9 ms·

They can’t hire people with good ideas anymore because as we know money isn’t a great motivator (and besides, there are more ethical companies within 10 miles p

They can’t hire people with good ideas anymore because as we know money isn’t a great motivator (and besides, there are more ethical companies within 10 miles paying as much or more than Facebook). They can’t hire good people anymore because their mission is naive and their reputation precedes them.

mtgx 6y ago
Tell that to John Carmack, who apparently is quite fine with tainting his legacy and wasting his last few good work years working for Facebook of all companies. And to top it all off, they're going to ruin Oculus, too (where Carmack is working), going by the latest moves in that division.
- dijit 6y ago
  It would be very hard to “taint the legacy” of a person like Carmack. He will be excellent no matter where he is because he is given essentially free reign to work on what he enjoys the most. And if that changes it will be unlikely to be the company that did it, since a person in his position would just move to another company and re-acquire free reign.
  - ojbyrne 6y ago
    I don’t usually complain about spelling, but you used it twice. It’s “free rein.” https://grammarist.com/spelling/free-rein-free-reign/ https://grammarist.com/spelling/free-rein-free-reign/
    - derekja 6y ago
      Hehe, while you are usually quite correct in that spelling, in Carmack's case "free reign" may actually be more appropriate since he exercises pretty much sovereign power there!
- kvz 6y ago
  I think he left (for all practical purposes) to focus on AGI now. There were rumors he didn’t like the way fb execs were planning of taking oculus. Think he’s still an advisor or similar, but spends his good time no longer there
  - bcrl 6y ago
    Given what I learned when a friend purchased multiple Occulus, I think Fackbook really fucked up. Each unit has to be attached to a different Facebook account, and creating multiple Facebook accounts is forbidden. Bye bye having 2 units at home for when friends come over. They deserve to be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible under anti-trust laws.
- kthxbye123 6y ago
  He's only 50. How 'few good work years' do you think he has left?
- justapassenger 6y ago
  Tuning as in investing billions of dollars to actually make it a feasible product? Sure, they do bad moves there as well, but oculus is where it is purely because Facebook decided to burn billions of dollars there.
birdyrooster 6y ago
Not sure why mtgx comment is marked as dead but he is right about John Carmack. What an “apolitical” tool. A brilliant and useful idiot. I would punch him in the face if I could.
werkjohann 6y ago
Anecdotal, but I’ve seen several folks get offers from FB and other big tech, and I’ve seen FB throw much more money at people. They also have better perks. I think they know they need to use money to overcome their reputation.
- birdyrooster 6y ago
  In terms of pay, having compared offers before, one would be better of at Facebook than Google but tied with Apple. Apple has less perks but more monetary compensation to make up for it because their stock isn’t nearly the liability and Apple actually releases new products and services instead of sucking their existing property dry. Who would want to work at Facebook? There is literally nothing your company does worth getting excited to come to work for.
  - symlinkk 6y ago
    Huh I don’t know. Maybe the $200k salary for entry level developers is exciting? Or maybe it’s the ability to work on a product that is a household name for billions of people?
    - obscoth 6y ago
      Yeah it’s very exciting to work on the best ways to spread misinformation, incite division and ruin democracy. Or maybe they’re pulled in by the charismatic CEO-bot?
      - 8note 6y ago
        The CIA still gets people excited to work for them so ruining democracy and spreading misinformation are certainty draws for the right people
        obscoth 6y ago
        You’re right. I would bet the CIA is at least a little less starry eyed about the “good” they do in the world, compared to Facebook engineers.
amf12 6y ago
> They can’t hire people with good ideas anymore because as we know money isn’t a great motivator This is not entirely true. I have seen excellent people go to Facebook because they gave out the highest offers. Now whether they get people with good ideas is something I don't know.
- birdyrooster 6y ago
  Those people won’t be excellent for long in a Dead Sea.
  - powvans 6y ago
    I've never seen this comparison before. Are you suggesting that Facebook is similar to an endorheic basin?
    - patjenk 6y ago
      Hmm, interesting. I have always thought of it as a kettle lake. But you're right! There is a strong argument for endorheic basic.
    - jeremyjh 6y ago
      They are referring to the Dead Sea effect: http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-dead-sea-effect/ http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-d...
- nrp 6y ago
  I spent five years golden handcuffed at Facebook and hired a large number of brilliant, driven people there. Most of them are still there because of the obscenely large sums of money Facebook pays to keep them there. Note that Facebook does not do counteroffers, and instead makes sure to keep the best people financially motivated to stay each year.
  - grumple 6y ago
    What do those people work on?
st1x7 6y ago
I don't know if this generalizes across the company. They still have brilliant technical people, some of the best ML researchers, have open-sourced increbidly popular and influential frameworks like React and PyTorch. Just because their upper management or their business model might suck doesn't mean that they don't have great people working there.
throwaway-8c93 6y ago
> because as we know money isn’t a great motivator HR industry would like you to believe that, but it's an intentional bastardization of the original research by Kahneman and Deaton (1), twisting their words to fit their cost cutting agenda. The original finding states that past a rather high threshold (~$75k), additional raise alone is an insufficient motivator. Below that threshold, money alone works just fine as a motivator. Above that threshold, pay hike still enhances other motivators. In Bay Area, I agree that ethical concerns likely dwarf money. $120k/year in Europe would let them scrape the creme de la creme, despite near universal dislike among tech-crowd. (1) https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/08/27/1011492107.abstract https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/08/27/1011492107.abs...
- programmerslave 6y ago
  75k a year number is brainwashing, being rich is better. 75k is poverty with a family in many parts of the USA
yumraj 6y ago
> They can’t hire people with good ideas anymore because as we know money isn’t a great motivator I know tens of people from my past who currently work in Facebook. When I knew then, they were all decent people with long careers in the tech industry. Yet, they chose to work for FB. A fresh grad son of my ex-Boss is starting his career with FB. Unfortunately FB's brand is not as tainted, yet, as it should be or as some of us in the HN echo-chamber like to believe.
pdkl95 6y ago
When their internal memo about "connecting people" was leaked to the public, some FB employees wanted to actively select for loyalty in their hiring process: > Leakers, please resign instead of sabotaging the company > How fucking terrible that some irresponsible jerk decided he or she had some god complex that jeopardizes our inner culture and something that makes Facebook great? > Although we all subconsciously look for signal on integrity in interviews, should we consider whether this needs to be formalized in the interview process? > This is so disappointing, wonder if there is a way to hire for integrity. We are probably focusing on the intelligence part and getting smart people here who lack a moral compass and loyalty. https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/30/17179100/facebook-memo-leaks-boz-andrew-bosworth https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/30/17179100/facebook-memo-le...
- Shared404 6y ago
  >> This is so disappointing, wonder if there is a way to hire for integrity. We are probably focusing on the intelligence part and getting smart people here who lack a moral compass and loyalty. Oh the irony.

mtgx 6y ago

Tell that to John Carmack, who apparently is quite fine with tainting his legacy and wasting his last few good work years working for Facebook of all companies. And to top it all off, they're going to ruin Oculus, too (where Carmack is working), going by the latest moves in that division.

dijit 6y ago
It would be very hard to “taint the legacy” of a person like Carmack. He will be excellent no matter where he is because he is given essentially free reign to work on what he enjoys the most. And if that changes it will be unlikely to be the company that did it, since a person in his position would just move to another company and re-acquire free reign.
- ojbyrne 6y ago
  I don’t usually complain about spelling, but you used it twice. It’s “free rein.” https://grammarist.com/spelling/free-rein-free-reign/ https://grammarist.com/spelling/free-rein-free-reign/
  - derekja 6y ago
    Hehe, while you are usually quite correct in that spelling, in Carmack's case "free reign" may actually be more appropriate since he exercises pretty much sovereign power there!
kvz 6y ago
I think he left (for all practical purposes) to focus on AGI now. There were rumors he didn’t like the way fb execs were planning of taking oculus. Think he’s still an advisor or similar, but spends his good time no longer there
- bcrl 6y ago
  Given what I learned when a friend purchased multiple Occulus, I think Fackbook really fucked up. Each unit has to be attached to a different Facebook account, and creating multiple Facebook accounts is forbidden. Bye bye having 2 units at home for when friends come over. They deserve to be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible under anti-trust laws.
kthxbye123 6y ago
He's only 50. How 'few good work years' do you think he has left?
justapassenger 6y ago
Tuning as in investing billions of dollars to actually make it a feasible product? Sure, they do bad moves there as well, but oculus is where it is purely because Facebook decided to burn billions of dollars there.

birdyrooster 6y ago

Not sure why mtgx comment is marked as dead but he is right about John Carmack. What an “apolitical” tool. A brilliant and useful idiot. I would punch him in the face if I could.

werkjohann 6y ago

Anecdotal, but I’ve seen several folks get offers from FB and other big tech, and I’ve seen FB throw much more money at people. They also have better perks. I think they know they need to use money to overcome their reputation.

birdyrooster 6y ago
In terms of pay, having compared offers before, one would be better of at Facebook than Google but tied with Apple. Apple has less perks but more monetary compensation to make up for it because their stock isn’t nearly the liability and Apple actually releases new products and services instead of sucking their existing property dry. Who would want to work at Facebook? There is literally nothing your company does worth getting excited to come to work for.
- symlinkk 6y ago
  Huh I don’t know. Maybe the $200k salary for entry level developers is exciting? Or maybe it’s the ability to work on a product that is a household name for billions of people?
  - obscoth 6y ago
    Yeah it’s very exciting to work on the best ways to spread misinformation, incite division and ruin democracy. Or maybe they’re pulled in by the charismatic CEO-bot?
    - 8note 6y ago
      The CIA still gets people excited to work for them so ruining democracy and spreading misinformation are certainty draws for the right people
      - obscoth 6y ago
        You’re right. I would bet the CIA is at least a little less starry eyed about the “good” they do in the world, compared to Facebook engineers.

amf12 6y ago

> They can’t hire people with good ideas anymore because as we know money isn’t a great motivator This is not entirely true. I have seen excellent people go to Facebook because they gave out the highest offers. Now whether they get people with good ideas is something I don't know.

birdyrooster 6y ago
Those people won’t be excellent for long in a Dead Sea.
- powvans 6y ago
  I've never seen this comparison before. Are you suggesting that Facebook is similar to an endorheic basin?
  - patjenk 6y ago
    Hmm, interesting. I have always thought of it as a kettle lake. But you're right! There is a strong argument for endorheic basic.
  - jeremyjh 6y ago
    They are referring to the Dead Sea effect: http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-dead-sea-effect/ http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-d...
nrp 6y ago
I spent five years golden handcuffed at Facebook and hired a large number of brilliant, driven people there. Most of them are still there because of the obscenely large sums of money Facebook pays to keep them there. Note that Facebook does not do counteroffers, and instead makes sure to keep the best people financially motivated to stay each year.
- grumple 6y ago
  What do those people work on?

st1x7 6y ago

I don't know if this generalizes across the company. They still have brilliant technical people, some of the best ML researchers, have open-sourced increbidly popular and influential frameworks like React and PyTorch. Just because their upper management or their business model might suck doesn't mean that they don't have great people working there.

throwaway-8c93 6y ago

> because as we know money isn’t a great motivator HR industry would like you to believe that, but it's an intentional bastardization of the original research by Kahneman and Deaton (1), twisting their words to fit their cost cutting agenda. The original finding states that past a rather high threshold (~$75k), additional raise alone is an insufficient motivator. Below that threshold, money alone works just fine as a motivator. Above that threshold, pay hike still enhances other motivators. In Bay Area, I agree that ethical concerns likely dwarf money. $120k/year in Europe would let them scrape the creme de la creme, despite near universal dislike among tech-crowd. (1) https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/08/27/1011492107.abstract https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/08/27/1011492107.abs...

programmerslave 6y ago
75k a year number is brainwashing, being rich is better. 75k is poverty with a family in many parts of the USA

yumraj 6y ago

> They can’t hire people with good ideas anymore because as we know money isn’t a great motivator I know tens of people from my past who currently work in Facebook. When I knew then, they were all decent people with long careers in the tech industry. Yet, they chose to work for FB. A fresh grad son of my ex-Boss is starting his career with FB. Unfortunately FB's brand is not as tainted, yet, as it should be or as some of us in the HN echo-chamber like to believe.

pdkl95 6y ago

When their internal memo about "connecting people" was leaked to the public, some FB employees wanted to actively select for loyalty in their hiring process: > Leakers, please resign instead of sabotaging the company > How fucking terrible that some irresponsible jerk decided he or she had some god complex that jeopardizes our inner culture and something that makes Facebook great? > Although we all subconsciously look for signal on integrity in interviews, should we consider whether this needs to be formalized in the interview process? > This is so disappointing, wonder if there is a way to hire for integrity. We are probably focusing on the intelligence part and getting smart people here who lack a moral compass and loyalty. https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/30/17179100/facebook-memo-leaks-boz-andrew-bosworth https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/30/17179100/facebook-memo-le...

Shared404 6y ago
>> This is so disappointing, wonder if there is a way to hire for integrity. We are probably focusing on the intelligence part and getting smart people here who lack a moral compass and loyalty. Oh the irony.