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.
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.
In other news (Score:5, Funny)
Metaverse loses 11,000 daily users
Re:In other news (Score:4, Funny)
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
they probably don't speak english as a first language.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
Count your blessings.
Re: (Score:3)
You don't fire your money-makers.
Also, don't set fire to your money-maker
Re: (Score:2)
But why else would you shake that money maker?
Re: In other news (Score:2)
Re:In other news [Where did the brains go?] (Score:4, Interesting)
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?]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: In other news (Score:2)
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)
Re: In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
And yet (Score:2)
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)
Doesn't mention that these are 11k tech jobs.
Re: (Score:2)
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)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Downskilling. Great word. Made me laugh.
Jeopardy! response: "What is the thing a goose butcher does?"
Re:And yet (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: And yet (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The people being let go have no useful skills.
So many bean counters on a supposedly tech site.
Re: And yet (Score:2)
Not even bean counters. The people that spend 2 hours in meetings and get a venti mocha latte and a foot massage just for being in the building.
There are tons of people that literally have no purpose at Facebook other than to soak up cash.
Most people at Facebook donâ(TM)t even touch code, you canâ(TM)t have any UI coding project with thousands of programmers making daily changes, itâ(TM)d be chaos.
Re:And yet (Score:5, Funny)
There's always Twitter!
Oh wait......
Re: And yet (Score:2, Funny)
Be nice. Elon is in his own personal hell on Twitter now, lol.
"Hello? Is there anyone still reading my tweets???"
Re: (Score:2)
Be nice. Elon is in his own personal hell on Twitter now, lol.
"Hello? Is there anyone still reading my tweets???"
Unless Twitter is lying, they claim their user base has grown since the takeover [ft.com]:
Since the second quarter ended on June 30, the company added more than 15mn mDAUs “crossing the quarter billion mark”, the email said. Twitter reported 237.8mn mDAUs, up nearly 17 per cent year on year, in the second quarter, its final earnings as a public company.
As big a deal as Musk made of fraudulent bot traffic pre-purchase, it'd be foolish and legally dangerous to lie about traffic now.
Re: (Score:2)
Be nice.
Hell with that.
Elon is in his own personal hell on Twitter now, lol.
He earned every bit of shit he's getting, dude's cheese has slipped off his cracker. He needs to take a sabbatical to see if he can extract his head from his ass.
He blames everything but the Metaverse (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:He blames everything but the Metaverse (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:He blames everything but the Metaverse (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:He blames everything but the Metaverse (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:He blames everything but the Metaverse (Score:5, Insightful)
"What gets me is how anyone could think that than pandemic had ushered in a new era of peace and prosperity"
The online utopians who think that the internet will somehow rescue humanity from itself have been around since the internet was devised. They're just another subset of the stupid who make up a large proportion of the population.
Re: (Score:2)
Problem is, if you can't tell face from ass, you don't know what to pull out of where.
'Led to' is a strong term + talent hoarding (Score:5, Insightful)
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."
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.
Re:'Led to' is a strong term + talent hoarding (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Repellent posts also kill engagement. (Score:4, Interesting)
Another thing which happened around the same time were all the reports of Facebook colluding with U.S. government officials to direct speech. That can also lead to a stock slump if the stockholders think that will eventually negatively affect the company's number of eyes for which ads are sold.
Citation please? I have never heard of "Facebook colluding with U.S. government officials to direct speech".
Also, you seem to think a greater number of users will lead to a greater profit. That simply is not the case. Some people are vile and repellant. Most of my friends HATE facebook because of those people I assume you're defending. So yeah, they have more accounts, but their most profitable users leave. If you're going to log on to rant about the deep state and various DJT adjacent conspiracy theories...you're going to gross out mainstream Americans who just want to look at kid pics and lookup friends they like enough to think about, but not enough to actually text. Few thrive on politics. Few are angry at the system and want to spew their "truth bombs" to every relative and former classmate that is in their network.
If you're feeling triggered, the same applies to liberal self-righteous extremists. If you're constantly ranting about the patriarchy or how we're all going to die of global warming or how not accepting 25 genders makes you a bigot or finding new and creative ways to call everyone on the planet a racist...then you're also scaring off normal people.
Social media is like a party. You don't want to invite everyone you know. You want to invite the cool people...the ones with social skills...the ones who can carry a conversation. You want people to have a good time. If some hairy stinky hippie is screaming about how not eating your placenta is a hate crime...the people with better options will leave.
These major social media companies mine more data than anyone in history. They have more insight into what makes you stay on the site, engage, and spend money for their advertisers. If they are censoring you, it's because they think you're bad for business....nothing else. The gov didn't force them, GM, GE, Disney, Mondelez (conglomerate that owns Oreo) did. They don't want their ad for Oreos appearing on a White Nationalist post. Disney doesn't want the ad for their next Pixar movie displaying next to some Holocaust-denial rant.
Everything is about money, not politics. Facebook thinks their site is more profitable without you. You're welcome to debate that, but to pretend their hand was forced by the US gov and not their fundamental business model is insane.
Re: (Score:2)
If y
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:3)
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
Re: He blames everything but the Metaverse (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Instead Zuckerberg thought people wanted to hire conference rooms and lame minigames
Re: (Score:2)
It could have succeeded if the metaverse was anarchic fun.
Twitter is currently showing how much advertisers like anarchy.
Re: He blames everything but the Metaverse (Score:2)
Who would have thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
A company who's job is to wish people happy birthday and elect fascist governments could be so uncaring?
You got scammed Mark (Score:3, Insightful)
> 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)
IOW (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
actual contrition.
You mean "contraction" not "contrition". Right??
Re: (Score:2)
I feel like this was the real turning point for Facebook and Twitter profitability. When their embedded web trackers on external websites got smushed by the major browser vendors, that's when profit dried up and crazy directions were taken like the metaverse and everything Musk is trying @ Twitter.
The Rich Don't Want a Better World (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:The Rich Don't Want a Better World (Score:5, Interesting)
> 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.
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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!
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Ok. I don't use FB in any meaningful way ... (Score:2)
... 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?
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Translated Sorry but I expected the government (Score:2)
Many [brain dead] people predicted [or wished] (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The whole world was really going to stay home forever and not return to normal life?
Yes, please.
Sincerely,
WEF [weforum.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Permanent acceleration?? (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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 made a mistake, but you're paying for it (Score:2)
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.
Accountability (Score:2)
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)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, if you see workers as slaves, then "letting them go" is the right phrase. Not that this makes things any better.
So here's how I can see this playing out (Score:3)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Not exactly (Score:2)
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
This has many years in the making (Score:2)
*He's* taking responsibility... (Score:5, Insightful)
But *you're* the one who's fired. Funny how that works.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, him taking responsibility would be him stepping down as CEO, not saying "sorry not sorry GTFO".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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 :-)
Re: (Score:2)
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.
I want to take accountability for these decisions (Score:3)
Really? Mark is one of those 11,000 that got fired?
Finally.
Re: (Score:2)
That would at least be a sound and obvious decision.
Which "talented" ones? (Score:2)
The talented ones are long gone or never worked there in the first place.
P.S. (Score:2)
3D! (Score:4, Funny)
Wow, that pink piece of paper looks so 3D and realistic I can practically reach out and grab it! ... uh ... shit.
Re: (Score:2)
Mr Zuckerburg, I would like to thank you for the wonderful social website you made for us all.
But I can't, because instead of building on that social internet promise, you instead used your site to make billions by TRACKING your users.
So instead of thanking you I will tell you to get the fuck out of your metaverse and instead make Facebook into something GOOD for its users, for the world.
Re: "I want to take accountability" (Score:2)
Welcome to CEO speak. Talking about what you want to do without actually doing it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Its not so much you invoke the phrase in order to avoid the "bad" juju. Its that epic fails or epicly bad actions are almost never acknowledged. Zuckerberg almost has to say "I take responsibility" in order to demonstrate "I have a clue that I failed badly". It doesn't even begin to help him out of the hole he dug himself into, but at least he's not digging himself deeper!