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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.
by 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 agoFour 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 agoBut 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 agoLuckily Zuckerberg thoughtfully solved the high TC problem by crashing the stock this last year, making jobs at other companies seem within reach.
- eru 4y agoMany tech companies saw their stock drop in value. I don't think we can blame it all on Facebook's boss.
- tdeck 4y agoHow many of them lost 75% in the last year?
- whiplash451 4y agoQuite a few. Netflix, Shopify, Spotify, Twilio, etc.
- chrischen 4y agoAffirm, snapchat.
- 29athrowaway 4y agoThe new Fed interest rates did that, not Zuck. But Zuck's pie in the sky metaverse shit contributed.
- smt88 4y agoI 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 agoOn 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 agoAn 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 agoDefinitely 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 agoIt 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 agoEvery 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 agoMost employees at tech companies are compensated via shares…
- anonuser123456 4y agoAnd share price doesn’t affect the value of their shares?
- nly 4y agoMy 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 agoCan't even buy Twitter.
- saiya-jin 4y agoI am rather sure it will be on discount soon given musk's silly behavior
- Applejinx 4y agoOn 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 agoMaybe 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 agoThis, I know more than a dozen journalists that are now working at facebook as PR basically.
- smodo 4y agoMore 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 agoIn 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 agoOr 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 agoThey fired over 80% of their Colorado employees - no way that was performance-based.
- adwww 4y agoUnless that location was working on a particular problem that meant fewer LoC.
- i_like_apis 4y agoThat 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 agoThey used a thanos style random number generator. If the day in your DOB is an odd number you were fired.
- anomaly_ 4y agoWell, I guess you don't want unlucky people working for you!
- blitzar 4y agoIt 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 agoNobody 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 agoand 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 agoYeah, some people would consider having worked for certain companies a red flag.
- snapcaster 4y agoI always see this comment on here but never once seen or heard this in real life interactions with people
- cranekam 4y agoThe 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 agoThere is even a "very emotional" scene in Silicon Valley where Gavin Belson does just that
- ChuckNorris89 4y agoEnjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u48vYSLvKNQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u48vYSLvKNQ
- i_like_apis 4y agoThis show delivered so well, on so many things, over and over.
- canbus 4y agoI can see why they stopped producing it, but I wish they didn't!
- geerlingguy 4y agoOne 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 agoI 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 agoI 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 agoSurely there is a middle ground between not assuming any responsibility and killing yourself over it.
- ChuckNorris89 4y agoI never said there isn't, I just pointed out some existing facts.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- googlerx 4y agoZuck could personally give 3000 fired employees $1million each and that would be less than 10% of his net worth.
- snapcaster 4y agoI 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 agoHe could probably take a loan against his stock.
- robertlagrant 4y agoDoing maths that depend on paper worth is pointless.
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- martius 4y agoFour 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 ago4 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 agoYour 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 agoHowever 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 agoAnd 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 agoThey 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 agoI 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 agothey 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 agoProbably 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 agoThats a good idea. Not sure its broadly applicable in events of large layoffs.
- bluedevil2k 4y agoThere 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 agothe 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 agoThey 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 agoPeople 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 agoI 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.