alt Hacker NewsMeta tells staff it will cut 10% of jobs
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This is interesting because it's a case of "AI taking jobs" but not in the way people normally mean; these massive layoffs are happening not because AI is doing the work they used to do but because capex is sucking all of the operating money out of everywhere. The companies may be forced to replace some of the laid-off employees with AI (as far as possible) but that's an effect not a cause.
Let's be honest, Meta over hired. Big time. If anyone ever interviewed a few Meta engineers, he would easily see that a large percentage of them had really small, and sometimes bullshit scopes. As a result, such engineers couldn't articulate what they do in Meta, couldn't deep dive into their own tech stacks, nor could solve common-sense design questions when they just deviated a bit from those popular interview questions. Many of those engineers were perfectly smart and capable. Meta have built so many amazing systems. So, the only explanation I can produce is that there's just too little work for too many people. I wouldn't be surprised if the ratio of meeting hours over coding hours per person went through the roof in the past few years in Meta.
Isn't this the same idea of the old Roman decimation.
I find the scale of some companies hard to understand, they're laying off multiples of the total number of employees of the largest company I've worked at.
On the other hand 8000 people can potentially do some jobs meaningful to society.
Is this what Zuck meant when he said he “takes full responsibility” for spending 80 billion in the wrong direction?
if you've ever been through a Meta loop (and their method is to cast an extremely wide net, so chances are you have), you've seen how inefficient their loop can be for long term success
6-7 38* minute interviews, while the interviewee is trying to squeeze in showcasing their skills and experience, the interviewer is obsessed with figuring out a rigid set of pre-determined "signals"
Once these candidates actually start work, their success in the team is a complete coinflip
* 38 minutes = 45 minute scheduled - 2 minute intro - 5 minute saved for candidate questions at the end
Firing 10% of their workforce on the one hand. Tracking employee PC screens to supposedly train AI on the other. Get fired or get tracked. Well, isn't that convenient...
I wonder if in a parallel universe without the extremely stupid metaverse sidequest this could have been prevented.
I wouldn't make much of it; the economy looks a bit iffy right now due to the surge in energy prices and difficulties sourcing inputs. This affects mainly industrial enterprises, shipping and transport but those are no small sectors and anything that affects them ripples through the rest of the global economy. Where I live (Northern Europe), not only are those sectors already sacking people, but the banks are rising interest rates well ahead of an expected wave of inflation. This affects both consumer and industrial loans, and it means that many economies are going to continue in contraction or that things may get worse.
Why would any candidate consider Meta for their career when the CEO flounders money and then lays off recklessly.
During mass layoffs, why haven't companies offered employees the opportunity to drop down to a four day work week? I'd think many would take the extra day off each week, even if it included a proportional reduction in pay.
It's an honest surprise that this isn't spun as "internal AI efficiency gains." They want the efficiency, of course there's AI component, but they're not pre-claiming victory. Neat.
It's worth remembering that there's an _actual_ underlying economic problem here. Interest rates are up. AI spending is expensive. A dollar invested in a company needs to do _more_ than it did 5 years ago, relative to sitting in treasury bills. And Meta isn't delivering on that right now.
But IMHO: that's no excuse. This is admitting defeat, deciding to push the share price higher while they give up. Meta has the user data, the AI ambitions, the distribution, and the brand.
They could do anything, and the world is re-inventing itself. They're ... laying off people, maximizing profits, and giving up.
Cowards.
I thought this will be 20% like we heard a few weeks ago. I am still waiting on the news that they are killing the quest headset though. It’s going to happen when mark finally lets go of this anchor
Given the same trend at Oracle and Amazon (1), it seems large corporations are cutting costs ahead of bad news... and that news isn't about AI.
Does the Facebook corporate campus still have the Sun Microsystems logo on the reverse side? I hope these 10% see that and welcome its significance.
The only part of Meta I care about is the PyTorch team. Are those people also being affected by this?
Nice to see that decimation is back in style
I left Meta a while ago... but these layoffs (multiple rounds every year) have been very demoralizing to the folks there.
I survived all three rounds of layoffs, but I saw multiple great colleagues (some of them had been there for 10+ years), getting laid off. After so many re-orgs, I had enough and quit. It was just not worth it (all that uncertainity, people were unhappy, hunger games into trying to get a good rating, etc).
I think Zuck is taking its "Meta" failure (VR) into his own employees. After their treatment, many good people don't want to join Meta anymore, hence he had to spend so much money into buying engineers to join.
I think it is the start of a downwards spiral.
With the way people get added and removed from big tech, why is having worked at these companies still considered a badge of honor?
Every time something like this happens I think that at least one person made a very bad cash flow decision and now needs to cover a hole they dug out themselves.
Sadly, they are never the ones to be sacked.
If there's a number given, the reason is secondary.
I wonder if the quality of YC applications will go up as more engineers find themselves in need of a job.
It would really be poetic justice if some former employees of established companies went for the jugular of massive SaaS incumbents.
A cut this big usually means the company let itself get too sprawling and is now correcting late. That does not make it less rough for the people getting hit, but it does make the move pretty unsurprising.
What happened to the metaverse ?I suspect maybe wasting all the resource wasn’t a good idea
I came across this article recently and watching it play it out is wild: https://readuncut.com/the-survivors-paradox-how-layoffs-turn...
whilst they get efficiencies and may improve margins, the long term damage of culture and having 'yes men' will damage their business far more than a few quarters of tighter growth and margins.
I remember in 2022 people still said things like “there hasn’t been a major tech layoff in 20 years”. Those days are a distant memory. This Meta layoff is lost in the noise of tons of other ones by this point.
Again? Haven't there been waves of mass Meta layoffs already?
Don't worry, these CRUD app software artisans will land on their feet somewhere.
The firings will continue until morale improves.
Wonder if there is a self fulfilling prophecy. These large "AI" companies push their models/platforms for increasing productivity. If they're not reducing their own workforce or increasing productivity and reaching larger growth and profits, why would the rest of the world believe them and do the same.
I have been told by a startup founder that he wants his strongest player to replace and automate the weakest using AI!
That may be what Meta is already doing. I’m afraid we are going to see something like that at play in tech for the coming few years until we get to an equilibrium. Sad and it might work.
one thing with AI is it really seems great for small companies as it allows you to do more, but for big companies, not really sure it enables anything other than figuring you are overstaffed.
Systems are great, but the product has been very poor.
"letting go of people who have made meaningful contributions to Meta during their time here..." is a sacrifice Mark Zuckerberg is willing to make.
Will Meta also cut down on their use of lobbyists, trying to mandate more age sniffing?
Something is seriously flawed here.
The real question for me is how the hell did this company reach $200 billion in annual revenue? Nothing about our economy makes any sense to me.
Everyone at Meta should know the score.
Meta pays top dollar. They also pay enormous sums for what management identifies as performance.
Conversely, Meta is ruthless about cutting those management identifies as low performers.
This is the deal going in. It’s not a crime.
It's like the economy is struggling or something.
I bet they are worried about the class actions that the SC lawsuit opened up.
Neckbeards’rein is over!
and they're going to start monitoring employee keystrokes and mouse movements to train AI. good luck guys. save up aggressively now.
For years the advantage big tech had was that capital expenditure was minimal and now with every big tech company trying to become an AI company they’re blowing gobs of money on data centers and everything that goes inside of them.
AI is a huge bubble right now and although it is useful and future models will be more so, the truth is that it’s a lot of pie in the sky too.
Again??? Phew glad I don't work there. I hate that constant worry.
https://archive.is/3ZeOv