12 ms·

Mark Zuckerberg ‘visibly frustrated’ over worker’s vacation question

43 points by oumua_don17 4y ago

jef_leppard 4y ago
It was a really boneheaded question to be sure. I feel really bad for “Gary” who is getting dragged in the media left and right now however. Can you imagine? I’d be mortified.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  Honestly, it's a solid and fair question of labor to management. If they're going to be changing incentives, an employee is in the right to ask about related incentives so that they can make the educated decision sooner rather than later that "this place isn't for you," which was Zuckerberg's stated goal in the Q&A. The door swings both ways, and if Meta can't exist without making people work harder for less compensation, maybe Meta doesn't need to be in the market. More information shared earlier can optimize everyone's time.
- lotsofspots 4y ago
  It is my understanding that the question was pre-recorded and submitted in advance, the 'fault' seems to lie with the moderator who selected that one to be answered.
  - jef_leppard 4y ago
    If that’s the case that really sucks.
  - kar5pt 4y ago
    This is correct. It was pre-recorded.
- ctvo 4y ago
  It wasn't a boneheaded question at all. As an executive in an all-hands situation, with thousands of employees and their concerns, you'll get questions that are uncomfortable (because they're repetitive, touch on grey areas, etc. etc.). Mark is partially a billionaire because he should be able to handle these softballs more gracefully. Mark not being able to empathize and give a more human answer is a fault, not some logical depth and honesty revealed like some of his employees saw it. Edit here's an example: We've talked a lot today about the headwinds and economic conditions we're expecting for this year and the following few years. In that same vein, we'll reevaluate meta days. Right now I expect them to be reduced both to save costs and because we're transitioning to a more hybrid working environment. I pulled that out of my butt in 5 seconds. There's no need to be a big baby at a fluff event.
  - jef_leppard 4y ago
    Well I guess we disagree then. As always with these things, it’s more nuanced. The timing of that question was the part that I think was pretty poorly thought out. That wasn’t even the point of my post though. I was expressing sympathy for the poster. Poor guys probably having a rough go with all the media attention. Sucks. Fwiw. I’m seeing other comments saying that it was pre recorded which if true means the timing wasn’t even “Gary’s” fault.
- wutwutwutwut 4y ago
  What is boneheaded about it?
spywaregorilla 4y ago
Jokes aside, why does Mark look so strange? He really does have this... I wanna say Alien franchise android feel about him. I can't think of anyone else who has this quality. It seems to be his skin mostly.
- nominusllc 4y ago
  Reminds me of Data from Star Trek playing the role of Julius Caesar
  - pupppet 4y ago
    Perfection
- dboreham 4y ago
  Max Headroom?
- Karawebnetwork 4y ago
  Isn't he simply a redhead with dark hair? He does not seem any different from a lot of people I have met in real life. Here are some more candid photos of him: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Mark_Zuckerberg%2C_World_Economic_Forum_2009_Annual_Meeting.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Mark_Zuc... https://assets.entrepreneur.com/content/3x2/2000/20150316195218-facebook-mark-zuckerberg-ceo.jpeg https://assets.entrepreneur.com/content/3x2/2000/20150316195...
  - chitowneats 4y ago
    It's the haircut he sports these days. He looks much better in these photos. Just my personal opinion, YMMV.
  - toastercat 4y ago
    He was much younger in those photos I believe. His current look draws ridicule likely because of his shorter hair and hairline, and very pale skin look.
ketchupdebugger 4y ago
Must be a slow news day to recycle events that happened a month ago.
- user00012-ab 4y ago
  Seems like most "news" on HN has gone down hill in favor of a stream of constantly updating news. I've been thinking that HN should update their algorithm to punish people that post links that don't get comments; so you are incentivized to only post a link if you think it'll actually be interesting. Maybe just give -100 karma for every link you post, and then you get karma back based on the percentage of points in comments on the post. I've also notice the number of duplicate/triplicate+++ submissions seems to be increasing also. Guess no one has time to check if the story has already been added. This would also be fixed by giving an initial -100 points per post. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
  - dogman144 4y ago
    As in incentivize users to post things that will engage best, which is known to be posts that incite outrage/anger? You’d turn HN into everything else that is bad about social media.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    I don't think your prescribed solution will work. I haven't done formal research (and actually, that might be a fun exercise for someone to do... Scrape HN and categorize keywords in low-comment articles vs. high-comment articles), but the interesting stuff seems to tend to be technical and generate low engagement (because the only people who could add to the technical content would be those with focused knowledge in the field), while the "TMZ but for Silicon Valley"-type stories tend to be high engagement (because everyone's got an opinion on Zuckerberg, or Bezos, or Pichai, and they're more than happy to share it). As any site becomes popular, regression to the mean is a predictable outcome.
  - ziddoap 4y ago
    A site that is meant to foster discussion about interesting topics, and your solution is to punish the people who post things they found interesting? Yeah, no thanks from me. It takes less than a second for me to see a duplicate and ignore it. Many times a duplicate is actually my first encounter (I'm not on here 24/7, reading every single post). There's also a pattern of visibility problems with some posts, otherwise there wouldn't be a second-chance pool -- good quality posts that are posted at the wrong time or whatever -- and you want to punish those users? For having a good post that didn't get lucky enough or wasn't posted at the right time? I guess if you want to massively reduce the number of submissions (including many engaging and topical posts) this would be one way to do it... Not sure it'd bring the results you're after.
astockwell 4y ago
Very interesting to see all these CEOs delivering very similar messages to their employees with VERY different tones (Shopify, Klarna). Definitely making some notes for future employment choices.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  This would also be a good time for CEOs to be paying very close attention on what works and what doesn't work so well. The economy's suffering a whiplash of missed expectations and that's going to cause pain. How pain gets spread around is what differentiates companies in times like these.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Yes, very much this. I had never considered working for Shopify, but I would, even at under market rates, because they’ve publicly demonstrated they treat their team humanely. This is invaluable, from a corporate culture perspective.
- adrr 4y ago
  There are companies still growing in this economy and who are actively hiring.
almost_usual 4y ago
Why would anyone work here anymore. Bad work life balance, executives blaming everyone but themselves, obsolete product. Their only hope is a gamble on a 3d virtual experience which sounds interesting but far fetched.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  Mostly because "pay and benefits aren't as good as they were before this downturn" is still a salary of $160k a year on average, which is triple the national average. There may be other, better software companies, but (a) people can get very comfortable with the devil they know and (b) right this second, the belt-tightening isn't just at Meta, it's everywhere; it may not be the best time to change employers.
  - jejeyyy77 4y ago
    You can make $160K at almost any US company as a software guy...
    - aliqot 4y ago
      yea and you wouldnt have to live/pay bay area costs
      - sweettea 4y ago
        Among the traditional FAANG, Facebook is the most remote friendly of them, with a large proportion of the company being fulltime remote.
        slenk 4y ago
        Based on Zuck's attitude, I doubt remote will stay
      - Aaronstotle 4y ago
        I make significantly less than 160k and live in the bay area, 160k is still a large amount of money, even living here.
acido303 4y ago
Birth->Grow->Work->Die
- tennisflyi 4y ago
  Yes - startup, growth, maturity and renewal/rebirth or decline
jejeyyy77 4y ago
If you are going to offer "unlimited vacation days" as part of compensation you better be prepared to honor it. I tell people to take at LEAST 4 weeks a year because 2-3 weeks is what you'd typically get at any other job.
- peterkelly 4y ago
  In Australia, 4 weeks is the legal minimum for any full-time employee, regardless of the job.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  I hate to say it (because I've worked at more companies that have it than don't), but "unlimited vacation days" is a trap. In practice, it turns too many vacations into a per-event negotiation with one's boss instead of "I have days accumulated, this is an average work week, I'm out" being a simple process. I prefer a setup where the company has employees accumulate vacation days but also has a flexible policy about "going into debt" so that if something significant comes up, it's easy to deal with.
  - wollsmoth 4y ago
    Yeah, having employees decide how much vacation to take based on their own personal guilt and their boss' discretion is an uncomfortable dynamic.
    - muttled 4y ago
      Especially if you have a moody boss where you find yourself tip-toeing around them until they're in a good mood to put in the request.
  - jejeyyy77 4y ago
    100% agree, it is BS the way it has played out. Which is why default to 4 weeks - this is a bare minimum. Anything on top (i.e taking personal days off every few Fridays, etc.) is the additional benefit.
  - 4y ago
theden 4y ago
What was wrong with the question? There is no bad time to ask about your worker rights, especially when layoffs are in question. Seems to me like mark can't read the room, even when he's the one controlling it
bmitc 4y ago
Regardless of what you think about the question, just think about the narcissism required to be one of the richest people on the planet and even in the history of mankind but yet respond to questions like this. Like, there's not one iota of empathy in any of his recent statements. These people treat their corporation like it's a machine and that the people are completely expendable. For example, look at his recent statement about people being at Facebook that probably shouldn't be there. Well, Mark, you're the CEO. Why is Facebook hiring people that shouldn't be there or not putting them on performance plans prior to the announcement of "turning up the heat"? The fact that he needs to make that statement reflects poorly on him and the leadership, and the fact that he actually made the statement shows that he has contempt for his own employees.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- wollsmoth 4y ago
  It is this weird move that is probably going to eat at people who are insecure about their own productivity. Is this an environment where employees can really lock in and focus on their tasks at hand?
- drewcoo 4y ago
  I don't like Zuck. But a couple of things to consider here: 1. Lacking apparent empathy is not narcissism. It doesn't even mean he doesn't have empathy, in fact. 2. If he admitted that management had made mistakes it would affect the stock price.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - bmitc 4y ago
    Lacking empathy is one of the major characteristics or symptoms of narcissistic personality disorders. I think it is a weird semantical argument to say someone could have empathy but never showcase it.
- 4y ago
lapcat 4y ago
Original source: https://www.theverge.com/23277797/mark-zuckerberg-meta-facebook-employees-pressure https://www.theverge.com/23277797/mark-zuckerberg-meta-faceb... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32246799 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32246799 (87 comments) NY Post: "according to a recording obtained by The Verge"
seanhunter 4y ago
This is really interesting to me because it would be so easy to have handled this better. Yes the question is somewhat insensitive given the circumstances. On the other hand if you do any meeting you have to deal with the things the other people in the meeting care about. You can't only deal with the things you care about. If you only want to make it about one-to-many one-way information flow, send an email. Or have the meeting but don't take questions, say you'll deal with questions 1-to-1 or something. If you have a meeting and decide to take open questions but you don't want to deal with certain questions have someone you trust moderate the questions.
- fxleach 4y ago
  I'm interested to know why you feel the question is insensitive. One of the biggest perks I look for in any position is the time off and how it's handled. If a company wants me working hard and giving them my best I want my time off to reflect that. They are most likely going to clamp down on vacation time or deny it altogether when the times comes so I see the question as completely fair.
  - seanhunter 4y ago
    Well it depends a lot on context I suppose. I thought it insensitive because it could come across as "I know you've just said you're going to lay a bunch of folks off, but since I'm on the lifeboat, can we talk a little bit about my time off..."
    - bearmode 4y ago
      The questions were pre-recorded. It said so in the linked article. Nobody knew what Zuck was going to say when they asked their questions.
      - seanhunter 4y ago
        I misunderstood that. Then the questioner is 100% not to blame in my view.
jordanmorgan10 4y ago
Sometimes it's hard to believe this kind of thing even happens in tech. In many ways, I feel shielded from the "real world" of Silicon Valley having been working at an employee friendly company for almost seven years. If the CEO of a company I worked for said this, I'd have a lot of anxiety, straight up.
dbg31415 4y ago
So let me get this straight... by making the workplace more hostile, Facebook plans on retaining top talent? Yeah, that's how it works alright. Spot on. They may weed out a few at the bottom, but it's going to cost them just as many from the top. Turns out, the workers you want all have options. Doing anything to make them unhappy just shoots your company in the foot.
open-paren 4y ago
Tangentially, I've never attended a company-wide Q&A session that has gone well. It's always obvious that the C-suite wants the questions to be about company growth and strategy, but the employee questions are always about benefits, vacation time, and company policy, which the C-suites are not equipped to answer well. The Meta example in the article just further cements this opinion of mine.
- CydeWeys 4y ago
  The weekly Q&A at Google with Larry and Sergey was good. They're long gone now though.
  - blinkblank 4y ago
    Which honestly kind of frustrates me. The old q and a's at least attempted to answer the questions. Now it's just flowery answers that conveniently don't answer anything. But I might also be looking through rose tinted glasses
- muttled 4y ago
  I've heard so many times "We'll get back to you on that." And then at my current company, I heard that, and later on in the day we received an email response with all the questions they weren't able to answer live at the meeting. It was a refreshing change.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

43 points by oumua_don17 4y ago

It was a really boneheaded question to be sure. I feel really bad for “Gary” who is getting dragged in the media left and right now however. Can you imagine? I’d be mortified.

shadowgovt 4y ago
Honestly, it's a solid and fair question of labor to management. If they're going to be changing incentives, an employee is in the right to ask about related incentives so that they can make the educated decision sooner rather than later that "this place isn't for you," which was Zuckerberg's stated goal in the Q&A. The door swings both ways, and if Meta can't exist without making people work harder for less compensation, maybe Meta doesn't need to be in the market. More information shared earlier can optimize everyone's time.
lotsofspots 4y ago
It is my understanding that the question was pre-recorded and submitted in advance, the 'fault' seems to lie with the moderator who selected that one to be answered.
- jef_leppard 4y ago
  If that’s the case that really sucks.
- kar5pt 4y ago
  This is correct. It was pre-recorded.
ctvo 4y ago
It wasn't a boneheaded question at all. As an executive in an all-hands situation, with thousands of employees and their concerns, you'll get questions that are uncomfortable (because they're repetitive, touch on grey areas, etc. etc.). Mark is partially a billionaire because he should be able to handle these softballs more gracefully. Mark not being able to empathize and give a more human answer is a fault, not some logical depth and honesty revealed like some of his employees saw it. Edit here's an example: We've talked a lot today about the headwinds and economic conditions we're expecting for this year and the following few years. In that same vein, we'll reevaluate meta days. Right now I expect them to be reduced both to save costs and because we're transitioning to a more hybrid working environment. I pulled that out of my butt in 5 seconds. There's no need to be a big baby at a fluff event.
- jef_leppard 4y ago
  Well I guess we disagree then. As always with these things, it’s more nuanced. The timing of that question was the part that I think was pretty poorly thought out. That wasn’t even the point of my post though. I was expressing sympathy for the poster. Poor guys probably having a rough go with all the media attention. Sucks. Fwiw. I’m seeing other comments saying that it was pre recorded which if true means the timing wasn’t even “Gary’s” fault.
wutwutwutwut 4y ago
What is boneheaded about it?

spywaregorilla 4y ago

Jokes aside, why does Mark look so strange? He really does have this... I wanna say Alien franchise android feel about him. I can't think of anyone else who has this quality. It seems to be his skin mostly.

nominusllc 4y ago
Reminds me of Data from Star Trek playing the role of Julius Caesar
- pupppet 4y ago
  Perfection
dboreham 4y ago
Max Headroom?
Karawebnetwork 4y ago
Isn't he simply a redhead with dark hair? He does not seem any different from a lot of people I have met in real life. Here are some more candid photos of him: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Mark_Zuckerberg%2C_World_Economic_Forum_2009_Annual_Meeting.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Mark_Zuc... https://assets.entrepreneur.com/content/3x2/2000/20150316195218-facebook-mark-zuckerberg-ceo.jpeg https://assets.entrepreneur.com/content/3x2/2000/20150316195...
- chitowneats 4y ago
  It's the haircut he sports these days. He looks much better in these photos. Just my personal opinion, YMMV.
- toastercat 4y ago
  He was much younger in those photos I believe. His current look draws ridicule likely because of his shorter hair and hairline, and very pale skin look.

ketchupdebugger 4y ago

Must be a slow news day to recycle events that happened a month ago.

user00012-ab 4y ago
Seems like most "news" on HN has gone down hill in favor of a stream of constantly updating news. I've been thinking that HN should update their algorithm to punish people that post links that don't get comments; so you are incentivized to only post a link if you think it'll actually be interesting. Maybe just give -100 karma for every link you post, and then you get karma back based on the percentage of points in comments on the post. I've also notice the number of duplicate/triplicate+++ submissions seems to be increasing also. Guess no one has time to check if the story has already been added. This would also be fixed by giving an initial -100 points per post. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
- dogman144 4y ago
  As in incentivize users to post things that will engage best, which is known to be posts that incite outrage/anger? You’d turn HN into everything else that is bad about social media.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  I don't think your prescribed solution will work. I haven't done formal research (and actually, that might be a fun exercise for someone to do... Scrape HN and categorize keywords in low-comment articles vs. high-comment articles), but the interesting stuff seems to tend to be technical and generate low engagement (because the only people who could add to the technical content would be those with focused knowledge in the field), while the "TMZ but for Silicon Valley"-type stories tend to be high engagement (because everyone's got an opinion on Zuckerberg, or Bezos, or Pichai, and they're more than happy to share it). As any site becomes popular, regression to the mean is a predictable outcome.
- ziddoap 4y ago
  A site that is meant to foster discussion about interesting topics, and your solution is to punish the people who post things they found interesting? Yeah, no thanks from me. It takes less than a second for me to see a duplicate and ignore it. Many times a duplicate is actually my first encounter (I'm not on here 24/7, reading every single post). There's also a pattern of visibility problems with some posts, otherwise there wouldn't be a second-chance pool -- good quality posts that are posted at the wrong time or whatever -- and you want to punish those users? For having a good post that didn't get lucky enough or wasn't posted at the right time? I guess if you want to massively reduce the number of submissions (including many engaging and topical posts) this would be one way to do it... Not sure it'd bring the results you're after.

astockwell 4y ago

Very interesting to see all these CEOs delivering very similar messages to their employees with VERY different tones (Shopify, Klarna). Definitely making some notes for future employment choices.

shadowgovt 4y ago
This would also be a good time for CEOs to be paying very close attention on what works and what doesn't work so well. The economy's suffering a whiplash of missed expectations and that's going to cause pain. How pain gets spread around is what differentiates companies in times like these.
toomuchtodo 4y ago
Yes, very much this. I had never considered working for Shopify, but I would, even at under market rates, because they’ve publicly demonstrated they treat their team humanely. This is invaluable, from a corporate culture perspective.
adrr 4y ago
There are companies still growing in this economy and who are actively hiring.

almost_usual 4y ago

Why would anyone work here anymore. Bad work life balance, executives blaming everyone but themselves, obsolete product. Their only hope is a gamble on a 3d virtual experience which sounds interesting but far fetched.

shadowgovt 4y ago
Mostly because "pay and benefits aren't as good as they were before this downturn" is still a salary of $160k a year on average, which is triple the national average. There may be other, better software companies, but (a) people can get very comfortable with the devil they know and (b) right this second, the belt-tightening isn't just at Meta, it's everywhere; it may not be the best time to change employers.
- jejeyyy77 4y ago
  You can make $160K at almost any US company as a software guy...
  - aliqot 4y ago
    yea and you wouldnt have to live/pay bay area costs
    - sweettea 4y ago
      Among the traditional FAANG, Facebook is the most remote friendly of them, with a large proportion of the company being fulltime remote.
      - slenk 4y ago
        Based on Zuck's attitude, I doubt remote will stay
    - Aaronstotle 4y ago
      I make significantly less than 160k and live in the bay area, 160k is still a large amount of money, even living here.

acido303 4y ago

Birth->Grow->Work->Die

tennisflyi 4y ago
Yes - startup, growth, maturity and renewal/rebirth or decline

jejeyyy77 4y ago

If you are going to offer "unlimited vacation days" as part of compensation you better be prepared to honor it. I tell people to take at LEAST 4 weeks a year because 2-3 weeks is what you'd typically get at any other job.

peterkelly 4y ago
In Australia, 4 weeks is the legal minimum for any full-time employee, regardless of the job.
shadowgovt 4y ago
I hate to say it (because I've worked at more companies that have it than don't), but "unlimited vacation days" is a trap. In practice, it turns too many vacations into a per-event negotiation with one's boss instead of "I have days accumulated, this is an average work week, I'm out" being a simple process. I prefer a setup where the company has employees accumulate vacation days but also has a flexible policy about "going into debt" so that if something significant comes up, it's easy to deal with.
- wollsmoth 4y ago
  Yeah, having employees decide how much vacation to take based on their own personal guilt and their boss' discretion is an uncomfortable dynamic.
  - muttled 4y ago
    Especially if you have a moody boss where you find yourself tip-toeing around them until they're in a good mood to put in the request.
- jejeyyy77 4y ago
  100% agree, it is BS the way it has played out. Which is why default to 4 weeks - this is a bare minimum. Anything on top (i.e taking personal days off every few Fridays, etc.) is the additional benefit.
- 4y ago

theden 4y ago

What was wrong with the question? There is no bad time to ask about your worker rights, especially when layoffs are in question. Seems to me like mark can't read the room, even when he's the one controlling it

bmitc 4y ago

Regardless of what you think about the question, just think about the narcissism required to be one of the richest people on the planet and even in the history of mankind but yet respond to questions like this. Like, there's not one iota of empathy in any of his recent statements. These people treat their corporation like it's a machine and that the people are completely expendable. For example, look at his recent statement about people being at Facebook that probably shouldn't be there. Well, Mark, you're the CEO. Why is Facebook hiring people that shouldn't be there or not putting them on performance plans prior to the announcement of "turning up the heat"? The fact that he needs to make that statement reflects poorly on him and the leadership, and the fact that he actually made the statement shows that he has contempt for his own employees.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
wollsmoth 4y ago
It is this weird move that is probably going to eat at people who are insecure about their own productivity. Is this an environment where employees can really lock in and focus on their tasks at hand?
drewcoo 4y ago
I don't like Zuck. But a couple of things to consider here: 1. Lacking apparent empathy is not narcissism. It doesn't even mean he doesn't have empathy, in fact. 2. If he admitted that management had made mistakes it would affect the stock price.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bmitc 4y ago
  Lacking empathy is one of the major characteristics or symptoms of narcissistic personality disorders. I think it is a weird semantical argument to say someone could have empathy but never showcase it.
4y ago

lapcat 4y ago

Original source: https://www.theverge.com/23277797/mark-zuckerberg-meta-facebook-employees-pressure https://www.theverge.com/23277797/mark-zuckerberg-meta-faceb... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32246799 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32246799 (87 comments) NY Post: "according to a recording obtained by The Verge"

seanhunter 4y ago

This is really interesting to me because it would be so easy to have handled this better. Yes the question is somewhat insensitive given the circumstances. On the other hand if you do any meeting you have to deal with the things the other people in the meeting care about. You can't only deal with the things you care about. If you only want to make it about one-to-many one-way information flow, send an email. Or have the meeting but don't take questions, say you'll deal with questions 1-to-1 or something. If you have a meeting and decide to take open questions but you don't want to deal with certain questions have someone you trust moderate the questions.

fxleach 4y ago
I'm interested to know why you feel the question is insensitive. One of the biggest perks I look for in any position is the time off and how it's handled. If a company wants me working hard and giving them my best I want my time off to reflect that. They are most likely going to clamp down on vacation time or deny it altogether when the times comes so I see the question as completely fair.
- seanhunter 4y ago
  Well it depends a lot on context I suppose. I thought it insensitive because it could come across as "I know you've just said you're going to lay a bunch of folks off, but since I'm on the lifeboat, can we talk a little bit about my time off..."
  - bearmode 4y ago
    The questions were pre-recorded. It said so in the linked article. Nobody knew what Zuck was going to say when they asked their questions.
    - seanhunter 4y ago
      I misunderstood that. Then the questioner is 100% not to blame in my view.

jordanmorgan10 4y ago

Sometimes it's hard to believe this kind of thing even happens in tech. In many ways, I feel shielded from the "real world" of Silicon Valley having been working at an employee friendly company for almost seven years. If the CEO of a company I worked for said this, I'd have a lot of anxiety, straight up.

dbg31415 4y ago

So let me get this straight... by making the workplace more hostile, Facebook plans on retaining top talent? Yeah, that's how it works alright. Spot on. They may weed out a few at the bottom, but it's going to cost them just as many from the top. Turns out, the workers you want all have options. Doing anything to make them unhappy just shoots your company in the foot.

open-paren 4y ago

Tangentially, I've never attended a company-wide Q&A session that has gone well. It's always obvious that the C-suite wants the questions to be about company growth and strategy, but the employee questions are always about benefits, vacation time, and company policy, which the C-suites are not equipped to answer well. The Meta example in the article just further cements this opinion of mine.

CydeWeys 4y ago
The weekly Q&A at Google with Larry and Sergey was good. They're long gone now though.
- blinkblank 4y ago
  Which honestly kind of frustrates me. The old q and a's at least attempted to answer the questions. Now it's just flowery answers that conveniently don't answer anything. But I might also be looking through rose tinted glasses
muttled 4y ago
I've heard so many times "We'll get back to you on that." And then at my current company, I heard that, and later on in the day we received an email response with all the questions they weren't able to answer live at the meeting. It was a refreshing change.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]