8 ms·

The vitriol on HN for FB is something else. The earnings for this company are truly staggering. They made 11$/user. Their earnings were up 34% year-over-year –

The vitriol on HN for FB is something else. The earnings for this company are truly staggering. They made 11$/user. Their earnings were up 34% year-over-year – on a base of 29B dollars. They made 10B more this year than they did last year, and the comments in here are all about, "boy Apple fucked them, and Meta suxor!" You people are nuts. While I don't love FB as an entity, as a business they are making fucking bank. They are running a printing press, and the world is eating it up. Y'all need to switch to decaf or something. Their numbers are truly staggering.

sorry_outta_gas 5y ago
I get the feeling it's a lot of people bitter they failed the interview process
- ARandomerDude 5y ago
  Can't speak for others but I've never wanted to work at FB, never will, and can honestly say FB is a resume negative when I'm looking at candidates.
  - jpgvm 5y ago
    I wouldn't go so far to say that FB would ever be a resume negative. It really depends on what their experience there was like. Some really great people went to work for FB after making bank a Google in the early days and I would gladly work with any of the folks from that stage of FB. Post that period there was some serious internal culture problems (performance culture SMH) and yeah... I would say most of the good folks (that weren't properly isolated from that misery) left and there was a dark age of FB engineering as a result. I think they recovered from this somewhat but these days it would need to be a case by case basis when I interview a candidate and get an understanding of their time at FB, what they worked on etc and with who.
- nathanaldensr 5y ago
  I would never even consider working for Facebook no matter their interview process. They are a loathsome company led by a psychopath. They could offer me a job right now with no interview and I wouldn't take it. Some people can't be bought. What about you?
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    Nearly every one can be bought. Choosing to be holier than thou while drawing a line of Facebook is awful, they can’t buy me, but otherwise not doing the same to the majority of public/big companies who are also ethically compromised, is not so much better. Yes, I’d take a high paying job at Facebook. I live in a status quo, unfair, corrupt capitalist society in the west. I know I have to play the game.
    - operatingthetan 5y ago
      >Nearly every one can be bought. Sure, if we're just talking about comparing generalizations or wild scenarios, but in context that person probably has access to other opportunities that rival or exceed Facebook's comp or social impact.
- ummonk 5y ago
  I worked at Facebook thinking it was trying to improve and have a positive impact on the world. Working there made me realize that the #1 goal was to increase active users, user engagement, and profitability, and having a responsible impact on the world would take a back seat to this. Additionally, it was clear that Zuck’s vision for the world is to create a universal platform through which the world connects and socializes, and the recent metaverse push is a dystopian continuation of this vision.
  - moralestapia 5y ago
    >thinking it was trying to improve and have a positive impact on the world Were you like a very early employee or are you just that naive? FB's intent became quite clear, quite fast in their history. Like, remember when they became so famous for their lack of ethics that even a hollywood movie came out whose plot is pretty much only about that? And that was 12(!) years ago ... so, I am truly wondering, from where exactly did you get this idea of a company trying to change the world for good?
wutbrodo 5y ago
HN is worse than default subreddits when it comes to a handful of topics, and <any big tech company> is the most prominent category. There's plenty to criticize FB for, but the commenter community here gets truly unhinged whenever one of these topics comes up.
ohashi 5y ago
We can't be critical of a company that makes people miserable? That weakens democracy? That enables violence and hate? Just because they make a lot of money we should be cheering? Oh wow, they made $11! Let's forget everything else.
- bot41 5y ago
  Why post emotive comments on a financial post?
  - YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
    Financial loss can be pretty emotional.
- brokencode 5y ago
  Sure, but try being critical about something that they can actually be faulted for rather than their incredible earnings. The OP was just pointing out that a lot of the criticism here made no sense.
- stu2b50 5y ago
  There’s a difference between hating Meta for its ethics and hating Meta as a money making machine. People are doing the latter and that’s pretty silly. Meta is, however unethically, a good entity at the goal of making money.
  - pebble 5y ago
    They do the latter by compromising on the former.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bko 5y ago
  Be critical all you want, just don't try to gaslight by saying they're on the verge of collapse and everyone hates them. They're extremely popular and billions log in every day because they apparently get some kind of value out of the product
nathanaldensr 5y ago
What does vitriol for Facebook have to do with how much money they made? You're post is one giant non-sequitur.
magicjosh 5y ago
This is a tech community, not a "making bank" community. You may be looking for a subreddit on investing for the reactions you're expecting.
- gxs 5y ago
  This is literally an article and comment about Facebook's finances.
  - magicjosh 5y ago
    To be fair to the other commenters, they're also talking about the nature of the article, but more about what these financials mean for the tracking products, Facebook, and the "tracking industry" broadly.
  - barbecue_sauce 5y ago
    Why does that matter?
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      Because it's the topic of the comments? What matters more than the article we're all commenting on?
- hadlock 5y ago
  A lot of us work for tech companies we may own shares in, or have options to buy. Knowing where the leaders in the market are going (up, down, flat) is, at worst, a weak signal of how tangential markets will trend in the coming months. Maybe this is less relevant to someone under 30, but as a lot of us creep into our early and late 40s, having a clearer picture of where we might end up in retirement is something many people have a keen interest in. FAANG stock trends, like it or not, dictate the larger tech sector, and right now 2/5 just took a 20% hit in the space of a week.
- notacoward 5y ago
  This is a venture-backed tech community, so it's pretty much about making bank. Also, it regularly celebrates big rounds and exits for other ethically questionable companies, so there's really no moral high ground to be had here.
unsui 5y ago
The vitriol is well-deserved. While there is no such thing as a perfectly-ethical company within a Capitalist framework, there are degrees of ethical behavior that rightly influence a company's reputation. Would I choose to work or support a company that clubs baby seals? Less hyperbolic, would I choose to support a company that continually seeks to profit from promoting extremism in dialogue, creating self-perpetuating echo-chambers which have real-world consequences (re: the very real danger to American democratic processes), in addition to brainwashing people's parents into believing in utter hogwash and tearing families apart? Yes, they are making bank. But at what cost? And should that cost influence your interaction with said company?
- errcorrectcode 5y ago
  Fendi entered the chat. "We object! We don't use barbaric clubs anymore, we use proper pistols to dispatch baby animals in order to steal their hides to make Predator human trophy garmets from them. Please browse our winter collection."
pessimizer 5y ago
The market, which is the subject, seems to have more vitriol than HN about their current performance.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
endisneigh 5y ago
poor guidance.
gonehome 5y ago
Betting against HN sentiment is usually a good way to make money. I hope Zuckerberg pulls off Meta and what he's trying to do. He's an extremely good CEO, and the alternative is more power in the hands of TikTok and CCP controlled social media which I think is a lot worse. I'm glad to see the investment they're making in trying to build a new platform, I hope we see AR hardware from Apple soon too.
errcorrectcode 5y ago
I look at it as a value-investing opportunity. Non-investors and vacillating ones can scoff as I laugh all the way to said bank.
randomsearch 5y ago
FB represents everything that hackers despise. That is why a site full of hackers despises them.
- hunterb123 5y ago
  Social media represents everything I hate, but Twitter's usecase & userbase is further up in toxicity than Facebook imo. I wouldn't say FB represents everything I hate, as I mainly use it as a contact book. "Hacker News" also hates crypto, Tesla, Brave, and other random things and I don't think the same way about. (I wonder why that is? </rhetorical>) TLDR: speak for yourself, not all "hackers".
jseliger 5y ago
It's been like this on HN since at least 2018: https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual-facebook-crisis-or-media-narrative-about-facebook-crisis/ https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual-facebo...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rvz 5y ago
> While I don't love FB as an entity, as a business they are making fucking bank. They are running a printing press, and the world is eating it up. Y'all need to switch to decaf or something. Their numbers are truly staggering. Precisely. It's actually a very long term battle between Meta, Apple and Google. Not even a widespread outage can stop them. It would be a mistake to write them off immediately over this atrocious earnings call, no matter how much I think of them as a mafia. Business-wise, it is far from over.
dralley 5y ago
> The vitriol on HN for FB is something else. > The earnings for this company are truly staggering. ... > You people are nuts. > While I don't love FB as an entity, as a business they are making fucking bank. ... Purdue Pharmaceuticals made a lot of money, too.
simpsond 5y ago
Growth is plateauing looking at earnings and guidance, so their market cap will reflect fair market value. Growth stocks need to accelerate to maintain high valuations. That and the market is extra sensitive right now IMO. Their numbers are staggering, but earnings and guidance isn’t.

sorry_outta_gas 5y ago

I get the feeling it's a lot of people bitter they failed the interview process

ARandomerDude 5y ago
Can't speak for others but I've never wanted to work at FB, never will, and can honestly say FB is a resume negative when I'm looking at candidates.
- jpgvm 5y ago
  I wouldn't go so far to say that FB would ever be a resume negative. It really depends on what their experience there was like. Some really great people went to work for FB after making bank a Google in the early days and I would gladly work with any of the folks from that stage of FB. Post that period there was some serious internal culture problems (performance culture SMH) and yeah... I would say most of the good folks (that weren't properly isolated from that misery) left and there was a dark age of FB engineering as a result. I think they recovered from this somewhat but these days it would need to be a case by case basis when I interview a candidate and get an understanding of their time at FB, what they worked on etc and with who.
nathanaldensr 5y ago
I would never even consider working for Facebook no matter their interview process. They are a loathsome company led by a psychopath. They could offer me a job right now with no interview and I wouldn't take it. Some people can't be bought. What about you?
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  Nearly every one can be bought. Choosing to be holier than thou while drawing a line of Facebook is awful, they can’t buy me, but otherwise not doing the same to the majority of public/big companies who are also ethically compromised, is not so much better. Yes, I’d take a high paying job at Facebook. I live in a status quo, unfair, corrupt capitalist society in the west. I know I have to play the game.
  - operatingthetan 5y ago
    >Nearly every one can be bought. Sure, if we're just talking about comparing generalizations or wild scenarios, but in context that person probably has access to other opportunities that rival or exceed Facebook's comp or social impact.
ummonk 5y ago
I worked at Facebook thinking it was trying to improve and have a positive impact on the world. Working there made me realize that the #1 goal was to increase active users, user engagement, and profitability, and having a responsible impact on the world would take a back seat to this. Additionally, it was clear that Zuck’s vision for the world is to create a universal platform through which the world connects and socializes, and the recent metaverse push is a dystopian continuation of this vision.
- moralestapia 5y ago
  >thinking it was trying to improve and have a positive impact on the world Were you like a very early employee or are you just that naive? FB's intent became quite clear, quite fast in their history. Like, remember when they became so famous for their lack of ethics that even a hollywood movie came out whose plot is pretty much only about that? And that was 12(!) years ago ... so, I am truly wondering, from where exactly did you get this idea of a company trying to change the world for good?

wutbrodo 5y ago

HN is worse than default subreddits when it comes to a handful of topics, and <any big tech company> is the most prominent category. There's plenty to criticize FB for, but the commenter community here gets truly unhinged whenever one of these topics comes up.

ohashi 5y ago

We can't be critical of a company that makes people miserable? That weakens democracy? That enables violence and hate? Just because they make a lot of money we should be cheering? Oh wow, they made $11! Let's forget everything else.

bot41 5y ago
Why post emotive comments on a financial post?
- YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
  Financial loss can be pretty emotional.
brokencode 5y ago
Sure, but try being critical about something that they can actually be faulted for rather than their incredible earnings. The OP was just pointing out that a lot of the criticism here made no sense.
stu2b50 5y ago
There’s a difference between hating Meta for its ethics and hating Meta as a money making machine. People are doing the latter and that’s pretty silly. Meta is, however unethically, a good entity at the goal of making money.
- pebble 5y ago
  They do the latter by compromising on the former.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bko 5y ago
Be critical all you want, just don't try to gaslight by saying they're on the verge of collapse and everyone hates them. They're extremely popular and billions log in every day because they apparently get some kind of value out of the product

nathanaldensr 5y ago

What does vitriol for Facebook have to do with how much money they made? You're post is one giant non-sequitur.

magicjosh 5y ago

This is a tech community, not a "making bank" community. You may be looking for a subreddit on investing for the reactions you're expecting.

gxs 5y ago
This is literally an article and comment about Facebook's finances.
- magicjosh 5y ago
  To be fair to the other commenters, they're also talking about the nature of the article, but more about what these financials mean for the tracking products, Facebook, and the "tracking industry" broadly.
- barbecue_sauce 5y ago
  Why does that matter?
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    Because it's the topic of the comments? What matters more than the article we're all commenting on?
hadlock 5y ago
A lot of us work for tech companies we may own shares in, or have options to buy. Knowing where the leaders in the market are going (up, down, flat) is, at worst, a weak signal of how tangential markets will trend in the coming months. Maybe this is less relevant to someone under 30, but as a lot of us creep into our early and late 40s, having a clearer picture of where we might end up in retirement is something many people have a keen interest in. FAANG stock trends, like it or not, dictate the larger tech sector, and right now 2/5 just took a 20% hit in the space of a week.
notacoward 5y ago
This is a venture-backed tech community, so it's pretty much about making bank. Also, it regularly celebrates big rounds and exits for other ethically questionable companies, so there's really no moral high ground to be had here.

unsui 5y ago

The vitriol is well-deserved. While there is no such thing as a perfectly-ethical company within a Capitalist framework, there are degrees of ethical behavior that rightly influence a company's reputation. Would I choose to work or support a company that clubs baby seals? Less hyperbolic, would I choose to support a company that continually seeks to profit from promoting extremism in dialogue, creating self-perpetuating echo-chambers which have real-world consequences (re: the very real danger to American democratic processes), in addition to brainwashing people's parents into believing in utter hogwash and tearing families apart? Yes, they are making bank. But at what cost? And should that cost influence your interaction with said company?

errcorrectcode 5y ago
Fendi entered the chat. "We object! We don't use barbaric clubs anymore, we use proper pistols to dispatch baby animals in order to steal their hides to make Predator human trophy garmets from them. Please browse our winter collection."

pessimizer 5y ago

The market, which is the subject, seems to have more vitriol than HN about their current performance.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

endisneigh 5y ago

poor guidance.

gonehome 5y ago

Betting against HN sentiment is usually a good way to make money. I hope Zuckerberg pulls off Meta and what he's trying to do. He's an extremely good CEO, and the alternative is more power in the hands of TikTok and CCP controlled social media which I think is a lot worse. I'm glad to see the investment they're making in trying to build a new platform, I hope we see AR hardware from Apple soon too.

errcorrectcode 5y ago

I look at it as a value-investing opportunity. Non-investors and vacillating ones can scoff as I laugh all the way to said bank.

randomsearch 5y ago

FB represents everything that hackers despise. That is why a site full of hackers despises them.

hunterb123 5y ago
Social media represents everything I hate, but Twitter's usecase & userbase is further up in toxicity than Facebook imo. I wouldn't say FB represents everything I hate, as I mainly use it as a contact book. "Hacker News" also hates crypto, Tesla, Brave, and other random things and I don't think the same way about. (I wonder why that is? </rhetorical>) TLDR: speak for yourself, not all "hackers".

jseliger 5y ago

It's been like this on HN since at least 2018: https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual-facebook-crisis-or-media-narrative-about-facebook-crisis/ https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual-facebo...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

rvz 5y ago

> While I don't love FB as an entity, as a business they are making fucking bank. They are running a printing press, and the world is eating it up. Y'all need to switch to decaf or something. Their numbers are truly staggering. Precisely. It's actually a very long term battle between Meta, Apple and Google. Not even a widespread outage can stop them. It would be a mistake to write them off immediately over this atrocious earnings call, no matter how much I think of them as a mafia. Business-wise, it is far from over.

dralley 5y ago

> The vitriol on HN for FB is something else. > The earnings for this company are truly staggering. ... > You people are nuts. > While I don't love FB as an entity, as a business they are making fucking bank. ... Purdue Pharmaceuticals made a lot of money, too.

simpsond 5y ago

Growth is plateauing looking at earnings and guidance, so their market cap will reflect fair market value. Growth stocks need to accelerate to maintain high valuations. That and the market is extra sensitive right now IMO. Their numbers are staggering, but earnings and guidance isn’t.