5 ms·

It takes a certain kind of cold detatchment to hire 5,000-10,000 people to r&d and build the foundation of your next big thing - drain every ounce of life out o

It takes a certain kind of cold detatchment to hire 5,000-10,000 people to r&d and build the foundation of your next big thing - drain every ounce of life out of them then discard them on the heap a couple of years later.

wincy 4y ago
The hundreds of thousands of dollars he paid every single one of them must have been just an awful experience for the people he “drained dry”.
- b112 4y ago
  Indeed. These people all have 2+ years of build, tooling, dev experience in this newly emerging field. They did valuable work, it just did not hit market. Anyone else in this space will be happy to snag them up.
senttoschool 4y ago
Like many tech companies during zero interest rates, they over hired and did not anticipate interest rates going up so fast. At least these employees probably made a ton of money.
- b112 4y ago
  This has nothing to do with interest rates, none of these companies are borrowing to hire. And Meta, Amazon, Salesforce etc are only shedding excess pandemic hires. If you look at a graph of hires over a decade, the pandemic shows a huge blip up, and these layoffs correct that.
  - nequo 4y ago
    It does if they use their stock price as a benchmark, which they do if it is a part of their compensation. Higher interest rates push investors to sell their Facebook shares and buy bonds instead. This means that Facebook needs to earn higher profits in order to pull its stock price upwards. Low-IRR projects are eliminated and with them the people who worked on them.
    - dangwhy 4y ago
      > interest rates push investors to sell their Facebook shares and buy bonds instead. Wouldnt the stock price drop with people selling the stock. That didn't happen with meta with interest rate hikes.
      - nequo 4y ago
        You’re right, it should, unless Facebook counterbalanced the hikes with positive news during those days/weeks.
  - dboreham 4y ago
    > This has nothing to do with interest rates, none of these companies are borrowing to hire. The interest rate connection is that investors buy the company stock (driving the price up beyond what's reasonable given the underlying business health), because the alternative fix rate instruments offer negative return.
  - senttoschool 4y ago
    >And Meta, Amazon, Salesforce etc are only shedding excess pandemic hires. If you look at a graph of hires over a decade, the pandemic shows a huge blip up, and these layoffs correct that. I think you're arguing against yourself. Why do you think there was a huge blip up during the pandemic? Because their revenue was increasing at a faster rate, so they hired to sustain the increase in revenue and they believed the growth rate will continue. Why was revenue increasing at a faster rate? Two reasons. First, zero interest rates meant that people had more money to spend than before. Second, staying at home meant that people didn't have much else to spend their money on except tech/internet.
4gotunameagain 4y ago
[flagged]
- brokencode 4y ago
  HN is probably not the best audience for this message. But I obviously disagree. People don’t become doctors because it’s insanely hard, stressful, time-consuming, and expensive. What we need there is not more money, as doctors also have high salaries already, but a reform in the system to make it more appealing to do the work. I’m not sure what you mean by “more engineers, more visionaries”. Are workers at big tech companies not engineers? And how does reducing somebody’s salary make them a visionary? More likely is that somebody makes a lot of money in a big tech company then can afford to quit their job and start their own company. Aka, they can become a “visionary”, like you suggest.
  - chasd00 4y ago
    > Are workers at big tech companies not engineers? that's actually a very controversial question and has been debated my whole code-writing career ( 26 years so far ).
- red-iron-pine 4y ago
  > plus big tech wages going down ? It is a clear win-win. lol wut. also, what website are you posting on?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
JKCalhoun 4y ago
While I agree with your sentiment, this is a nasty business, I would like to think we also all know the game now. Do people go to work at Facebook[1], Amazon, etc., expecting to still be working there long enough to see their kids graduate and go off to college? [1] I'm still not going to call it "Meta" any more than I am going to call "Star Wars" "Star Wars IV: New Hope".
- muro 4y ago
  > Do people go to work at Facebook[1], Amazon, etc., expecting to still be working there long enough to see their kids graduate and go off to college? Sure, why not?
  - megaman8 4y ago
    most people at these companies don't last very long. if you doubt that, just take a look at the average person's linkedIn or resume. You'll see the average tenure at a tech company is about 2 to 3 years.
    - muro 4y ago
      While many people do job-hopping because they might get more money etc., others value stability, short commute, a project they like, their colleagues and more money is not as enticing. Even others found a cushy job they don't want to lose - many reasons to stay.
    - blsapologist42 4y ago
      Maybe in the boom times. Now with the market attrition rates are more in line with 6-10 yr stints.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  The alternative for many would have been something closer to a startup. In the case of Oculus - employees probably did quite nicely out of the company being aquired by facebook (?). I guess if you are working on greenfields tech - one should avoid the big tech co. You have no real ownership of the innovaton and nobody is going to come along and buy you out if it goes well.
scarface74 4y ago
So, if you know you’re doing research on a new product that as far from a sure bet, don’t you have enough self awareness to save a fair amount of your outsized Facebook compensation, sell your RSUs as soon as they vest and diversify and be ready to interview? Or am I just old and not naive and start doing the same thing they do I got my first check + prorated sign on bonus when I was hired at BigTech almost 3 years ago?

wincy 4y ago

The hundreds of thousands of dollars he paid every single one of them must have been just an awful experience for the people he “drained dry”.

b112 4y ago
Indeed. These people all have 2+ years of build, tooling, dev experience in this newly emerging field. They did valuable work, it just did not hit market. Anyone else in this space will be happy to snag them up.

senttoschool 4y ago

Like many tech companies during zero interest rates, they over hired and did not anticipate interest rates going up so fast. At least these employees probably made a ton of money.

b112 4y ago
This has nothing to do with interest rates, none of these companies are borrowing to hire. And Meta, Amazon, Salesforce etc are only shedding excess pandemic hires. If you look at a graph of hires over a decade, the pandemic shows a huge blip up, and these layoffs correct that.
- nequo 4y ago
  It does if they use their stock price as a benchmark, which they do if it is a part of their compensation. Higher interest rates push investors to sell their Facebook shares and buy bonds instead. This means that Facebook needs to earn higher profits in order to pull its stock price upwards. Low-IRR projects are eliminated and with them the people who worked on them.
  - dangwhy 4y ago
    > interest rates push investors to sell their Facebook shares and buy bonds instead. Wouldnt the stock price drop with people selling the stock. That didn't happen with meta with interest rate hikes.
    - nequo 4y ago
      You’re right, it should, unless Facebook counterbalanced the hikes with positive news during those days/weeks.
- dboreham 4y ago
  > This has nothing to do with interest rates, none of these companies are borrowing to hire. The interest rate connection is that investors buy the company stock (driving the price up beyond what's reasonable given the underlying business health), because the alternative fix rate instruments offer negative return.
- senttoschool 4y ago
  >And Meta, Amazon, Salesforce etc are only shedding excess pandemic hires. If you look at a graph of hires over a decade, the pandemic shows a huge blip up, and these layoffs correct that. I think you're arguing against yourself. Why do you think there was a huge blip up during the pandemic? Because their revenue was increasing at a faster rate, so they hired to sustain the increase in revenue and they believed the growth rate will continue. Why was revenue increasing at a faster rate? Two reasons. First, zero interest rates meant that people had more money to spend than before. Second, staying at home meant that people didn't have much else to spend their money on except tech/internet.

4gotunameagain 4y ago

[flagged]

brokencode 4y ago
HN is probably not the best audience for this message. But I obviously disagree. People don’t become doctors because it’s insanely hard, stressful, time-consuming, and expensive. What we need there is not more money, as doctors also have high salaries already, but a reform in the system to make it more appealing to do the work. I’m not sure what you mean by “more engineers, more visionaries”. Are workers at big tech companies not engineers? And how does reducing somebody’s salary make them a visionary? More likely is that somebody makes a lot of money in a big tech company then can afford to quit their job and start their own company. Aka, they can become a “visionary”, like you suggest.
- chasd00 4y ago
  > Are workers at big tech companies not engineers? that's actually a very controversial question and has been debated my whole code-writing career ( 26 years so far ).
red-iron-pine 4y ago
> plus big tech wages going down ? It is a clear win-win. lol wut. also, what website are you posting on?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

JKCalhoun 4y ago

While I agree with your sentiment, this is a nasty business, I would like to think we also all know the game now. Do people go to work at Facebook[1], Amazon, etc., expecting to still be working there long enough to see their kids graduate and go off to college? [1] I'm still not going to call it "Meta" any more than I am going to call "Star Wars" "Star Wars IV: New Hope".

muro 4y ago
> Do people go to work at Facebook[1], Amazon, etc., expecting to still be working there long enough to see their kids graduate and go off to college? Sure, why not?
- megaman8 4y ago
  most people at these companies don't last very long. if you doubt that, just take a look at the average person's linkedIn or resume. You'll see the average tenure at a tech company is about 2 to 3 years.
  - muro 4y ago
    While many people do job-hopping because they might get more money etc., others value stability, short commute, a project they like, their colleagues and more money is not as enticing. Even others found a cushy job they don't want to lose - many reasons to stay.
  - blsapologist42 4y ago
    Maybe in the boom times. Now with the market attrition rates are more in line with 6-10 yr stints.
shapefrog 4y ago
The alternative for many would have been something closer to a startup. In the case of Oculus - employees probably did quite nicely out of the company being aquired by facebook (?). I guess if you are working on greenfields tech - one should avoid the big tech co. You have no real ownership of the innovaton and nobody is going to come along and buy you out if it goes well.

scarface74 4y ago

So, if you know you’re doing research on a new product that as far from a sure bet, don’t you have enough self awareness to save a fair amount of your outsized Facebook compensation, sell your RSUs as soon as they vest and diversify and be ready to interview? Or am I just old and not naive and start doing the same thing they do I got my first check + prorated sign on bonus when I was hired at BigTech almost 3 years ago?