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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 bil

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.
ineedasername 6y ago
Working for Facebook doesn't have quit the social capital it used to. Besides there's a such thing as enjoying my and believing the work you do is valuable. If ultimately you can only trave your effort back to ad clicks, that's not very enticing.
- symlinkk 6y ago
  You live in a bubble. 95% of the American public would hear that their son “got a job at Facebook” and think he made it. 95% of companies hiring developers would see “worked at Facebook” and move that resume to the top of the pile.
  - Answerawake 6y ago
    Finally someone with some perspective. Is it just me or is it just baffling at the amount of hubris there is in this thread? Its like there are two worlds, this small group of people who have no perspective whatsoever and the rest of the country having to deal with reality.
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      The rest of the country also has little positive sentiment for Facebook. They don't go so far as not to use it, but their opinion of it is not good. Maybe it's because I don't live in an SV or other techie bubble that I see this, that I give more credit to the average person. Because I'm not stuck I'm an echo chamber of "general public are naive and don't care". They do care, they are more aware of some of these issues than you think. Assuming the only people who care or think about these issues are techies is an extremely condescending & patronizing view towards the average person. Perhaps it helps broaden my view that live in a densely populated but not very techie/tech-company area and I have a large social circle of non techies. It shows me that your so-called bubble where hn/sv/techies make sweeping generalizations about the average person is often based in stereotypical fiction instead of reality. My age 65+ parents and in-laws couldn't tell you the difference between tcp & udp, setup a WiFi router, or understand the difference between a spreadsheet and a database or know what Full Stack means. But they have opinions on Facebook, and they aren't good. My few dozen coworkers of all ages are the same.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    No, I live in a mostly non-techie social group with both Democrats and Republicans: they all view facebook negatively primarily through the lens of their political party. Your own self-satisfied bubble of congratulatory "we techies are special and have a special perspective" bubble is blinding you. Ask anyone with a moderate interest in politics how they feel about facebook and the answer is mostly going to be "not great". Most don't care enough to quit facebook, but as per the point of my original comment, facebook isn't going to have any sort of easy time whipping up public support against Apple for privacy issues they mostly don't care about one way or another.
- na85 6y ago
  A person would have to drink an awful lot of kool aid to think their work at Facebook is valuable to anyone but the Facebook shareholders.
  - novok 6y ago
    Hey if your work on OSS infrastructure, it's not really that bad.
    - Shared404 6y ago
      This is the thing. I don't like facebook, and they do a lot of bad things. They also have some amount of good they do.
      - ineedasername 6y ago
        Very few things are purely good or purely bad, which should be a caution against all-or-nothing judgements. For example I think Apple is bad for inching its way towards an ever more restrictive MacOS. But I think Apple is good for its efforts to protect user privacy and give users more control over it. And as a FAANG, it's example puts pressure on other companies to compete on privacy as well. (Though I think we know Google will never go that way, unlike Apple their business model isn't based on hardware or software sales, but on the very private information Apple wants users to have control over)
      - novok 6y ago
        So does the US govt. Does that mean you will reject a grant from them for your cancer cure or solar panel research? Less evil USians will die from cancer as a result potentially, along with the rest of the world.
        Shared404 6y ago
        That was the point of what I was saying. Despite Facebooks evil, there is good that comes out of it.
    - 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.

ineedasername 6y ago

Working for Facebook doesn't have quit the social capital it used to. Besides there's a such thing as enjoying my and believing the work you do is valuable. If ultimately you can only trave your effort back to ad clicks, that's not very enticing.

symlinkk 6y ago
You live in a bubble. 95% of the American public would hear that their son “got a job at Facebook” and think he made it. 95% of companies hiring developers would see “worked at Facebook” and move that resume to the top of the pile.
- Answerawake 6y ago
  Finally someone with some perspective. Is it just me or is it just baffling at the amount of hubris there is in this thread? Its like there are two worlds, this small group of people who have no perspective whatsoever and the rest of the country having to deal with reality.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    The rest of the country also has little positive sentiment for Facebook. They don't go so far as not to use it, but their opinion of it is not good. Maybe it's because I don't live in an SV or other techie bubble that I see this, that I give more credit to the average person. Because I'm not stuck I'm an echo chamber of "general public are naive and don't care". They do care, they are more aware of some of these issues than you think. Assuming the only people who care or think about these issues are techies is an extremely condescending & patronizing view towards the average person. Perhaps it helps broaden my view that live in a densely populated but not very techie/tech-company area and I have a large social circle of non techies. It shows me that your so-called bubble where hn/sv/techies make sweeping generalizations about the average person is often based in stereotypical fiction instead of reality. My age 65+ parents and in-laws couldn't tell you the difference between tcp & udp, setup a WiFi router, or understand the difference between a spreadsheet and a database or know what Full Stack means. But they have opinions on Facebook, and they aren't good. My few dozen coworkers of all ages are the same.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  No, I live in a mostly non-techie social group with both Democrats and Republicans: they all view facebook negatively primarily through the lens of their political party. Your own self-satisfied bubble of congratulatory "we techies are special and have a special perspective" bubble is blinding you. Ask anyone with a moderate interest in politics how they feel about facebook and the answer is mostly going to be "not great". Most don't care enough to quit facebook, but as per the point of my original comment, facebook isn't going to have any sort of easy time whipping up public support against Apple for privacy issues they mostly don't care about one way or another.
na85 6y ago
A person would have to drink an awful lot of kool aid to think their work at Facebook is valuable to anyone but the Facebook shareholders.
- novok 6y ago
  Hey if your work on OSS infrastructure, it's not really that bad.
  - Shared404 6y ago
    This is the thing. I don't like facebook, and they do a lot of bad things. They also have some amount of good they do.
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      Very few things are purely good or purely bad, which should be a caution against all-or-nothing judgements. For example I think Apple is bad for inching its way towards an ever more restrictive MacOS. But I think Apple is good for its efforts to protect user privacy and give users more control over it. And as a FAANG, it's example puts pressure on other companies to compete on privacy as well. (Though I think we know Google will never go that way, unlike Apple their business model isn't based on hardware or software sales, but on the very private information Apple wants users to have control over)
    - novok 6y ago
      So does the US govt. Does that mean you will reject a grant from them for your cancer cure or solar panel research? Less evil USians will die from cancer as a result potentially, along with the rest of the world.
      - Shared404 6y ago
        That was the point of what I was saying. Despite Facebooks evil, there is good that comes out of it.
  - 6y ago