Facebook won't change by inside. Zuck will change his behavior when he feels the pain in his pocket. Every decent person must quit now. Quit. Now.
The financial consequences seem to be overblown. At the end of the day, people in Timothy's situation will certainly be able to make ends meet. At the end of the day, I'm sure he'll still be better off than well over half the country. This should be clear to most people reading this.
I'm not saying this to downplay Timothy's actions; I'm saying this to remind others that are on the fence - if you think you can't afford, morally, to keep working at Facebook, you can afford, financially, to quit.
Either "...I don't want to be part of it, despite how much they pay me" or "...I don't want to be part of it, but I know I'll be okay" are both complicating the issue.
Be a Zen master. Strive for directness, simplicity. Don't fight yourself.
Not judging this way or that, just saying.
Doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do, just that it would carry more weight if he was leaving to go work at Burger King. Then you’d say “man that guy stands tall”.
Edit: Ok reasonable criticism, I’ll withdraw.
You are literally the only person who thinks this.
Now imagine that OP inspires 100 employees quit -- now Facebook has a problem that it must address, because it's threatening their bottom line.
Until he does it's just virtue signalling.
(yeah, I don't get some people either)
Resigning isn’t about sacrifice to the volcano god, and if that is what you’re looking for, you are not the audience.
It reminds me of the old joke about the skinflint who accidentally put a pound in the collection plate instead of a shilling. "Oh well", he says, "I'll get credit for the pound." The priest hears him and replies, "No, you'll get credit for the shilling."
This is not obvious to me.
He worked at Facebook, let's not get carried away.
Working at Facebook and then leaving because of the non-intervention wrt to the President is a bit like manufacturing landmines quite happily, but having a change of heart because you saw a dog stepping on one. You've still been manufacturing landmines all that time, making money and not giving a damn.
Facebook has been on my list of companies not to work at for a long time, but I have friends who work there. Accepting that other people value different things and being willing to interact with them on a basic, human level is a lot more likely to build bridges and lead to constructive conversation about important matters down the road than casting people aside because they don't conform to your worldview today.
I'll grant you that Facebook, among others, enables exactly the sort of thing I'm advocating against. I'll grant you that it seems to promote people yelling at each other over the internet instead of building the relationships that enable difficult conversations in time. And I'll grant you that they do it to sell ads for shit we mostly don't need.
But that doesn't make everybody who works there bad, and it doesn't mean that people who decide that continuing to work there is no longer consistent with their values should be equated with merchants of death when they publicly leave.
You're castigating somebody for voting with their feet, but presumably mostly because they didn't do it as soon as you did.
No. I'm saying they did always vote with their feet. And "get money, fuck society" was the vote they cast.
Facebook isn't the army, there is no draft, they had and have plenty of other options. It's greed and a general feeling of superiority that sees the general population the same way the owners of factory farms see pigs.
Instead of personal cost to him, I'd rather view it through the lenses of the impact of his action. It's inviting a lot of constructive conversation and making people re-evaluate Mark's decisions, which I think overall is a net positive.
Namely those who hold stock options or who used it to hyper target unsuspecting fools and scam them.
> Instead of personal cost to him, I'd rather view it through the lenses of the impact of his action.
Let's. The "constructive conversation" has been going on already. This doesn't move the needle on that conversation, it's not one with a lot of grey area where the world is on the fence. This is great - for him. But not much else.
Oh sure those too. But small businesses benefit from it immensely, e.g using fb live and fb groups to connect with their customers for example.
> Let's. The "constructive conversation" has been going on already. This doesn't move the needle on that conversation, it's not one with a lot of grey area where the world is on the fence. This is great - for him. But not much else.
If that's the case, what do you think he should have done, or we should have done?
It is privilege having a stable life to get there, but we're calling out this dude's privilege like he's Jeff Bezos throwing a million dollar coin to a witcher.
It's definitely a sacrifice to quit a nice job during a pandemic and nationwide riots.
- Have two eyes? what about the blind - Can you speak english? What about those that never had the opportunity to learn - Are you alive ? What about those that passed away
The judgement never ends
For who has the privilege of judging others privilege and where does it end?
Edit: Of course, the big 5 (FAANG) will not touch him even with a 10 meter pole, but there are other places also pays well.
I don’t think that’s their fault, I’m happy they=’re leaving, but the people commenting and upvoting these threads should question how much attention this one person deserves. There are people working jobs in far worse conditions with far worse bosses we never hear about.
Maybe the goal of praising him isn't to make his life better but is instead to encourage other people to also stand up for what they believe in.
Or maybe it's to contrast him with other people who are in a similar position of privilege (and feel the same about Zuckerberg's lack of action) but chose not to sacrifice anything at all for their principles.
Excerpt From: J. Lee Porter. “Crypto Citizens.”
Ultimately developers leaving and people refusing to work for Facebook, drive up Facebook's costs and speaks to their management in the only language Facebook management seems to understand: Profitability.
[0]: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/timothy-j-aveni_blacklivesmat...
I agree that software developers have it pretty good. But let's not, on that basis, discount acts of moral integrity.
If nothing works he can probably open a gofundme campaign.
I think he's doing the right thing and I wish more people could feel like they are in a position of walking the walk, every day.
Number of Facebook employees: about 45k. Let's say half of them work in the US (20k). Let's assume people tand to stay at a job for 5 years on average and think about leaving for 6 months before they leave. That means there are 2000 Facebook employees thinking about leaving right now.
Now, what is the probablity that if someone is already thinking about leaving they would take advantage of this situation? Let's give Facebook employees the benefit of the doubt and say that only 1% of them would do such a thing. That means we should expect to hear from about 20 Facebook emloyees making socal media and LinkedIn posts about them leaving Facebook citing policy as a reason while just taking advantage of the situation. Is it really far fetched to say that this guy could be one of them? If anything I would expect 19 more posts like this!
Especially since at some companies such a public statement can put you on a no-hire list. Some companies avoid potential "trouble makers" or avoid hiring, which might be interpreted as making a point.
Still risk of high total loss is quite low for individuals from FAANG companies.
Simply adding this to your post doesn't make it true. Clearly you've judged it to not be as valuable of an act as it could have been.
Not saying you're being dismisve, just saying.
Of course at Facebook's scale it's a small number, but given the damage to their reputation, they will have to take note once this crosses critical mass.
I'm surprised they didn't have him out on his ass the same day and gave him a whole extra week to potentially sabotage the systems.
Edit:
OK fine. I agree it's totally an uphill struggle and in all fairness it's one we're all fighting. It's one man versus a sea of apathy where all the incentives are geared towards productivity at all costs and bitter disempowerment and ostracism for anyone that steps out of line.
I were him I'd go hardcore until they actually fired me i.e. make it hard for them rather than take a gallant bow -- how's that for starters?
Whatever happened to fighting for what you believe in? How can you leave all your hard work in the hands of people you no longer trust?
I've actually gone all the way up and been fired by a roomful of directors and a vice president for calling out bullshit agile theatre.
Part of it rests on everyone's shoulders because I know for sure a lot of people reading this thread right now would jump at the chance to take his place, struggle be damned.
Look at what happens to anyone that expresses a dissenting opinion I'd like to see more downvotes just to make sure I'm on the right side of this issue.
Our problem is we seek acceptance and agreement too much and don't fight for what others believe in on principle.
We're all to blame but now we have one less person who can do anything about it. Look at the world from the outside in for once and quit suffering your blasted anecdoche.
How many times have they tried to manage up only to be hamstringed by their own peers?
We should all know we're trying to change them and help each other, how else?
Tell me you've never tried and failed due to "politics" but have you ever stuck your neck out even a little?
I was responding to your claim that it was illegitimate to quit in protest, and that people should stay and change organizations from within.
Given this belief, I assumed you might have some insight you have about how to do this effectively. Maybe even examples of when it has been done?
And yes all our energies should be towards changing the organizations, as systems professionals, rather than competing on "look what I can do" while the world outside our gated communities crumbles.
https://www.theverge.com/interface/2020/6/3/21278233/mark-zu...
Being willing to walk away is fundamental bargaining tool.
If some people quit over an issue, it strengthens the bargaining position of those who stay behind.
Both tactics are required.
Yes, he's a privileged white male and will likely get a job offer soon, but that doesn't mean he's rolling in cash. Also, take a look at average salaries. Devs don't make $250,000 in the US unless they've got some really high profile public backstory.
In my experience, this is VERY far from accurate in high-paying markets like Seattle and the Bay Area
Give him credit for what he did. He is losing a lot more than us armchair pundits.
Also I don't think it ads much to the conversation to try to minimize someones sacrifice, you don't know their personal situation, and even if its not that hard on them personally who cares, it's still a principled stand of where to invest ones time and energy.
That he should also devote his efforts full time to combating the problems he speaks about for less compensation, or donate the excess compensation to related causes, otherwise the action is unworthy.
These are restatements of classic utilitarian dilemmas, as stated by, among many others, Peter Singer[0].
"In a society in which the narrow pursuit of material self-interest is the norm, the shift to an ethical stance is more radical than many people realize."
I can’t help but think this actually is a judgement.
Zuck, on the other hand, faces an open mutiny and a damaging of the Facebook brand. Perhaps he’s just stuck between a rock and a hard place, though, because Facebook censoring POTUS can only invite more government scrutiny.
Real good deeds aren't announced.
Public announcements of resignation have two impacts: on fellow employees, and on the employer. Fellow employees may be waiting for validation of a sinking feeling that they're in the wrong place, before they quit themselves. When the employer sees numerous conscience quits in response to a bad action, they have an opportunity to reflect and change.
And additionally, quitting your job on moral grounds is _absolutely_ something you should post about. He made a personal post on Facebook, as a current Facebook employee, noting that he's leaving. This will be seen by his coworkers, and as the very presence on HN demonstrates, the public at large. Virtue signaling is Old Navy changing their profile picture to a rainbow flag during Pride month, or an NFL team posting a black rectangle on Instagram to support BLM. Virtue signaling is _not_ quitting your job to protest your employer's ethical failings, or writing content that would violate a non-disparagement agreement.
These guys lack any sort of self awareness.
Why?
I am not on some high horse here, I am not sure what I would be willing to put up with if I had no other options but I certainly prefer working with companies that have values that are aligned with my own.
"Liberal" and "conservative" aren't the only political flavors, either. Lots of leftist activists don't work with liberals and lots of right-wing activists don't work with conservatives, for example. It's also difficult to work with someone whose beliefs conflict too much with your own or whose views are dehumanizing (like, I wouldn't want to work with someone who regards themselves as superior because of their race).
There are too many actions that are political when they come down to it (pricing products, marketing products, choosing partners, choosing tools, choosing customers, choosing features, choosing charities, etc). There is no possible way that all of them are going to align with your views.
The reason that works is that you’re just able to not care that they don’t.
Never? If you worked for an employer that seated black people in the back in the 1960s, it wouldn't be admirable to quit?
There are also things that are not political. They are war. They are 'over my or your dead body' type of things like slavery, holocasts and treason. We don't vote on those and accept whatever the outcome is. We go to war. That's why that sort of stuff is in a constitution. Because it's not negotiable. Not up for popular vote.
Now. I do admit that I don't think that applies to Facebook. I don't think they are intentionally trying to end the US democracy and break the US society.
But never say never. There is definitely a point. One does not sell hamburgers to the KKK for example. Or help build their website.
That's also why you see so many apolitical brands speaking out and picking a side here. They do understand this is different. This is a war for human rights. Nobody deserves the privilege to stay neutral on this.
The problem with convenient trap doors like this is now we’re back to being unable to debate the merits of Snowden because he committed treason.
The straw that broke the camels back.
> For society to function, people need to be willing to work with others whose politics they find distasteful.
And how are we supposed to work with people that outright lie? Who are dishonest. Who crosses a red line with that lie? Are we supposed to shrug and accept it? Would you accept people lying in a professional environment?