3 ms·

The problem I have with articles like this is, well, sample size. They talked to 9 former and current employees, out of 60,000 employees. I'm no fan of Meta, bu

by neom 4y ago

The problem I have with articles like this is, well, sample size. They talked to 9 former and current employees, out of 60,000 employees. I'm no fan of Meta, but is it really fair to say there is a "crisis" of morale at a company with such a tiny sample size?

waylandsmithers 4y ago
Yeah, Facebook is just the company that everyone loves to hate, and the NYT often joins in the chorus. This one seems especially agenda-laden, however: > absentee leadership, > Mr. Zuckerberg, 38, is on parental leave after the birth of his third child > The company’s stock price has dropped 43 percent from its peak 19 months ago This is pretty disingenuous, considering nearly all tech stocks fell off, and Meta stock has more than doubled since bottoming out at around 90/share several months ago. The metaverse is stupid and nobody wants it! > While the company has sold 20 million virtual reality headsets — more than any other company producing similar tech —
- roland35 4y ago
  It's not just Meta, journalists and commenters even on tech sites like Ars Technica or Verge seem to love piling on any negative coverage about working at big tech companies (Google, Uber, even Apple occasionally). I think Meta and Google are particularly disliked by journalists due to both specifically cutting into news industries. But I think a bigger part of it is the idea that software engineers are overpaid and spoiled brats!
  - sahila 4y ago
    Perhaps the simplest explanation is these kinds of articles get lots of clicks and views, I doubt most writers have a big agenda when starting an article like this.
ghaff 4y ago
Even if you have access to employee survey data, what constitutes a "morale crisis" exactly? So a variety of metrics are down after layoffs, general online negativity, and bad press. In other news, water is wet. And doubtless execs are concerned. But is that really a "morale crisis" or just what to expect in a belt-tightening era at just about any company (and certainly one whose employees expected great stock appreciation and job stability and now don't have either)?
loeg 4y ago
That also jumped out at me. I think they're probably right in the sense that moral isn't great, but their methodology doesn't show that very persuasively.
baby 4y ago
When I was at Facebook the same kinds of articles would pop up all the time while morale + trust in leadership was pretty high internally. It made me think a lot about how we perceive other companies and even governments from the outside versus what the reality can be.
- pcthrowaway 4y ago
  Sounds like you've independently observed the Gell-Mann amnesia effect[1] Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I refer to it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.) Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I'd point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all. But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn't. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Why_Speculate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Why_Speculate?
  - kevinventullo 4y ago
    As a former FB employee, I have since treated everything from the NYT in particular with suspicion. That said, part of the reason I left was my belief that the VR play was a massive boondoggle.
Jgrubb 4y ago
> [Meta] has conducted two rounds of cuts over the past six months, eliminating more than 26,000 people, or nearly 30 percent of his company’s work force. I thought the same thing about the sample size but if a third of the company gets chopped, you’re going to have major morale problems. It points to many, many leadership and management problems.
Quindecillion 4y ago
[flagged]
fallingknife 4y ago
Remember that this is the NYT which has a directive that tech coverage must be critical (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33473275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33473275). Not that I'm implying you were dumb enough to trust the NYT in the first place. Also important to remember that FB is a competitor to legacy media.
- lisasays 4y ago
  The NYT which has a directive that tech coverage must be critical Does it? That "directive" appears to have been hearsay -- and the original "source" tweet has been deleted.

by neom 4y ago

waylandsmithers 4y ago

Yeah, Facebook is just the company that everyone loves to hate, and the NYT often joins in the chorus. This one seems especially agenda-laden, however: > absentee leadership, > Mr. Zuckerberg, 38, is on parental leave after the birth of his third child > The company’s stock price has dropped 43 percent from its peak 19 months ago This is pretty disingenuous, considering nearly all tech stocks fell off, and Meta stock has more than doubled since bottoming out at around 90/share several months ago. The metaverse is stupid and nobody wants it! > While the company has sold 20 million virtual reality headsets — more than any other company producing similar tech —

roland35 4y ago
It's not just Meta, journalists and commenters even on tech sites like Ars Technica or Verge seem to love piling on any negative coverage about working at big tech companies (Google, Uber, even Apple occasionally). I think Meta and Google are particularly disliked by journalists due to both specifically cutting into news industries. But I think a bigger part of it is the idea that software engineers are overpaid and spoiled brats!
- sahila 4y ago
  Perhaps the simplest explanation is these kinds of articles get lots of clicks and views, I doubt most writers have a big agenda when starting an article like this.

ghaff 4y ago

Even if you have access to employee survey data, what constitutes a "morale crisis" exactly? So a variety of metrics are down after layoffs, general online negativity, and bad press. In other news, water is wet. And doubtless execs are concerned. But is that really a "morale crisis" or just what to expect in a belt-tightening era at just about any company (and certainly one whose employees expected great stock appreciation and job stability and now don't have either)?

loeg 4y ago

That also jumped out at me. I think they're probably right in the sense that moral isn't great, but their methodology doesn't show that very persuasively.

baby 4y ago

When I was at Facebook the same kinds of articles would pop up all the time while morale + trust in leadership was pretty high internally. It made me think a lot about how we perceive other companies and even governments from the outside versus what the reality can be.

pcthrowaway 4y ago
Sounds like you've independently observed the Gell-Mann amnesia effect[1] Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I refer to it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.) Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I'd point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all. But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn't. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Why_Speculate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Why_Speculate?
- kevinventullo 4y ago
  As a former FB employee, I have since treated everything from the NYT in particular with suspicion. That said, part of the reason I left was my belief that the VR play was a massive boondoggle.

Jgrubb 4y ago

> [Meta] has conducted two rounds of cuts over the past six months, eliminating more than 26,000 people, or nearly 30 percent of his company’s work force. I thought the same thing about the sample size but if a third of the company gets chopped, you’re going to have major morale problems. It points to many, many leadership and management problems.

Quindecillion 4y ago

[flagged]

fallingknife 4y ago

Remember that this is the NYT which has a directive that tech coverage must be critical (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33473275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33473275). Not that I'm implying you were dumb enough to trust the NYT in the first place. Also important to remember that FB is a competitor to legacy media.

lisasays 4y ago
The NYT which has a directive that tech coverage must be critical Does it? That "directive" appears to have been hearsay -- and the original "source" tweet has been deleted.