7 ms·

12 000 people out of 58 000 is “not a big deal”? It’s especially a big deal in the context of Facebook’s decline and bleak outlook. They’ve been outcompeted by

12 000 people out of 58 000 is “not a big deal”? It’s especially a big deal in the context of Facebook’s decline and bleak outlook. They’ve been outcompeted by TikTok, and their bet on VR looks misguided. Facebook look doomed, and this is a big step in that direction.

fny 4y ago
They literally went on a hiring binge from 2020-2021, so... in my opinion, yes. Sure there's bleak outlook, but you have no idea how many people I know from different companies who jumped ship from some 2nd-3rd tier co to work for the big five or Zoom-like start up during COVID. Mind you, there was binge hiring even outside of the big five. Many high profile startups increased their workforces by 10-20% in less than a year... and my God you have no idea how many dumbass crypto initiatives launched at the same time.
- ZephyrBlu 4y ago
  Exactly. A lot of people got a free lunch in the past couple of years because FAANG hiring (And the rest of the tech sector) went absolutely bonkers.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    Salaries here in India shot up 100-200%. 35 year old engineers were making more money than leading heart surgeons with 35 years of work experience. All the while their companies remained unprofitable. Utter insanity. Especially in hindsight when we know that there is no “new normal” - just the old normal with a few online-only remnants.
    - saagarjha 4y ago
      Sounds like they shot up to better match global market salaries?
    - kamaal 4y ago
      >>35 year old engineers were making more money than leading heart surgeons with 35 years of work experience. Indian here and can confirm. This sort of situation is why so many people in comparable professions(like medicine) resent software people in India. Having said this I do believe software people deserve to make more than doctors. Medicine especially after a while can be about trivia scholars. Software on the other does demand training on bleeding edge tech almost every few months. We also tend to put lot of smart work[mathematically inclined work] than doctors.
      - bluedino 4y ago
        So that's why so many Indians move to the US to work as doctors.
        kamaal 4y ago
        After moving to US they still resent software people. It's not just money. They tend to imagine themselves as more intellectually capable people[due to their degree requiring long and expensive academic training] compared to engineers in general. Which isn't true. And it's not just about software. They look at something like a big dam, skyscraper, a F1 car, a fighter jet, or something like Google and kind of feel insecure that there are bigger things which they could have been a part of, and feel they kind of (bad)-lucked into studying medicine[which happens to be a expensive academic course to finish, and also take more time]. I once showed a relative who is also a doctor using logic programming to solve puzzles like Sudoku etc. He kind of expressed disappointment he was stuck in a profession that doesn't allow this sort of everyday involvement in solving problems, or building things. The money part just adds to their resentment.
        spaceman_2020 4y ago
        I reckon a part of this is the relatively relaxed learning curve to coding (not software engineering). As someone who taught himself how to code last year, I can tell you that it wasn’t particularly challenging to put together a product that the average lay person would call “software/app”. So much of the work has been abstracted away by actual engineers. I can imagine how someone who doesn’t understand the complexity involved in scaling software or managing millions of users would think of coding as “easy money”. Its certainly much easier to make money quickly - you can go from a complete newbie to a fairly well paid frontend dev in under 2 years. A doctor needs a decade of effort to make anything similar.
- mupuff1234 4y ago
  Sure, but that still doesn't change the fact that this is a big deal.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  The funny part is that most of the dumbass crypto initiatives are largely in profit (mostly by dumping their tokens on retail investors) while the hyped unicorn startups can’t make a dime in profit.
technion 4y ago
On that issue I've never seen a LinkedIn message from a Tiktok recruiter, or heard messages about mass hiring. Anyone know if they operating on a much lower staff count?
- radicalbyte 4y ago
  Isn't it made in China? (edit: I know very little about social networks outside of twitter and finding security holes everywhere in FB back in the day because their engineering was pretty poor).
  - input_sh 4y ago
    > There are about 1,000 engineers currently working for TikTok outside of China, nearly half of them based in Mountain View, California. > “To support our rapid global growth, we plan to continue expanding TikTok’s global engineering team, including adding approximately 3,000 engineers in Canada, Europe, Singapore, as well as the U.S., over the next three years,” a TikTok spokesman said. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tiktok-engineers-idUSKBN27C2TR https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tiktok-engineers-idUSKBN2... Bear in mind this is from two years ago, but it gives you a sense of scale.
- thejosh 4y ago
  Isn't tiktok owned by ByteDance, which is a Chinese company (with an ownership percent by the Gov), so they would be hiring in CN? :-)
  - netheril96 4y ago
    Tiktok hires a lot outside China. They want to appease the customers and investors who want to distance themselves from China.
- bushbaba 4y ago
  They have a Bay Area office. I’ve been pinged a few times by their recruiters.
- 4y ago
towaway15463 4y ago
How is their bet on VR misguided in your opinion?
- randomsearch 4y ago
  The timing is too early and the product and the company are mismatched.
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    Facebook is the perfect match for vr. Vr is inherently a social experience, so is facebooks.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    Because the timing is too early they are having to venture into mismatched products to support the endeavour, but when you stop to look at the longer timeline it is quite clear how it fits very well. Similarly, it is safe to say that Netflix always knew it wanted to be a streaming service but had to mail DVDs until the timing was right in order to get there. Facebook is going through their metaphorical DVD mailing phase. Just another day in the life of business. I'm not entirely convinced they can get to where they eventually want to go, but that's another story for another day.
  - towaway15463 4y ago
    Both the other commenters make good points. Meta is uniquely positioned to build the first metaverse. It may not be the only metaverse and it may not come out on top in the end but it will likely prove a lot of the technology and patterns that will continue to be used. That’s why I don’t think they’re mismatched, you might be right about them being too early. They’ll have to build a lot of it themselves and try to stay competitive in the market at the same time. Difficult, but other companies have done this. They’re off to a good start as well since their hardware currently dominates the market.

fny 4y ago

They literally went on a hiring binge from 2020-2021, so... in my opinion, yes. Sure there's bleak outlook, but you have no idea how many people I know from different companies who jumped ship from some 2nd-3rd tier co to work for the big five or Zoom-like start up during COVID. Mind you, there was binge hiring even outside of the big five. Many high profile startups increased their workforces by 10-20% in less than a year... and my God you have no idea how many dumbass crypto initiatives launched at the same time.

ZephyrBlu 4y ago
Exactly. A lot of people got a free lunch in the past couple of years because FAANG hiring (And the rest of the tech sector) went absolutely bonkers.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  Salaries here in India shot up 100-200%. 35 year old engineers were making more money than leading heart surgeons with 35 years of work experience. All the while their companies remained unprofitable. Utter insanity. Especially in hindsight when we know that there is no “new normal” - just the old normal with a few online-only remnants.
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    Sounds like they shot up to better match global market salaries?
  - kamaal 4y ago
    >>35 year old engineers were making more money than leading heart surgeons with 35 years of work experience. Indian here and can confirm. This sort of situation is why so many people in comparable professions(like medicine) resent software people in India. Having said this I do believe software people deserve to make more than doctors. Medicine especially after a while can be about trivia scholars. Software on the other does demand training on bleeding edge tech almost every few months. We also tend to put lot of smart work[mathematically inclined work] than doctors.
    - bluedino 4y ago
      So that's why so many Indians move to the US to work as doctors.
      - kamaal 4y ago
        After moving to US they still resent software people. It's not just money. They tend to imagine themselves as more intellectually capable people[due to their degree requiring long and expensive academic training] compared to engineers in general. Which isn't true. And it's not just about software. They look at something like a big dam, skyscraper, a F1 car, a fighter jet, or something like Google and kind of feel insecure that there are bigger things which they could have been a part of, and feel they kind of (bad)-lucked into studying medicine[which happens to be a expensive academic course to finish, and also take more time]. I once showed a relative who is also a doctor using logic programming to solve puzzles like Sudoku etc. He kind of expressed disappointment he was stuck in a profession that doesn't allow this sort of everyday involvement in solving problems, or building things. The money part just adds to their resentment.
        spaceman_2020 4y ago
        I reckon a part of this is the relatively relaxed learning curve to coding (not software engineering). As someone who taught himself how to code last year, I can tell you that it wasn’t particularly challenging to put together a product that the average lay person would call “software/app”. So much of the work has been abstracted away by actual engineers. I can imagine how someone who doesn’t understand the complexity involved in scaling software or managing millions of users would think of coding as “easy money”. Its certainly much easier to make money quickly - you can go from a complete newbie to a fairly well paid frontend dev in under 2 years. A doctor needs a decade of effort to make anything similar.
mupuff1234 4y ago
Sure, but that still doesn't change the fact that this is a big deal.
spaceman_2020 4y ago
The funny part is that most of the dumbass crypto initiatives are largely in profit (mostly by dumping their tokens on retail investors) while the hyped unicorn startups can’t make a dime in profit.

technion 4y ago

On that issue I've never seen a LinkedIn message from a Tiktok recruiter, or heard messages about mass hiring. Anyone know if they operating on a much lower staff count?

radicalbyte 4y ago
Isn't it made in China? (edit: I know very little about social networks outside of twitter and finding security holes everywhere in FB back in the day because their engineering was pretty poor).
- input_sh 4y ago
  > There are about 1,000 engineers currently working for TikTok outside of China, nearly half of them based in Mountain View, California. > “To support our rapid global growth, we plan to continue expanding TikTok’s global engineering team, including adding approximately 3,000 engineers in Canada, Europe, Singapore, as well as the U.S., over the next three years,” a TikTok spokesman said. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tiktok-engineers-idUSKBN27C2TR https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tiktok-engineers-idUSKBN2... Bear in mind this is from two years ago, but it gives you a sense of scale.
thejosh 4y ago
Isn't tiktok owned by ByteDance, which is a Chinese company (with an ownership percent by the Gov), so they would be hiring in CN? :-)
- netheril96 4y ago
  Tiktok hires a lot outside China. They want to appease the customers and investors who want to distance themselves from China.
bushbaba 4y ago
They have a Bay Area office. I’ve been pinged a few times by their recruiters.
4y ago

towaway15463 4y ago

How is their bet on VR misguided in your opinion?

randomsearch 4y ago
The timing is too early and the product and the company are mismatched.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  Facebook is the perfect match for vr. Vr is inherently a social experience, so is facebooks.
- randomdata 4y ago
  Because the timing is too early they are having to venture into mismatched products to support the endeavour, but when you stop to look at the longer timeline it is quite clear how it fits very well. Similarly, it is safe to say that Netflix always knew it wanted to be a streaming service but had to mail DVDs until the timing was right in order to get there. Facebook is going through their metaphorical DVD mailing phase. Just another day in the life of business. I'm not entirely convinced they can get to where they eventually want to go, but that's another story for another day.
- towaway15463 4y ago
  Both the other commenters make good points. Meta is uniquely positioned to build the first metaverse. It may not be the only metaverse and it may not come out on top in the end but it will likely prove a lot of the technology and patterns that will continue to be used. That’s why I don’t think they’re mismatched, you might be right about them being too early. They’ll have to build a lot of it themselves and try to stay competitive in the market at the same time. Difficult, but other companies have done this. They’re off to a good start as well since their hardware currently dominates the market.