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- glaslongCurrently at Meta. This place has always been a bit ruthless in the 8+ years I've been around to observe. But the article is accurate.Never seen people this universally fed up. I thought tech was too cushy for it to happen, but there's serious collective action posting out in the open all over the place.It's also never been more cutthroat, backstabby, scope-grabby, political, and uncertain. There seems to be a flywheel in effect where top talent exits and those who will drown each other to stay afloat are all that remain. It's somehow leapfrogging Oracle's culture even.
- ChrisMarshallNYI guess it's a sign of the times.I was just reading the old speech by John Barlow, in another post[0]. Sort of dovetails with this.I spent the majority of my career at a camera manufacturer.I probably made half of what I could have made, anywhere else, and there were lots of issues, caused by bureaucratic overhead, heavy-handed QA, and cultural misunderstandings.But not once, during almost 27 years, did I wonder "Are we the baddies?"[1].My first job was at a defense contractor, where we manufactured surveillance gear, and sold it to militaries and spy agencies around the world. One of the reasons that I left that job, was because we definitely were the baddies.[0] https://www.eff.org/pages/leaving-physical-world[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY
- mdipThis is all an interesting read from where I sit -- I worked for a global multi-national telecom that spun off from the 1996 deregulated local carrier, was bought up by a dot-com bust company, promptly went bankrupt and was sold off various times.So ... I understand bad morale and 10% layoffs. We went from 25,000 employees (1998-1999) at peek to under 3,000 (2004ish?). I did 17 years of (at least) 10% cuts company-wide, often larger in IT, every 6-12 months.They're going to have a problem hiring, that's certain. They seem very unconcerned with that both with the drumbeat of layoffs and the forced spyware nonsense.I remember when things were at the worst at my company, HR did a company-wide "engagement" survey. Being in IT at the time, we worked closely with them to ensure as close to complete participation as possible. The theory behind it was that each employee (anonymous) would receive a ranking, bubbled up to segments within the company (less anonymous) and specific managers.The reason for the rush to get this out was fraud fears. I guess that number goes low enough to represent something near "an employee who feels morally obligated to destroy the organization", but the number of employees who fit in the range of "so disengaged from the company that they are probably engaging in fraud/theft" in the trial phase was an order of magnitude higher than the team had estimated.When things get that bad, it's tough to recover. In certain locations we had an impossible time hiring most positions -- we had a toxic reputation in a high-tech location with a lot of job openings; we were often the last choice of the worst candidates no matter what the position was.
- maxwellitoI have a genuine question for Meta engineers: what were you hoping to gain by working at this company? What motivated you, and what were your aspirations?
- rybosworldThe pendulum swings.Right now, layoffs are cool. It boosts earnings. And the current sentiment is that new ideas and projects are risky unless they involve shoving the square-shaped-AI into the circle-shaped-hole.The thing that bothers me the most is that the people making these decisions are "winning" regardless of the outcomes. I can't remember a time where the industry was so overtly like this (i.e., the outcomes don't really matter). Perhaps the dotcom-era but I wasn't working in tech yet.
- ryandvmTech company leadership gleefully replacing engineers with AI is going to be an incredibly short-lived era. I'll admit I was a little shocked at just how susceptible software engineering was to the brute force of LLMs, but man, wait until they find out just how easy it is for an LLM to do their jobs.This isn't stopping until it gets all the way up to the asset holders.
- jmuguy
- katsThis Hacker News thread isn't useful at all. It's the same people that comment on every thread stating their opinions overconfidently. It's the same perpetually negative Wired article. These things would be the same no matter what is really going on, and so I can't use it to learn anything.
- stephc_int13I am wondering if Zuckerberg somehow stumbled upon the old Decimation thing on Wikipedia one late evening and decided it was a good idea to try.I don't really understand the rationale otherwise, hiring is hard, and they are not forced to reduce cost now.This seems like a colossal mistake. Not the first of course.
- discordanceHey Meta folks, remember that time when Facebook:- harvested user data which helped a company manipulate a US election and the Brexit outcome?- played a role in spreading hate speech, which was used to support a genocide in Myanmar?- harmed the mental health of a generation of young people.Just highlighting some data points. I'm really not suggesting you stand up for yourself and do something that might harm your employer that is now harming you.
- ChrisArchitectRelated:Meta's embrace of AI is making its employees miserablehttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48077126
- syndacksImagine the cognitive dissonance at play there, doing some DS work, realizing your product actively makes people depressed...all while driving back to your 5M+ home in a Tesla listening to podcasts about sunning your ballsack
- bossyTeacherMeta's sustained low morale leading to the departure of top talent and a subsequent decline of Whatsapp and Instagram will be a genuine gift to the world by Meta after decades of global damage. Looking forward to a world without them
- IshKebab> Median total compensation at Meta fell to $388,200 last year from $417,400 in 2024My heart bleeds.
- rwak12How will the people here who continuously rationalize AI rationalize this? A substantial number of the cheerleaders are financially invested in AI of course, but there are useful idiots, too.You are destroying a profession that was fun and profitable. Don't come with your Luddite and "a subset of us did it to others as well" talking points.Adding numbers wasn't fun, spreadsheets by hand weren't fun. But you are actively destroying fun thinking, perhaps because you have never worked on anything substantial yourselves and want to drag others down.Stop enrolling in CS, let us see how that works out for FAANG in 5 years. There is no incentive any longer.
- SpicyLemonZestThis is why companies don't announce layoffs before they know who will be impacted, as frustrating as it can be. My morale would be in the gutter too if I had to spend a month wondering whether I'm the unlucky 1 in 10.
- martythemaniakThings have changed and I think most employees in SV/big tech have not yet come to the realization that the executives really, genuinely, honestly, actively despise their employees and gleefully want to see them suffer. It doesn't matter if it's bad for the company's long-term health, or bad for customers, or or bad for finances or PR or anything else, it is now pathological/idealogical now.They do have a small circle of trusted people who they like (like the 1%, lol), but if you're not in, you're just trash that they haven't gotten around to cleaning out yet.
- ParanoidShroomYeah culture has gone too shit. Since Sheryl left
- farceSpherule[dead]
- black_13[dead]
- hirvi74Record low morale for working for one of the worst companies in existence? How can one be smart enough to work for Meta, but not see this coming? I wish I had some sympathy for Meta employees, but I truly do not. You reap what you sow.
- sklarghMeta is a normal high-comp company (for now) now. This is what it’s like to work at any mature F500 outside of privileged organizations and teams.