Doesn't “Turning up the heat” at Meta accomplish the opposite of intentions?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32254181

by jmatthews • 4 years ago

18 20 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Thinking through a high competence developer's situation where you still get legitimate high value offers vs. someone that "doesn't belong here". Doesn't Mark's strategy insure high performers at least consider leaving while "lucky to be here" clings for dear life?

db48x2• 4 years ago

Manglers don't know about that; they think that everyone feels lucky to be there.

warning26• 4 years ago

Based on people I know who work at Facebook (sample size N=2), this is accurate. They all are convinced they have the greatest possible job ever, and any evidence to the contrary is a problem with themselves, not the job.

quantified• 4 years ago

Best pay in tech and a product that's important to the world, along with an apparently not-too-political inner culture. I'd hope that's the case for these employees (the full time ones, not the poor contractors who sleep in the parking lot or review posts for abusive images and such).

usgroup2• 4 years ago

Can you provide some etymology for “mangler”? I’d never heard that word used in this context before.

To mangle something usually means to mutilate it and by extension a mangler is someone who does that.

noSyncCloud• 4 years ago

A perjorative term for "managers".

PaulHoule• 4 years ago

Of course.

Facebook is in real bad shape (don't call it Meta, that's just a scheme to distract people from Facebook being in real bad shape.)

They've quit subsidizing VR headsets which is a sign they've given up on "the metaverse", the current ambition is to catch up with Tik Tok.

spywaregorilla• 4 years ago

They've quit subsidizing VR headsets which is a sign they've given up on "the metaverse"

Sounds like a bullshit claim to me, as someone who thinks the metaverse thing will never work

superchroma• 4 years ago

I'd say so, yes. Arguably all strokes of employee could consider leaving as they'll have their experience and it probably looks just fine on a resume. I think it'd look better to leave than be booted at this time too.

More broadly, I'm not sure this really is a strategy per-se. If Mark had a true grand vision for Facebook and Meta I think we would have seen it by now. I think this was just some money-man's recommendation made by looking at numbers on a spreadsheet.

kelseyfrog• 4 years ago

Mark is assuming that "turning up the heat" selects poor-performers for resignation. This could be the case, but I don't have any reason to believe that "turning up the heat" couldn't just as well make working conditions intolerable for the high-performers who don't want to and don't have to put up with crap workplaces.

muzani3• 4 years ago

From an outsider perspective, I think Meta has been overhiring, meaning they have too many people for the economic downturn and for the product(s) downturn. Old school Microsoft was limited in staff because they insisted on giving everyone an office. Meta was really only limited by money, and even that wasn't a major limit.

There's likely a bunch of people who CTCI-ed their way into Meta. They're not competent and not motivated. They might as well be bank robbers, in it for the money and free lunches.

These people would be a burden on their team and other high competence staff. I think turning up the heat might weed them out. It's possible it'll have collateral damage, but it could well be that Zuckerberg realizes they should be getting down to their roots. If he doesn't act, the company will likely be synonymous with Yahoo. High performers will leave a company on its way down anyway.

marssaxman• 4 years ago

people who CTCI-ed their way in

What does this phrase mean?

jfrd• 4 years ago

I think it is a reference to “Cracking the Coding Interview”, a book that teaches you how to pass FAANG interviews.

shetill• 4 years ago

is anyone in their right mind not in Meta for the money?

muzani3• 4 years ago

I mean the difference might be making money by getting work done, vs making money by cracking the interview and not getting fired.

olladecarne• 4 years ago

I've been thinking about this and I think this is a problem all companies face. The best employees are confident and know they can get a job anywhere anytime so they leave. The worst are less confident and never leave. How do you keep the former and get rid of the latter?

m0llusk• 4 years ago

React is kind of neat.

usgroup2• 4 years ago

Well one way is by cutting based on seniority and tenure since survival ought to correlate with value. Before you say it, that’s obviously not always the case but in a not-degenerate organisation it should be mostly the case.

You could also cut based on sparsity —- ie cut positions which are least costly to rehire.

Or cut based on dependence — cut positions which are least critical.

Or cut positions that are most dependent on near future revenue.

In all one can see how a multi criteria cut could be reasonably argued — in the end it only needs to mostly succeed.

b20000• 4 years ago

no wonder Z looks pale. he must have kept the heat off all these years!

Doesn't “Turning up the heat” at Meta accomplish the opposite of intentions?

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