Meta to Cut Over 11,000 Jobs; Zuckerberg Says 'I Got This Wrong'

[BumRushDaShow]

Last edited Wed Nov 9, 2022, 08:46 AM - Edit history (1)

Source: Bloomberg

Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said the company will cut more than 11,000 jobs in the first major round of layoffs in the social media giant’s history.

The reductions, equal to about 13% of the workforce, were disclosed Wednesday in a statement. The company will also extend its hiring freeze through the first quarter.

“I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here,” Zuckerberg said in the statement that was sent to Meta employees and posted on the company’s website. “I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.”

The company said that while reductions will happen across the company, its recruiting team will be disproportionately affected and its business teams would be restructured “more substantially.” Meta will also reduce its real estate footprint, review its infrastructure spending and transition some employees to desk sharing, with more cost-cutting announcements expected in the coming months.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-09/meta-confirms-plans-to-cut-13-of-jobs-extends-hiring-freeze

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Article updated.

Original article -

Meta Confirms Plans to Cut 13% of Jobs, Extends Hiring Freeze

Bloomberg News
November 9, 2022 at 6:10 AM EST


Meta Platforms confirmed job cuts of about 13% and let more than 11,000 of employees go, Bloomberg News reports.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg also said they are cutting discretionary spending and extending the hiring freeze through Q1.

No paywall

[twodogsbarking]

1. Just lock up the office supplies and everything will be fine.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. Even this?

[SouthernDem4ever]

7. ROFL

poor Milton

[Ray Bruns]

10. He got his stapler and a big fat check on the way out, though.

[XorXor]

22. I wish DU had the ability to like specific comments for cases like this

I have nothing to add, but I want to show my appreciation for the references made.

[Roy Rolling]

3. Just continue to follow the business model

Follow the model of MySpace, because that’s where time and your MAGA users have driven people away. Advertisers don’t want to sell to deplorables (who are already customers) because it drives non-MAGA customers away.

Something about birds of a feather or something.

[Tetrachloride]

4. Accountable ? I think you do not know the meaning of that word.

[nattyice]

5. So it's a "My bad!"?

[BumRushDaShow]

6. He put a lot of time and effort

and hype and money in "The Metaverse". Kinda like all the time and effort and promotional stuff that happened with "Google Glass".

I think eventually this kind of thing will come about but probably not in the same manner and certainly not now.

[onetexan]

8. Desk sharing?

The heck?

[BumRushDaShow]

16. My former work collegues in the federal government

(before I retired) who worked in the various D.C. metro office spaces, did that. They were WAH (work at home) a couple days a week and were in the office the other days. They scheduled it so that 2 people would share a cubicle with desk/chair/bookcases. Whenever I traveled down there, I would roll my laptop to one to "borrow" and hook up to a network jack at the cubicle and work from there. What this supposedly did was allow them to cut own on the number of floors to lease space for and the number of cubicles to maintain because only about 1/2 or so of your staff were "in the office" on any given day. Others of my coworkers were "hoteling" where they would roll their laptops to some open lounge-type area with tables, chairs, and a network connection, and would work at those workstations whenever they were in those buildings and not WAH.

[onetexan]

17. OIC gotcha. I WFH 100% but my company has unassigned cubicles and small work offices where

it's first come first serve. So on those few occasions where i did need to go in for in person meetings i would go early to make sure i got a private office with a door. It's better than having to share w someone.

[littlemissmartypants]

9. Zuck needs to 86 his "The Metaverse" wet dream. It's not going to work.

People can barely manage a real life and besides, that kind of escapism is why God created mind altering substances.

❤️

[Ray Bruns]

11. I really wasn't seeing the appeal.

[XorXor]

23. Same. It seems like the opposite of what we need anyway

I mean, if we look at how most people talk about social media and these companies, it seems pretty obvious that people want to disconnect more rather than be even more connected and integrated.

I've said this a lot in recent times, but I really really really hope these larger platforms turn into the next friendster and myspace.... or better yet, bring back a bunch of Friendsters, MySpaces, Hi5, Tagged, and the many other popular, but not monopolistic platforms. Maybe I'm just getting old and yearning for a simpler time that has no way of ever happening again. Oh well.

[Ford_Prefect]

12. When it comes down to cases we are NOT living in a Star Trek world of hand-held existence.

No matter how much processing and "content" is crammed into your phone someone still has to walk the dog, take the kids to school and actually converse face to face. I don't see the phone app for pouring concrete or roofing a house. To say nothing of repairing infrastructure, or installing Solar panels, or teaching History to Jr. High students.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. "or teaching History to Jr. High students."

A year's worth of school shutdowns and "virtual classes", which underscored the digital divide, did exactly that.

Here in Philly, the School District (public) had to purchase something like 15,000 chromebooks for the kids who had no laptops at home and then had to make arrangements for many of them to actually get internet service because their households didn't have it.

The manual labor would probably be that issue that you bring up of being harder to translate into automation, although you have places like Japan with advanced robotics doing much of the fabrication and even something as simple as walking a dog.

I know a few years ago I had seen a local news report about a robot being deployed at the Giant supermarket stores in the area. There is one not far from where I live although I don't go to it that much. But one time when I did, I saw the actual thing going up and down the aisle.

So yeah, a lot of stuff out there is still "concept" but there is also quite a bit that has been deployed. You do have the "3-D printers" that have been a game-changer for fabrication of a number of items - from plastics to metals to even biological tissue, and all of that is run by computer (and probably can be done as an app).

I think the supposed "benefit" of that Metaverse thing was to be its Virtual Reality (VR) tech. I have a Samsung Gear VR that worked with my Samsung Note 9 to run the various VR programs and videos, games, etc, which were 3D/360 degree camera-filmed stuff, and that was pretty cool.

For that next generation of the tech, the obvious nuisance is the need for some kind of hand-set that must be worn to translate any movement that you do with your arms/hands while using the headset. The ultimate purpose being to allow "virtual" meetings but with the sensation of being "in person" and "in a room" with others. It was an alternative to the flat 2-D video meeting formats like Zoom, etc. It seems the pandemic seemed to bring out some of the need for this but I don't think what they had developed was ready for primetime (outside of the promo stuff).

[Ford_Prefect]

15. The image which comes to mind when I hear of the "metaverse" comes from one of my favorite movies.

Last edited Thu Nov 10, 2022, 04:31 AM - Edit history (1)

The Metaverse only works for the informed and financially superior elites. It has no room for ordinary humans and assumes they will continue to do what the elites do not wish to.

The metaverse also relies on the myth that high technology is the answer to the environmental problems. It presumes there is no environmental cost to developing or continuing as we have done so far. It also carries the hubris of the engineers who imagine that theirs is the vision which will prevail. I have seen their work up close. When the problem is material they have many tools and insights. When it involves human decisions and interactions they seem no more expert than our local chamber of commerce.

I have no truck with high tech elitist visions which cannot incorporate the millions just managing living on the planet, whether they are in Jaipur, the Brazilian rainforest, or urban Detroit. I've watched them come and go since the late 50's and they still sell the same techno-fantasy.

[BumRushDaShow]

18. Love WAL-.E

(have the blueray DVD )

I think what ends up happening with these "concepts" is that something that is supposedly designed to "solve" one problem ends up doing so by creating another. The whole cryptocurrency thing is the perfect example - making "money" digital and secure (eliminating a need for metals or paper to create currency), yet generating an environmental nightmare just to fabricate the tech to maintain it.

Still... I don't begrudge the "dreamers" who come up with some of this stuff because often someone can use that to not only make it better, but make it more environmentally and economically feasible.

[Ford_Prefect]

20. Imagination and well intended ideas are not to be ignored at all. My gripe has to do with arbitrary

imposition of those idealistic plans without consideration of the effect on human community.

Like when some Urban Renewal projects resulted in the death of critical personal links among those who were renewed away to other locations and subsequently lost touch with their sense of themselves and that sense of place which a community, however modest and worn, possesses.

The idea of a GIG economy may suit certain upwardly mobile individuals and those who make their living as young, footloose, techno-insiders. It has little to offer those of us committed to family life, or a mortgage (or the possibility of one), or living in one place for more than the length of a contract.

Life on Mars may be an interesting dream which could drive all sorts of new challenges and innovations. Personally I'd like to see the same enthusiasm and resources focused on preserving the planet we already live on since among other things I expect to need to do that for some years yet.

[BumRushDaShow]

21. When it comes to "projects"

this is where developing comprehensive "impact" studies can mitigate some of problems or at least reveal some show-stoppers.

And regarding the so-called "gig economy", IMHO that is just modern business-speak for any type of part-time job, and the "update" to these types of positions is that it uses mobile apps to access use of the services. Thanks to the removal of pay phones, some kind of communication was needed when not at home.

Regarding Mars (or even the moon) consider multinationals looking to mine minerals one of these days (a popular sci-fi theme).

[KY_EnviroGuy]

26. What you said reminds me of.....

Microsoft's early attempts at designing office software.

Those of us who came up on the DOS shell text editor and then Word Perfect understand.

KY........

[Ford_Prefect]

27. To say nothing of determining RAM assignments on a system...

[hamsterjill]

19. "I know this is tough for everybody"?????

Did I miss anything that indicates that Zuckerberg is taking a pay cut himself in order to save some of the “everybody’s” jobs?

SMDH…

[Lucky Luciano]

24. I doubt he gets paid much. He just owns a lot of shares that are down a ton.

His net worth dropped by about 100 billion…so that is a cut I guess.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

25. That's not a very social thing to do!

Sorry, I'm old-fashioned and still believe the best social interactions are 1.) two or three people at the kitchen table with coffee, or 2.) a community get-together at a town hall.

That's where the world's key problems are solved.

KY.....