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The only way FB will change its ways is if (a) good engineers stop joining them, and (b) good engineers at FB start leaving. This will threaten their entire gro

The only way FB will change its ways is if (a) good engineers stop joining them, and (b) good engineers at FB start leaving. This will threaten their entire growth prospectives and finally bring about change. I was having discussions with FB recruiter and some of their senior managers. I just informed them that I won't be pursuing that anymore. FB engineers who are on HN: why are you still there? You can make similar money at several other companies without sacrificing your soul!

ahoy 8y ago
> You can make similar money at several other companies without sacrificing your soul! I'm not so sure. Certainly Google, Amazon, et al are just as bad as facebook.
- marquis-chacha 8y ago
  Who's the "et al" there? Microsoft and Apple would be the logical successors, but I don't think most people would consider them "just as bad as Facebook".
  - 1024core 8y ago
    My, how times have changed, if Microsoft is not considered a bad actor. There was a time when MS was Satan personified for many people in the OSS community (myself being one of them).
  - ummonk 8y ago
    They don't pay as well as Facebook either.
save_ferris 8y ago
Regulation is much more realistic, IMO. The tech industry worships money and those who make it, and there are plenty of engineers who'd take the FB compensation package in a heartbeat, regardless of FB's public image problem. This idea that the public will act together morally to stop corporate malfeasance while sacrificing their good fortunes isn't that realistic. Look at the FB shareholder situation. Lots of shareholders are angry at Zuck but can't do anything about it. None of them seem particularly interested in selling their shares because they don't want to have to pay for his bad behavior.
- 1024core 8y ago
  > while sacrificing their good fortunes isn't that realistic. ... this does not need to happen. Plenty of other companies in the Bay Area pay as well as FB, but without the heartache.
  - save_ferris 8y ago
    But there's some kind of inertia keeping those employees at FB for some reason. Why put in all the effort to leave for another company to get paid the same? Most people won't do that. Engineers aren't going to start quitting en masse until their compensation is threatened (i.e. the stock irreversibly tanks). In order for that to happen, shareholders need to stage a massive sell-off, which won't likely happen soon due to FOMO.
fbthrow_xyzzy 8y ago
Please don’t downvote me into being the same color as the page background. I’m giving a serious answer to a question that was posed. This has been asked before on HN. The genuine answer is some combination of: * criticisms of FB are wildly exaggerated. This takes many forms, but in this particular case I think it’s the issue of attributing to malice what’s best explained by incompetence. Somebody probably just reused some old email importing code without understanding it thoroughly. If you know anything about how FB works, that’s infinitely more plausible than some shady conspiracy to unethically harvest the contacts of a small percentage of users for a slight improvement in ranking or targeting. Facebook is not some well-oiled machine, it is a jumbled mess of thousands of junior engineers, perpetually barely avoiding collapsing under its own weight. * People inside FB generally believe, whatever they think of Zuck, that he doesn’t just outright lie about verifiable facts. The entire code repository is completely open to all employees. If adding this feature really was malicious and FB’s response is an outright lie, somebody WILL find the commit and leak it. * Even if FB is doing harm, on balance the good it’s doing is greater. It has made communication between humans easier and lower-friction which has many upsides. Part of this is that all the upsides are concrete and obvious (people fall in love on Facebook/IG/MN/WA, they stay in touch with friends and family, they run a business, etc). Whereas the downsides are abstract and hypothetical (maybe someday someone will use Facebook’s collected data for some nefarious purpose). * Even if all of the above is false and FB really is harmful to the world, the situation certainly won’t be improved by thinking people quitting, and leaving the company totally in the hands of yes-men who drink all the kool-aid.
- kdf9349th 8y ago
  Hi FB employee -- I very much disagree with your position. The external reality is far from what you have said. * Criticisms of FB are not exaggerated. In this case, FB stole 1.5 million creds, then used these creds to harvest user data (nobody actually wants to give this data away, it was taken by force). If an individual did this, they would be in prison. FB gets away with it... again.. * People inside FB are a cult. It has been shown that MZ will lie about verifiable facts, even to congress! Its wilful suspension of reality for the sake of a huge paycheck. ... "when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" * FB is doing harm, and Its not on balance greater. Its divisive, promotes untruth, gives a voice to those that really shouldn't have a voice, spreads misinformation, promotes hate and dismantles democracy. Not to mention... Ostracization? Murder? Genocide? Exactly how many FB whistleblowers have existed in history? Is this worth it so people can share cat and dog pictures, and stolen memes from other media? I'd say, no. * One of the most troubling moments in my recent history was visiting India, and seeing how FB is so influential in general discourse. I had people tell me great, unjust untruths like they were facts -- "I read it on facebook". * If FB has no users anymore, it has no advertisers, it goes away. Better for the world! FB is arguably the most destructive force of the 21st century. We will never be free until we shake its iron grip on humanity.
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
I would assume that FB has gotten pretty good at hiring devs that match their culture. FB devs aren't reading HN articles about how bad FB is. FB devs are at FB because of the "prestige" of having been selected from the 10's of thousands of candidates. They're there for the money. They're there because they enjoy the projects. They're not there because they have some moral obligation to change FB.
- fbthrow_xyzzy 8y ago
  This just isn’t true. Plenty of people at FB read HN, everyone is acutely aware of the company’s reputation, and there is robust internal discussion and debate about all of these topics (and more)
ummonk 8y ago
>You can make similar money at several other companies without sacrificing your soul! Google collects significantly more data than Facebook, and has a sordid past with sexual harassment and inappropriate relationships. Lyft, Uber, and AirBnB have openly flouted regulations, and that doesn't count Uber's other scandals. LinkedIn grew by emailing everyone's contacts without their permission (if you think what FB did here is bad, LI was far worse). High frequency trading and other fintech companies engage in front-running and derivatives trading that may be contributing to market volatility and systemic risk. Comparably paying companies pretty much all have questionable histories. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg has committed to investing in improving Facebook even at great expense (don't believe me? look up what triggered the nosedive in Facebook's stock last summer). Do you think Facebook will improve more if conscientious engineers left the company?

ahoy 8y ago

> You can make similar money at several other companies without sacrificing your soul! I'm not so sure. Certainly Google, Amazon, et al are just as bad as facebook.

marquis-chacha 8y ago
Who's the "et al" there? Microsoft and Apple would be the logical successors, but I don't think most people would consider them "just as bad as Facebook".
- 1024core 8y ago
  My, how times have changed, if Microsoft is not considered a bad actor. There was a time when MS was Satan personified for many people in the OSS community (myself being one of them).
- ummonk 8y ago
  They don't pay as well as Facebook either.

save_ferris 8y ago

Regulation is much more realistic, IMO. The tech industry worships money and those who make it, and there are plenty of engineers who'd take the FB compensation package in a heartbeat, regardless of FB's public image problem. This idea that the public will act together morally to stop corporate malfeasance while sacrificing their good fortunes isn't that realistic. Look at the FB shareholder situation. Lots of shareholders are angry at Zuck but can't do anything about it. None of them seem particularly interested in selling their shares because they don't want to have to pay for his bad behavior.

1024core 8y ago
> while sacrificing their good fortunes isn't that realistic. ... this does not need to happen. Plenty of other companies in the Bay Area pay as well as FB, but without the heartache.
- save_ferris 8y ago
  But there's some kind of inertia keeping those employees at FB for some reason. Why put in all the effort to leave for another company to get paid the same? Most people won't do that. Engineers aren't going to start quitting en masse until their compensation is threatened (i.e. the stock irreversibly tanks). In order for that to happen, shareholders need to stage a massive sell-off, which won't likely happen soon due to FOMO.

fbthrow_xyzzy 8y ago

Please don’t downvote me into being the same color as the page background. I’m giving a serious answer to a question that was posed. This has been asked before on HN. The genuine answer is some combination of: * criticisms of FB are wildly exaggerated. This takes many forms, but in this particular case I think it’s the issue of attributing to malice what’s best explained by incompetence. Somebody probably just reused some old email importing code without understanding it thoroughly. If you know anything about how FB works, that’s infinitely more plausible than some shady conspiracy to unethically harvest the contacts of a small percentage of users for a slight improvement in ranking or targeting. Facebook is not some well-oiled machine, it is a jumbled mess of thousands of junior engineers, perpetually barely avoiding collapsing under its own weight. * People inside FB generally believe, whatever they think of Zuck, that he doesn’t just outright lie about verifiable facts. The entire code repository is completely open to all employees. If adding this feature really was malicious and FB’s response is an outright lie, somebody WILL find the commit and leak it. * Even if FB is doing harm, on balance the good it’s doing is greater. It has made communication between humans easier and lower-friction which has many upsides. Part of this is that all the upsides are concrete and obvious (people fall in love on Facebook/IG/MN/WA, they stay in touch with friends and family, they run a business, etc). Whereas the downsides are abstract and hypothetical (maybe someday someone will use Facebook’s collected data for some nefarious purpose). * Even if all of the above is false and FB really is harmful to the world, the situation certainly won’t be improved by thinking people quitting, and leaving the company totally in the hands of yes-men who drink all the kool-aid.

kdf9349th 8y ago
Hi FB employee -- I very much disagree with your position. The external reality is far from what you have said. * Criticisms of FB are not exaggerated. In this case, FB stole 1.5 million creds, then used these creds to harvest user data (nobody actually wants to give this data away, it was taken by force). If an individual did this, they would be in prison. FB gets away with it... again.. * People inside FB are a cult. It has been shown that MZ will lie about verifiable facts, even to congress! Its wilful suspension of reality for the sake of a huge paycheck. ... "when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" * FB is doing harm, and Its not on balance greater. Its divisive, promotes untruth, gives a voice to those that really shouldn't have a voice, spreads misinformation, promotes hate and dismantles democracy. Not to mention... Ostracization? Murder? Genocide? Exactly how many FB whistleblowers have existed in history? Is this worth it so people can share cat and dog pictures, and stolen memes from other media? I'd say, no. * One of the most troubling moments in my recent history was visiting India, and seeing how FB is so influential in general discourse. I had people tell me great, unjust untruths like they were facts -- "I read it on facebook". * If FB has no users anymore, it has no advertisers, it goes away. Better for the world! FB is arguably the most destructive force of the 21st century. We will never be free until we shake its iron grip on humanity.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

I would assume that FB has gotten pretty good at hiring devs that match their culture. FB devs aren't reading HN articles about how bad FB is. FB devs are at FB because of the "prestige" of having been selected from the 10's of thousands of candidates. They're there for the money. They're there because they enjoy the projects. They're not there because they have some moral obligation to change FB.

fbthrow_xyzzy 8y ago
This just isn’t true. Plenty of people at FB read HN, everyone is acutely aware of the company’s reputation, and there is robust internal discussion and debate about all of these topics (and more)

ummonk 8y ago

>You can make similar money at several other companies without sacrificing your soul! Google collects significantly more data than Facebook, and has a sordid past with sexual harassment and inappropriate relationships. Lyft, Uber, and AirBnB have openly flouted regulations, and that doesn't count Uber's other scandals. LinkedIn grew by emailing everyone's contacts without their permission (if you think what FB did here is bad, LI was far worse). High frequency trading and other fintech companies engage in front-running and derivatives trading that may be contributing to market volatility and systemic risk. Comparably paying companies pretty much all have questionable histories. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg has committed to investing in improving Facebook even at great expense (don't believe me? look up what triggered the nosedive in Facebook's stock last summer). Do you think Facebook will improve more if conscientious engineers left the company?