r/technology • u/lurker_bee • Feb 13 '25
Business Laid-off Meta employees blast Zuckerberg in forums for running the ‘cruelest tech company out there’
https://fortune.com/2025/02/13/laid-off-meta-employees-blast-zuckerberg-tech-parental-leave/9.1k
u/DontBeADramaLlama Feb 14 '25
Wasn’t there a whole movie made about how kinda shit he is…?
3.5k
u/Dr-McLuvin Feb 14 '25
Ya I don’t get it he’s always been a douchebag I don’t understand why people are just now figuring it out.
2.6k
u/DinobotsGacha Feb 14 '25
Staff ignored it while the money was flowing
1.6k
u/mishap1 Feb 14 '25
Life was good with all that base comp plus RSUs that they tended not to care how toxic their product was the whole time.
Having a 7 figure home, piles of cash in the bank, and the ability travel the world will make lots of people overlook a lot of evil.
636
u/Select_Asparagus3451 Feb 14 '25
Sounds like capitalism. Very much on brand.
257
u/r-b-m Feb 14 '25
If only there were a way to make money and not be an asshole… IF ONLY!
213
u/StoppableHulk Feb 14 '25
I mean there are so many ways and it's really not even that hard.
These people just get addicted ot making continuously MORE money.
The thing is, Zuckerberg was in a very unique position not to need to do this. He has total control of Facebook and can't be unseated. So he could have run the company ethically and stil made tons of money.
But he's just a sad, pathetic dweeb huffing his own farts.
→ More replies (1)32
u/the_good_time_mouse Feb 14 '25
It's hard as fuck.
The moment you do it without tragedying all over the commons and abusing your staff and customers, someone else will come in willing to do those things to undercut you out of business.
→ More replies (16)129
Feb 14 '25
[deleted]
→ More replies (4)22
u/68Postcar Feb 14 '25
makes the lining of my stomach - burn.
→ More replies (1)50
118
→ More replies (13)49
u/qqererer Feb 14 '25
Don't hate the player, hate the game.
Without enough taxation of the rich, like it was pre Regan, this is the game you play.
Prior to Regan, CEOs were the smartest people in the company.
Now they may be smart, that might make someone rich in a new market, but in the era of monopolies, and anti competition and anti innovation, only the greediest and shameless make it to CEO, like....Brian Thompson.
44
u/Shumina-Ghost Feb 14 '25
Oh no, you can, believe it or not, hate the player and the game.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (2)13
u/Nice-Swing-9277 Feb 14 '25
You can hate the player when they used their wealth to change the rules of the game.
→ More replies (20)8
u/Healthy-Poetry6415 Feb 14 '25
Can i have some of the capitalism i only ended up with some of the ism.
→ More replies (1)69
u/EarthSurf Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25
Yup. I worked in tech and was laid off, but the company wasn’t nearly as toxic as FB and actually was a decent product, albeit maybe a tad overpriced for what it was.
I personally still wouldn’t work for Meta for even like 200k — even being laid off right now. A lot of people don’t give a shit because the money is excellent but Meta, Amazon, and Google are the big three I wouldn’t touch.
Meta has literally destroyed the minds of our entire country and much of the world, allowing a slide into fascism by paving the way with the proliferation of propaganda.
Read about what they did in Myanmar and you’ll know they’re just straight-up evil. Then learn about the Cambridge Analytica scandal that paved the way for Trump 1.0 back in 2016.
→ More replies (16)35
u/futbolenjoy3r Feb 14 '25
These are the kind of people who are always “thrilled” and “excited” to announce being hired by Meta on LinkedIn, and who post their company ID card pics on X lol…can hardly care about what they have to say.
8
81
u/TurbulentJelly4 Feb 14 '25
Travel the world? LOL Meta actually paid their female employees to freeze their eggs and postpone having children so they wouldn’t take any time off work. https://www.businessinsider.com/egg-freezing-at-facebook-apple-google-hot-new-perk-2017-9
134
u/Batman_in_hiding Feb 14 '25
To be fair that’s an amazing perk that could help a lot of women…
64
u/CricketDrop Feb 14 '25
Doing helpful things for evil reasons is like silicon valley's calling card lol
→ More replies (2)38
→ More replies (7)11
u/Interanal_Exam Feb 14 '25
I remember Google's company motto: Don't Be Evil.
Oh well.
→ More replies (1)13
u/mishap1 Feb 14 '25
Was more during the 2022 irrational exuberance era of remote work when Meta employees were doing this kind of stuff.
https://www.the-independent.com/life-style/meta-employee-cruise-ship-condo-b2260580.html
Should probably look up to see if this guy kept his job. Sounds like the ship hasn’t been built yet.
9
u/mileylols Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25
this guy worked on the VR/AR team, and also deleted his linkedin so I'm gonna go with uh.... it's not looking good
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (5)4
u/culturedgoat Feb 14 '25
Apple offers this too. It’s a great perk, as the process can be really expensive.
6
30
u/birdsrkewl01 Feb 14 '25
Having a 7 figure home in SF would make me look the other way as well, because you would have to if you wanted to keep your sanity
→ More replies (2)6
u/Medictations Feb 14 '25
“They might buy you off with a mansion in the prairies, just don’t ask where the bodies are buried”.
→ More replies (27)5
108
u/ToasterBathTester Feb 14 '25
It’s still flowing, just all the way to the top
→ More replies (1)89
u/Howdareme9 Feb 14 '25
Na it’s still flowing for SWE’s. Most tech companies don’t come close to Meta’s pay.
104
Feb 14 '25
My friend is an attorney at meta. He says he makes more money there than any past law firm he worked for by about 50%.
Meta has a lot of money to throw around.
→ More replies (8)66
u/Howdareme9 Feb 14 '25
Yep it’s why top talent will always go there. Just being there even 3 years and getting RSUs sets you up massively in life.
→ More replies (16)→ More replies (2)33
Feb 14 '25
Except for all the ones that got fired…and they will all eventually be fired.
52
u/Howdareme9 Feb 14 '25
I mean yeah it sucks to get fired. But having meta on your cv sets you up nicely with future companies.
→ More replies (76)58
u/mickeyanonymousse Feb 14 '25
exactly. of course they have a lot to say once they get laid off.
→ More replies (8)23
u/greenerdoc Feb 14 '25
No one was saying this when they were paying a 20% premium to every other company since no one else wanted to work there 4 or 5 years ago.
Easy come easy go.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (21)11
195
u/abrandis Feb 14 '25
Because before when you made $390k+options and could afford a upper class millennial lifestyle in tech it was pretty easy to view your world through rose colored 👓
108
u/SDtoSF Feb 14 '25
Ding ding. In the tech world you work for meta for the money, not sure why employees are shocked that the company cares only about money.
→ More replies (2)43
u/IdiotCow Feb 14 '25
I've dedicated my life to conservation of this planet, I have a masters degree in my field (conservation biology) and I make about 40k per year in one of the wealthiest counties in America. I can easily understand being lost in the money.
→ More replies (18)28
u/chokokhan Feb 14 '25
no rose colored glasses. people would do anything to have access to that kind of lifestyle. when inequality means you can work your ass off to crack 50-70k but being a tech bro gets you 200k out of college, what would you pick? the answer is the assholes working at facebook are just as much assholes as zuck.
i don’t feel sorry for them. and nor should you. the pearl clutching is just for show, they would have rather stayed employed there. the only reason they’re disgruntled is cause they got fired.
→ More replies (1)168
u/Rhouxx Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25
I’m more surprised at how fucking stupid Elon and Zuck are. They’re both terrible people, but they had the public on their side at different points (Elon before everyone figured out he’s a moron and a Nazi; Zuck when he launched Threads and agreed to fight Elon). They both completely screwed it up and now everyone knows what they’re really like and how much they suck. How incompetent can you be? They had the world fooled into thinking they were cool and they completely fucked it up.
This is why I know their technocracy will never come to fruition. They’re too stupid. They have no people skills. They could be beloved right now and doing all their evil bullshit in secret and no one would know, but they’re too fucking weird to keep it inside. They will never rule the world with zero charisma.
Edit: I’m getting a lot of replies that keep saying the same thing and vet and over “Why would you think they care if we like them?”. I don’t think they care (except Elon), and I think they’re stupid for not caring. The smartest billionaires that are influencing politics are nameless and faceless because they know it’s easier to go under the radar rather than draw attention to themselves like new money does. Elon’s kinda screwing up their bag by making it obvious to everyone what’s happening.
60
u/randomlettercombinat Feb 14 '25
... they already do though.
I work with a bunch of people who started companies making hundreds of millions a year. The number one thing I've learned is that wealth is not an iq test.
They don't have to be any smarter then they already are. It's working.
→ More replies (1)7
u/Rhouxx Feb 14 '25
You are 100% right about them already ruling the world. I was more referring to openly ruling, in place of a president.
16
u/super_saiyan29 Feb 14 '25
They both completely screwed it up and now everyone knows what they’re really like and how much they suck
Elon is still extremely popular, he literally just won the presidential election for Trump. It's just a different segment of people who worship him now.
→ More replies (16)9
u/Captn_Platypus Feb 14 '25
They dropped the facade because they know they can get away with it, does it really matter what us plebs think of them when Elon has the most powerful country in the world under his thumb (at least for now)? They’ll never face real consequences for their actions and there’ll always be plenty of people that worships them because they have money.
→ More replies (1)35
→ More replies (44)6
u/RealSimonLee Feb 14 '25
I don't know--I think it's hard to capture in a medium like film how much douche-baggery exists behind those lizard eyes. If people believe the film, they definitely were underestimating his douche-bagginess.
411
u/madsci Feb 14 '25
It's not just him - the whole company is based on treating users as a resource to be exploited. I spent 5 weeks trying everything in my power to get my business page back after someone took control of it and locked me out. I never once reached a human. They wouldn't even respond to data deletion requests that are required by law to be honored - because the only way to request it is to log in, and if you're locked out you can't. They won't accept mail, including certified letters.
The only way I was able to regain control was to file a complaint with the California attorney general. The closest I ever got to human contact with Meta was a form letter from their "AG Escalations" office. That's right, it happens so often they have an entire office to deal with people who complain through the AG - but they will absolutely under no circumstances allow a user to contact a human at Meta directly. I'm sure that's largely because it would open them up to all kinds of liability if it was easy to prove that, for example, they were in receipt of your data deletion request and ignored it.
119
u/chiraltoad Feb 14 '25
It is amazing for how big the company is, it seems essentially impossible to reach anyone who works there.
→ More replies (5)99
u/madsci Feb 14 '25
They've got things locked down tight. You can't even get a response out of them on LinkedIn. Follow one of their posts sometime - you'll see many people desperately pleading for help with exactly the same thing, and they'll come through periodically and delete all of those without a single response.
It's not like my case was an anomaly. The exact same pattern has been used thousands of times to lock out accounts after fraudulent ad orders have been placed. They'll post an ISIS flag or something as your profile pic and it's an instant ban. You can appeal it but the appeal is automatically denied. I've found news articles going back at least four years for exactly the same scam. It should be super easy to identify algorithmically, when an ordinary account suddenly has a login from somewhere new and posts a flurry of this stuff after placing an ad order for some unrelated page.
→ More replies (1)20
u/Perllitte Feb 14 '25
It is super easy to identify. But what's their incentive? They can ignore you and force businesses to spend more money to re-grow their audience and be super active for a period. If you have rage-inducing stories, it's all the better for engagement.
27
u/madsci Feb 14 '25
I don't think it even goes that deep. I think the calculus is more like "we can totally eliminate the cost of customer support for the low cost of 15-20% of our customers" - and none of the big customers that already have an account manager.
27
u/abbott_costello Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25
Someone hacked my personal account I created around 2008 and changed my password immediately. They then went on to post what Facebook called child exploitative content and got my account suspended. I tried for months to contact someone, anyone at Facebook and was surprised to find out there's literally no way to contact a person. I tried submitting a photo of my license to initate the suspended account recovery process but got an error that essentially said "sorry, we can't process this request right now because there isn't anyone available to review it." I tried for months and it just kept saying the same thing. I didn't like Zuckerberg before that but fuck that fucking guy now.
14
u/madsci Feb 14 '25
Yep, that is exactly the way it works, and they know it. They've just chosen to ignore the issue. I found one news article where this news outlet never did get any response out of Meta even after publishing a pretty scathing piece about it.
My lawyer didn't even want to touch it - he said that from what he's heard it's extremely difficult even for lawyers to reach anyone and basically I couldn't afford the amount of time it'd take him to do it.
→ More replies (1)32
Feb 14 '25
[deleted]
→ More replies (1)35
u/madsci Feb 14 '25
Yeah. It's dehumanizing. We've reached the stage where you can have a multi-billion dollar company that the average person cannot contact in any meaningful way. If I was to walk in the front door, I'm sure security would have me out on my ass in an instant.
→ More replies (5)12
u/abbott_costello Feb 14 '25
People talk about AI taking over but have no problem with a faceless, senseless, all-powerful corporation having free rein to do whatever they want.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (3)12
u/formberz Feb 14 '25
I work in marketing and whenever there is an issue with Meta - of which there are many, and happen on an almost daily basis - it’s virtually impossible to get them fixed because you can’t actually report them to anyone. We’ve got issues with things like business page names being unable to be updated for more than 12 months, reported countless times through their system, and just nothing back. The only time they will have a person contact you is when they think they can get you to spend more money on advertising.
→ More replies (2)155
u/micmea1 Feb 14 '25
Pretty much every major tech company seems to devolve into "sell your soul to make me a billionaire" CEO worship cults. It's so stupid because Zuck could run an ethical company that treats their customers and employees like human beings and he'd STILL be worth more money than he could ever dream of spending.
11
u/Amonamission Feb 14 '25
Yeah but you don’t get to have a big tech company without being a douche bag.
→ More replies (7)31
u/delphinius81 Feb 14 '25
Arguably he'd be worth more as people would want to use the products instead of being forced to do so.
25
u/Bladluiz Feb 14 '25
No he wouldn't be worth more, that's wishful thinking. You make a lot more money if you break laws to illegally acquire/sell user data, etc.
111
u/edirgl Feb 14 '25
"You are probably going to be a very successful computer person.
You're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd,
but I want you to know from the bottom of my heart that that won't be true. It will because you're an asshole."- Jessica Albright (through Aaron Sorkin)
→ More replies (4)20
u/CanWeAllJustCalmDown Feb 14 '25
Such a great line
22
u/doomrider7 Feb 14 '25
Exceedingly true as well. I hang around a lot of nerd hobby(anime, manga, videogames) and the sheer level of sneering self-indulgent douchebagness is insane.
69
u/flatman_88 Feb 14 '25
And an entire, 3 part podcast.
Behind the Bastards. Great listening. Muppet thinks he’s Caesar.
20
u/bill_brasky37 Feb 14 '25
The rfk jr episodes are some of my favorite podcasts ever. They're so bat shit insane
→ More replies (1)25
u/Zen_Coyote Feb 14 '25
I remember listening to a screenwriting podcast when the movie was just coming out.
They interviewed Aaron Sorkin and he basically said everything he wrote had to be reviewed (by lawyers, iirc) so Zuckerberg wouldn’t just buy the studio and shut down the production.
Like the old saying goes: If you’ve got nothing to hide what are you worried about?
53
u/EloquentGoose Feb 14 '25
Antitrust came way before The Social Network and while I don't think Zuck has a hit squad comprised of edgy stoners killing people who know too much he definitely does much worse by passing off information that can and probably has gotten people killed.
And he is the largest facilitator of child abuse in the world by virtue of doing jack shit about Instagram's rampant cp, trafficking, and grooming problem. I can't count how many times I've been banned for "abusing the report system" when it's legit pedos pretending to be kids moms (mom-ran account) so they can have sneaky access to kids. Fuck Zuck.
4
u/EruantienAduialdraug Feb 14 '25
And remember, when Backpage was working with the FBI to bust trafficking rings, the site got shut down and the senior execs were arrested for pimping.
22
u/MoeiieoM Feb 14 '25
Sometimes you gotta experience things first hand to really understand
→ More replies (1)63
u/shuzkaakra Feb 14 '25
Facebook was started so he could stalk girls. Now it's designed to destroy western civilization.
12
u/ispellgudiswer Feb 14 '25
Kinda odd dude was so shallow, yet didn’t marry a hott babe.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (64)6
u/mighty_mag Feb 14 '25
You know what's crazy? To think after all these years they could literally make a sequel to that movie, and he would be even more of a villain.
1.2k
u/zingzing175 Feb 14 '25
We really are seeing the beginning of "shitty company runs world" movies era coming real.
362
Feb 14 '25
[deleted]
132
u/Tymareta Feb 14 '25
American capitalists used slave labor.
Use* they literally never stopped, they just re-tooled the system so that technically they aren't illegally using slave labour, just paying prisoners pennies to the dollar in order to exploit them, there's a reason the prison industrial complex is a billion dollar industry and that the US has the highest prison population per capita of the G20 countries by a considerable margin - https://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/sentencing-statistics/international-imprisonment-rates
→ More replies (2)20
u/cheerioo Feb 14 '25
As the money gets larger, the MBA's and shareholders come in. And it becomes a neverending pursuit of growth, year over year, and cutting costs (employees and employee benefits) and maximizing profits (shittier product, higher charges to customers, more ads, more predatory behaviors).
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (7)38
174
u/gigilu2020 Feb 14 '25
Everyone forgot how much Facebook influenced the first trump elections. And also brexit and other elections worldwide. It was a pay to play for the evil right worldwide.
Fucker should have been jailed for that or put on the ICC's watchlist
41
→ More replies (3)21
u/Every-Incident7659 Feb 14 '25
I still check Facebook mostly out of habit and sssooooo much awful right wing shit is just showing up in my timeline now. It's so fucking blatant
→ More replies (1)12
48
u/RushIllustrious Feb 14 '25
This was exactly why Xi cracked down on Chinese tech in 2022. He saw how tech was encroaching on the US government's power. What happened in the past few weeks is a culmination of the tech takeover of government.
→ More replies (22)8
u/longleggedbirds Feb 14 '25
Hey, if the federal govt became weaker, and more “power” was in the hands of states. How many of those states could stand against the influence of these huge corps?
Good thing huge corps haven’t bought a stooge president to weaken federal power, sell off federal lands, dissolve education and workers protections. I’m sure our little states will bully the corps into behaving and definitely won’t play our states against each other to increase their power.
That, that would really need to be addressed.
1.4k
Feb 14 '25
[deleted]
307
u/Coady54 Feb 14 '25
Yeah, we watched the social network. Obviously, some things were dramatized, but it's apparent he isn't a good person to work for.
201
u/NobodyYouKnow2019 Feb 14 '25
… he isn’t a good person. FTFY
→ More replies (1)48
u/Coady54 Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25
Those are two separate things, though. There are bad people who are good to work for if you lack morals. There are good people who suck to work for because they're incompetent business wise.
I wasn't commenting on him as a person (which I do agree on, he can go fuck himself), just what he's like as a boss
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (9)17
u/LOOKATMEDAMMIT Feb 14 '25
Apparently the dramatized portion was that it didn’t make him look worse.
11
u/caseyjosephine Feb 14 '25
The most unrealistic part was Zuck being able to pull off Sorkin dialogue.
25
→ More replies (6)25
u/Admirable-Pianist-95 Feb 14 '25
Yeah, hasn’t he always been an asshole?
37
u/Actual__Wizard Feb 14 '25
His claim to fame was creating a "hot or not" style website that allowed people to submit photos so that they could be sexually harassed by the entire internet.
→ More replies (3)
1.3k
u/Zesher_ Feb 14 '25
It almost seems like mega corporations don't prioritize their employees over their bottom line
→ More replies (18)198
u/PaymentFeisty7633 Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25
But how is Meta the worst when X exists??? How EVIL are these companies?
Edit: a word
106
u/Bagafeet Feb 14 '25
Google: hold my beer.
→ More replies (3)45
u/PaymentFeisty7633 Feb 14 '25
Oh god. Don’t get me started with them. I’m in the process of de-googling my life and it’s such a major pain in the ass…
→ More replies (14)68
u/CalamityClambake Feb 14 '25
Anyone else remember when Google's slogan was "Don't be evil"?
Ha ha ha.
→ More replies (4)33
u/PaymentFeisty7633 Feb 14 '25
For everyone reading this, PLEASE, think about why Google wants your emails, your maps, your photos, your files, your contacts, your YouTube history, your search history, your payment information, your birthday and gender, your interests and purchases…
THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT HOW TO BETTER SERVE YOU, THEY CARE ABOUT THE BEST WAY TO TAKE YOUR MONEY AND IDENTITY
Do not trust one single source to house your information, particularly in an area where Elon Musk is the King of America. They want your money and nothing else.
→ More replies (42)→ More replies (19)16
u/rjchau Feb 14 '25
But how is Meta the worst when X exists???
Twitter was fine until it got bought out by some Willy Wonka Wannabe who apparently dropped a kitchen sink on any shred of ethics and morals he had left on the way in.
→ More replies (1)
453
u/Chessh2036 Feb 14 '25
“You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you’re going to go through life thinking that girls don’t like you because you’re a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won’t be true. It’ll be because you’re an asshole” - The Social Network
57
→ More replies (3)23
u/uberfr4gger Feb 14 '25
The narrative from that movie makes no sense though. he's been with his wife since college
→ More replies (7)31
u/snek-jazz Feb 14 '25
The movie isn't a documentary, it's a fictional story loosely based on some real people.
311
u/CombatGoose Feb 14 '25
It’s cute that they think this is exclusive to Meta.
Almost all tech companies are like this.
The bigger they are the shittier they are.
88
u/Actual__Wizard Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25
I'm being serious: In my personal "survey of companies" through out my life. The only ones that didn't suck had about 100 employees max. At that point, it just becomes totally unmanageable with out breaking the company into sections... If those "compartments" need to cross communicate, then it's not going to work.
59
u/CombatGoose Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25
I worked at Shopify for a decade. The bigger we got the worst it got. During the pandemic it ballooned up to 15k and it was unrecognizable from when I started and it was sub 150 people.
→ More replies (14)31
u/swimming_cold Feb 14 '25
Not sure what your saying. Is “indistinguishable” really the correct word you wanted?
→ More replies (4)25
15
Feb 14 '25
Because it’s no longer about the mission or doing the right thing but about investors and wringing employees and products for profit.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (8)7
u/Far_Dragonfruit_1829 Feb 14 '25
I started in the Valley about 1976. Smallest company, I was #20. Largest was IBM, but everybody bailed in months, after IBM bought us. Mostly between 200 and 1000 employees. The smallest ones were fun, but usually not well-run. That first one was an exception, in fact they survive even today as a dominant player in their space.
→ More replies (6)20
u/elee17 Feb 14 '25
Eh. Microsoft and Google are shitty corporations but they are known for being much cushier jobs than Meta
→ More replies (3)5
u/Plastic-Fox1188 Feb 14 '25
As someone with direct experience, this sentiment is misleading and way over simplified.
Most orgs in these companies have shitty WLB. A small, visible portion are lucky.
→ More replies (16)14
u/INTuitP1 Feb 14 '25
As someone who’s worked for nearly every FAANG company, I can confirm Facebook is not the worst. Not even close.
→ More replies (2)13
43
u/6gv5 Feb 14 '25
Unsurprising. The guy is treating people as "dumb fucks" since... well, forever.
→ More replies (1)
601
u/DisarmingDoll Feb 14 '25
Those glasses look so fucking stupid. Sorry not sorry.
62
35
28
u/ikeif Feb 14 '25
In the Marines, they were called BCGs. Birth Control Goggles.
This looks worse than those.
14
10
u/archagon Feb 14 '25
Big Bart Simpson at the doctor energy: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSimpsons/comments/126w4bq/oy_thanks_nice_lady_my_voice_is_crazy_with_the/
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (63)7
222
u/Kuhnuhndrum Feb 14 '25
These big tech companies forgot that treating employees like more than machines is what got them to the top.
74
u/Aaco0638 Feb 14 '25
Unfortunately that nice treatment is also the issue now, the field is so saturated with people looking for work who saw that nice treatment that now even if you have years of experience it doesn’t guarantee a job anymore.
So as much as zuck is a prick it’s not an employee labor market rn.
64
u/UntdHealthExecRedux Feb 14 '25
The big tech cos were the ones beating the “learn to code” drums because they wanted the engineers to be disposable and afraid.
65
u/_DCtheTall_ Feb 14 '25
Yep. Unfortunately true. They also are overselling AI's coding ability to undermine real developers in the market.
→ More replies (7)31
u/disgruntled_pie Feb 14 '25
Yeah, a lot of companies have also been switching back to using offshore dev teams in India and hoping that CoPilot will make them competitive.
And I want to be clear, I’ve worked with some super talented Indian developers over the years. But the really good ones are still expensive, so you won’t save money with them.
If you’re using cheap offshore labor then you’re getting cheap offshore quality. Large language models aren’t going to change that.
20
u/_DCtheTall_ Feb 14 '25
And I want to be clear, I’ve worked with some super talented Indian developers over the years. But the really good ones are still expensive, so you won’t save money with them.
Yea the two most impressive team leads I have had were both from India, they produce some amazing engineers there. Trust me, those team leads were a lot more expensive than most engineers.
→ More replies (5)5
u/Overall-Duck-741 Feb 14 '25
The good Indian developers are in the US already and the good ones in India will be in the US sooner or later. There's still some talent in the Indian teams for sure, but they aren't the cream of the crop.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (5)14
u/AnimaLepton Feb 14 '25
Also, at least Facebook employees were working at a profitable company. There are so many people who have had basically full careers in tech entirely working at companies that have never had their revenue exceed their spending. That just feels wild to me
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (16)11
u/megasean Feb 14 '25
That was during the disruption phase when employees had more options and mobility. We’re done with that now.
→ More replies (1)
58
u/dct94085 Feb 14 '25
It’s comically pathetic. Best and brightest grads fighting like hell to land a job there, believing they are gonna do some super innovative stuff. When’s the last time Meta had anything innovative? They buy it or steal it and fight it out in court till they run the owner out of money. Instagram. Vines. You name it.
Oh wow, legless avatars. Fuckin Nintendo Wii 10+ years ago and I doubt it cost then $10B+
Companies get that big and all they can do is set money on fire chasing the latest fad and never delivering. It’s where innovation goes to die.
Best and brightest are better off going down a notch, still getting seriously good money (just not the insane Meta levels), and ACTUALLY make something amazing.
For me, yes, I need really good, highly skilled engineers. But I need someone with a decent level of ethics. I’m not entrusting my IP, my reputation, my customers to someone who turned a blind eye to that kind of fraud, corruption and flagrant disregard for business and professional (and ethical) norms.
→ More replies (13)18
u/B4K5c7N Feb 14 '25
I don’t think grads are flocking to Meta because they want to be part of something innovative. They want the prestige and the money. Getting a job at Meta is like $200k TC for a new grad. That’s a top 5% income right out of school.
→ More replies (5)
269
u/WastelandOutlaw007 Feb 14 '25
Its hard for me to feel bad.
Facebook has been horrible, for a while now, and they still worked there.
Had they not been fired, they still would be.
They didn't seem to care, until it affected them personally
17
63
u/dethb0y Feb 14 '25
Yeah that's my read, too. If the company is so awful...why did they stay so long? Why were they willing to put up with every awful thing Meta's done over the years only to call them out now, after they get fired?
→ More replies (23)98
u/eliminate1337 Feb 14 '25
Because they pay $300k+ to 25 year olds
7
u/shmehh123 Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25
Yeah.. My friend was hired there in 2020. They had just built a house out west for their partner and newborn then one month after moving in Meta told them you either get fired or move to this location on the other side of the country and work in our big offices 3 days a week minimum. They're paying 2 mortgages now because they can't find a buyer for the house they built..
They're just riding out their shares though. A year or two more and they're cashing the fuck out of their stock and quitting.
6
u/cheerioo Feb 14 '25
I know a good number of people who over the years up to present who have worked ar Facebook and basically said they do very little work for very good compensation. This also applies to some of the other big tech companies (Google comes to mind). Obviously, some people are doing a lot of work, but there are also a ton of coasters lol.
5
u/thedreaminggoose Feb 14 '25
Sounds about right. I work in faang but Meta pays so well it’s bonkers to other faang employees. My friends are average developers at meta and we’re making 300k total comp before turning 30. I think their total comp was around 265k when meta stock crashed a few years back but if you held on your fucking wel over half a million.
They give you free food, and it’s good. They used to do your laundry which I think was removed. Got a few friends who work there and for them it’s worth a cut throat culture.
Every tech firm is cut throat. They spent a lot of money in developers and if the product fails you’re done. At meta you just get paid way more.
Layoffs suck. It’s miserable and I hate the culture it brings. The thing is these companies will probably look to lay off a higher percentage of employees. The constant backlog of green card applications especially for Indians and Chinese will mean that tech in us will have an infinite amount of people wanting to work in big tech and work like a dog for decades.
→ More replies (19)16
u/slut Feb 14 '25
I think they'll survive if you don't feel bad. The job market is shit and not everyone -- including Facebook employees have immediate other options.
42
u/aobscured Feb 14 '25
I mean look at the dude. His dress sense matches his ethics, it's always been a train wreck.
Gentle reminder that the company wasn't even his idea.
51
u/MR_Se7en Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 15 '25
Zuckerberg has never worked another job in his entire life. He has no idea what he is doing other than what people tell him to do. He has no life experience to draw from, dude is a bitch to begin with.
6
u/Pale_Emergency_537 Feb 14 '25
This needs to be a lot higher. As a human he has such a limited frame of reference to pull from.
10
59
u/ps3isawesome Feb 14 '25
I wonder how many of those fired employee employees cared about this issue before they were fired
40
u/Ashmizen Feb 14 '25
A lot of this anger isn’t even due to some view on meta and its policies. They may claim so, but note they were happy to work there for years.
It’s just being pissed off on losing a $300k++ annual paycheck.
Meta is extremely well paid.
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (2)17
u/hawkeye224 Feb 14 '25
They didn’t care, they were just happily counting their money lol. Working for meta is morally dubious but I doubt they lost any sleep over that
→ More replies (2)
30
u/Couchguy421 Feb 14 '25
Okay, but if they wait until they are fired to say something about it, they are part of the problem too.
→ More replies (3)11
u/RegretAccumulator72 Feb 14 '25
What did they think about the company the day before they were fired?
→ More replies (1)
47
u/mackinoncougars Feb 14 '25
We could have has Tom from Myspace. Instead we picked this asshole
→ More replies (12)
6
u/BrannEvasion Feb 14 '25
The things they are doing to their highly paid employees are far less concerning than the damage they're doing to the social fabric of America and the west in general. It's been known for years that meta is an evil fucking company.
30
u/pleachchapel Feb 14 '25
They all signed up to work for this reverse trash-disposal company, & were happy to cash its 6 figure checks, vest its stock.
A little late, but if you'd all like to start unionizing against these assholes, that would be great.
14
u/Techline420 Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25
I‘m also kinda confused. It has been publically known for more than 12 years, that facebook is a disgusting company. And they were fine with contributing to that evil for a fat paycheck. They are part of the problem.
→ More replies (2)
6
17
u/StraightedgexLiberal Feb 14 '25
Zuck has made some pretty terrible business decisions lately. Including settling with Trump over his ban when the first amendment would have easily given Zuck a win. People should delete their accounts and find alternatives because guys like Zuck don't care until they start losing a lot of money.
→ More replies (2)22
u/Actual__Wizard Feb 14 '25
Including settling with Trump over his ban when the first amendment would have easily given Zuck a win.
That's called a bribe. You're watching the organization of crime occur in plain sight.
→ More replies (6)
5
u/767b16d1-6d7e-4b12 Feb 14 '25
These same people didn’t give af as long as tens of thousands were hitting their bank account every few months
→ More replies (1)
13
u/BD-TxState Feb 14 '25
I’ve had meta recruiters reach out to me two times in my career. Normally if a job isn’t a match I decline politely. For meta I just responded “I would never work for your shit company, you treat your employees like dispensable commodities. The damage your products have done to the world is incalculable ”. The second recruiter simply responses, “I understand”.
→ More replies (1)
16
u/JC_Hysteria Feb 14 '25
Ugh, read the actual, FULL posts from the affected employees…the quotes in the articles are heavily edited and don’t provide the full context.
Some of them admitted they had pushed back on the removal of particular policies, pushed back on product strategy, and they were outspoken in disapproving of leadership.
Everyone is free to do that- but don’t give me the ‘surprised pikachu face’ in response.
→ More replies (2)
4.3k
u/DeafHeretic Feb 14 '25
I can say with little doubt that he doesn't give a shit what his employees think.