Said a Meta employee, quoted in "Meta staff are hitting out at Mark Zuckerberg in Blind reviews because they think his metaverse obsession will 'single-handedly kill' the company" (Business Insider).
The quoted person self-identified as "a senior technical program manager," and also said: "Poor leadership is on track to sink this ship.... No accountability at and above Director level. VPs and Directors are here to just milk the company without adding any value."
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23 comments:
One can hope...
John Henry
Zuckerberg literally stole the concept for Facebook from the Winklevoss twins and was forced to pay them $2B. If not for Bill Gates perceiving a similar Harvard drop-out personality in Zuckerberg and throwing early money at him, then Facebook might still be one of many social networks or forgotten. But like attracts like. Both Gates and Zuckerberg became billionaires through intellectual theft followed by monopolistic practices where they crushed potential competitors.
Microsoft went through some dumb stuff after its MS DOS, Windows, and Office monopolies succeeded -- remember the "Bob" interface? Remember their Windows-based smartphones? Remember how they put Internet Explorer 1.0 in the optional install folder of Windows 95.
Gates and Zuckerberg: No personal vision. Just bullying, trickery, and a society that tolerates monopolies.
It has happened before. Ken Olsen's belief that no one would ever want a computer at home eventually killed the second largest computer company.
Zuckerberg didn't build Facebook by ignoring his gut and listening to other people. I think he's right about the potential of the metaverse, whether his company will be the one to realize it or not. That said, if he does wreck the company, it will be through the same personality quirks that created the company in the first place.
Enigma said...Zuckerberg literally stole the concept for Facebook from the Winklevoss twins
Meh. I was never impressed by that aspect of The Social Media. Maybe he did "steal" the idea, but it was a nothing idea anyway. They made a few useful tweaks to Friendster. Big deal. Zuckerberg succeeded where the Winklevosses failed because he dedicated his life to making it work while they did not.
Lots of fat and happy employees of fat and happy companies object when the company spends a lot of money venturing into new and uncertain fields.
This makes a certain amount of sense; uncertainty by definition means risk.
On the other hand, ask the many former employees of Polaroid, Wang, or Blockbuster how well a company just sticking to what it knows works in the long run.
They should just spinoff Meta as a separate company with an option to buy it back later. This is done all the time in business. It allows the pursuit of high risk but innovative ideas. If they fail then little harm id done to the parent company (Facebook). If they succeed, then they can merge and move on or continue as separate successful companies.
compare and contrast Meta and spaceX? Zuckerburg and Musk?
I'll wait.
“VPs and Directors are here to just milk the company without adding any value." Unfortunately, I see this happening at the company I work for. Many new VPs and directors added often with no direct reports that they manage. Just new “functions”. Hours of corporate wide presentations each week that have nothing to do with product, sales or better customer service. The closest parallel I can think of is a second generation that inherits a productive company they didn’t build and it is out of business in a generation because of loss of focus.
@tim maguire: "Meh. I was never impressed by that aspect of The Social Media. Maybe he did "steal" the idea, but it was a nothing idea anyway. They made a few useful tweaks to Friendster. Big deal. Zuckerberg succeeded where the Winklevosses failed because he dedicated his life to making it work while they did not.:
I wasn't talking about that movie. That's fictionized and silly. However, Zuckerberg did indeed pay out $2B and no one voluntarily chooses to do that to people accusing you of theft.
Zuckerberg succeeded because Gates' $240M investment in 2007 put a massive $15B valuation on Facebook. People were dumbfounded but followed the proven bully and stealer (Gates) in throwing cash at Zuckerberg. Before 2007 Facebook was a hot startup but not dominant:
https://www.vox.com/2017/10/23/16412108/facebook-microsoft-2007-investment-market-cap-chart
Facebook had just 20 to 50 million users in 2007, not the 1.11B of 2013:
https://news.yahoo.com/number-active-users-facebook-over-230449748.html
Wait until the money starts getting tight, if you want to hear management scream in pain.
"VPs and Directors are here to just milk the company without adding any value"
Isn't that how business works? Isn't that what companies are for?
https://9gag.com/gag/a11EjZb
I've commented for years that social media companies didn't seem to have any management controls to ensure employees weren't abusing users and their actions were toward the goals of the company. Facebook and Twitter seemed to be the worst. Both companies worked to install Joe Biden and Democrats, which has brought hard economic times. In hard economic times, poor management gets exposed and companies that were flying high in the good economy have serious problems exposed as the rising tide goes out.
I found this from Silicon Valley journalist Greg Ferenstein back in 2016 revealing
"I found crucial to what is distinct between libertarians and valley folk that Silicon Valley’s ideology is pro-market but it is not pro-liberty. Liberty is not a value. They are highly, highly, collectivist. They believe that every single person has a positive obligation to society and the government can help people or coerce people or incentive into making a unique contribution."
https://www.aei.org/economics/what-does-silicon-valley-seem-to-love-democrats-and-dimiss-the-gop-a-qa-with-journalist-greg-ferenstein/
That struck me then as be a feudal attitude and nothing as altered my perception. What these employees are finding is that eventually the lords of the manor don't even pretend to care what the villeins tied to the land think.
"I thought it was a data-driven company but actually it is one man's gut feeling and emotions-driven."
To be fair, that's the only reason you're even there in the first place.
There are board members and shareholders who are supposed to help steer the ship.
I think the whole Metaverse thing will turn into something eventually, but not just yet.
I think Zuck is too far ahead and will pay the price for being the frontrunner. He already has if you're talking share prices and his personal loss of billions.
'They should just spinoff Meta as a separate company with an option to buy it back later. This is done all the time in business. It allows the pursuit of high risk but innovative ideas. If they fail then little harm id done to the parent company (Facebook). If they succeed, then they can merge and move on or continue as separate successful companies.'
Not a venture capitalist or business tycoon, but I like the idea of keeping it under wraps while still doing R&D. A kind of skunkworks if you will.
You can still file all the patents, etc. that might have future value.
But to base the entire company on meta doesn't seem like the way to go.
A division? Sure. The whole enchilada? Hmmm...
"Ideas are a dime a dozen. What counts is execution."
A senior technical program manager should know the difference between "overwrite" and "override".
Scott Gustafson said...
"It has happened before. Ken Olsen's belief that no one would ever want a computer at home eventually killed the second largest computer company."
12/12/22, 5:28 AM
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My husband’s parents both worked for DEC from the mid-70s to the mid-80s. Those were high flying times for the company; my MIL would take the company helicopter from their headquarters to Logan Airport for business travel. Then, a miscalculation and the whole thing came tumbling down. Makes you wonder what could have been.
"Data driven" is a silly concept - data can drive you right over a cliff. Data is inert. It is how someone reads, interprets, understands, acts on, and leads others to act on data - coupled with instinct, gut feeling, whatever you want to call it - that makes or breaks a company.
Case in point: The data on housing, credit, and productivity in 2007-2008. Many took it to mean "things are great!", only a few took it to mean "oh shit!". Guess who was right? Same data. Different perspectives.
And who thought it was a good idea for Apple to get into the phone business? Hands please.
Fred Drinkwater at 1:01 pm :
Yes.
Didn’t read, but this strikes me as the rats jumping off a sinking ship and trying to absolve themselves of any complicity in what was going on there. No accountability below a certain level? How the hell did you ever get a performance review if so? Were they just perfunctory “Here’s your 3% raise, have a nice day” kinds of things? Kinda doubt that, but who knows in the Metaverse how things work.
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