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Honest question - what does 'take accountability' and 'take responsibility' actually look like for Zuckerberg here?

theCrowing 4y ago
It means nothing especially with 50% voting shares. The funny thing about these layoffs is how they just go by the C-Suites without even denting their value.
onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
Honest question - what do you expect it to look like beside making the statement and giving employees a more than gracious severance package to back up the words?
- lljk_kennedy 4y ago
  I guess in an ideal world, the board removes him as CEO?
  - atemerev 4y ago
    Why? He is making a correct decision from the business point of view, it is unclear who will be the replacement CEO, and there are similar layoffs across other tech companies. The board has zero incentive of changing the CEO now.
    - pmontra 4y ago
      This decision might be correct but the previous one was wrong. In his own words: "I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected." So, keep him to downsize the company and replace him when it's time to start growing again?
    - lljk_kennedy 4y ago
      It's evidently clear now, his "correct decision from a business point of view" to increase investments during Covid was wrong as they resulted in these 11,000 people being let go. I think the same could be said for the increased investment in metaverse, which I imagine is predicated on the prior large growth of people moving online during Covid, which is now returning to the mean. I think their share price has taken strong corrections due to these decisions. I think that's an incentive for a board to take action? (I'm purposefully ignoring the ouroborus that is Zuck's control of voting shares that protects him here.)
    - periphrasis 4y ago
      This decision is correct, given all the incorrect strategic decisions he made leading up to it. The markets have clearly lost a lot of confidence in his leadership, and I would have to imagine the remaining employees have too. Stepping down would be a drastic step, but merely stating “I take responsibility” is unlikely on its own to restore confidence in his ability to right the ship either.
  - yreg 4y ago
    He has the majority of the voting shares so it's rightfully his decision.
- greenthrow 4y ago
  When you actually take responsibklity and accountsbility in the real world and not the bs world of C-suite executives, it means there are consequences for you. Might mean he steps down from his position, it might mean he gets a his compensation package cut, it might mean something else. But it means more than empty words.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - bawolff 4y ago
    I mean, if you get into a minor car accident, taking responsibility basically means paying for damage to the car. To me it seems like taking responsibility for hiring too many people by ensuring a nice severance package and paying for access to external hiring consultants for people who want it, is pretty analogous to how ordinary people take responsibility when they accidentally do something that wrongs someone else i.e. They try and fix the effects of the wrong. Taking responsibility means trying to make it right. It doesn't mean taking a hit personally, unless that hit helps make the situation right.
    - greenthrow 4y ago
      He's not personally paying for those severance packages. Is this really that hard to understand?
      - bawolff 4y ago
        Does it matter as long as he is the cause of them getting compensated? Vengence isn't the same as justice. If you care more about zuck personally hurting than laid off employees being compensated, you are after the former not the latter. To use the car accideny analogy - do you also think its a cop out for people to have insurance?
  - namdnay 4y ago
    he's taken a major hit to his personal wealth as a consequence of this bad decision, so I'd say the consequences are pretty real for him
- lordnacho 4y ago
  He goes and asks an executive recruitment firm to find a successor and spends more time on the board. Yeah it sounds tough but if he'd hired a guy who oversaw what's just happened, he would have fired him.
- severino 4y ago
  I would expect that he doesn't say he would take responsibility if that doesn't mean anything at all.
FartyMcFarter 4y ago
Only he can punish himself, effectively. He has control of the company.
jstx1 4y ago
This question comes up in every layoff thread. It doesn't mean "this will have negative consequences on me personally". It means "I don't blame anyone else for this".
- fsloth 4y ago
  My english is non-native but I would expect when someone says "I take accountability and responsibility" to means exactly that and I have a hard time figuring out what else it could mean. The OP sounds like they would expect the person to perform some sort of public penance or resign. Which IMO is the wrong thing to do when making a mistake. The correct thing is to own up to your mistakes and hopefully learn from them.
  - lljk_kennedy 4y ago
    Accountability to me, means that your actions have consequences. Saying "I'm accountable" but it not having any material affect based on the outcome of your actions feels unfair to most people. Especially when it's really 11,000 people who are the ones to actually feel the consequences. Zuck's net worth dropping from one unfathomable level of wealth, to another unfathomable level of wealth, isn't really a consequence here.
    - namdnay 4y ago
      as i said in another comment, for 90% of the world's population, the level of wealth fo the average facebook employee is unfathomable too. so it's hard to play the "oh he's wealthy so there are no real consequences" card just for zuckerberg
    - fsloth 4y ago
      So each time someone makes a mistake there should be a material consequence to the person? Would this not create an atmosphere of fear and drive society towards a fixed mindset where everyone would in case of mistake try to hide their mistake? AFAIK the biggest upgrade to global aviation safety happened when mistakes were de-penalized, and all stakeholders could honestly discuss what went wrong and how to improve things in the future. IMO, the biggest issues is not punishment, but understanding that a mistake was made, and an honest attempt to avoid similar mistakes in the future. If a perpetrator fails to honestly see the harm in their actions, and perpetuate the same mistake repeatedly, then yes, they should probably face secondary consequences to make it understandable to every stakeholder that such behaviour is not acceptable. The reasoning here, however, is not some sense of global justice, but to simply de-normalize the pathological behaviour (if you repeat something without consequences it becomes 'accepted way of working').
tyingq 4y ago
He's not my favorite person, but he did use language that said he, personally, predicted the business conditions wrong, overhired, etc. You don't have to look far to find layoff messages that blame covid or other outside forces and don't take any blame.
bawolff 4y ago
Its just business speak for "I'm sorry, its my fault". I don't think that's a bad thing. Its always worthwhile to apologize even if there is nothing else to be done.
namdnay 4y ago
Losing three quarters of his net worth?
- lljk_kennedy 4y ago
  Meh, it's inconsequential given he's never going to want for money.
  - namdnay 4y ago
    if we're going down that road, being fired is pretty inconsequential for a silicon valley software engineer. whoever your next employer is, relative to 90% of the world's population you'll still have a richer and more comfortable life than they could ever dream of
selfmodruntime 4y ago
Guy has lost dozens of billions of dollars. As far as accountability goes he's pretty up there.

It means nothing especially with 50% voting shares. The funny thing about these layoffs is how they just go by the C-Suites without even denting their value.

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago

Honest question - what do you expect it to look like beside making the statement and giving employees a more than gracious severance package to back up the words?

lljk_kennedy 4y ago
I guess in an ideal world, the board removes him as CEO?
- atemerev 4y ago
  Why? He is making a correct decision from the business point of view, it is unclear who will be the replacement CEO, and there are similar layoffs across other tech companies. The board has zero incentive of changing the CEO now.
  - pmontra 4y ago
    This decision might be correct but the previous one was wrong. In his own words: "I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected." So, keep him to downsize the company and replace him when it's time to start growing again?
  - lljk_kennedy 4y ago
    It's evidently clear now, his "correct decision from a business point of view" to increase investments during Covid was wrong as they resulted in these 11,000 people being let go. I think the same could be said for the increased investment in metaverse, which I imagine is predicated on the prior large growth of people moving online during Covid, which is now returning to the mean. I think their share price has taken strong corrections due to these decisions. I think that's an incentive for a board to take action? (I'm purposefully ignoring the ouroborus that is Zuck's control of voting shares that protects him here.)
  - periphrasis 4y ago
    This decision is correct, given all the incorrect strategic decisions he made leading up to it. The markets have clearly lost a lot of confidence in his leadership, and I would have to imagine the remaining employees have too. Stepping down would be a drastic step, but merely stating “I take responsibility” is unlikely on its own to restore confidence in his ability to right the ship either.
- yreg 4y ago
  He has the majority of the voting shares so it's rightfully his decision.
greenthrow 4y ago
When you actually take responsibklity and accountsbility in the real world and not the bs world of C-suite executives, it means there are consequences for you. Might mean he steps down from his position, it might mean he gets a his compensation package cut, it might mean something else. But it means more than empty words.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bawolff 4y ago
  I mean, if you get into a minor car accident, taking responsibility basically means paying for damage to the car. To me it seems like taking responsibility for hiring too many people by ensuring a nice severance package and paying for access to external hiring consultants for people who want it, is pretty analogous to how ordinary people take responsibility when they accidentally do something that wrongs someone else i.e. They try and fix the effects of the wrong. Taking responsibility means trying to make it right. It doesn't mean taking a hit personally, unless that hit helps make the situation right.
  - greenthrow 4y ago
    He's not personally paying for those severance packages. Is this really that hard to understand?
    - bawolff 4y ago
      Does it matter as long as he is the cause of them getting compensated? Vengence isn't the same as justice. If you care more about zuck personally hurting than laid off employees being compensated, you are after the former not the latter. To use the car accideny analogy - do you also think its a cop out for people to have insurance?
- namdnay 4y ago
  he's taken a major hit to his personal wealth as a consequence of this bad decision, so I'd say the consequences are pretty real for him
lordnacho 4y ago
He goes and asks an executive recruitment firm to find a successor and spends more time on the board. Yeah it sounds tough but if he'd hired a guy who oversaw what's just happened, he would have fired him.
severino 4y ago
I would expect that he doesn't say he would take responsibility if that doesn't mean anything at all.

FartyMcFarter 4y ago

Only he can punish himself, effectively. He has control of the company.

jstx1 4y ago

This question comes up in every layoff thread. It doesn't mean "this will have negative consequences on me personally". It means "I don't blame anyone else for this".

fsloth 4y ago
My english is non-native but I would expect when someone says "I take accountability and responsibility" to means exactly that and I have a hard time figuring out what else it could mean. The OP sounds like they would expect the person to perform some sort of public penance or resign. Which IMO is the wrong thing to do when making a mistake. The correct thing is to own up to your mistakes and hopefully learn from them.
- lljk_kennedy 4y ago
  Accountability to me, means that your actions have consequences. Saying "I'm accountable" but it not having any material affect based on the outcome of your actions feels unfair to most people. Especially when it's really 11,000 people who are the ones to actually feel the consequences. Zuck's net worth dropping from one unfathomable level of wealth, to another unfathomable level of wealth, isn't really a consequence here.
  - namdnay 4y ago
    as i said in another comment, for 90% of the world's population, the level of wealth fo the average facebook employee is unfathomable too. so it's hard to play the "oh he's wealthy so there are no real consequences" card just for zuckerberg
  - fsloth 4y ago
    So each time someone makes a mistake there should be a material consequence to the person? Would this not create an atmosphere of fear and drive society towards a fixed mindset where everyone would in case of mistake try to hide their mistake? AFAIK the biggest upgrade to global aviation safety happened when mistakes were de-penalized, and all stakeholders could honestly discuss what went wrong and how to improve things in the future. IMO, the biggest issues is not punishment, but understanding that a mistake was made, and an honest attempt to avoid similar mistakes in the future. If a perpetrator fails to honestly see the harm in their actions, and perpetuate the same mistake repeatedly, then yes, they should probably face secondary consequences to make it understandable to every stakeholder that such behaviour is not acceptable. The reasoning here, however, is not some sense of global justice, but to simply de-normalize the pathological behaviour (if you repeat something without consequences it becomes 'accepted way of working').

tyingq 4y ago

He's not my favorite person, but he did use language that said he, personally, predicted the business conditions wrong, overhired, etc. You don't have to look far to find layoff messages that blame covid or other outside forces and don't take any blame.

bawolff 4y ago

Its just business speak for "I'm sorry, its my fault". I don't think that's a bad thing. Its always worthwhile to apologize even if there is nothing else to be done.

namdnay 4y ago

Losing three quarters of his net worth?

lljk_kennedy 4y ago
Meh, it's inconsequential given he's never going to want for money.
- namdnay 4y ago
  if we're going down that road, being fired is pretty inconsequential for a silicon valley software engineer. whoever your next employer is, relative to 90% of the world's population you'll still have a richer and more comfortable life than they could ever dream of

selfmodruntime 4y ago

Guy has lost dozens of billions of dollars. As far as accountability goes he's pretty up there.