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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 fo

by 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').
    - jstx1 4y ago
      Even "perpetrator" is harsh - overhiring is a business mistake, not some ethical or legal violation. It's part of the deal - you get hired, and you can get laid off later. It sucks for the employees to go through but they aren't victims.
    - lljk_kennedy 4y ago
      I think you're dishonestly trying to equate a CEO having to fire 11,000 people due to his decisions, to something like an engineer wiping out a DB and having to restore from backups. If suddenly, 11,000 people died today in airplane crashes in a single company's air fleet, you're be sure that their CEO would be under question. I'm not saying this is a fair analogy - but just as similar, your one wasn't either.
      - fsloth 4y ago
        I suppose it boils down to how serious is the mistake of the CEO from the point of view of society, Facebook owners and other stakeholders. I could imagine Facebook doing things that would indeed merit the sacking of CEO. For instance, doing something that leads to the death of 11k people would warrant severe consequences. I have no idea how Facebook could do that, but on the same par. They have all the data to do tons of nasty things. I would view accidentally hiring 11k people from the point of view of the above interested parties indeed on the level of an engineer wiping db via accident (not negligence). I imagine the mistake would be something like, you look at the market, you see it skyrocketing, you feed the numbers to your trusty excel sheet that has served you years and say, hey, we need more people. Only when market conditions normalize you realize the mistake. Honestly, I really can't see the harm done here. People lose their jobs all the time. Corporation hire and fire. Why would this be any worse than standard practice in corporate america? (Of course it sucks to be laid off)
mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
If you look at his net worth, which is likely to be mostly on paper, it has suffered a lot. I know its a "cry me a river", "worlds smallest violin" type of thing but for someone at his level that is the material impact. I would imagine someone with empathy will feel horrible about having to do this to 11,000 people's livelihoods. I'm not implying Zuck has or doesn't have empathy, I don't know him. I'm just saying this likely has an impact. It might also have a business impact on future hiring, forecasting, etc. for the company as well. Maybe the pace of funding in the VR BigBet gets pulled back some? We'll know in a couple quarters.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- system2 4y ago
  Those people knowingly didn't escape the sinking boat and decided to work at Meta. We can say this for every social media platform company and their employees. I'd work at microsoft but not at snapchat or facebook. These apps are just trends and they go away in 10-15 years. They past maturity phase and in decline for the last 5 years already.

by 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').
  - jstx1 4y ago
    Even "perpetrator" is harsh - overhiring is a business mistake, not some ethical or legal violation. It's part of the deal - you get hired, and you can get laid off later. It sucks for the employees to go through but they aren't victims.
  - lljk_kennedy 4y ago
    I think you're dishonestly trying to equate a CEO having to fire 11,000 people due to his decisions, to something like an engineer wiping out a DB and having to restore from backups. If suddenly, 11,000 people died today in airplane crashes in a single company's air fleet, you're be sure that their CEO would be under question. I'm not saying this is a fair analogy - but just as similar, your one wasn't either.
    - fsloth 4y ago
      I suppose it boils down to how serious is the mistake of the CEO from the point of view of society, Facebook owners and other stakeholders. I could imagine Facebook doing things that would indeed merit the sacking of CEO. For instance, doing something that leads to the death of 11k people would warrant severe consequences. I have no idea how Facebook could do that, but on the same par. They have all the data to do tons of nasty things. I would view accidentally hiring 11k people from the point of view of the above interested parties indeed on the level of an engineer wiping db via accident (not negligence). I imagine the mistake would be something like, you look at the market, you see it skyrocketing, you feed the numbers to your trusty excel sheet that has served you years and say, hey, we need more people. Only when market conditions normalize you realize the mistake. Honestly, I really can't see the harm done here. People lose their jobs all the time. Corporation hire and fire. Why would this be any worse than standard practice in corporate america? (Of course it sucks to be laid off)

mattbrewsbytes 4y ago

If you look at his net worth, which is likely to be mostly on paper, it has suffered a lot. I know its a "cry me a river", "worlds smallest violin" type of thing but for someone at his level that is the material impact. I would imagine someone with empathy will feel horrible about having to do this to 11,000 people's livelihoods. I'm not implying Zuck has or doesn't have empathy, I don't know him. I'm just saying this likely has an impact. It might also have a business impact on future hiring, forecasting, etc. for the company as well. Maybe the pace of funding in the VR BigBet gets pulled back some? We'll know in a couple quarters.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
system2 4y ago
Those people knowingly didn't escape the sinking boat and decided to work at Meta. We can say this for every social media platform company and their employees. I'd work at microsoft but not at snapchat or facebook. These apps are just trends and they go away in 10-15 years. They past maturity phase and in decline for the last 5 years already.