Meta employees as a whole are highly insecure, both from a job security and a 'status' perspective. People jump ship to the latest thing (which was the Metaverse, now is the internal AI lab).
There's a massive restructuring going on - layoffs, reorgs - and an even more ruthless performance bar.
The internal spying is common across companies. The extent would shock most 'big company' employees.
The realization and angst IMO is more that the days of extremely great comp, job security (even if you're good) and career progression is over at Meta unless they figure this pivot out.
What will social media become when influencers aren't a thing, and "creators" is no longer a moat.
You imagine Mark must be sweating bullets right now, along with the rest of media.
From the third party perspective, it feels like gambling to me. I can't imagine being ok with knowing everything keystroke you make is being tracked to train a model, most likely to replace you. I can't imagine ever wanting to work there, thought that for a long time. "It's full of brilliant people". Well, the profession is quite honestly, there are plenty of places to work.