14 ms·

Mark Zuckerberg confirms broad layoffs to begin at Meta

189 points by cadence- 4y ago

jerojero 4y ago
Four months salary as severance seems like a really good deal to me. I don't think it will be difficult for anyone with Facebook in their resume to be re-hired. Although losing your job is difficult, it seems to me like I would much rather be fired from Facebook than Twitter. In any case, it's always jarring seeing CEO's saying: "I take responsibility for these troubled times... by firing thousands of employees". I remember a couple years ago when Nintendo was having problems then all the top execs lowered their compensations. I wonder if top execs at Facebook are also doing that? (doubt it).
- mywacaday 4y ago
  Four months is not that great depending on where you work and your tenure, I previously worked in Financial Services and there were three rounds of redundancy in my 10 years, luckily/unluckily I was never selected. The offer at the time was 6 weeks salary per year rounded up to the nearest full year and paid for your contracted notice period, capped at max two years salary. There were plenty of people that hit that two year cap and plenty more that took home more than a years salary.
- 29athrowaway 4y ago
  But for people with a high TC, it will become harder to find an employer willing to pay the same, especially when all companies are doing layoffs at the same time. With a high TC usually comes an expensive lifestyle. It's a really hard process to downscale your lifestyle.
  - tdeck 4y ago
    Luckily Zuckerberg thoughtfully solved the high TC problem by crashing the stock this last year, making jobs at other companies seem within reach.
    - eru 4y ago
      Many tech companies saw their stock drop in value. I don't think we can blame it all on Facebook's boss.
      - tdeck 4y ago
        How many of them lost 75% in the last year?
        whiplash451 4y ago
        Quite a few. Netflix, Shopify, Spotify, Twilio, etc.
        chrischen 4y ago
        Affirm, snapchat.
    - 29athrowaway 4y ago
      The new Fed interest rates did that, not Zuck. But Zuck's pie in the sky metaverse shit contributed.
  - smt88 4y ago
    I have absolutely no sympathy for the people who stuck by all of Zuckerberg's decisions to choose profit over the health of society, especially when they'll have to... get used to a less-expensive lifestyle.
  - xdfgh1112 4y ago
    On that high a TC you have no excuse not saving up an emergency fund. Don't tell me it's hard, I am on a tiny fraction of that salary and I managed it. Oh and you have a four month severance runway on top of that...
    - onion2k 4y ago
      An emergency fund and a severance package are great things for keeping the lights on while you look for a new role, but the point is that $200k + $200k in bonuses and RSUs is a hard thing to replace when all the other big tech companies are also laying people off and going on hiring freezes. You're probably going to end up taking a serious pay cut in you next role. Even if you have a full year of your old salary in the bank, you might well find it hard to maintain you previous lifestyle, pay your mortgage, or replace your emergency fund if you have to live on it. Four months severance is only good if you find another good role within four months. And in the current tech market I wouldn't bet on that. Something else to consider - if there are a ton of engineers entering the market who are willing to take a pay cut what impact will that have on everyone else in the market? This sort of thing is what drives everyone's wages down.
      - whiplash451 4y ago
        Definitely agree. With a caveat, though. Tech companies will not want to have a massive diff in comp between the people they keep and the (few, selected) people they re-hire. So we might be entering a downward trend, but it will be slow.
      - simmschi 4y ago
        It might be too late for some people, but some general advice - if you earn 400k USD / year, don't develop a habit of depending on this kind of income. The rest of the world and even your fellow (US) citizens have to get by on much, much less. These kind of salaries are not at all normal. I would advice you to not live your life as if you'd be able to make almost half a million per year for the rest of your life. So save most of it and live a normal lifestyle. If the good income continues, simply retire early :-)
  - newaccount2021 4y ago
- anonuser123456 4y ago
  Every exec at FB is compensated via share price. So yeah, they've all taken a massive hit to their comp. Zuck is down 100 billion YTD.
  - Ar-Curunir 4y ago
    Most employees at tech companies are compensated via shares…
    - anonuser123456 4y ago
      And share price doesn’t affect the value of their shares?
  - nly 4y ago
    My heart bleeds for the poor lad. Are you telling me he won't be able to spunk $1bn/mo on fluffy vanity projects in 2023? Say it ain't so!
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      Can't even buy Twitter.
      - saiya-jin 4y ago
        I am rather sure it will be on discount soon given musk's silly behavior
        Applejinx 4y ago
        On the contrary, it's a cudgel and he's using it as one. Quite a few things are more mask-off these days. You say 'silly behavior', I say 'Musk actively allied with Putin to support the Russian cause, and is ready and willing to weaponize Twitter toward that end'. I don't know what it is about that man (Putin) that makes oligarchs like him so much, but if you look at the record it's a hell of a thing. And so it's not wasted money on Musk's part, it's spent for a purpose, to seize control of what seems to be the most connected social media phenomenon out there. Facebook had to be weaponized through Cambridge Analytica and it wasn't meant to be public-facing knowledge. At this stage apparently that doesn't matter anymore. That or it's megalomanaical overreach. Which is possible :)
- klipklop 4y ago
  Maybe for the engineers. The others might have a pretty hard time finding a job that pays as well. All the high paying places in the bay have a hiring freeze.
  - is_true 4y ago
    This, I know more than a dozen journalists that are now working at facebook as PR basically.
- smodo 4y ago
  More likely they'll reason that this tough decision merits some kind of bonus if it ends up benefiting the bottom line for one quarter.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    In other words, all these highly paid developers did not produce something valuable enough to offset their own salaries (and other expenses, so likely 2-3x the salaries). I suppose these are mostly good, well-working engineers. This should mean that the projects they were working on were mostly useless, bringing too little value for the effort in the short term, or too uncertain benefits at a longer term. Something did not pan out with the product vision.
    - rhaway84773 4y ago
      Or their value does not show up within a quarterly or annual reporting cycle? Whereas taking them off the payroll has an immediate impact on the bottom line. And if Meta is indeed stuffed to the gills with highly unproductive yet highly paid people, who is responsible for that? Those people aren’t actually changing.
    - KptMarchewa 4y ago
      >In other words, all these highly paid developers did not produce something valuable enough to offset their own salaries (and other expenses, so likely 2-3x the salaries). The profits from work of those devs are already realized. The future profits might not materialize.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- niyazpk 4y ago
  > I would much rather be fired from Facebook than Twitter. Also, it was all over the news that Twitter fired probably based on performance (lines of code, yeah, I know). Wondering if this will make it difficult for the twitter folks to get hired compared to those from FB.
  - joeblubaugh 4y ago
    They fired over 80% of their Colorado employees - no way that was performance-based.
    - adwww 4y ago
      Unless that location was working on a particular problem that meant fewer LoC.
  - i_like_apis 4y ago
    That LOC thing with Twitter is just a big rumor. There are a lot of dumb rumors about Twitter and Musk floating around. Don’t believe / repeat everything you hear.
    - blitzar 4y ago
      They used a thanos style random number generator. If the day in your DOB is an odd number you were fired.
      - anomaly_ 4y ago
        Well, I guess you don't want unlucky people working for you!
        blitzar 4y ago
        It is on the listicle of things to make you highly successful. - Wake up at 4am every day. - Only hire lucky people (they get to work for you that instantly makes them one of the lucky ones right!?) - Fire the unlucky people or the people having a bad day (its a pretty bad and/or unlucky day when you get fired, if they had any luck at all you wouldnt have thought of their name when you decided to fire someone)
- bruce343434 4y ago
  > I don't think it will be difficult for anyone with Facebook in their resume to be re-hired Why is that? Do you really learn that much at Facebook, do you really become that much more proficient? What is the logic behind this thinking?
  - ihatepython 4y ago
    Nobody ever gets fired for choosing IBM. Personally if I see Facebook on a resume, I will assume that they will be expensive
    - saiya-jin 4y ago
      and also they will gladly accept whatever dubious/amoral mission your company has at its heart (to be frank, thats vast amount of IT in the world, nothing FB specific)
  - matsemann 4y ago
    Yeah, some people would consider having worked for certain companies a red flag.
    - snapcaster 4y ago
      I always see this comment on here but never once seen or heard this in real life interactions with people
  - cranekam 4y ago
    The assumption is that Meta and its ilk are picky about who they employ and that should be a proxy for an employee's ability or value. Of course, the layoffs will presumably involve those who perform worst so it's not clear if these people will be in a better position or not than someone who hadn't been at Meta. > Do you really learn that much at Facebook, do you really become that much more proficient? I think for many there is a good chance of learning valuable skills at these companies. In my time at Meta I became a more proficient engineer by being around those who were a lot better than me, and I also got a lot better at non-technical stuff like giving people feedback, leadership, communication and so on. It's obviously not impossible that I could have learned these skills elsewhere but they are weighted heavily at Meta etc and it's more likely one will have absorbed them. None of this is universal, of course. Any particular person might be great or terrible independent of their tenure at Meta.
- kavalg 4y ago
  There is even a "very emotional" scene in Silicon Valley where Gavin Belson does just that
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u48vYSLvKNQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u48vYSLvKNQ
    - i_like_apis 4y ago
      This show delivered so well, on so many things, over and over.
      - canbus 4y ago
        I can see why they stopped producing it, but I wish they didn't!
        geerlingguy 4y ago
        One of the few shows that did well, didn't start recycling the same idea over and over, and ended before it lost an audience. At least for the next decade or so, the representation of SV and startup culture will be quite cutting.
        i_like_apis 4y ago
        I really would have liked a few more seasons too. I feel like they could have taken it to a whole different level as Pied Piper became FAANGP. But I’m also glad they didn’t jump any sharks and gave it a good wrap.
  - sorokod 4y ago
    "saying goodbye is always hard" so true.
    - sadjad 4y ago
- shusaku 4y ago
  > I don't think it will be difficult for anyone with ______ in their resume to be re-hired. I seem to read this comment every other day, hopefully it’s not adding up…
  - iso1631 4y ago
    I think this golden age of software development has come to an end, and I think many in the industry are in denial.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >I remember a couple years ago when Nintendo was having problems then all the top execs lowered their compensations. The culture of shame on failure is pretty strong in Japan and sometimes goes too far. After the crash of Japan Airlines 123 where over 500 people died, two high level people related to the accident committed suicide. Not something I'd like to see normalized. Loosing more lives is not the solution.
  - majewsky 4y ago
    Surely there is a middle ground between not assuming any responsibility and killing yourself over it.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      I never said there isn't, I just pointed out some existing facts.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- googlerx 4y ago
  Zuck could personally give 3000 fired employees $1million each and that would be less than 10% of his net worth.
  - snapcaster 4y ago
    I know you're probably just making a point but you realize this isn't true right? He would have to liquidate meta stock to make this happen, resulting in the price dropping and requiring him to liquidate more etc. etc.
    - confidantlake 4y ago
      He could probably take a loan against his stock.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    Doing maths that depend on paper worth is pointless.
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- martius 4y ago
  Four months of pay may not be that much if you moved to another country or continent with your family for this job. While it's probably easy to land on your feet and find something with a good pay in SV or London, it's probably not the case everywhere. 4 months of pay for this kind of trouble doesn't look like a good deal to me.
  - bluedevil2k 4y ago
    4 months of pay at the highest paying software company in the world is FAR more generous than you're going to see from any company anywhere in the world.
    - linschn 4y ago
      Your comment is comical, given the state of labor laws in most of Europe. True, those labor laws are under attack, but they still stand, and such layoff would be so costly there that they could hardly happen. 4 months is not generous, it is under the legal minimum in many countries, provided you've been with the employer long enough.
      - eps 4y ago
        However in the same "many countries" the tab is picked up by the state in a form of unemployment payouts. Not 100%, granted, but can go as high as 80%.
      - bluedevil2k 4y ago
        And you've just outlined the reasons why 94% of Big Tech is in the United States. Number of unicorns in the United States in March 2022 = 607, number in mainland Europe = 42. You're going to argue that 4 months severance from FB, where average developer pay is the highest in the world with Sr. Engineers getting $300k in cash compensation is worse than 6-12 months severance from a European tech company, where cash comp is 20% of that? > would be so costly there that they could hardly happen This is NOT a good thing
        4y ago
- gsatic 4y ago
  They are not leaders. They are just finely tuned machine parts. Don't expect them to think, say or do anything the machine doesn't need.
- geodel 4y ago
  I don't know FAANG engineers with their very high self worth would take the humiliation of lower salary as oppose to layoffs. > In any case, it's always jarring seeing CEO's saying: "I take responsibility for these troubled times... by firing thousands of employees" Even if reflect badly on founder/CEO to say "I erred by hiring tons of below average engineers who couldn't deliver so I am fixing it now" It would reflect worse on those engineers in real world.
  - bluedevil2k 4y ago
    > I don't know FAANG engineers with their very high self worth would take the humiliation of lower salary as oppose to layoffs. Do you apply negative stereotypes to people you don't know as a normal part of your daily interactions?
    - stevehawk 4y ago
      they raise a decent point. there's countless FAANG people on here making $250,000+/yr plus RSU and claim they are underpaid. What happens when they end up in the real world being offered half that with no stock options?
      - a4a4a4a4 4y ago
        Probably start a company with the money they've (hopefully) saved, and make more than slaving away for half their old salary (if half is the only option, which it probably isn't).
        geodel 4y ago
        Thats a good idea. Not sure its broadly applicable in events of large layoffs.
      - bluedevil2k 4y ago
        There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of tech companies in the US hiring remotely with compensation between $180k - $250k right now. RSUs might not be the same as SV companies, but we all know those RSUs are worth sh*t right now anyway.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  > In any case, it's always jarring seeing CEO's saying: "I take responsibility for these troubled times... by firing thousands of employees" To some extend. But it’s true too. It is their fault.
  - shapefrog 4y ago
    "I take responsibility for these troubled times... by firing thousands of employees - I can gaurantee that my performance related pay for this year will only be $200 million instead of the $500 million I was expecting to be paid."
- kennethreitz 4y ago
  the problem is job market flooding
- belter 4y ago
  "First, Let’s Fire All the Managers" - https://hbr.org/2011/12/first-lets-fire-all-the-managers https://hbr.org/2011/12/first-lets-fire-all-the-managers
  - tartoran 4y ago
    They keep all the managers to make sure the remaining employees end up covering the work of the ones laid off:) Im sure they laid off a few managers here and there though
  - gamblor956 4y ago
    People who advocate for firing managers forget (or are too junior to have ever learned) that managers...were once the regular line employees, bu they did well enough at their jobs to get promoted into the positions of managing other employees so that the other employees could also do well in their jobs. Managers are usually the most competent employees at actually getting shit done, because they have to do their own shit on top of managing what the employees are doing.
    - xorcist 4y ago
      I have not worked anywhere where the above was actually true, except in the beginning when scaling an organization. In mature organizations managers are hired for having managerial experience, not getting shit done on the line.
jstx1 4y ago
From their Q3 earnings report 2 weeks ago (https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_news/Meta-Reports-Third-Quarter-2022-Results-2022.pdf https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_news/Meta-Reports-...): > we expect headcount at the end of 2023 will be approximately in-line with third quarter 2022 levels Was that a lie or are they re-hiring in the future?
- manasdaruka 4y ago
  Can there be legal ramifications for giving wrong information like this? In any case I assume these type of accusations might be quite easy to defend
  - KptMarchewa 4y ago
    If they are firing 50% like musk maybe, if they are firing 10% it's all perfectly in line with that guidance.
- glintik 4y ago
  "we expect" is not equal to "we ensure"
- spuz 4y ago
  According to the WSJ article: > “So that means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year,” he said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Oct. 26. “In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today.” So it doesn't sound like they are lying in the Q3 report. Their current plan is to shrink some teams and grow others resulting in about the same number of employees a year from now.
  - dom96 4y ago
    > slightly smaller organization than we are today "slightly" doing a lot of work there
jstx1 4y ago
Layoffs at the top companies put downward pressure on the entire job market - fewer open positions, less mobility for everyone, more competition... if you're working at an average non-tech company and want to move up in salary, now you're competing with a bunch of people who have big tech on their resume and who were good enough to pass the big tech interview loop in the past.
- whiplash451 4y ago
  I would disagree with that. Your company probably has a hiring freeze at the moment. You are not competing with external people. If you are a crucial person to your company, you are actually in a decent position to get an increase. If you are not crucial, you are on the list for the second round.
  - jstx1 4y ago
    No way, increasing compensation for current employees was difficult even when the market was hot. I'm not buying that the companies with hiring freezes are giving out raises (certainly not more raises than before).
  - yuhc 4y ago
    Both make sense, while new grads always hurt.
- dustedcodes 4y ago
  > "and who were good enough to pass the big tech interview loop in the past" I would rephrase that to "who were willing to go through the big tech interview loop in the past". The big different between the people who go through this and don't is not ability but desire from my experience.
  - Herbstluft 4y ago
    I agree that the way those tech interviews are designed makes them more of a marathon that tests determination. Doesn't change that the prestige of having it on your resume will cause many other companies to blindly hire you.
justinator 4y ago
Just in time for Christmas.
- bluedevil2k 4y ago
  Christmas is 2 months away, and they're getting 4 months severance and many companies ramp up hiring in January...what's your point exactly?
  - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
    This is a terrible time to get laid off, as no one will be interviewing till the new year.
    - bluedevil2k 4y ago
      Hence the 4 months of severance, which keeps them paid until mid-March.
      - doublerabbit 4y ago
        Right. January and February are write off months, not much happens. So by March you still have no job and no more income. A new job including job search takes around three months. A round of interviews, signing of contracts, background checks and then finally a month of work before you get your first pay check. That takes you to May. Thats if you pass the interviews and are chosen to be the employee.
    - hellweaver666 4y ago
      The way things are going, not many people will be interviewing next year either. There may be a few openings for attrition but they will slow too as there are less places for people to leave to. In this kind of environment employees are going to hunker down and wait for things to pick up (and hope they don't get laid off). I think a lot of people being laid-off are going to struggle to find employment at anything even close to the kind of level of reward they're used to at the big tech companies (because you just know the people that are hiring are going to take full advantage of the sudden glut of developers to pay less!)
cupofjoakim 4y ago
If Meta is removing non-essential employees I wonder if we could see the core react team having to leave at some point. That could be quite the shift for frontend work.
- ajdegol 4y ago
  to svelte
  - pts_ 4y ago
    React to Solid, Angular and Vue to Svelte.
- mikojan 4y ago
  Cross your fingers!
- dindresto 4y ago
  I'm sure Vercel would be happy to take full control of React by hiring the core team.
- solardev 4y ago
  That would be amazing. I'd love to see React detached from Facebook's needs, which don't matter to most companies, and be taken over by the community instead. Honestly React is kinda useless without its ecosystem anyway, the vast majority of which is third party already. Next would be a great steward to inherit React.
homeland221 4y ago
Meta name is cursed. The slide begins the moment they changed from FB.
- DaiPlusPlus 4y ago
  The slide really began with Eternal September…
- est 4y ago
  The whole metaverse & VR thing is a scam. People seem to forget a thing from the past called 2ndlife.
  - hellweaver666 4y ago
    There was an article on BBC news the other day about people investing in property in the metaverse. It blew my mind because it's not a finite space like the real world... the idea that people are spending thousands speculating on virtual real estate in an unproven environment that has almost zero uptake is mind blowing.
    - iso1631 4y ago
      Great way to do some money laundering
    - solardev 4y ago
      This has happened in every mmo for decades now.
    - rsynnott 4y ago
      This is just history repeating itself. Happened with Second Life, too, nearly 20 years ago: https://www.zdnet.com/article/reality-pricks-the-second-life-property-bubble/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/reality-pricks-the-second-life...
  - vkou 4y ago
    It's not a scam, it's a Hail Mary play to control the platform that Facebook's services run on. Without that control, it's at the mercy of upstream vendors. It's not going to work, but there's a good reason for why they are trying.
radar1310 4y ago
Merry Christmas Meta.
- hellweaver666 4y ago
  Keep the change ya filthy animal
SilverBirch 4y ago
I think we all know that how this is received will be entirely down to where the cuts come. If the cuts come in the Metaverse R&D, the stock price will jump and everyone will be more or less happy - you can believe in the Metaverse and that project and still understand it is a massive overinvestment. If the cuts come in the legacy business with the Metaverse protected I think that will be an indication that no Meta shareholders can honestly expect to see the revenue from the social media business, Zuckerberg will burn it all before he hands it back to shareholders, so in that case this could be a horrible performing stock. And of course that's important because most people at Meta have significant stock based comp.
- disgruntledphd2 4y ago
  He's almost certainly cutting core so he can continue to invest in the metaverse. Rightly or wrongly, he thinks this is the right decision.
saos 4y ago
> Meta’s head of human resources, Lori Goler, said employees who lose their jobs will be provided with at least four months of salary as severance That is sweet. Can enjoy the holidays > Zuckerberg said he was accountable for the company’s downturn Lol then reduce your stock size? Offer your employees your money. Honestly, all these CEOs coming out with the same line is just nonsense
- agd 4y ago
  Sweet for many, but very tough for those on visas who will have to now leave the US and abandon the lives they built there.
  - K5EiS 4y ago
    I'm not familiar with visas, do they not get any time to find new jobs?
    - tyingq 4y ago
      They have to find a job willing to sponsor the visa, all within tight timelines. There's a 60 day grace period once you're laid off, but if the new petition is filed late, you have to leave and re-enter, etc. The timing is also difficult in this case, as hiring often slows down in Nov/Dec.
  - bismuthcrystal 4y ago
    Since when it became reasonable to build a life on such a weak foundation?
  - solardev 4y ago
    It's the risk they take working in a foreign country. Many Americans have no job security or savings either. Hard to feel bad for foreigners who come here and earn Facebook salaries while sending money home and displacing local citizens and economies. I am the child of immigrants who did just that, BTW. Global labor is only good for capitalists and owners, not for everyday workers and residents and communities.
- 4y ago
Eumenes 4y ago
These severance packages are very generous
nicolashahn 4y ago
Some data from the inside: RL hit less hard than the rest of the company. No one on my team or adjacent teams let go. Most bootcampers are gone, even ones that were performing well. Low performer from my past team outside RL was let go, so it appears performance was a factor for a lot of roles, rather than just axing entire teams based on business need.

189 points by cadence- 4y ago

Four months salary as severance seems like a really good deal to me. I don't think it will be difficult for anyone with Facebook in their resume to be re-hired. Although losing your job is difficult, it seems to me like I would much rather be fired from Facebook than Twitter. In any case, it's always jarring seeing CEO's saying: "I take responsibility for these troubled times... by firing thousands of employees". I remember a couple years ago when Nintendo was having problems then all the top execs lowered their compensations. I wonder if top execs at Facebook are also doing that? (doubt it).

mywacaday 4y ago
Four months is not that great depending on where you work and your tenure, I previously worked in Financial Services and there were three rounds of redundancy in my 10 years, luckily/unluckily I was never selected. The offer at the time was 6 weeks salary per year rounded up to the nearest full year and paid for your contracted notice period, capped at max two years salary. There were plenty of people that hit that two year cap and plenty more that took home more than a years salary.
29athrowaway 4y ago
But for people with a high TC, it will become harder to find an employer willing to pay the same, especially when all companies are doing layoffs at the same time. With a high TC usually comes an expensive lifestyle. It's a really hard process to downscale your lifestyle.
- tdeck 4y ago
  Luckily Zuckerberg thoughtfully solved the high TC problem by crashing the stock this last year, making jobs at other companies seem within reach.
  - eru 4y ago
    Many tech companies saw their stock drop in value. I don't think we can blame it all on Facebook's boss.
    - tdeck 4y ago
      How many of them lost 75% in the last year?
      - whiplash451 4y ago
        Quite a few. Netflix, Shopify, Spotify, Twilio, etc.
        chrischen 4y ago
        Affirm, snapchat.
  - 29athrowaway 4y ago
    The new Fed interest rates did that, not Zuck. But Zuck's pie in the sky metaverse shit contributed.
- smt88 4y ago
  I have absolutely no sympathy for the people who stuck by all of Zuckerberg's decisions to choose profit over the health of society, especially when they'll have to... get used to a less-expensive lifestyle.
- xdfgh1112 4y ago
  On that high a TC you have no excuse not saving up an emergency fund. Don't tell me it's hard, I am on a tiny fraction of that salary and I managed it. Oh and you have a four month severance runway on top of that...
  - onion2k 4y ago
    An emergency fund and a severance package are great things for keeping the lights on while you look for a new role, but the point is that $200k + $200k in bonuses and RSUs is a hard thing to replace when all the other big tech companies are also laying people off and going on hiring freezes. You're probably going to end up taking a serious pay cut in you next role. Even if you have a full year of your old salary in the bank, you might well find it hard to maintain you previous lifestyle, pay your mortgage, or replace your emergency fund if you have to live on it. Four months severance is only good if you find another good role within four months. And in the current tech market I wouldn't bet on that. Something else to consider - if there are a ton of engineers entering the market who are willing to take a pay cut what impact will that have on everyone else in the market? This sort of thing is what drives everyone's wages down.
    - whiplash451 4y ago
      Definitely agree. With a caveat, though. Tech companies will not want to have a massive diff in comp between the people they keep and the (few, selected) people they re-hire. So we might be entering a downward trend, but it will be slow.
    - simmschi 4y ago
      It might be too late for some people, but some general advice - if you earn 400k USD / year, don't develop a habit of depending on this kind of income. The rest of the world and even your fellow (US) citizens have to get by on much, much less. These kind of salaries are not at all normal. I would advice you to not live your life as if you'd be able to make almost half a million per year for the rest of your life. So save most of it and live a normal lifestyle. If the good income continues, simply retire early :-)
- newaccount2021 4y ago
anonuser123456 4y ago
Every exec at FB is compensated via share price. So yeah, they've all taken a massive hit to their comp. Zuck is down 100 billion YTD.
- Ar-Curunir 4y ago
  Most employees at tech companies are compensated via shares…
  - anonuser123456 4y ago
    And share price doesn’t affect the value of their shares?
- nly 4y ago
  My heart bleeds for the poor lad. Are you telling me he won't be able to spunk $1bn/mo on fluffy vanity projects in 2023? Say it ain't so!
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    Can't even buy Twitter.
    - saiya-jin 4y ago
      I am rather sure it will be on discount soon given musk's silly behavior
      - Applejinx 4y ago
        On the contrary, it's a cudgel and he's using it as one. Quite a few things are more mask-off these days. You say 'silly behavior', I say 'Musk actively allied with Putin to support the Russian cause, and is ready and willing to weaponize Twitter toward that end'. I don't know what it is about that man (Putin) that makes oligarchs like him so much, but if you look at the record it's a hell of a thing. And so it's not wasted money on Musk's part, it's spent for a purpose, to seize control of what seems to be the most connected social media phenomenon out there. Facebook had to be weaponized through Cambridge Analytica and it wasn't meant to be public-facing knowledge. At this stage apparently that doesn't matter anymore. That or it's megalomanaical overreach. Which is possible :)
klipklop 4y ago
Maybe for the engineers. The others might have a pretty hard time finding a job that pays as well. All the high paying places in the bay have a hiring freeze.
- is_true 4y ago
  This, I know more than a dozen journalists that are now working at facebook as PR basically.
smodo 4y ago
More likely they'll reason that this tough decision merits some kind of bonus if it ends up benefiting the bottom line for one quarter.
- nine_k 4y ago
  In other words, all these highly paid developers did not produce something valuable enough to offset their own salaries (and other expenses, so likely 2-3x the salaries). I suppose these are mostly good, well-working engineers. This should mean that the projects they were working on were mostly useless, bringing too little value for the effort in the short term, or too uncertain benefits at a longer term. Something did not pan out with the product vision.
  - rhaway84773 4y ago
    Or their value does not show up within a quarterly or annual reporting cycle? Whereas taking them off the payroll has an immediate impact on the bottom line. And if Meta is indeed stuffed to the gills with highly unproductive yet highly paid people, who is responsible for that? Those people aren’t actually changing.
  - KptMarchewa 4y ago
    >In other words, all these highly paid developers did not produce something valuable enough to offset their own salaries (and other expenses, so likely 2-3x the salaries). The profits from work of those devs are already realized. The future profits might not materialize.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
niyazpk 4y ago
> I would much rather be fired from Facebook than Twitter. Also, it was all over the news that Twitter fired probably based on performance (lines of code, yeah, I know). Wondering if this will make it difficult for the twitter folks to get hired compared to those from FB.
- joeblubaugh 4y ago
  They fired over 80% of their Colorado employees - no way that was performance-based.
  - adwww 4y ago
    Unless that location was working on a particular problem that meant fewer LoC.
- i_like_apis 4y ago
  That LOC thing with Twitter is just a big rumor. There are a lot of dumb rumors about Twitter and Musk floating around. Don’t believe / repeat everything you hear.
  - blitzar 4y ago
    They used a thanos style random number generator. If the day in your DOB is an odd number you were fired.
    - anomaly_ 4y ago
      Well, I guess you don't want unlucky people working for you!
      - blitzar 4y ago
        It is on the listicle of things to make you highly successful. - Wake up at 4am every day. - Only hire lucky people (they get to work for you that instantly makes them one of the lucky ones right!?) - Fire the unlucky people or the people having a bad day (its a pretty bad and/or unlucky day when you get fired, if they had any luck at all you wouldnt have thought of their name when you decided to fire someone)
bruce343434 4y ago
> I don't think it will be difficult for anyone with Facebook in their resume to be re-hired Why is that? Do you really learn that much at Facebook, do you really become that much more proficient? What is the logic behind this thinking?
- ihatepython 4y ago
  Nobody ever gets fired for choosing IBM. Personally if I see Facebook on a resume, I will assume that they will be expensive
  - saiya-jin 4y ago
    and also they will gladly accept whatever dubious/amoral mission your company has at its heart (to be frank, thats vast amount of IT in the world, nothing FB specific)
- matsemann 4y ago
  Yeah, some people would consider having worked for certain companies a red flag.
  - snapcaster 4y ago
    I always see this comment on here but never once seen or heard this in real life interactions with people
- cranekam 4y ago
  The assumption is that Meta and its ilk are picky about who they employ and that should be a proxy for an employee's ability or value. Of course, the layoffs will presumably involve those who perform worst so it's not clear if these people will be in a better position or not than someone who hadn't been at Meta. > Do you really learn that much at Facebook, do you really become that much more proficient? I think for many there is a good chance of learning valuable skills at these companies. In my time at Meta I became a more proficient engineer by being around those who were a lot better than me, and I also got a lot better at non-technical stuff like giving people feedback, leadership, communication and so on. It's obviously not impossible that I could have learned these skills elsewhere but they are weighted heavily at Meta etc and it's more likely one will have absorbed them. None of this is universal, of course. Any particular person might be great or terrible independent of their tenure at Meta.
kavalg 4y ago
There is even a "very emotional" scene in Silicon Valley where Gavin Belson does just that
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u48vYSLvKNQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u48vYSLvKNQ
  - i_like_apis 4y ago
    This show delivered so well, on so many things, over and over.
    - canbus 4y ago
      I can see why they stopped producing it, but I wish they didn't!
      - geerlingguy 4y ago
        One of the few shows that did well, didn't start recycling the same idea over and over, and ended before it lost an audience. At least for the next decade or so, the representation of SV and startup culture will be quite cutting.
      - i_like_apis 4y ago
        I really would have liked a few more seasons too. I feel like they could have taken it to a whole different level as Pied Piper became FAANGP. But I’m also glad they didn’t jump any sharks and gave it a good wrap.
- sorokod 4y ago
  "saying goodbye is always hard" so true.
  - sadjad 4y ago
shusaku 4y ago
> I don't think it will be difficult for anyone with ______ in their resume to be re-hired. I seem to read this comment every other day, hopefully it’s not adding up…
- iso1631 4y ago
  I think this golden age of software development has come to an end, and I think many in the industry are in denial.
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>I remember a couple years ago when Nintendo was having problems then all the top execs lowered their compensations. The culture of shame on failure is pretty strong in Japan and sometimes goes too far. After the crash of Japan Airlines 123 where over 500 people died, two high level people related to the accident committed suicide. Not something I'd like to see normalized. Loosing more lives is not the solution.
- majewsky 4y ago
  Surely there is a middle ground between not assuming any responsibility and killing yourself over it.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    I never said there isn't, I just pointed out some existing facts.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
googlerx 4y ago
Zuck could personally give 3000 fired employees $1million each and that would be less than 10% of his net worth.
- snapcaster 4y ago
  I know you're probably just making a point but you realize this isn't true right? He would have to liquidate meta stock to make this happen, resulting in the price dropping and requiring him to liquidate more etc. etc.
  - confidantlake 4y ago
    He could probably take a loan against his stock.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  Doing maths that depend on paper worth is pointless.
newaccount2021 4y ago
martius 4y ago
Four months of pay may not be that much if you moved to another country or continent with your family for this job. While it's probably easy to land on your feet and find something with a good pay in SV or London, it's probably not the case everywhere. 4 months of pay for this kind of trouble doesn't look like a good deal to me.
- bluedevil2k 4y ago
  4 months of pay at the highest paying software company in the world is FAR more generous than you're going to see from any company anywhere in the world.
  - linschn 4y ago
    Your comment is comical, given the state of labor laws in most of Europe. True, those labor laws are under attack, but they still stand, and such layoff would be so costly there that they could hardly happen. 4 months is not generous, it is under the legal minimum in many countries, provided you've been with the employer long enough.
    - eps 4y ago
      However in the same "many countries" the tab is picked up by the state in a form of unemployment payouts. Not 100%, granted, but can go as high as 80%.
    - bluedevil2k 4y ago
      And you've just outlined the reasons why 94% of Big Tech is in the United States. Number of unicorns in the United States in March 2022 = 607, number in mainland Europe = 42. You're going to argue that 4 months severance from FB, where average developer pay is the highest in the world with Sr. Engineers getting $300k in cash compensation is worse than 6-12 months severance from a European tech company, where cash comp is 20% of that? > would be so costly there that they could hardly happen This is NOT a good thing
      - 4y ago
gsatic 4y ago
They are not leaders. They are just finely tuned machine parts. Don't expect them to think, say or do anything the machine doesn't need.
geodel 4y ago
I don't know FAANG engineers with their very high self worth would take the humiliation of lower salary as oppose to layoffs. > In any case, it's always jarring seeing CEO's saying: "I take responsibility for these troubled times... by firing thousands of employees" Even if reflect badly on founder/CEO to say "I erred by hiring tons of below average engineers who couldn't deliver so I am fixing it now" It would reflect worse on those engineers in real world.
- bluedevil2k 4y ago
  > I don't know FAANG engineers with their very high self worth would take the humiliation of lower salary as oppose to layoffs. Do you apply negative stereotypes to people you don't know as a normal part of your daily interactions?
  - stevehawk 4y ago
    they raise a decent point. there's countless FAANG people on here making $250,000+/yr plus RSU and claim they are underpaid. What happens when they end up in the real world being offered half that with no stock options?
    - a4a4a4a4 4y ago
      Probably start a company with the money they've (hopefully) saved, and make more than slaving away for half their old salary (if half is the only option, which it probably isn't).
      - geodel 4y ago
        Thats a good idea. Not sure its broadly applicable in events of large layoffs.
    - bluedevil2k 4y ago
      There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of tech companies in the US hiring remotely with compensation between $180k - $250k right now. RSUs might not be the same as SV companies, but we all know those RSUs are worth sh*t right now anyway.
Aeolun 4y ago
> In any case, it's always jarring seeing CEO's saying: "I take responsibility for these troubled times... by firing thousands of employees" To some extend. But it’s true too. It is their fault.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  "I take responsibility for these troubled times... by firing thousands of employees - I can gaurantee that my performance related pay for this year will only be $200 million instead of the $500 million I was expecting to be paid."
kennethreitz 4y ago
the problem is job market flooding
belter 4y ago
"First, Let’s Fire All the Managers" - https://hbr.org/2011/12/first-lets-fire-all-the-managers https://hbr.org/2011/12/first-lets-fire-all-the-managers
- tartoran 4y ago
  They keep all the managers to make sure the remaining employees end up covering the work of the ones laid off:) Im sure they laid off a few managers here and there though
- gamblor956 4y ago
  People who advocate for firing managers forget (or are too junior to have ever learned) that managers...were once the regular line employees, bu they did well enough at their jobs to get promoted into the positions of managing other employees so that the other employees could also do well in their jobs. Managers are usually the most competent employees at actually getting shit done, because they have to do their own shit on top of managing what the employees are doing.
  - xorcist 4y ago
    I have not worked anywhere where the above was actually true, except in the beginning when scaling an organization. In mature organizations managers are hired for having managerial experience, not getting shit done on the line.

jstx1 4y ago

From their Q3 earnings report 2 weeks ago (https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_news/Meta-Reports-Third-Quarter-2022-Results-2022.pdf https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_news/Meta-Reports-...): > we expect headcount at the end of 2023 will be approximately in-line with third quarter 2022 levels Was that a lie or are they re-hiring in the future?

manasdaruka 4y ago
Can there be legal ramifications for giving wrong information like this? In any case I assume these type of accusations might be quite easy to defend
- KptMarchewa 4y ago
  If they are firing 50% like musk maybe, if they are firing 10% it's all perfectly in line with that guidance.
glintik 4y ago
"we expect" is not equal to "we ensure"
spuz 4y ago
According to the WSJ article: > “So that means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year,” he said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Oct. 26. “In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today.” So it doesn't sound like they are lying in the Q3 report. Their current plan is to shrink some teams and grow others resulting in about the same number of employees a year from now.
- dom96 4y ago
  > slightly smaller organization than we are today "slightly" doing a lot of work there

jstx1 4y ago

Layoffs at the top companies put downward pressure on the entire job market - fewer open positions, less mobility for everyone, more competition... if you're working at an average non-tech company and want to move up in salary, now you're competing with a bunch of people who have big tech on their resume and who were good enough to pass the big tech interview loop in the past.

whiplash451 4y ago
I would disagree with that. Your company probably has a hiring freeze at the moment. You are not competing with external people. If you are a crucial person to your company, you are actually in a decent position to get an increase. If you are not crucial, you are on the list for the second round.
- jstx1 4y ago
  No way, increasing compensation for current employees was difficult even when the market was hot. I'm not buying that the companies with hiring freezes are giving out raises (certainly not more raises than before).
- yuhc 4y ago
  Both make sense, while new grads always hurt.
dustedcodes 4y ago
> "and who were good enough to pass the big tech interview loop in the past" I would rephrase that to "who were willing to go through the big tech interview loop in the past". The big different between the people who go through this and don't is not ability but desire from my experience.
- Herbstluft 4y ago
  I agree that the way those tech interviews are designed makes them more of a marathon that tests determination. Doesn't change that the prestige of having it on your resume will cause many other companies to blindly hire you.

justinator 4y ago

Just in time for Christmas.

bluedevil2k 4y ago
Christmas is 2 months away, and they're getting 4 months severance and many companies ramp up hiring in January...what's your point exactly?
- disgruntledphd2 4y ago
  This is a terrible time to get laid off, as no one will be interviewing till the new year.
  - bluedevil2k 4y ago
    Hence the 4 months of severance, which keeps them paid until mid-March.
    - doublerabbit 4y ago
      Right. January and February are write off months, not much happens. So by March you still have no job and no more income. A new job including job search takes around three months. A round of interviews, signing of contracts, background checks and then finally a month of work before you get your first pay check. That takes you to May. Thats if you pass the interviews and are chosen to be the employee.
  - hellweaver666 4y ago
    The way things are going, not many people will be interviewing next year either. There may be a few openings for attrition but they will slow too as there are less places for people to leave to. In this kind of environment employees are going to hunker down and wait for things to pick up (and hope they don't get laid off). I think a lot of people being laid-off are going to struggle to find employment at anything even close to the kind of level of reward they're used to at the big tech companies (because you just know the people that are hiring are going to take full advantage of the sudden glut of developers to pay less!)

cupofjoakim 4y ago

If Meta is removing non-essential employees I wonder if we could see the core react team having to leave at some point. That could be quite the shift for frontend work.

ajdegol 4y ago
to svelte
- pts_ 4y ago
  React to Solid, Angular and Vue to Svelte.
mikojan 4y ago
Cross your fingers!
dindresto 4y ago
I'm sure Vercel would be happy to take full control of React by hiring the core team.
solardev 4y ago
That would be amazing. I'd love to see React detached from Facebook's needs, which don't matter to most companies, and be taken over by the community instead. Honestly React is kinda useless without its ecosystem anyway, the vast majority of which is third party already. Next would be a great steward to inherit React.

homeland221 4y ago

Meta name is cursed. The slide begins the moment they changed from FB.

DaiPlusPlus 4y ago
The slide really began with Eternal September…
est 4y ago
The whole metaverse & VR thing is a scam. People seem to forget a thing from the past called 2ndlife.
- hellweaver666 4y ago
  There was an article on BBC news the other day about people investing in property in the metaverse. It blew my mind because it's not a finite space like the real world... the idea that people are spending thousands speculating on virtual real estate in an unproven environment that has almost zero uptake is mind blowing.
  - iso1631 4y ago
    Great way to do some money laundering
  - solardev 4y ago
    This has happened in every mmo for decades now.
  - rsynnott 4y ago
    This is just history repeating itself. Happened with Second Life, too, nearly 20 years ago: https://www.zdnet.com/article/reality-pricks-the-second-life-property-bubble/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/reality-pricks-the-second-life...
- vkou 4y ago
  It's not a scam, it's a Hail Mary play to control the platform that Facebook's services run on. Without that control, it's at the mercy of upstream vendors. It's not going to work, but there's a good reason for why they are trying.

radar1310 4y ago

Merry Christmas Meta.

hellweaver666 4y ago
Keep the change ya filthy animal

SilverBirch 4y ago

I think we all know that how this is received will be entirely down to where the cuts come. If the cuts come in the Metaverse R&D, the stock price will jump and everyone will be more or less happy - you can believe in the Metaverse and that project and still understand it is a massive overinvestment. If the cuts come in the legacy business with the Metaverse protected I think that will be an indication that no Meta shareholders can honestly expect to see the revenue from the social media business, Zuckerberg will burn it all before he hands it back to shareholders, so in that case this could be a horrible performing stock. And of course that's important because most people at Meta have significant stock based comp.

disgruntledphd2 4y ago
He's almost certainly cutting core so he can continue to invest in the metaverse. Rightly or wrongly, he thinks this is the right decision.

saos 4y ago

> Meta’s head of human resources, Lori Goler, said employees who lose their jobs will be provided with at least four months of salary as severance That is sweet. Can enjoy the holidays > Zuckerberg said he was accountable for the company’s downturn Lol then reduce your stock size? Offer your employees your money. Honestly, all these CEOs coming out with the same line is just nonsense

agd 4y ago
Sweet for many, but very tough for those on visas who will have to now leave the US and abandon the lives they built there.
- K5EiS 4y ago
  I'm not familiar with visas, do they not get any time to find new jobs?
  - tyingq 4y ago
    They have to find a job willing to sponsor the visa, all within tight timelines. There's a 60 day grace period once you're laid off, but if the new petition is filed late, you have to leave and re-enter, etc. The timing is also difficult in this case, as hiring often slows down in Nov/Dec.
- bismuthcrystal 4y ago
  Since when it became reasonable to build a life on such a weak foundation?
- solardev 4y ago
  It's the risk they take working in a foreign country. Many Americans have no job security or savings either. Hard to feel bad for foreigners who come here and earn Facebook salaries while sending money home and displacing local citizens and economies. I am the child of immigrants who did just that, BTW. Global labor is only good for capitalists and owners, not for everyday workers and residents and communities.
4y ago

Eumenes 4y ago

These severance packages are very generous

nicolashahn 4y ago

Some data from the inside: RL hit less hard than the rest of the company. No one on my team or adjacent teams let go. Most bootcampers are gone, even ones that were performing well. Low performer from my past team outside RL was let go, so it appears performance was a factor for a lot of roles, rather than just axing entire teams based on business need.