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Comment by siva7 | Hacker News Reader

This is now the third layoff round for Meta in a very short time span. Hopefully this improves the morale of those left and no more layoffs will be necessary.

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> Hopefully this improves the morale of those left and no more layoffs will be necessary.

Well, the dynamic they've introduced most strongly incentivizes competent [read: employable] employees to leave so certainly that will improve overall team performance and they won't need to continue layoffs /s. To call it a death spiral would be excessive, but negative-divergence quality spiral just lacks that special something...

It won't kill them, but it will slow down Meta for a while, during a critical period where it needs to outrun innovation that will be nipping at its heels through the 2020s. It could be one of those "causes of the IBM-ification of Meta" in an article you read in the 2030s, but it will probably be more like, "the pandemic caused Meta to overstretch, at a critical point in its history and the history of technology, and [along with other companies] suffered as a result in multiple ways."

On the other hand, in the current environment, I can also see a lot of people figuring that they're not going to improve their prospects elsewhere in the near future so, since they're apparently at least somewhat valued given they're still there, they might as well just keep their head down for a year or two.

Oh absolutely, some of the mediocre employees will stay because of that. The exceptional ones are still going to head out for greener pastures though.

Eh. It's at least a more challenging environment for being hired in tech right now. Assuming they like their work and are getting well-paid, why should they move?

Because the local environment is going to get more and more cuthroat and backstabby as people feel pressured.

And this is different where exactly? If Meta does another round so will Google. If it’s layoffs or ChatGPT the only thing Sundar knows how to do is copy/paste. Amazon and Microsoft are already PIP culture.

It's different in sectors which aren't going to go through some things, places which are expanding rather than freaking out about dropping ad revenue and the end of zero interest rates. OpenAI / Microsoft, various energy sectors, and Palantir / miltech come to mind.

Life in a contracting industry sucks as a general rule, Meta has presumably decided that shedding weight is worth the nth-order effects. It's a strong signal to move on or start cultivating new skills now IMO.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

layoffs aren't about punishing employees.

But they are about squeezing more hours for less money out of those who remain. The fact that this is punishing is just a bonus.

But they do.

It actually produces the exact opposite, my observation from experience is:

Some people will now work the system and want to be made redundant, by doing the minimum possible.

Good people will leave for other opportunities.

This takes months/years to fix/heal. The fixing process is reset every time you do a new round of lay offs.

The secret to a happy workforce is laying off employees in the lowest decile of morale. Repeat as necessary.

Third? The article says this is the second, no?

Maybe he is thinking about "the flattening", but that hasn't happened yet (if it is happening at all). Or maybe this is the flattening. We don't know!

As near as I can tell the article is talking about the flattening (which does not seem to have happened yet).

"flattening" is in the byline of the article.

yes I understand that, but I was referring to the grandparent comment's "second layoff".

As far as the article, I know it is referencing the "flattening" but my point is none of us (besides Mark Z) really know for sure.

Which was the second round of layoffs? The two layoffs (arguably): the first round in November, and then the flattening (which I agree will likely see managers quitting rather than becoming ICs).

Nothing improves morale more than the uncertainty of being randomly fired!

Dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.

Third? What was the second?

The first time I ever heard "the layoffs will continue until morale improves" was at my startup in 2000, not long before the dot com crash thing.

Layoffs will continue until morale improves...

If morale never improves, then I guess the number of staff will reach zero sometime.

Well no, lol, you can't lay off management. That would be insane.

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