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My guess is this is ultimately about money. Facebook/Meta stock lost 30% of it's value a few months back and may not recover any time soon. Many of these peop

My guess is this is ultimately about money. Facebook/Meta stock lost 30% of it's value a few months back and may not recover any time soon. Many of these people are high level, so I'm guessing (based on a quick skim of levels.fyi) about 50% or more of their TC comes from stock. This amounts to an effective 15% pay cut in a year with record inflation. I think most of us would leave our job over a 15% pay cut, especially if we were well established in the field. On top of this it loosens those golden handcuffs quite a bit for anyone who was on the fence about being employed by facebook, but couldn't say no to the comp.

gumby 5y ago
A lot of folks get into a zone where the money no longer matters, as long as it’s in a range where you don’t have to think about it. Still they might leave simply because they’ve been there a while, or want a change, or want to work with some particular people who are at a different organization. Not to say that some might be motivated by money, but at that level I would be surprised if it motivated many.
- thebean11 5y ago
  I'm not sure, I can't imagine feeling that way. The jump from $500k to $650k, or 1mil to 1.2mil, would still feel pretty significant, in terms of cash hitting your bank account.
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    Depending on levels of investment, those amounts are close to month-to-month portfolio variance.
    - tibyat 5y ago
    - thebean11 5y ago
      Sure, in my mind those wouldn't connect though.
  - gumby 5y ago
    Honestly, many many people feel that way. I have been there most of my working life. When you don’t make enough to make ends meet, or to do so comfortably, sure, fixing that situation is going to be very important to you. But once you have what you need to live the life you want, why not simply live the life you want? One of my closest friends has been at google for almost 20 years. He doesn’t want to be promoted because he likes his job and his coworkers. OTOH if money is your thing, that’s OK too.
  - bitcharmer 5y ago
    I don't think this is correct. I'm lucky enough to be on a level where turning down a 100k increase in salary is something that I have to routinely do because my current job ticks so many boxes and I genuinely love it and don't have to risk it for that amount.
    - thebean11 5y ago
      I'm not saying these people wouldn't take a six figure pay cut for a job they like better. Just saying a six figure increase can still be pretty significant and material.
- tibyat 5y ago
- 015a 5y ago
  This idea that "eventually you make enough where money doesn't matter anymore" is a meme that couldn't be more wrong. Its the kind of thing said by someone who has never made that much money, but who is extrapolating their current relationship with money to a compensation multiples higher; then saying "well if I can live on $X right now, then the Y in $X+Y wouldn't matter, so money must not matter (past some level) (and, coincidentally, that level is always somewhere around what I make) (weird how it always works out like that, right?)". You can say that it shouldn't matter; that a $200k salary decrease to someone making seven figures shouldn't matter, because they're rich and they can take it. Maybe that's a correct assertion; that it shouldn't matter. But: it does. Money always matters. Money always matters. Money always matters.
  - hnaccount_rng 5y ago
    Well that's not true... at least not for me. I'm not even at the point of earning excessive amounts of money (research scientist at a german university E13, so about 60kEur). And already now I don't care enough about money to have it influence where I'm thinking about applying...
  - nautilius 5y ago
    Not true for me either.
  - chaostheory 5y ago
    For Silicon Valley, especially in Silicon Valley, this mindset doesn’t always hold true. It’s one of the quirks of the region and the people there.
    - gumby 5y ago
      Until the dot com era money really wasn’t much of a “thing” here (SV), and you’re right: even now it’s more of an SF thing, but has infected the Valley too.
  - BeetleB 5y ago
    > Money always matters. Money always matters. Money always matters Except when it doesn't. A Principal Engineer at my company, could easily increase his salary 20-50% by moving to a FAANG, and can do Leetcode problems in his head, doesn't move. Because he has more independence here and can work on more interesting problems here. He grew up in relative poverty. He already gets paid a lot. It's enough for him.
- time_to_smile 5y ago
  I find this is true for me, but I ultimately don't work for a FAANG because the money isn't that important to me and there are many things about FAANG companies I don't like. However I don't think this generalizes well for people who do aggressively pursue careers at FAANG companies. My experience has been that most of the people I know that work for FAANG are extremely TC conscious, that's a large part of why they work at a FAANG in the first place and the source of a non-trivial amount of their self worth. If you look around the comments on Blind (a biased source for sure, but certainly a non-zero part of the community) you'll find plenty of people where TC is all that matters. I interviewed at FB a few years ago and one thing that surprised me when I asked "what's your favorite thing about working here?" I got the same answer from everyone I talked to: the compensation/benefits. I thought for sure the answers would involve working on hard problems at scale, having incredible amounts of data etc. However without fail every interviewer immediately pointed out their comp and other perks as their primary motivator for working there. In general I would say that people that make a lot of money, make a lot of money because making a lot of money is important to them.
- shitpostbot 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
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caymanjim 5y ago
Once your basic needs are taken care of, inflation at current levels is irrelevant. I'm by no means rich. By HN standards I have an average income. If not for the daily news stories about it, I wouldn't even know there was any inflation bubble right now. The top AI people at Meta make a substantial multiple of what I make. They might be leaving for more money, but it has absolutely nothing to do with inflation. People at that salary level usually leave for other reasons, like not wanting to work for such a morally bankrupt company whose sole purpose is selling ads.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Genuine question, when you shop for groceries do you not look at prices at all and just buy what you want and tap your phone at the checkout? Because to me, it seems impossible to not notice the inflation in food prices over the past year. It hasn't really changed my life, but it's very noticable that prices are going up.
  - junipertea 5y ago
    I make 6 figures. I honestly do not look at food prices when I shop. It's a negligible expense after rent, savings and mortgage.
    - andreilys 5y ago
      If you pay rent, then you should be aware of the inflation bubble.
      - treyfitty 5y ago
        Rent is agreed upon in 1/2+ year leases. So, no. You can pay a fixed rate stipulated just before inflation.
      - BeetleB 5y ago
        Depends on the city you live in. Rent here has been going up for a long time - even when inflation was near zero. So for locals, the rent increase alone is not an indicator of inflation.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
glenstein 5y ago
>Facebook/Meta stock lost 30% of it's value a few months back and may not recover any time soon. I think a significant driver of that was the tightening screws re: criticism and pending federal investigation. The brand reinvention was in the context of changing perceptions that could culminate in existential threats to the company. There is no good way out of it, but changing the conversation from "Break up facebook" to "gee that Meta sure is weird", is a mixed success, and exchanging catastrophe for mixed success made quite a bit of sense as a strategy.

gumby 5y ago

A lot of folks get into a zone where the money no longer matters, as long as it’s in a range where you don’t have to think about it. Still they might leave simply because they’ve been there a while, or want a change, or want to work with some particular people who are at a different organization. Not to say that some might be motivated by money, but at that level I would be surprised if it motivated many.

thebean11 5y ago
I'm not sure, I can't imagine feeling that way. The jump from $500k to $650k, or 1mil to 1.2mil, would still feel pretty significant, in terms of cash hitting your bank account.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  Depending on levels of investment, those amounts are close to month-to-month portfolio variance.
  - tibyat 5y ago
  - thebean11 5y ago
    Sure, in my mind those wouldn't connect though.
- gumby 5y ago
  Honestly, many many people feel that way. I have been there most of my working life. When you don’t make enough to make ends meet, or to do so comfortably, sure, fixing that situation is going to be very important to you. But once you have what you need to live the life you want, why not simply live the life you want? One of my closest friends has been at google for almost 20 years. He doesn’t want to be promoted because he likes his job and his coworkers. OTOH if money is your thing, that’s OK too.
- bitcharmer 5y ago
  I don't think this is correct. I'm lucky enough to be on a level where turning down a 100k increase in salary is something that I have to routinely do because my current job ticks so many boxes and I genuinely love it and don't have to risk it for that amount.
  - thebean11 5y ago
    I'm not saying these people wouldn't take a six figure pay cut for a job they like better. Just saying a six figure increase can still be pretty significant and material.
tibyat 5y ago
015a 5y ago
This idea that "eventually you make enough where money doesn't matter anymore" is a meme that couldn't be more wrong. Its the kind of thing said by someone who has never made that much money, but who is extrapolating their current relationship with money to a compensation multiples higher; then saying "well if I can live on $X right now, then the Y in $X+Y wouldn't matter, so money must not matter (past some level) (and, coincidentally, that level is always somewhere around what I make) (weird how it always works out like that, right?)". You can say that it shouldn't matter; that a $200k salary decrease to someone making seven figures shouldn't matter, because they're rich and they can take it. Maybe that's a correct assertion; that it shouldn't matter. But: it does. Money always matters. Money always matters. Money always matters.
- hnaccount_rng 5y ago
  Well that's not true... at least not for me. I'm not even at the point of earning excessive amounts of money (research scientist at a german university E13, so about 60kEur). And already now I don't care enough about money to have it influence where I'm thinking about applying...
- nautilius 5y ago
  Not true for me either.
- chaostheory 5y ago
  For Silicon Valley, especially in Silicon Valley, this mindset doesn’t always hold true. It’s one of the quirks of the region and the people there.
  - gumby 5y ago
    Until the dot com era money really wasn’t much of a “thing” here (SV), and you’re right: even now it’s more of an SF thing, but has infected the Valley too.
- BeetleB 5y ago
  > Money always matters. Money always matters. Money always matters Except when it doesn't. A Principal Engineer at my company, could easily increase his salary 20-50% by moving to a FAANG, and can do Leetcode problems in his head, doesn't move. Because he has more independence here and can work on more interesting problems here. He grew up in relative poverty. He already gets paid a lot. It's enough for him.
time_to_smile 5y ago
I find this is true for me, but I ultimately don't work for a FAANG because the money isn't that important to me and there are many things about FAANG companies I don't like. However I don't think this generalizes well for people who do aggressively pursue careers at FAANG companies. My experience has been that most of the people I know that work for FAANG are extremely TC conscious, that's a large part of why they work at a FAANG in the first place and the source of a non-trivial amount of their self worth. If you look around the comments on Blind (a biased source for sure, but certainly a non-zero part of the community) you'll find plenty of people where TC is all that matters. I interviewed at FB a few years ago and one thing that surprised me when I asked "what's your favorite thing about working here?" I got the same answer from everyone I talked to: the compensation/benefits. I thought for sure the answers would involve working on hard problems at scale, having incredible amounts of data etc. However without fail every interviewer immediately pointed out their comp and other perks as their primary motivator for working there. In general I would say that people that make a lot of money, make a lot of money because making a lot of money is important to them.
shitpostbot 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

caymanjim 5y ago

Once your basic needs are taken care of, inflation at current levels is irrelevant. I'm by no means rich. By HN standards I have an average income. If not for the daily news stories about it, I wouldn't even know there was any inflation bubble right now. The top AI people at Meta make a substantial multiple of what I make. They might be leaving for more money, but it has absolutely nothing to do with inflation. People at that salary level usually leave for other reasons, like not wanting to work for such a morally bankrupt company whose sole purpose is selling ads.

throwawayboise 5y ago
Genuine question, when you shop for groceries do you not look at prices at all and just buy what you want and tap your phone at the checkout? Because to me, it seems impossible to not notice the inflation in food prices over the past year. It hasn't really changed my life, but it's very noticable that prices are going up.
- junipertea 5y ago
  I make 6 figures. I honestly do not look at food prices when I shop. It's a negligible expense after rent, savings and mortgage.
  - andreilys 5y ago
    If you pay rent, then you should be aware of the inflation bubble.
    - treyfitty 5y ago
      Rent is agreed upon in 1/2+ year leases. So, no. You can pay a fixed rate stipulated just before inflation.
    - BeetleB 5y ago
      Depends on the city you live in. Rent here has been going up for a long time - even when inflation was near zero. So for locals, the rent increase alone is not an indicator of inflation.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

glenstein 5y ago

>Facebook/Meta stock lost 30% of it's value a few months back and may not recover any time soon. I think a significant driver of that was the tightening screws re: criticism and pending federal investigation. The brand reinvention was in the context of changing perceptions that could culminate in existential threats to the company. There is no good way out of it, but changing the conversation from "Break up facebook" to "gee that Meta sure is weird", is a mixed success, and exchanging catastrophe for mixed success made quite a bit of sense as a strategy.