Unlucky for some: Meta chops 13% of global workforce Meta is making more than of 11,000 employees redundant following the dramatic decline in profits and the subsequent share price dive at the end of last month. In a post made public this morning after being shared with the workforce, company chief Mark Zuckerberg said the layoffs were the "most difficult change we’ve made in …
Yeah, "lay-offs because $pandemic" is just shorthand for "spaffed all the money betting that people would actually want the Metaverse".
There seems to be a definite trend amongst billionaires towards thinking that because they have been successful in the past, then anything they turn their hand to must therefore be successful in the future, if only they pump enough money into it.
If only we had an adage to describe this sort of hubris. "The bigger they are, the harder they fall," springs to mind. Or "don't put all your eggs in one basket". Or indeed the fables of King Midas, or the Emperor's new Clothes...
If only there was precedent, eh? But of course there isn't, there's no such thing as a "cautionary tale," so nobody could possibly have known that trying to flog something that nobody wants wouldn't work...
We-ell... we (i.e. us commentards here) would not touch the Metaverse with a long pole. But then we also have a bunch of linux fanboys / die-hard apple fanbois / the usual amount of Win11 critics and Win 7 holdouts. None of this reflects the reality (ok, except for Apple doing well) outside of this corner of ze intarwebs. Yeah, I wish the Metaverse would just keel over and take the rest of Facebook (oh, right, Meta) with it, but I am not sure if this really will happen. I might hope for it, but would not base any economic decision on that.
That group you describe are also known as "professionals". The relatively strong anti-Windows sentiment stems from it needing support, lots of support for what is effectively a moving target. Apple skepticism is because there's a lot of the whole foods equivalent of sizzle rather than steak -- Apple gets much of its revenue from services. Facebook skepticism comes from knowing what its doing behind the curtain, in fact the entire information, advertising and malware ecosystem is an inordinate drain on time, energy and resources (even if it does provide gainful employment for many).
The bit I'm interested in is with Facebook (and Twitter) is trying to figure out what all these employees were doing with themselves. They can't all have been developing exciting and technologically groundbreaking new technologies. Anyone have a clue?
> If only there was precedent, eh? But of course there isn't, there's no such thing as a "cautionary tale," so nobody could possibly have known that trying to flog something that nobody wants wouldn't work...
They haven't finished building it yet. And something this grand in scale requires _lots_ of investment. You need to put the money in to reap the benefits down the road, otherwise you might be calling them shortsighted.
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The C5 was a brilliant idea, just pitched at exactly the wrong time. We now all agree traffic isn't fun, emissions aren't fun, driving a 5 seater car around to deliver one person to work isn't efficient, and that electric vehicles, especially small personal ones are perhaps the solution.
And while VR will cement it's place as a useful took eventually, a 'metaverse' is just makrketing hype. I'd rather have a C5 with modern batteries and brushless motors than a metaverse.
The C5 was a bad idea for the exact same reasons non-motorised recumbent bicycles are a bad idea: Being below the level of the window sills and wing mirrors of most vehicles is a recipe for being taken out by someone turning left. If you're using one to the right of traffic that might turn that way, you're as good as dead already, because most drivers won't even expect something to be on that side in their blind spot.
True but it doesn't have to be recumbent or so low, one-person electric mobility is a great idea.
Small electric vehicle for one person is an electric scooter or e-bike. If you want something a bit safer and not requiring the inconvenience of a helmet and when necessary, waterproof clothing, then something like a Renault Twizy. That's still not completely weatherproof but apparently it can also be 'winterized'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Twizy
One of me mates has one. With doors and windows added. He is pretty happy with it. He has a short-ish commute without (good) public transport, some country road, some within city limits. The distance and speed limits completely fit the Twizzy's specs.
It is plain stupid that there is (here) no govmt subsidies for this type of vehicle. Let's say you get maybe 3k for it. This would almost cut the price in half (without windows, I guess). But no, it is "too small" and "not a proper car" - instead they subsidise f'ing electric SUVs which take a up a ton of space in already crammed city centres.
For me the Twizzy would not work, the commute is too long and over the highway. And in summer I prefer to bike (at least one way).
When I was driving to work today (I have to, there isn't a viable public transport option if I want to sleep past 5am) I noticed a another vehicle with more than 1 person in*. First time I've seen that in ages.
*Excluding trades vans which usually have 2-3 people in.
The hub and spoke public transport model means I would need to take 2 buses and a train to get to work. It would cost at least twice as much and take twice as long (if I was lucky and the train wasn't cancelled). Oh, and I probably wouldn't have a seat. When you add in that I drive my daughter to college on my way to work, that cost for public transport becomes more than triple my car-based costs.
If there was a viable public transport option, I would use it, but TPTB need to wake-up and plan a system where cars are no-longer a necessity if they want wider adoption and a lower environmental impact. Instead they are just focused on electric car ownership and banning non-EVs which will limit personal transport options for the poorer in society (there isn't a reasonably-priced 2nd hand market for EVs).
I totally agree. I've tried an e-bike on a hire scheme, and they're pretty good (the ones that were on trial here were really heavy though, I've ridden motorbikes that were lighter).
The problem with the electric scooters is one of lack of regulation. Or, more accurately, lack of enforcement of regulations. We have a "trial" e-scooter hire scheme here in Bristol and the results are, let's say, "mixed". If they're properly used, they're great, however, the operator clearly doesn't care about making sure they are used legally, and the police are far too under resourced to police them. The result is a free-for-all, where you see them misused in pretty much every way you can think of, and their existence has encouraged a lot of people to illegally ride privately owned ones with no insurance (because you can't insure them on the roads).
It's a real shame, because the shambolic way they have been introduced has led to most people hating them, as you have to dodge out of the way of morons riding them on pavements, and they're a real hazard to other traffic due to frequent multiple riders, drunk riders, children, people going the wrong way down one-way-streets, sailing through red lights, you name it. I'm genuinely surprised that nobody has been killed yet. Properly managed, they'd be a boon for commuters, but as it is, they don't get people out of their cars, they just stop people walking between pubs.
> We now all agree traffic isn't fun, emissions aren't fun, driving a 5 seater car around to deliver one person to work isn't efficient, and that electric vehicles, especially small personal ones are perhaps the solution.
And yet the C5 was awful, independent of when it was created. One of those things for which it's always the wrong time.
That Zuck would blame Apple for allowing its customers to take back some shreds of their privacy, and ignore a similar sized hole in the P&L caused by his wet dream of the "metaverse" that's never going to happen. At least not for a couple decades or more, and if it does he sure won't be the one to make it happen!
OK, this is just a week or so after the Chief Twat announced his job cuts. Similar order of magnitude. Lots of arguments.
In this article about Meta, there are some signal phrases like "will respect local employment laws" etc. Not that Twitter will not do this, but His Muskiness is rather.... bad at communicating (on purpose?), leading to uproar - but then this creates publicity and visibility, attention he seems to strive for.
Interesting.
Yes, but only to simulate.
Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected.
"Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I'd expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that."
Taking responsibility would be keeping employees on payroll and funding their salaries out of his personal fortune.
Rule one: never lose money
Rule two: see rule one
In Germany, redundancy terms are way better. Company I worked for had an office and locally employed people in Berlin, when revenue dropped the management decided to close that office. Several of my German colleagues immediately bought new gaming PCs, as they planned to spend the next six months living off part of their redundancy pay before even considering to look for another job!
Urgh. The money would be nice (should I ever find myself in that position), but I can't imagine spending half a year sitting around with no job and not trying to get one. I have plenty to do around here—and plenty more I could do, like excavate a root cellar and turn the excavated material into adobe bricks to build another outbuilding—so I wouldn't be playing games anyway. But that'd still drive me batty.
But to each his own.
I think a large part of the explosion wasn't so much about the not believing he'd stick to employment laws, but the whole way it was done. As more details came out he's clearly got the firing in order with local laws, but as usual was a dick about how he did it.
Closing offices, ex-employee's reporting their machine was wiping before they had even received an email, waking up to find out you were fired because it happened while you were asleep, etc...
Zuk's announcement seems to show a level of empathy he's not known for, maybe he's been doing a Musk and having a smoke, or maybe Meta's PR team weren't fired and could put together a better worded announcement about the redundancies and package, highlighting they'd thought a bit first and not wanting to end up on global news broadcasts for being completely heartless dicks.
It's not good that any company needs to mention employee's will still have access to email to communicate after their remote machines are wiped, but after the way twitter handle things I expect most companies will now.
As already mentioned, the severance is above and beyond legal requirements, certainly here in the UK.
There is never a good way of announcing layoffs and in the run up to christmas with living costs spiralling nobody looks good for it, but there are ways of announcing and breaking the news which don't involve setting fire to everything you touch.
If he hadn't bothered with this idea, then the company would have made nearly $14 billion profits instead, and would have been able to identify and trim any superfluous extra hires with little drama. Logically, in any sensibly run company, it would make most sense to ditch the money torching metaverse crap instead, but that of course would be a global humiliation for Zuckerberg, especially as it was his big vision and he renamed the company after it. But the shareholders won't be able to force that because of his "magic shares" which means he retains control, rather than facing the correct consequences of being chucked out for his dumb gamble that most tech people saw straight away was never going to be successful.
The longer he carries on with it, the bigger the damage will be. At what point will he give up, before it crashes and burns completely?
If Apple hadn't spent all that money on iPod and then iPhone it would have made $bn more profit in the years before iPhone launched.
Without metaverse Facebook is just the next AOL, it's where granny and a few conspiracy nuts hang out. Of course if everyone just goes with tiktok videos they are screwed anyway
The internet, such as it was, in 1991, had a purpose. It provided a genuine benefit to universities and research establishments, even then. If it hadn't it would have crashed and burned at some point in the 1980s.
If you were actually referring to the "Web," well, nobody had pumped billions of dollars into it in 1991 (maybe give it a few years after that for the .COM bust), but at least it had a clear purpose, to distribute and share information.
Remind me again, what is the point of "the metaverse" other than to do things you can do in real life, in a more clunky and disorienting way, and whilst wearing a sweaty shoebox on your head?
As for your example, "gopher". Are you still using gopher? Would you be using gopher if Zuckerberg had spent billions promoting the "gopherverse" which was essentially just gopher but with a subscription model, and requiring custom hardware to use? Because that did die a death, because it was shit, and HTTP was better (hence why we have the web). I'm puzzled by why you chose to disprove your own point there.
VR is currently shit and expensive and useless for anything other than a few technical roles.
But if you imagined what mobile internet would be like in 1991, you might think of a 16char LCD display with stock tickers
Even when Apple launched the iPhone they didn't have apps because they were afraid it might drop calls - and a mobile phone that couldn't ensure 100% calls would be unthinkable.
"But if you imagined what mobile internet would be like in 1991, you might think of a 16char LCD display with stock tickers"
Do you remember what mobile phones looked like in 1991? They were approximately the size and shape of a house brick, and the networks weren't even digital yet (that happened in 1992), so if anyone was thinking of "mobile internet" it would have been to use their house-brick as a (very expensive) modem.
The thing is, there were a number of incremental increases and developments that led to the mobile internet as we enjoy it now; digital networks, WAP, MMS (remember those?), feature phones, incremental developments in network technology (2G, 3G, 4G, 5G...), battery technology, screen technology, the first "smart phones", so on, and so forth.
The important bit is that each of these developments was led by the fact that they provided a clear advantage in some way - cost, efficiency, weight, size, usability, and so on. The "Metaverse" as pushed so hard by Zuckerberg doesn't do this, at least not in any way that is obviously apparent. Currently, it simulates, badly, things that you can already do, and it has no "killer app". The "use cases" I have seen promoted heavily on FB are that you can "sit" in a "virtual office," at a time when people are quite happily not working in offices, and using Teams or Zoom to communicate perfectly effectively, and that you can have some sort of virtual "drag queen" bollocks, which might be of interest to people who like to watch Ru Paul, but sure sounds like a gimmick to me, and I'm willing to bet is of limited interest to even those who are really into that scene.
The problem is, that VR doesn't make anything easier or smoother; it's an expensive encumbrance. My smart-phone in my pocket is a successful device because I can take it out of my pocket, look at it, and then put it away again. I can carry it around with me, and use it to access information, and to communicate with others quickly. Nobody is going to carry a VR headset around with them. Nobody is going to sit on a bus playing VR games, nobody is going to use one walking down the street, or whilst taking a shit. Nobody is going to pop on the headset and enjoy a bit of VR porn while their wife is in the other room. It's not just that there is no "killer app" for it, it's that there are no obvious apps for it at all.
Indeed. The Internet in 1991 was still mostly for research, socializing, and software distribution, and it worked well. Usenet (then still a mix of NNTP and UUCP) wasn't perfect, but it was noticeably superior to pretty much all of its successors. MIME was still 5 years away, so email was still good. The web was barely getting started (CERN httpd was released at the very end of 1990), but there was plenty of useful and interesting content; files were located with archie and downloaded using FTP.
Security was still lousy—this was only three years after the Morris worm—but attacks were still pretty rare. Eternal September was a couple of years away (1993) and widespread Usenet spam ("Global Alert for All" and "Green Card Lottery") a year further than that.
I'm not saying I want to go back to the Internet of 1991, mind. There's a ton of stuff I do like available on the web. I even play a couple of games on my phone once in a while, and I appreciate the ability to read a book on it even more. (I used to always carry a paperback when I left the house, in case I had to wait somewhere; now my phone serves that role. It's convenient.) But I wouldn't be terribly sorry if 1991-style Internet was all we had now, or even if I did have to go back to that.
Lots of BBSes had Internet or email gateways too. UUCP was still useful for quite a few things that weren't on the Internet. WAIS was useful if you had access, as many university libraries did; and a lot of library catalogs had Telnet-based online access. I did quite a bit of online research at Northeastern University in 1990-1991.
1991 was also the year of CIX and ANS CO+RE, and then in 1992 the NSFNET AUP was superseded to allow commercial traffic on the NSFNET backbone, so we were right on the cusp of the commercial opening of the Internet (for good or ill).
Founder's syndrome can be contagious. The problem with Facebook isn't necessarily the ideas but the poor governance which has allowed Zuckerberg to push a possibly half-baked idea too far and too fast.
If you look at what the company has done the last 10 years, there is little to suggest that there is a genius at the helm. Growth has largely been provided by acquisitions such as WhatsApp and, especially, Instagram. The rapid growth in profits lent a veneer of inevitability to the success, which it turned out was incorrect once competition appeared that couldn't be bought (TikTok) and light regulatory headwinds appeared.
Trying new business ideas is important but, for once, Google provides a better example of how this can be done. First of all, Page and Brin quickly realised they needed help with all the corporate shit and got someone in to be CEO. Then, after some fairly high profile failures, they reorganised the company structure to insulate their cash cows (Google and YouTube) from their alternative investments, which they give a certain freedom to but also aren't afraid to pull if they fail to reach certain goals within a specified period of time. Cue lots of gnashing of teeth from affected users but, as a corporate strategy, it's considerably more effective.
The comparison with Apple isn't valid. Not only did Jobs have a track record of ideas and success, he also understood how to make money, not least through controlling the supply chain. It's unsurprising that he was succeeded by the guy who ran the supply chain. But Jobs, and Cook, also understood that their success was dependent upon giving people more of what they want (and convincing people that what Apple had is what they want). Acquisitions have been limited and quickly integrated and unsuccessful products are quietly withdrawn. The cashflow allows continued development and no new products cost anything like enough to threaten profits. But even the mighty Apple had to reform governance after shareholder pressure.
"Nothing wrong with investing in metaverse, it could've been a huge tech if the pandemic extended 2 more years."
Yep. All those people trying to do serious work from home needed nothing more than a face-cage to help them pretend they're hanging out with a cartoon version of Z-berg. It's the future!
It may be unpopular everywhere, but I sort of respect that he willing to take the metaverse risk. FB is stale and there are tons of articles about how it is your parents/grandparents social network now. So he is willing to take a risk rather than sit and run a company that will slowly decline. Investors are just worried about quarterly earnings reports. See Google for what that does to a company.
A difference between betting big and going all in on a hand a 5 year old would have junked.
By all means have some "skunkworks" metaverse development going on, but using far less resources. Once key hurdles overcome then take your risk
There's obvious huge issues to deal with first - initially headset based.
As folk mentioned - "face cages" - a lot of people just wont want to be encumbered with a headset all working day.
Plenty of people who have tried headsets get disorientation / nausea.
Need very easy to wear headsets with nausea issue resolved.
And on the s/w side, the "metaverse" world needs to be really good perceived quality - people are used to good visuals be it in computer games or just on TV, laughable visuals just does not cut it.
This.
You do not dump bazillions into a new concept until you have at least a decent framework and a market analysis. Yes, sometimes you just don't know the market until you get the product online, but the amount of money he poured into this without having the basics in place and tested is nothing short of insane. That's not working towards a vision, that's an obsession executed at the cost of shareholder value.
It could not have happened to a nicer person/company, though, so I'm all for it :).
It's incredibly arrogant of zuc not to take any blame for the screwing his employees over.
He's been called into multiple governments hearings for his data abuse, has at least admitted to some political manipulation, constant issues with falsely accusing people of disinformation when it often FB doing it as political favors.
He takes no blame himself for his behavior, what a zcumbag.
Without those abuses he would have lost even more.
Heard about the social media company that doesn't track any of its uses, provides no data to advertisers and allows others to influence the politicians? No because they never made it.
He should have done more. In return for pushing a certain president to the top of everyones feed he could have got tiktok banned, cos Jinna, and be in way better shape.
So 11,000 people did nothing wrong. And now they are going to be scrambling to put food on the table because one man's an idiot.
(Yes, that 11,000 no doubt includes people with marketable skills, possibly your mates, who will easily find another post. But they'll be plenty of low level peons. And nobody is hiring - only firing their own.)
Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too
Really?... just, really??
In what universe can "permanent acceleration"even be considered as a possibility?
It seems Meta is so blinded by its (past) success that even reality is disregarded if it doesn't match its ideas. Hopefully this is the first step towards its total downfall.
Yes, latest one here in the UK is Made.com, mail order online furniture shopping website. It seems far too many companies who made out like bandits during the switch to onlne during lockdowns somehow thought that was going to translate to a permanent situation.
Another big part of it is how companies and the stock market operates. Once upon a time, a large wealthy company had money in the bank and could weather a storm. Nowadays, money has to be put to work, so companies invest their profits all over the place and then borrow money for expansion because their investments earn more than the cost of borrowing at the historically low interest rates we've had the last few decades. Not only is that borrowing now costing more, but for tech companies hitting a post-lockdown slump after the lockdown profits are seeing their stock prices drop because they can't maintain that high profit level now. The stock market demands growth. Fail to grow, and no matter how well the business is doing, the share price falls.
Obviously there are other factors too such as inflation, fuel costs, etc that are affecting all businesses, but the ones who expanded during lockdowns seem to be affected the most because they didn't plan for the obvious end of lockdown and people going back off-line, but now their external investments have fallen and borrowing costs have risen.
The comment about expecting Pandemic level growth to continue post pandemic was absolutely stupid. It was obvious to anyone with half a brain (so Gartner are probably out), that the spending levels would go up until people a) got used to living under pandemic conditions, or b) the pandemic passed (or reduced to levels where people could get back to relatively normal living, such as where we are now). In no world, did it ever make sense that they would keep growing. So I would expect the analysts who told Zuck that "Of course, it will continue. Brilliant boss!" should certainly be the first of those 11k out the door. But of course they wont be, Yes men (and women), never get the sack...
However, the second thought is that, if those reported conditions for the 11k unfortunates are true, then that's about the best ever payoff I have ever seen or heard of a US firm offering. So fair play, I have to give Meta some cred for that. They might actually be treating their departing employees with a modicium of respect and care. Who woulda thunk it?
I expect the Republican party to be a long any minute now calling zuck a Commie for such unamerican behaviour... :P
I left Facebook I can't remember how long ago, and am most profoundly repelled by the surveillance it conducts; but credit when credit is due, the severance package is generous, and I've been reading comments over on HackerNews where people have said the company conduct towards staff during covid was very good.
Investors only have themselves to blame for not insisting on equal voting rights to rein in tech pioneer
OK, I have a lot of sympathy for the 13% of Meta/Facebook employees, it is never great to be let go in a recession or whatever this is. Hopefully they will be able to find jobs.
But I guess I will kind of state the obvious, aside from the investment in Metaverse that may (or may not) pan out, the real problem with Facebook is that it is kind of crap, the competition has caught and passed it, and the push of advertising and artificial engagement is kind of over the top, so of course people have moved elsewhere. If anything, the exodus is probably just going to get worse, as having laid off a lot of developers, it will be tough for Facebook to come back. Facebook Live never really caught up to YouTube for public meetings, and tools like Zoom, Cisco Webex, and Microsoft Teams are just a ton better at group or person-to-person meetings (and mostly people get Teams for nearly free, because of Microsoft's bundling with Microsoft/Office365). Tools like Slack (or MS Teams) are just way more productive than a Facebook Group for Group chats, as you have #channel type topic organization (Facebooks limitations there make it next to useless, a kind of graft onto its Blog format), and the discussions can be done via apps that are a heck of a lot more sophisticated (don't just tell you someone has posted to Facebook) and run on a lot more platforms and run without ads. And with these other tools, you don't get into all these privacy problems, so you can do private group or business type things with them, and you do not run into the outright resistance a lot of users have towards getting on Facebook at all. Messenger is kind-of-sort-of OK as a group chat vehicle, but often you run into problems where someone you want in the group chat refuses to join Facebook, so you are off to Slack or Signal or iMessage or something else with better privacy (and apps). Yes, Apple kind of gave Facebook revenue that little nudge off the cliff, but Facebook was in denial that its problems with Privacy were going to bite, it was going to eventually Apple or Google or maybe even the governments that said enough-is-enough, you don't get to slurp everything up (especially without telling people). So some of this was inevitable. Facebook really needs to get back to the basics. If you want users to return, Facebook needs to return to providing a one-place type of integration of much better apps than it is doing now. Otherwise, over time Facebook will go the way of the Dodo bird (or at least Myspace or AIM).
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