Comment by matchbok3
18 hours ago
Layoffs are a very normal thing for businesses to do.
There is nothing "cowardly" about it.
Would you rather them never hire them in the first place?
18 hours ago
Layoffs are a very normal thing for businesses to do.
There is nothing "cowardly" about it.
Would you rather them never hire them in the first place?
> Layoffs are a very normal thing for businesses to do.
Didn't used to be, except in extreme circumstances. Was seen as a really bad sign.
To the extent there's "science" on this, it's a lot less clear than you might think that a policy of reaching eagerly for the layoff-button is long-term beneficial to companies, i.e. there's a good chance it's a cultural fad, you do it because "that's what's expected" and perhaps investors get skittish if you don't, for the circular reason that... that's what's expected.
People generally complain about the interview process being bloated while also not giving a good signal - is it then not better to hire people for a while, see if they perform and then letting them go again? Though perhaps in Meta's case they hire a lot while also having cumbersome interviews, I don't know. I just feel like there are perhaps some benefit in being quick to hire and fire.
What people dislike is the boom-bust cycle inherent to all levels of a market economy. During some years, these companies suck people up like a vacuum -- that can be bad if you're on the inside and all of a sudden the culture goes out the window, or if you're expected to onboard 3-4 people at the same time, or you end up with a reorg every quarter. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, companies shut down (non-backfill) hiring entirely and layoff huge percentages of the company, with no guarantee that you'll be safe just because you're doing a good job.
Human lives do not work like this. If you're getting married, if you have an unexpected hospital expense, if you want to buy a house -- these are not things that "market cycles" will plan around, but you have to.
Being quick to hire or fire is not the problem. Massive overhiring and massive layoffs are.
I don’t think the previous poster is saying all layoffs are “cowardly”, but pointing out that these ones are.
I think they have a point. Facebook is making money. Tech is in a very dynamic phase, right now. This is a moment of huge opportunity for them, and one that won’t necessarily be as large in the future.
To be contracting right now, rather than making a play, seems like a lack of leadership.
Not saying you are wrong, but you could argue they made their big move with the Metaverse. Then again with those crazy AI contracts to ML people.
Maybe Meta missed on those big plays and now there’s too much pressure to make another.
I don’t know if I believe that, but worth considering
Pressure from whom? Mark Zuckerberg personally controls the majority of voting shares. He can do whatever he wants.
yeah, these big layoffs don't add up to me right now.
if you're making money and you feel that these are good employees, why not take them off the core products and ship them to some other ambituous R&D proejct?
making core products leaner is probably a good, but surely there's some other big moonshot you'd like to take?
> Would you rather them never hire them in the first place?
If it's not sustainable? Yes. They shouldn't have hired them in the first place then. Such a major round of firing (the second one in only a few months) shows a completely failing leadership.
I'm glad in Europe companies are much more conservative with hiring and firing. Because it's much harder to let employees go and there's strings attached.
Don't forget when you fire an employee you're giving them a lot of stress about their livelihood, you're externalising a lot to society. Internalise the profits, externalise the problems. Typical.
I'm so glad I don't live in the US and that things don't work like that here.
There's also a reason why there are no innovative companies in Europe. If you make it hard to fire someone you make it hard to hire someone.
Companies won't spin up risky projects if they can't spin them down. This is why Europe continues to fall behind the US and China.
Accepting the mediocrity is abdicating the leadership of the world to China. If you like that, good for you. But I doubt the low-growth, low-innovation world of Europe will make the next iPhone, AI, or chip.
Oh, and Europe can only do this stuff because of the USA military, by the way.
Is Meta innovative?
They make products, sure, but output isn't the same as innovation.
You heard it here first, Zuck and his peers are brave generals in the battle against the Y...Chinese Peril and we are all...cannon fodder, I guess.
You have brain poisoning from reading too much slop online.
>But I doubt the low-growth, low-innovation world of Europe will make the next iPhone, AI, or chip. >chip
Do you realize that the cutting edge in chip technology is a Dutch company
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Agreed. What happens when every company lays off 10, 20, 40% of their staff? AI Agents don't pay taxes and dont participate in a meaningful amount of the consumer economy.
AI isn't contributing to the layoffs though
It absolutely is. The funding for it, not the product itself.
Exiting low performers is one thing, but using layoffs as tool to put pressure on your workforce to extract more labor and keep them busy is a toxic culture.
Toxic = green brokerage accounts for those in charge
It would also be green for everyone else's brokerage account.
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its not “normal” when companies have 10s of Billion in net profit per quarter
Axing low/negative ROI product lines, sure. But recently these cuts have been across-the-board and in product lines that are net profitable and have strong technical product roadmaps. Moreover they are firing longer tenured (expensive) engineers
I understand they’re managing a transition to a capital intensive strategy but the whole era reeks of stock price focused financial engineering and these large companies flexing oligopoly power in the face of their customers and the labor that builds their technology.
[dead]
> Would you rather them never hire them in the first place?
It does seem like a lot of people would prefer this, they way they react to every layoff announcement.
It would be better because it would create a more diverse work space where multiple employers complete for employees, instead of one company playing musical chairs with people
I'd say that a 10% culling of their workforce when they should be going all in on is not "very normal".
I don't think that those 10% of their workforce were keeping them back, to the contrary, now a big part of the remaining 90% will start wondering (if they hadn't already done so) when they'll be next, that is instead of focusing their minds on this AI-race thing.
Reducing your workforce always means you either made a strategic mistake, your bottom line is hurting, your growth is stagnating or you hired McKinsey (lol) not a good sign for company health and always bad for morale.
Literally not true. Some bets just don't work. If a company tries to enter some new market and fails, they may use a layoff.
The strategic mistake is that they don’t have any other good ideas to deploy these folks toward. A company of this size and financial condition in technology with exceptional leadership should not be out of good ideas.
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Sounds like a strategic mistake.
"Some bets didn't work so let's destroy lives and cause needless suicides. It wasn't my fault, I was only following orders." - Random Meta VP of Customer Misery.
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That does tend to be the more experienced management decision among firms who survived through the dot-com bubble.
found the ceo
With that kind of mindset… man, so sorry for you
Care to explain? Rather than these jugemental one-offs?
You are normalising layoffs in companies that are not losing money. If you are a regular employee, this kind of behaviour affects you, but hereyou are saying “it’s alright folks, it’s just business “. Sure thing these kind of layoffs are not illegal, but there must be something else in life than raw corporate behaviour when it comes to work, don’t you think?
The other scenario is that Meta doesn’t layoff people. The big fishes will make less money, but won’t affect their lives in the minimum. What about that? That’s not illegal either, but ofc, “that’s not how businesses work!”. So brainwashed. We are the frogs, they are boiling us and you don’t care
9 replies →
> Would you rather them never hire them in the first place?
Isn't the obvious answer yes for everyone that sells their labor?
If I gave you the choice between being an employee in an economy where it is more difficult to land a job, but you could be sure that job would last, or an economy where it is easier to find a job, but it was completely insecure, I think most would choose the former. No? Worring about finding work while looking, or worrying about it all the time? Seems obvious.
This is a very depressing and mediocre outlook on innovation and growth.
Based on your logic we should make it impossible to fire anybody. That surely will solve our problems, right?
I want a dynamic, innovative economy where anyone can find a job if they work hard. Not because the law says they can't be fired. How depressing.
I guess the issue with the first one would be actually getting the job. If jobs were that valuable, I'd expect other factors not necessarily related to job performance to be reasons in getting a job, especially knowing (or being related to) the right person.
No, of course not. How silly. As an employee who's been laid off a couple times I greatly prefer an economy where it's easy to find a job.
If it's easy to find a job why would I care if I'm laid off? Just get another job.