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Wow, so much negativity towards this announcement. This reaction is genuinely surprising because I found this post both inspirational and insightful. I hope the

by cbb330 4y ago

Wow, so much negativity towards this announcement. This reaction is genuinely surprising because I found this post both inspirational and insightful. I hope there are others who feel the same way! Maybe we can start a discussion on the content rather than our emotions from the headline? Some of the best parts here: > Today many of our managers have only a few direct reports. That made sense to optimize for ramping up new managers and maintaining buffer capacity when we were growing our organization faster, but now that we don’t expect to grow headcount as quickly, it makes more sense to fully utilize each manager’s capacity and defragment layers as much as possible. > A leaner org will execute its highest priorities faster. > we’re focusing on returning to a more optimal ratio of engineers to other roles. > I think we should prepare ourselves for the possibility that this new economic reality will continue for many years. Higher interest rates lead to the economy running leaner, more geopolitical instability leads to more volatility, and increased regulation leads to slower growth and increased costs of innovation.

throwawaysleep 4y ago
> I found this post both inspirational and insightful Are you a venture capitalist? Most of us are rank and file employees.
wobblyasp 4y ago
> This reaction is genuinely surprising because I found this post both inspirational and insightful I would love to understand how you see this as inspirational.
- fullshark 4y ago
  Because they believe they are a 10x engineer and managers hurt their productivity by getting in their way most certainly, tale as old as time.
  - cbb330 4y ago
    Arguments ad hominem are inappropriate for hackernews. Let’s leave this type of argument to Reddit or blind. I understand your perspective though. layoff announcements trigger an emotional response esp. in an uncertain economic condition. To answer the question, I think it’s worth explaining my perspective first. My company did “hidden layoffs” where an entire org was cut without any leadership announcement. Everyone freaked out, and we got no response from company. We found out about increased PIP quotas from blind. We have a mountain of technical debt hindering developer experience with no priority to address it. Zuckerberg in this article, is the exact opposite of the horrible leadership that I have dealt with on my job. This is why I feel inspired to see specific reasons for restructuring, with multi month transparent plans, and pre-determined goals. When execs preach of transparency, point them to this article from Zuck which is entirely public. This content shows a proactive culture, and is so so refreshing when my experience has been as an employee of reactive leadership.
lja 4y ago
They are saying, "We are going to make our existing managers work harder, make the existing engineers deliver more because the $22 billion in profit we made in 2022 wasn't enough. We should consider how we can sacrifice more to make even more profit."
- cbb330 4y ago
  No I think Zuckerbergs words should be read at face value. Managers with small amount of reports will be converted to ICs and strong managers will be given more reports. The org will be more lean and will have less overhead per manager of converting work between layers. I’m summarizing above but in the article are specific goals to address this and I didn’t pick up on any signs that employees should overwork themselves.

by cbb330 4y ago

throwawaysleep 4y ago

> I found this post both inspirational and insightful Are you a venture capitalist? Most of us are rank and file employees.

wobblyasp 4y ago

> This reaction is genuinely surprising because I found this post both inspirational and insightful I would love to understand how you see this as inspirational.

fullshark 4y ago
Because they believe they are a 10x engineer and managers hurt their productivity by getting in their way most certainly, tale as old as time.
- cbb330 4y ago
  Arguments ad hominem are inappropriate for hackernews. Let’s leave this type of argument to Reddit or blind. I understand your perspective though. layoff announcements trigger an emotional response esp. in an uncertain economic condition. To answer the question, I think it’s worth explaining my perspective first. My company did “hidden layoffs” where an entire org was cut without any leadership announcement. Everyone freaked out, and we got no response from company. We found out about increased PIP quotas from blind. We have a mountain of technical debt hindering developer experience with no priority to address it. Zuckerberg in this article, is the exact opposite of the horrible leadership that I have dealt with on my job. This is why I feel inspired to see specific reasons for restructuring, with multi month transparent plans, and pre-determined goals. When execs preach of transparency, point them to this article from Zuck which is entirely public. This content shows a proactive culture, and is so so refreshing when my experience has been as an employee of reactive leadership.

lja 4y ago

They are saying, "We are going to make our existing managers work harder, make the existing engineers deliver more because the $22 billion in profit we made in 2022 wasn't enough. We should consider how we can sacrifice more to make even more profit."

cbb330 4y ago
No I think Zuckerbergs words should be read at face value. Managers with small amount of reports will be converted to ICs and strong managers will be given more reports. The org will be more lean and will have less overhead per manager of converting work between layers. I’m summarizing above but in the article are specific goals to address this and I didn’t pick up on any signs that employees should overwork themselves.