @07:04AM (#63037979)

    > Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too

    Seriously bro, you know, think about it, you have a lot of money, and you know what comes with a lot of money, a lot of people who want your money, and these are the "many people" you are talking about. Billions use the services Meta (as a group of companies) offers. idk how you expect to expand further, because you are kinda out of humans, even someone who looked at the situation for half an hour in like December 2020 when the economy boomed back could've predicted it wasn't gonna last forever, its was going to the cravings people have that would be promptly fulfilled (except maybe semiconductors but you are a software company who can rapidly innovate so that one really doesn't matter)

    • by Viol8 ( 599362 )

      Most people other than socially inept geeks like zuckerberk actually prefer the real world. Virtuality is fine for games and the occasional meeting but for long term use? Nah, we'll pass.

  • by indytx ( 825419 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @07:05AM (#63037983)

    Zuckerberg has had ample opportunity to make the world better, but he either cannot think of a way to do it or just doesn't want to. All he wants is to get people more glued to more screens for more time. Maybe he should focus on something better than "The world is shit, so come to us to check out!" I don't know how someone reads Ready Player One and decides that he wants to live in that world, but apparently that's what happened. His emotional maturity is the same as when he created FaceMash.

    • by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @08:26AM (#63038173) Homepage Journal

      > but he either cannot think of a way to do it or just doesn't want to.

      Don't assume malice.

      Zuck has bought into the overpopulation idea. He thinks we all need to move to cities, be assigned a pod, eat bugs and drink zee poop water, or the Planet will die.

      Given that, rather than THX-1138 grey tunics and barren walls, he's working on THX-1138 grey tunics and VR glasses so we can go full Ready Player One while we're in the cells with barren walls.

      He believes he's *maximizing* human happiness under grim conditions. He's been assigned this task and really wants to help humanity.

      Because harnessing atomic energy and living in unprecedented wealth is scarier to him.

      • Don't assume malice.

        Don't assume malice from the abusing-early-social-network-to-target-vulnerable-women guy?

        Because harnessing atomic energy and living in unprecedented wealth is scarier to him.

        Oh fuck IHBT

    • Zuckerberg has had ample opportunity to make the world better, but he either cannot think of a way to do it or just doesn't want to.

      Even if he wanted to, what do you imagine would happen to Facebook stocks if they announced they were going to try to do things to benefit humanity instead of the bottom line? They'd dry up and blow away tomorrow. Facebook is sustained by advertisers, many of which are staffed by people who know beyond any reasonable doubt that they are harmful to humanity.

    • What you don't realize is that kids are already living in a world like ready player one. Its called ROBLOX. What will work look like in 20 years when kids who grew up learning how to interact with each other in virtual worlds like that enter the workforce and bring those skills with them? The thing that baffles me is how it seems that many people working at meta don't understand the point of what they are making, and insist on making what is essentially a virtual reality tech demo instead of an online e

    • Why is it his job to make the world better? I don't recall him claiming to be a philanthropist. If anything, he's the most honest such person I can think of. "Do no harm" was never a self-deluding goal. Judging him by criteria to which he doesn't aspire and has no intention of pursuing isn't very valuable.

      • Why is it his job to make the world better? I don't recall him claiming to be a philanthropist. If anything, he's the most honest such person I can think of. "Do no harm" was never a self-deluding goal. Judging him by criteria to which he doesn't aspire and has no intention of pursuing isn't very valuable.

        It's every human's job to make the world better. The stated historical reason for allowing profit-seeking corporations was a theory that encouraging people to pursue profit would make the world better. To the extent that theory is correct, we should support it. To the extent that theory is wrong, we should modify it.

    • I don't know how someone reads Ready Player One and decides that he wants to live in that world, but apparently that's what happened.

      Errr what? That world would be AMAZING!. We're no where near the technical place we need to be to make it a reality but fuck yes sign me up in 2122!

    • I don't know how someone reads Ready Player One and decides that he wants to live in that world, but apparently that's what happened.

      Really? Life is shitty, and comforting escapes are a tempting path. The whole history of drugs and alcohol proves this. Zuckerberg's mistake wasn't betting on escapism... he got that part right. That's what the Internet basically IS for most people; a separate life apart from real life . Zuckerberg's mistake was betting on VR escapism. No one wants to buy expensive goggles and crap and walk around like Johnny Mnemonic. Our current online bubbles, like TikTok and Twitter, and cheaper and easier.

  • ... and never did, and I'm surprised FB still exists in the size it does, but this actually is an honest and upright bulletin from an owner/CEO: "[jadajada bladdiblah] ... I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that. ..."

    Nice one. Admittedly. Don't see that very often, do we?
    Any other CEOs paying attention?

    • Except that his taking responsibility doesn't mean he is losing his job, taking a pay cut or any of the other things happening to the 11,000 people who are being held responsible for the situation.

  • to keep handing out stimulus checks to people with nothing to do but spend them on online shopping. Damn that evil guberment they ruined my business plan.
  • by Ed Tice ( 3732157 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @08:22AM (#63038155)
    There's no such thing as permanent acceleration. The only people who expected this are those that were clueless, those that were wishful thinkers, and charlatans trying to scam others. The whole world was really going to stay home forever and not return to normal life? There were borderline violent uprising in some places. Yes, some people decided they liked staying at home better and didn't completely return to activities outside of the house. But those are a minority.
    • by sinij ( 911942 )

      The whole world was really going to stay home forever and not return to normal life?

      Yes, please.

      Sincerely,

      WEF [weforum.org]

    • It's almost as if guys like Musk and Zuck aren't seers, or particularly savvy business people. They make bad decisions just like the rest of us. Except their bad decisions impact the lives of thousands of others.
  • by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @08:28AM (#63038177) Journal

    the world rapidly moved online and the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth. Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too

    Apparently Mark Zuckerberg and many people are stupid. A permanent acceleration meaning what? Everyone on the planet would use Meta products and then have babies at an exponential rate to continue the permanent acceleration Zuckerberg was expecting?

    It's hard to believe the number of executives who didn't see the temporary COVID bubble for what it was. Even non-tech related companies like Peloton made the same stupid mistakes.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      It's hard to believe the number of executives who didn't see the temporary COVID bubble for what it was. Even non-tech related companies like Peloton made the same stupid mistakes.

      Covid remains unpredictable. It could still get worse.

      Of course, the bubble will still burst, because as long as we refuse to take wealth away from those who accrete it at the top, the percentage of currency available to the plebes continually reduces, and eventually they can't afford to buy anything. And then we get to have a full-blown recession. And the fed is aiming us right for one.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Regular people and big-ego morons have no clue what exponential growth (and permanent acceleration is just that) actually means and that it happens both rarely and is always time-limited.

  • I don't think there is a good way to let people go.

    There is also no way to write a "mea culpa" when you don't actually suffer any consequences.

  • I've decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go. We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1. I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here.

    If Zuckerberg wants to take accountability, he should let the employees reduce the size of the CEO by 13%. I'd be interested to see which 13% they cut.

  • "Letting people go" (Score:4, Informative)

    by Alain Williams ( 2972 ) <addw@phcomp.co.uk> on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @08:38AM (#63038209) Homepage

    I hate this phrase - it implies that the person wanted to go and the company agreed. This is not what happened, the people have been fired. Please start telling the truth.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Well, if you see workers as slaves, then "letting them go" is the right phrase. Not that this makes things any better.

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @08:45AM (#63038217)
    Without a major recession in America there's still going to be room for startups. It doesn't matter what interest rates are because the 1% are flush with cash after being given almost 7 trillion dollars during the covid pandemic.

    So we have a lot of tech companies we're currently under intense antitrust scrutiny laying off a whole shitload of engineers. And know when you fire as many people as they are you're not just laying off middle managers. Heck that idea that only middle managers get laid off is a myth companies used to disguise age discrimination layoffs. It started with IBM in the 80s and for some reason nerds won't let it go.

    So expect to see you a whole bunch of social media startups. Nobody's going to try to compete directly because you can't instead you'll see weird little apps that cater to young people who are on the cusp of becoming the next generation of consumers.
    • It doesn't matter what interest rates are because the 1% are flush with cash after being given almost 7 trillion dollars during the covid pandemic.

      It absolutely does matter, because even though they have all the money, they are still going to want someone else's, and that means needing low interest rates. Remember, the wealthy have been sitting on unprecedented cash reserves for about a decade now, with no signs of a significant increase in investment as a result. The idea that interest rates don't matter to them is wholly unsubstantiated.

      • that's true up to a point, but they have so much money they don't know what to do with it. So they're looking for increasingly risky investments with big payoff potential.

        To be clear, this is *not* a good thing. It creates nasty bubbles. What we should be doing is taxing the hell out of them, taking back that $6.5 billion, and spending it on building new cities, solving the Southwest water crisis and funding colleges back to pre 1999 levels of subsidies so that tuition prices drop to what they used to b
  • Guy got lucky by stealing someone's idea. Guy believes he is a great inventor. Guy attempts to create something new from scratch, then fails.
  • by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @09:16AM (#63038275)

    But *you're* the one who's fired. Funny how that works.

    • Yeah, him taking responsibility would be him stepping down as CEO, not saying "sorry not sorry GTFO".

    • by hondo77 ( 324058 )
      Don't forget he's taking accountability, too. Responsibility and accountability. What more than those pretty words could anybody ask for?/s
      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Well, he probably saw the mess that Musk just made at Twitter (Hiring people back a few days later? I would give them the finger...) and decided he has at least to pretend doing this right. Obviously it is all only pretend, but it is still better than mass-firing a lot of people via email based obviously on some simplistic automated decision process.

        • by shanen ( 462549 )

          Ah, this is sort of the angle I was looking for, so mod parent up, please.

          My own focus would be on the mobility enhancement Musk gave to the Twitter staff. In most cases the question of why you left your job (or want to leave) can be touchy, but not for former and wannabe former employees of Twitter. #HeilElon for turning the water into mud!

          I just can't figure out which is the best reason now:

          "I'm so great Musk didn't dare fire me!"
          "I'm so great Musk wants to hire me back!"

          But even if neither applies in you

        • Musk's mass firing is illegal, under both California and Federal law, because he didn't give the employees notice before firing so many of them. Zuckerberg is smart enough to run things past legal, Musk isn't. It's that simple.

    • But *you're* the one who's fired. Funny how that works.

      Don't be so self-important. You're nothing more than a business decision, a cost to be weighed against benefit you deliver. The only way out of this is to run your own business, and even then you consider whether that's appropriate, so when you're your own boss you're still working for a heartless arse :-)

      • I recognize that can be a business necessity to eliminate positions, and in such cases it must be done. What I object to is talking about "taking reponsibility" when in fact nothing is being done to take responsibility.

  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @09:29AM (#63038307)

    Really? Mark is one of those 11,000 that got fired?

    Finally.

  • The talented ones are long gone or never worked there in the first place.

  • "Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya!: he added.
  • 3D! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @11:26AM (#63038587) Journal

    Wow, that pink piece of paper looks so 3D and realistic I can practically reach out and grab it! ... uh ... shit.

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