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Facebook ("Meta") made $46.7 Billion in Profit in 2021. They have $42 Billion in cash. If the average engineer is paid $150k then these 11k people would cost th

Facebook ("Meta") made $46.7 Billion in Profit in 2021. They have $42 Billion in cash. If the average engineer is paid $150k then these 11k people would cost the company 150,000 x 11,000 = 1,650,000,000 ($1.6 Billion/year) Mark Zuckerberg could _easily_ afford to keep these people employed and focus their efforts towards improving the safety of the platform e.g: stopping Human Trafficking, Drug Dealing and Child Abuse all documented extensively in the Facebook Papers. They are failing to protect the most vulnerable people in society while sitting on a _mountain_ of cash. Shame on you Mark.

AnonC 4y ago
If Mark Zuckerberg had any shame at all, he wouldn’t be around with Meta and all the companies it owns/runs. But he has good company among many other CEOs who’d rather cut the workforce and earn more bonuses for themselves.
jrochkind1 4y ago
When doing "how much staff costs" calculations, you typically have to add on ~30-50% on top of salary for employer's share of taxes, and benefits (health insurance in USA is very non-trivial), and other assorted overhead. But your point stands.
pb7 4y ago
>If the average engineer is paid $150k Haha. It’s more like twice this, with another ~50% in overhead costs like healthcare, payroll taxes, real estate, etc.
- rbanffy 4y ago
  They have employees outside Silicon Valley
  - mgraczyk 4y ago
    Those engineers still make much more than this.
  - pb7 4y ago
    They don’t have enough and the compensation isn’t low enough to bring down the average anywhere near this. Within the US, only base salary is adjusted up to 10-15% which is less than 10% of total comp. Internationally they pay significantly higher than local labor market, in all looking similar to US numbers.
Sakos 4y ago
I'm not really sure what the point of the layoffs here are. Are they realizing that they had no idea how to effectively put 11.000 people to work? What are they trying to achieve?
- pm90 4y ago
  Its been mentioned in other places but to summarize: * this is a cost cutting measure and not primarily driven by the need to cull "low performing" employees. * point of the company is not to guarantee employment or even keep the lights on; its to maximize the stock price (at least according to the prevailing worldview, which I disagree with). Investors use the stock price as a proxy for their belief in a company's future. If the stock price is high, company invests and expands, if its low, it contracts until the investors/markets believe it can generate value. * layoffs scare the employees that remain into working harder. The sad truth is that unless you're really exceptional, this doesn't really matter. But they will likely see a productivity boost for a little while. Again, this is pretty short term.
  - Sakos 4y ago
    Which seems bizarre to me. Cutting costs just leads to hollowing out your expertise and institutional knowledge (see Intel) to the point where it eventually becomes far more difficult or even impossible to grow. This is the time to reorganize, restrategize, reprioritize and solve long-standing cultural/organisational issues, not fire people who could potentially help the company through tough times. Oh well. It's FB, I'm okay with it if they sink the ship.
deleted 4y ago
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AnonC 4y ago

If Mark Zuckerberg had any shame at all, he wouldn’t be around with Meta and all the companies it owns/runs. But he has good company among many other CEOs who’d rather cut the workforce and earn more bonuses for themselves.

jrochkind1 4y ago

When doing "how much staff costs" calculations, you typically have to add on ~30-50% on top of salary for employer's share of taxes, and benefits (health insurance in USA is very non-trivial), and other assorted overhead. But your point stands.

pb7 4y ago

>If the average engineer is paid $150k Haha. It’s more like twice this, with another ~50% in overhead costs like healthcare, payroll taxes, real estate, etc.

rbanffy 4y ago
They have employees outside Silicon Valley
- mgraczyk 4y ago
  Those engineers still make much more than this.
- pb7 4y ago
  They don’t have enough and the compensation isn’t low enough to bring down the average anywhere near this. Within the US, only base salary is adjusted up to 10-15% which is less than 10% of total comp. Internationally they pay significantly higher than local labor market, in all looking similar to US numbers.

Sakos 4y ago

I'm not really sure what the point of the layoffs here are. Are they realizing that they had no idea how to effectively put 11.000 people to work? What are they trying to achieve?

pm90 4y ago
Its been mentioned in other places but to summarize: * this is a cost cutting measure and not primarily driven by the need to cull "low performing" employees. * point of the company is not to guarantee employment or even keep the lights on; its to maximize the stock price (at least according to the prevailing worldview, which I disagree with). Investors use the stock price as a proxy for their belief in a company's future. If the stock price is high, company invests and expands, if its low, it contracts until the investors/markets believe it can generate value. * layoffs scare the employees that remain into working harder. The sad truth is that unless you're really exceptional, this doesn't really matter. But they will likely see a productivity boost for a little while. Again, this is pretty short term.
- Sakos 4y ago
  Which seems bizarre to me. Cutting costs just leads to hollowing out your expertise and institutional knowledge (see Intel) to the point where it eventually becomes far more difficult or even impossible to grow. This is the time to reorganize, restrategize, reprioritize and solve long-standing cultural/organisational issues, not fire people who could potentially help the company through tough times. Oh well. It's FB, I'm okay with it if they sink the ship.

deleted 4y ago

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