6 ms·

Last time they did a big layoff the stock went up.. so I guess keep firing people as long as the stock keeps going up is the plan for say people who own lots of

by xt00 4y ago

Last time they did a big layoff the stock went up.. so I guess keep firing people as long as the stock keeps going up is the plan for say people who own lots of the stock.. I wonder who might benefit?

paxys 4y ago
Logic checks out. They can keep doing layoffs until Zuck is the only employee left and the stock is worth infinite dollars.
twblalock 4y ago
> I wonder who might benefit? The shareholders, for whose purpose the business exists, are the ones who will benefit, and they deserve to. Don't forget that most of the employees are also shareholders and most of them make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from the stock. It sucks that people get laid off, but a large portion of the employees were lucky to be hired in the first place, because of the crazy growth that was enabled and rewarded by the market in the last few years. They made a lot of money and now they have to look for work again. It's not like laying off factory workers.
- smeagull 4y ago
  Perhaps. I'd take this as a signal that the company has no big innovation happening, and is a negative signal for the medium to long term.
marco_yolo 4y ago
shareholders benefit when a company streamlines its operations. seeing as most meta employees are shareholders, they would benefit. a company cannot grow infinitely. any temporary bump in share price will only matter and sustain if the cuts actually help the company. getting laid off is hard, no doubt, but as long as the severance packages are fair I don't see any ethical issue here.
givemeethekeys 4y ago
Stock goes up when costs are reduced. If there's a major outage due to structural weakness (as a result of layoffs), then the stock crashes down.
- andirk 4y ago
  Board members who are at the whims of the holders of their stonks will ebb and flow with the wishes of those who need more ROI during an oncoming recession. Another way to put it: a lot more people will be laid off and that will continue until the underlying product is harmed. But what is the underlying product? Besides sharing photos on Instagram, I don't personally hear or know about any mass adoption of Meta wares.
  - zingar 4y ago
    Is WhatsApp not on your list of mass adoption?
  - HDThoreaun 4y ago
    Mark is the board, he can do whatever he wants.
kypro 4y ago
This is quite a cynical take. The logic probably isn't as simple as, "if we fire people, our stock will go up". A lower stock price for a company like Facebook actually impacts its ability to operate. For one, Facebook as a technology company depends on being able to compensate their employees competitively with other tech companies and part of that involves stock based comp. If their stock price is constantly falling and trading at compressed levels then they have to give away increasingly larger percentages of the company to attract top talent. This obviously isn't sustainable. The second problem is that a lower stock price impacts Facebook's ability to offer its stock in acquisitions. This means that they will either have to pay cash or take on debt as an alternative. And that's hard to do when you're pushing a large chunk of your free cashflow into projects like Reality Labs and investors are already concerned about cashflows.
- KptMarchewa 4y ago
  So they do 40 billion stock buyback out of concern of their employers wellbeing? Wow, did not know Zucc is so selfless.
  - kypro 4y ago
    My understanding is that the employees are the largest shareholder of Facebook – so naturally they would be the largest beneficiary of any stock buy back. But this was exactly my point in regards to the importance of the stock price for securing talent. The company is owned in large part by its employees and they will jump ship if they don't believe in the company's future.
    - KptMarchewa 4y ago
      Sure, "employees" like Zucc or Sandberg.
    - chii 4y ago
      > My understanding is that the employees are the largest shareholder of Facebook i would be surprised if that is really the case. I expect institutional holders followed by founders to be larger.
propogandist 4y ago
there are reports that $META stock ticker will revert back to $FB soon

by xt00 4y ago

paxys 4y ago

Logic checks out. They can keep doing layoffs until Zuck is the only employee left and the stock is worth infinite dollars.

twblalock 4y ago

> I wonder who might benefit? The shareholders, for whose purpose the business exists, are the ones who will benefit, and they deserve to. Don't forget that most of the employees are also shareholders and most of them make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from the stock. It sucks that people get laid off, but a large portion of the employees were lucky to be hired in the first place, because of the crazy growth that was enabled and rewarded by the market in the last few years. They made a lot of money and now they have to look for work again. It's not like laying off factory workers.

smeagull 4y ago
Perhaps. I'd take this as a signal that the company has no big innovation happening, and is a negative signal for the medium to long term.

marco_yolo 4y ago

shareholders benefit when a company streamlines its operations. seeing as most meta employees are shareholders, they would benefit. a company cannot grow infinitely. any temporary bump in share price will only matter and sustain if the cuts actually help the company. getting laid off is hard, no doubt, but as long as the severance packages are fair I don't see any ethical issue here.

givemeethekeys 4y ago

Stock goes up when costs are reduced. If there's a major outage due to structural weakness (as a result of layoffs), then the stock crashes down.

andirk 4y ago
Board members who are at the whims of the holders of their stonks will ebb and flow with the wishes of those who need more ROI during an oncoming recession. Another way to put it: a lot more people will be laid off and that will continue until the underlying product is harmed. But what is the underlying product? Besides sharing photos on Instagram, I don't personally hear or know about any mass adoption of Meta wares.
- zingar 4y ago
  Is WhatsApp not on your list of mass adoption?
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  Mark is the board, he can do whatever he wants.

kypro 4y ago

This is quite a cynical take. The logic probably isn't as simple as, "if we fire people, our stock will go up". A lower stock price for a company like Facebook actually impacts its ability to operate. For one, Facebook as a technology company depends on being able to compensate their employees competitively with other tech companies and part of that involves stock based comp. If their stock price is constantly falling and trading at compressed levels then they have to give away increasingly larger percentages of the company to attract top talent. This obviously isn't sustainable. The second problem is that a lower stock price impacts Facebook's ability to offer its stock in acquisitions. This means that they will either have to pay cash or take on debt as an alternative. And that's hard to do when you're pushing a large chunk of your free cashflow into projects like Reality Labs and investors are already concerned about cashflows.

KptMarchewa 4y ago
So they do 40 billion stock buyback out of concern of their employers wellbeing? Wow, did not know Zucc is so selfless.
- kypro 4y ago
  My understanding is that the employees are the largest shareholder of Facebook – so naturally they would be the largest beneficiary of any stock buy back. But this was exactly my point in regards to the importance of the stock price for securing talent. The company is owned in large part by its employees and they will jump ship if they don't believe in the company's future.
  - KptMarchewa 4y ago
    Sure, "employees" like Zucc or Sandberg.
  - chii 4y ago
    > My understanding is that the employees are the largest shareholder of Facebook i would be surprised if that is really the case. I expect institutional holders followed by founders to be larger.

propogandist 4y ago

there are reports that $META stock ticker will revert back to $FB soon