Mark Zuckerberg braces Meta employees for ‘intense period’

https://www.theverge.com/23277797/mark-zuckerberg-meta-facebook-employees-pressure

by lladnar • 4 years ago

79 87 4 years ago

theverge.com

anigbrowl• 4 years ago

'Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.'

pipeline_peak4• 4 years ago

This man is seriously banking on Unreal Second Life to turn around the Exxon Valdez.

I can’t tell if he’s lost the plot or this is just another layer to hide Facebooks dependence on user data. Considering the loss Meta took after the iOS privacy update, he realizes user data is no longer viable so he’s just cutting as much possible to keep things afloat.

gsatic• 4 years ago

Look at Google's results. They are just leaves in the wind. They dont make the wind anymore.

holografix3• 4 years ago

No he realises he needs to control the distribution medium. Apple and Google can’t be allowed to dictate what Facebook does in their platforms.

MZ needs to create an attractive platform of his own. For a brief moment he had one, Facebook was a platform, they managed to even get a killer app: FarmVille.

Then the iPhone came around and ate their lunch. No one cared about developing for Facebook anymore, only iOS and Android.

He will bet the company on a VR device that rivals the smartphone category. He has to.

wly_cdgr• 4 years ago

^^^ this. AR/VR is do or die for FB.

otikik• 4 years ago

He could have released a “facephone” instead. It’s equally challenging, competes against apple, could use open source Android as a base. Perhaps it was too obvious of a route?

Bubble_Pop_22• 4 years ago

MZ needs to create an attractive platform of his own

He already has it.

A platform of people > a platform of apps

Despite what people think about this guy being evil, robotic etc. He never used his 2.5B people platform to attack Apple, Google or any of the other tech companies. Nor to glorify himself or FB

Manufacturing hatred against competitors or super positive narrative for self can be done trivially and with little or no investment from Meta, given that they own FB, WA, IG.

The moment Zuckerberg steps down and another person gets at the helm of FB is gonna be a very tumoltous moment for humanity. People worried about Trump, Putin, Musk, Gates, WHO, WEF.. having too much power have seen nothing yet compared to a bad actor at the helm of FB.

It needs to be broken up, because if a bad actor manages to gain control of it, then it would be like the 1930s all over again. Except there would not be any place to escape to this time around

oneoff7863• 4 years ago

DMA gonna snuffle out that dream nicely

pipeline_peak4• 4 years ago

Considering Apple cut his losses with the flip of a switch, he's permanently lost control of the distribution medium.

dr_kiszonka• 4 years ago

I think Metaverse is still firmly into data collection, just a different type of data. Not long ago they were hiring folks with expertise in physiology, analyzing biosignals (HR, HRV, galvanic skin response, gaze analysis) [0], which - if used in ad tech - could lead to nightmarish dystopian scenarios. Metaverse would also give them access to data about all of the things you do during your time there, including all websites you visit, everything you say, and - thanks to the physio data - how you feel about the interactions with websites, ads, and other people.

On the one hand, Metaverse could be wonderful for keeping in touch with loved ones and for, e.g., health monitoring. On the other, I am very concerned that Mark Z. will create another FB hell.

0. I can't find the specific job openings that I mentioned but here is a somewhat similar one: https://mobile.twitter.com/dzwetmore/status/1453726967325356...

Here is a nice review of biosignals use in VR: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frvir.2021.6945...

whywhywhywhy2• 4 years ago

Controlling AR is the what they're fighting for, it should be plainly obvious to Zuckerberg now that Facebook really screwed up by not building a mobile hardware platform while Apple and Google did. It's too late for that but they're actually really in the running for releasing the best hardware platform for AR.

He talks a lot about the Ready Player One VR Metaverse idea but really it's more about getting glasses on your face that brings IG/WhatsApp/FB/ETC into the room and world around you, same thing Apple is working towards too. If he doesn't pull it off Meta will essentially always be in a position of weakness against Google and Apple who control the only platforms that matter going forward.

Whoever manages to make the iPhone of AR will essentially be the conduit between all human interaction and IRL commerce going forwards. Zuckerberg realizes just how locked down the next generation of platforms are gonna be and how it's gonna become very difficult for his existing products to make money in that space if he doesn't have a beachhead on it.

diogenescynic• 4 years ago

He watched or read 'Ready Player One' and got really hyped on the vaporware.

chitowneats• 4 years ago

If you work for Meta in 2022 you are chasing the valuation. If it can go up that means it can also come down.

I sincerely hope no one is breaking out the stradivarius for 300k+ per year SWEs participating in one of the most cynical endeavors I've ever seen.

mathgladiator• 4 years ago

I used to work there, and I didn't understand the pivot.

mhoad• 4 years ago

I feel like working at Meta in 2022 is such a professional and personal stain that is going to follow people around for a long time.

bennyelv• 4 years ago

This is a point of view that I don't really understand (I don't work there).

They have a high bar for hiring, they have interesting technology problems, engineers who work there are probably high quality. The fact that the company as a whole is in a challenging position doesn't change that.

Why is that signal a stain?

aahortwwy• 4 years ago

Comments on Workplace, the company’s internal version of Facebook for employees, came flying in. “This is war-time, we need a war-time CEO,” one wrote. “Beast mode activated,” a second employee posted.
Others couldn’t believe what they’d just heard. “Did Mark just say there are a bunch of people at this company that don’t belong here[?]” a staffer asked. Another responded: “Who hired them?”

Two sorts of responses, emotionally opposed, but both coming from people V. Rao might categorize as "clueless" in The Gervais Principle.

jsemrau• 4 years ago

Have never worked for them, but I am wondering how much Sheryl Sandberg has kept this place sane.

holografix3• 4 years ago

Sheryl “lean in the good times but then lean the fuck out” Sandberg?

SilverBirch• 4 years ago

Maher Saba, told managers that they needed to identify people on their team who “need support” by 5PM the following Monday and “exit people who are unable to get on track.”

If your management team don't already know who needs help, and aren't already exiting people who are unable to get on track, then it's the management team who are the people who don't belong at the company.

This always happens, senior leadership make dumb fucking decisions - like close to doubling the size of an already enormous company, or completely abandoning their cash cow core business. Then the shit hits the fan and suddenly Joe in engineering is a lousy slacker who shouldn't be here.

Zuckerberg has the unusual ability to weather tough periods that might sink other CEOs.

Yeah, this unique talent is called "owning the majority of the voting shares". I'm quite certain at this point the market has priced in the non-zero possibility that Zuck will shovel all the money from the profitable parts of his business into a VR bonfire and that significantly affects the shares.

barrenko2• 4 years ago

Yeah well, the pesky thing about management is that it's secondary function is to entrench itself.

nine_zeros• 4 years ago

Yeah well, the pesky thing about management is that it's secondary function is to entrench itself.

I thought entrenchment is the primary function. A secondary is to feign care for reports.

jhoelzel• 4 years ago

I have a feeling that the metaverse is going to be completely unusable through over-engeneering.

What kind of made second life great in the beginning was its roughness and that you could really discover stuff because everybody could basically do whatever they wanted. I have a lingering feeling that this is not going to be so simple this time around.

That said, as long as I dont get a "holodeck" like in Star-Trek I don't think that I'll put on a headset for this.... If im honest with you I dont even want to put on a headset to have an immersive experience with current gen video games, so why would I do this....... to hang out?!

Lastly the way people talk about the metaverse, I am pretty sure that every experience I can possibly have will be monetized to the max. So please wake me once there are pirated servers of the metaverse, leaving me to actually being able to experience a limitless world, not one where the limit is my credit card limit.

kumarvvr• 4 years ago

I would realllllly like to know what tge heck the "metaverse" actually is?

I think Mark just put out some buzzwords to buy time.

valdiorn• 4 years ago

Like Web 3.0, it is whatever you want it to be.

brushfoot3• 4 years ago

There's a lot of playing fast and loose with the definition right now, but the lowest common denominator is basically online virtual worlds with more Web3 and XR. Think Roblox + VR + blockchain.

The consulting companies (Gartner, McKinsey) will tell you that something like Roblox is metaverse already but that Web3 and VR are integral to what it's becoming. I.e., it's tech that's already here, just in its infancy and not working in concert yet. The envisioned ideal combines it into an interoperable ecosystem where you're making global payments and moving virtual posessions from one platform to another.

Games are often the example, but imagine 3D multiplayer environments for collaboratively architecting buildings, public transportation systems, computer chips, or software. You use voice and gestures to speak components into existence and shape flows. Other engineers are in the environment with you in real time. Tools are created to assist you, and you can transport them from one platform to another while retaining ownership. That's sort of the promise and what people are excited about.

Where we are now is like looking at a clunky applet from the early days of the web and going, "This is Web 2.0. Someday all our apps will run in the browser." It maybe was Web 2.0 in an aspirational sense, but it hadn't really been realized yet. Same with the metaverse.

barrenko2• 4 years ago

Well, if someone was to pull it off at this point in time it would be Zuck, but we're a couple of years early me thinks. Or maybe we won't go meta/vr at all.

desindol5• 4 years ago

We are like 12-13 years into the VR renaissance and locomotion is still not fixed besides some novelty approaches. If they can’t fix it AR is all that is left and we still don’t have the computing nor the displays for proper immersion. It’s still a very long road ahead…

ruh-roh• 4 years ago

On a whim I picked up The Metaverse, Matthew Ball's book released last week (7/19). I am only about 1/3 of the way through it, so I can't recommend it yet, but I have two main takeaways so far...

1. If you can get through the marketing slog thrown out by FB, Epic, and others, many ideas behind a/the metaverse aren't terrible. Perhaps even good. As an old fogie myself, I cannot see spending hours/days in it, but I have to acknowledge there will be a market for it. (Granted, the author is a VC, so he might be a little biased here.)

2. We are a LOT further away from a functioning metaverse than people think/expect/hope. Many challenges exist across the tech (networking, storage, hardware, processing power, etc.). Not to mention identity, governance, and interoperability. Surely many more. Predictions in tech are always foolish, but I would be surprised if we approached anything like a 'Snow Crash' metaverse in the next decade.

curiousgal• 4 years ago

I don't know why he seems to forget that part of why Facebook took off is its mass adoption in Third World populations (part of which immigrate and end up being monetizable) through initiatives like Facebook Zero. The barrier to entry to VR is a whopping month's salary for most people per headset, not to mention the bandwidth requirement. It's not gonna be as world changing as he thinks it is.

desindol5• 4 years ago

It really looks like Facebook was build on luck and not merit.

unit_circle• 4 years ago

I could see it being wonderful to talk with someone face-to-face who lives far away, and I know this is a site for hackers, but what is so appealing about a "metaverse" vs a phone or video call? It sounds very unpleasant to me to be so connected. I struggle to control my consumption of content (user-generated or otherwise) and having a company that is fundamentally a UGC aggregator more deeply embedded in my life sounds awful.

It also sounds like it would make me less active... One of the things in my life that brings me the most fulfillment and joy. The company is incentivized to keep your brain glued to their systems (and diverted from the real world) for as long as possible to increase earnings. I already feel that I am some animal product being held ever more tightly in my digital stall by my own human weaknesses.

I don't doubt that the tech will survive in some form. It will be cool and useful someday. I'm glad that Meta is martyring itself to push things forward. But delivered by Meta, it sounds to me like an extension of the dystopian nightmare of algorithmically delivered UGC that's fraying the fabric of society in uncomfortable new ways and lowering our collective aptitude for the things that really matter.

Or, asked more simply: Will I actually use the internet for what it's good for, or just keep browsing Hacker News?

v-erne• 4 years ago

> Will I actually use the internet for what it's good for, or just keep browsing Hacker News?

I find HN to be one of the best aspect of the internet. And I really do not know what actually internet is for - care to explain?

atraac• 4 years ago

having a company that is fundamentally a UGC aggregator more deeply embedded in my life sounds awful

I feel like it's not supposed to be aimed at people like you, me, or anyone else here for that matter. I feel like it's aimed towards younger and future generations that will grow up with VR ecosystems like that and get used to them, find uses for them that make it fun. Remember that most people don't care what company is behind a product, people still buy Nestle products after all they did. People don't care.

Kids these days grow up with all those new apps, environments, they practically live in the internet, I can see how this would be appealing to them, having your own 'place' in some virtual world that you can do anything with, especially since reality is much more demanding, depressing and will probably become even worse with all the issues in front of us. Is it going to be owned by corporation X? Sure, 100%. Will people care if it allows them to disconnect from reality? I don't think so.

cphoover2• 4 years ago

Kids these days grow up with all those new apps, environments, they practically live in the internet

But is it good for them? And do companies like meta care, or are they just trying to milk dollars from them.

ActorNightly3• 4 years ago

but what is so appealing about a "metaverse" vs a phone or video call?

This question had many forms in the past, with people questioning phone calls, then emails, then text messages, and so on.

Meta, done right of course, has real potential to actually be good. For example, schooling can easily be done through Meta, which has the potential of monetary savings across the board, and with several advantages over in person schooling.

desindol5• 4 years ago

Citation needed for the schooling part.

otabdeveloper4• 4 years ago

Covid conclusively proved that online schools are for poor people who want to be stuck in perpetual poverty.

Rich people will obviously pay for in-person schooling and reap the future job prospect rewards.

timellis-smith• 4 years ago

In its current form though I wonder if communication via be will be a step backwards, as I'm not aware yet of any way of capturing facial expressions, like a video chat would.

jvanderbot• 4 years ago

It's for the kids. You don't use roblox, but it's immensely popular. Roblox is, in my mind, almost the perfect analogy for what meta will be for the next generation if all goes well for meta.

mouzogu• 4 years ago

idk but somebody need to start working on the metaverse equivalent of mouse jiggler asap

crashingintoyou2• 4 years ago

It also sounds like it would make me less active...

The funny thing here is that my typical cardio workout for the past year or two has involved VR, and I've found that it's been great for getting the heart rate up.

That said, I'm a heavy VR user who also finds the metaverse talk a bit silly. Will see if my mind changes over the next 5-10 years.

cphoover2• 4 years ago

I want to use and build tools that make my life more connected and enjoyable in the real world. I dont want to live in a ready-player-one-esque virtual world where I don't get physical connection with the people, places, and experiences I love and make life worth living. I think as I get older I'm gaining this realization more and more.

I just completed the camino de Santiago Portuguese de costa, with my girlfriend a 280km thru-hike/walk from Porto, Portugal to Santiago De Compostela in Galicia, Spain. Three weeks of reduced screen time was immensely beneficial to my state of mind and happiness.

throwaway22032• 4 years ago

The "metaverse" is designed for the proles that watch 8 hours of television daily.

Well adjusted intelligent people don't want "convenience" (in the sense of just having everything be a click away). They want interesting and fulfilling careers, travel, to cook, read, paint, play, exercise, spend time in nature, etcetera.

Proles either don't have the health or funds for those things, or just don't want to (e.g. depression).

That's the target audience for all of this stuff. I don't know anyone successful that spends their time scrolling on nonsense like TikTok, it's always the "my life is awful" crew, almost by definition.

2muchcoffeeman• 4 years ago

All the successful tech entrepreneurs also seem to limit or delay what tech their kids are allowed to use far more than regular parents.

electrondood• 4 years ago

I'm glad that Meta is martyring itself to push things forward.

Framing it as a service to society is wrong. It was simultaneously a rebranding to escape the stain of the Facebook brand name, and a business decision to bet the farm that everyone in the future is going to want to extend the social isolation/faux-social-interaction of social media into a replacement for the real world.

VR is still a solution in search of a problem. FB looked at the only lunch they had left that wasn't being eaten by TikTok and others, and doubled down on it.

whywhywhywhy2• 4 years ago

It's gonna happen either way, both Meta and Apple are investing a ton working towards this, only thing is which will be in control of it.

Originami• 4 years ago

Facebook is for old people.

MrMan• 4 years ago

ok boomer

lapcat2• 4 years ago

"the company embarked on a massive hiring spree, growing its number of full-time employees by 62 percent, from 48,000 at the end of 2019 to more than 77,800"

That pretty much says it all.

mFixman• 4 years ago

Things got even worse a few days later when word spread across Workplace that the company wasn’t planning to hire any of its current interns at the end of their program.

This is such a bad move that I'm going to assume that the source is The Verge misinterpreting a post on Blind.

Big Tech internships are the best way to find raw talent to later train in the company. The internships themselves are mostly a net negative — I'm sure the 3 months of manager support I needed to launch a simple feature could have been used more productively — but being able to identify promising candidates with growth potential in a 3-month work interview is crucial for the growth in the company.

Wasting all that internship time and later not giving offers to young interns who used their potential vacations to work hard in a career-defining moment is just an awful policy.

JonChesterfield• 4 years ago

Well, unless they were awful. Would definitely be possible to run an interview system for interns that solely passed ones you don't want to hire later.

flappyeagle• 4 years ago

Someone will succeed at XR (probably Apple).

FB has enjoyed crazy monopoly software margins for so long, this culture shift will be next to impossible to pull off.

Zuck is right in that there are huge numbers of employees there for who are unsuited for the ambiguous and tough slog of finding a new market. I would guess this number is greater than 80% of their workers.

papito• 4 years ago

Not to mention those software engineers picked up the worst habits. They would be a total drag on a small company, creating overcomplicated, unmaintainable systems, instead of solving the problem at hand.

"What do you mean you don't have 50 microservices!? How is this even going to WORK?"

oneoff7863• 4 years ago

The entire pitch of meta and frankly most big tech hardware companies is a monopolistic control over software distribution. This won’t work with the Digital Markets Act in Europe. It just makes it a losing proposition. I yearn for the day when Facebook releases a high end VR system only to see all of its consumer base switch over to a third party platform. That would be super funny.

yrgulation• 4 years ago

Zuckerberg appeared visibly frustrated. “Um… all right,” he stammered.

My comment history will prove that i am the first to shit on corporate twats. Also i am not much of a sucker for “fun” 12 hours days.

But he’s got a point there. Company's switching to war mode. If all you care about is time off and perks then move on. Personally i like to demand and get paid but i also like to offer sweat when time comes. I mean you know money dont grow on trees and it goes both ways.

dsq• 4 years ago

Physical travel will probably be limited in future due to peak oil, climate change, and pandemic related policies (whether all true or not is left as an exercise for the reader). The next best thing to vacationing in Greece is metaversing in a virtual, uncrowded Greece with all dirt, viruses and greedy cab drivers scrubbed out. Better than staring at four walls during lockdown or no driving days.

Mark Zuckerberg braces Meta employees for ‘intense period’

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