Why don't you quit this very toxic company, and start working at another place or even on your own? I genuinely don't understand...
Let just Meta die!
It's astonishing how many people value a ton of money over doing something good. Everyone who talks about setting values aside for cash is the problem. Gross.
There is no limit to human greed
> The number of people in these comments who would be happy to be "paid well" to contribute to what's inarguably a huge net negative worldwide is exactly how the company got to this point.
Sorry, have to call bullshit on this. As to the Meta products, who is forcing anyone to use it? They could have had armies of geeks working for them but if no one ever came, would Facebook cum Meta ever be this huge? I personally, from back when most people here would downvote you to oblivion when some of us pointed out the emergence of surveillance capitalism in "Web 2.0", recognized this company for what it is and have avoided every single product offering.
Who is forcing people to use Facebook?
And what was the role of websites like Hackernews in promoting the 'permissive' (irony alert) ethics of these 'ventures'?
Additionally, putting the blame for using Meta products on the users in spite of all of what we know about how the company has strived to make the productive terribly addictive is a very wild take.
> Additionally, putting the blame for using Meta products on the users in spite of all of what we know about how the company has strived to make the productive terribly addictive is a very wild take.
Really? It's like me complaining that my pot and smoking habits were due to evil designs of their vendors. I take full responsibility for taking those initial puffs knowing full well that they were addictive and not good for me.
p.s. my general point is this: The entire industry was pushing developers to think nothing of 'ethical concerns' and 'just move fast and break things'.
And I find it disengenous to now pick on a single solitary entity, Meta, as if the rest of these newly arrived big techs were/are clean and ethical. Possibly some want to virtue signal while earning big $ at some other VC unicorn.
(Anyone working for "AI" companies here complaining about Meta? ...)
We barely know the damage social media does yet, it's not comparable to taking the first hit of drugs at all.
Agreed that tech workers need to take a look at themselves too, but also it's the execs and governments more too blame.
Children are on Facebook because adults like you used their surveillance product and made them a "must have" aspect of social life.
Facebook and Google and the rest were harming society long before '20s. This was obvious to some us and when we spoke up forums like this were used to silence informed voices.
That is the .
The kids feel the pressure from their own social circles, I can see it even with my littles and their requests for tablets and Minecraft at their young ages. And if they choose to give into that pressure in spite of their parent's best efforts, much of what they might use is designed to keep them there.
I made a comment about the petroleum industry's feedback loop making it hard for me to fully fault petroleum users for continuing to drive demand for oil in another comment in this chain. Like it or not, our society has become so structured around social media that we're already seeing something similar play out there. That feedback loop is driven by the companies at fault here.
I hear your. Regarding above however it is my understanding that VC$ determines the behavior and direction of companies in our sector. I just quickly ran a couple of queries that you can try:
"has paul graham of YC ever written about ethics that should govern startups and companies? interested in ethics in terms of social responsibility, impact of the product on the society as a whole, prioritizing social good over profits, etc"
It's just like privacy. Do you think we would not have socially responsible and optimal digital services by this point if investors and the entire propaganda system built around startups insisted on socially responsible products??
Just because the entire industry was doing bad things does not absolve the largest members of the industry from doing bad things. They were leading the charge!
This particular discussion is about Meta, hence the focus in these comments. My views (and I'm sure the views of many others here) do, however, apply broadly to much of what you refer to.
That comment about me sleeping through the past 26 years? I'd say the same about all of the companies you cited, they've all had their own broad negative impacts.
Edit: Further, the marijuana comparison is a bit weak (as an aside, I'm a former pothead myself, who made the choice to start and stop). The world hasn't structured itself to the point where most people are required to smoke pot to do everything they need to do. The world has structured itself to require Meta products be used in many instances, lest you lose access to information from certain sources or the ability to communicate with others. "The system" pushes people to it, and it tries it's damndest to keep you there once you arrive.
That there's demand isn't necessarily the fault of the user, in many cases it's the fault of industry. At this point, at least for petroleum, it's a feedback loop - we built infrastructure around it, people became dependent upon it because alternatives are limited, the dependence creates demand, and that demand is used to justify continued production.
The petroluem industry then just has to work hard to squash alternatives, as it very much has, thereby leaving the user with little to no choice.
So you changed your beliefs to ease some cognitive dissonance and help yourself sleep at night. Seems normal and expected to me, people do that all the time. These companies actively advertise and lobby to get their product into more peoples hands and quash alternatives.
You can't seriously argue that everyone can just drop a mainstream communication tool without acknowledging the lack of replacements.
Pixels? Everywhere? Pre-installed FB mobile apps that harvest contact info and build shadow profiles of non-FB users?
Doesn't seem like serious analysis. Raising a family is important, but so is how you fund it, right? Still ok to fund it if you're robbing banks, but it pays for college? That is your logic it seems.
No, intentionally giving kids depression and anger issues is not "something good" no matter how many bullshit platitudes someone throws out about their "family" and "excellent character".
But at least they all seem to acknowledge it is a terrible company and they know they are working on something terrible (which is beyond me why you would accept to do that).
I was on a salary of $550 a day with a bank. I left because how grim banks are. I have yet to find another job that pays that much outside of a banking circuit.
If meta is paying you high-end why would you give it up for something that pays you less?
Sure, because I don't value high-end living. A modest living is enough to keep me happy. If I can provide a happy, comfortable life for my family, we're good.
It would irk me deeply to set aside my values for the sake of a boatload of cash that I don't actually need.
Everyone is addicted to unnecessary luxury. If I suggested that you take a principled stance, your lifestyle would be offended.
We don't have a tablet in the house, or the latest video game consoles. You should've seen how outdated our TV was before we upgraded a couple of years ago, but I didn't go posting about it online.
I don't subscribe to most streaming services, preferring to sail the high seas. Sure, we used them for a while, but then the experience began to become subpar. Even then, my collection is fairly small, limited largely to my favorite films and a small smattering of television shows I occasionally re-watch.
My musical hobbies all involve old gear that I've not upgraded in two decades.
I don't have social media and don't feel the need to show off to others.
My car is terribly old and has none of the modern luxuries of today's vehicles, but it still chugs along nicely.
Little Free Libraries are a delightful way for us to find new books and put books we love back into the community. Other than a few specific books related to our hobbies, that's where most of the books in our house come from. The children's books we have, most of them are hand-me-downs or gifts.
We value vacations in wilderness over hotels and fine dining - it's a lot cheaper, keeps us in touch with the natural world, and as a bonus, one doesn't have to have TSA fondle you prior to cramming yourself into a metal tube with a bunch of strangers for five to ten hours. And, no, we don't go camping with the latest-and-greatest gear.
I'm quite happy with all of that, and genuinely don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, or a connection with the people that matter in my life.
You talk about how everyone is addicted to unnecessary luxury, but that's an absolute that's simply not true. There are plenty of people out there who try to live a life as free of material attachments, luxury worship and whatnot as possible. The broader culture might be that way, but it's not everyone.
I've built my life around my core values (or "principled stances" as you put it), I wouldn't preach it if I wasn't trying my damnedest to practice it.
You should introduce your friend to Kant. He’s taken a situational excuse and turned it into a general principle: ‘If someone else would do it anyway, it’s okay for me to do it.’
It's kinda like.. Kant's whole 'thing'.
It is so obvious how competition dynamics naturally ends up as a fight to the bottom, and yet so many people are happy enough clocking in to this grind, then trying to forget about it the moment they clock off.
I totally understand this from a survival standpoint - but choosing to work at Meta is likely not "the only job you could get"
It is absolutely not what I think about "job" and "contributing to society": I would prefer to be paid less but work in an ethical company than the other people of this thread...
This is maybe why I am feeling so "disconnected" with Tech and devs today.
Is it perfect? certainly not. Is the company toxic? where do you draw the line? how much are you willing to compromise given the other advantages you get? Everybody has a different answer to these questions. Some people would tell you that even working in tech is wrong due to environmental concerns.
Personally, I would happily work for Meta. Many people use their services and like them. Is it the greatest thing for society? probably not, but neither is Netflix or Amazon or Apple...
If I learn you work at Meta, I will judge you as at best lacking a moral compass and treat you appropriately.
Apple has problems, but is a lot closer to morally neutral. Ditto for Netflix.
Amazon has hollowed out local retail/is also bad for society, though not on Meta’s scale. But you sell your soul more cheaply there.
advertisers dont see the personal data they buy for ad placement
Heck, you can buy facebook datasets right now from brightdata.
https://brightdata.com/products/datasets/facebook
Don't you recall the Cambridge Analytica scandal?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica
All corporates sell your data. You're a fool to think otherwise, data makes dosh, and you can sell any data for a price.
Data is a commodity.
There are current ten plus folk in the subway carriage I am sitting in right now. Toss me £10 and I'll give you a dataset of ten people of what colour tops they're wearing and what brand of shoe and colour.
And yes you can sell your internet data too.
https://www.moneymagpie.com/make-money/make-money-selling-yo...
the brightdata link is a data set scraped from Facebook, not sold by Facebook
Cambridge Analytica was the same thing, scraped from Facebook by people who voluntarily (perhaps ignorantly) gave their data to quiz apps like "what kind of horse are you?"
Facebook does not sell user data, and it never has
i dont really care that i get targeted ads, in fact i prefer targeted ads vs. ones that are of no use to me
and social media is probably bad
There are many, many use cases of having a CSV dump of the data, but in reality, all of it boils down to either reselling the data, or marketing a product to the demographic in the data.
The 3rd use case is that of palantir but let's not get distracted.
So, meta is not selling data is like saying netflix is not selling movies (its actually buying them). Technically true, but a shallow understanding.
and what is this 3rd use case?
“I work for one of the most evil institutions on the planet today because it is the only way I can support my sick parents” is an absurd excuse.
History's littered with people trotting out this line when they've valued luxury and status over morals.
The more you interact with something, the more you are part of it and help it prosper. "Blame the kings!" is a little bit too simple, imo.
Redirecting frustration towards the systemic issues that drive perfectly normal people to work for a terrible company like Meta seems more productive to me.
I hate what Meta does just as much as the next guy, but shaming friends who feel like they have no better employment option doesn't seem like the best way to make a difference here.
You sold your morals for a wheelbarrow of money, that is the end of the story.
They think a 6 digit salary is a god-given right, and that everybody else is to blame if their work results in negative externalities for the rest of society/the world.
It's quite ok to say "I chose the money and don't value x". I'd prefer the honesty, rather than people larping as moral crusaders and throwing blame around.
Absolute bullshit.
> And it’s not like you can walk onto the street and just wave down a morally superior job with similar pay
Oh no! They might only have to make mid-six figures! Welp, better give some teenage girls depression. They really don't have a choice, do they?
Zero good people work at Meta.
When you're pulling that kind of money, there is a choice.
This comment is a masterclass in the type of mental gymnastics people do to justify working for these kind of companies.
> Is the company toxic? where do you draw the line?
You couldn’t even answer the question you yourself posed.
There's no mental gymnastics here. I draw the line differently than you, that's all. I'm not a big fan of Meta and their products, I would be happy to work there anyway for the reasons I mentioned. But I wouldn't work for let say Marlboro.
[1]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa16/5933/2022/en/
Meta's decisions affect everyone, even non-users, because of their outsized impact on society. But they also have way more users than cigarettes, and deliberately prey on children and teens in ways that could affect them their whole lives (see recent lawsuit).
I would struggle to judge anyone working for either of these companies. I think the blame lies at the top, or is shared by all of us for failing to build a better society which prevents such exploitation.
Measuring damage to society, or the degree of moral bankruptcy in a company's leadership, is a very difficult thing to quantify.
So, I agree with you that these are personal choices, and everyone will draw the line differently based on who they're comfortable working for and what they're comfortable contributing to.
I don't disagree that there are reasons people compromise on things like the morality of their employer - tale as old as society itself. I do disagree that many people like Meta's services - the only things I have seen people like about Meta is Facebook Marketplace (which is really just Craig's List or eBay if you are looking at technical problems) or the Meta Quest VR (which they've since gutted employment wise since the metaverse debacle).
Not only is it a morally bad employer, but it's also not a very good employer overall. They've just got institutional inertia keeping them entrenched, and are trying to buy their way into AI dominance to boot.
It's hard to imagine a tech company with more clear disdain for their employees than Meta. To me, that seems like a recipe for a dead company, but by all means, build your resume and network.
*Edit: people also use Instagram, but the engineering problems with that are also found in newer social networks like Bluesky, with a little less engagement addiction focus.
Extremely simplified example. Ignore inflation, raises, etc.
Which choice is better?
- $400k/yr for 5 years followed by a layoff, with the possibility that the thing you've helped Meta build rolls out everywhere, and there are next to no job opportunities
- $200k/yr for the rest of your career, and employment opportunities don't dry up because you didn't help build the thing meant to replace you
This is also a really extreme version of the prisoners dilemma. In the standard formula, there are 2 prisoners, so it's somewhat practical to not defect, but there are hundreds of thousands of qualified candidates for working at Meta in these roles, so your personal decision to defect or not has likely no effect on the ultimate outcome. I.e. for the second option to work, you actually need to organize a unified labor movement with no defectors, which is probably impossible.
The only way this could be remotely true on a 400k salary is by saving +80% of take home pay. After taxes that's only 40k/yr to live on.
In a HCOL area. This doesn't even touch on the fact that tenure at most tech places is well below 5y, especially at Meta.
More realistic choices are: - $400k/yr for 5 years followed by a layoff, with the possibility that the thing you've helped Meta build rolls out everywhere, and there are next to no job opportunities
or
- 150k/year for 3 years followed by being laid off due to runway ending, Meta out-competing your company, or whatever. Despite you not helping build the thing meant to replace you, it still got built.
Saying that, I'm sure if more of them had options they'd jump in a heartbeat.
This is how I would have imagined most of these people think (except for the true sociopaths who just don't care).
> Saying that, I'm sure if more of them had options they'd jump in a heartbeat.
Are you saying the people who have been working for Meta had no other options? That would be a ridiculous claim.
The point is that there have been many, many options and yet they chose to interview for Meta and take the offer.
The point is that there have been many, many options and yet they chose to interview for Meta and take the offer.
Bold assumption.
The Scene: Gavin’s development team complains that his new tech ("The Box") is antiquated. He fires back in frustration: "Why did you all take my money then, you entitled little pricks? You all think you’re John Lennon until someone waves a dollar in your face!"
Like, intellectually they know that it costs less to live in Beaverton Michigan than it costs to live in Palo Alto. But the magnitude of that difference, and how that scales your income needs, they've never thought to do the math. It doesn't scale proportionally, and that's counterintuitive.
This isn't a dig against anyone, and exceptions abound. But when I told my foreign-born SV-lifer colleagues how much my rent was in Wisconsin, you'd have thought I was the one from a foreign country!
Once you get past being able to afford housing it’s insanely lucrative. It’s harder for entry level people of course.
But if you rent a normal 2BR for 4000$ in the Bay area, and could potentially rent the same for 1500$ in a LCOL, that is a minimal saving compared to your income. Everything else stays mostly the same. An on top of that most companies will give you a paycut.
But for some reason people think you are going to be a king just by moving to LCOL. I think it is the opposite
Now, if you get bamboozled into buying a 5000 sqft house like the average american does, then yes, big savings in a LCOL.
$1600 will get you a respectable 2-bedroom apartment in a decent neighborhood in Chicago, which most certainly isn't LCOL. If you want your 5-bedroom mcmansion in Northbrook or your artsy flat in Wicker Park, then yeah that'll cost more - see your point about houses in Palo Alto.
A downright nice 2-bedroom apartment in the heart of Rochester MN will run you $1300/mo tops, and $1000/mo is well within reason.
I had to do this math fairly recently. For me, moving from a relatively pricey part of the midwest, the number was 2.2x my income for SV to be viable. Now that I live here, I find that I actually undershot a little, and it's more like 2.4x to break even. I thought groceries and restaurants and such would be roughly the same. They aren't.
All forms of labor cost more (handyman, mechanic, etc). Fast food costs more, normal restaurants cost more.
And that's all before you consider CA sales tax.
But yeah flights are the same so it's basically the same. Sure.
The only thing that's cheaper here than in a flyover state is lemons, as far as I can tell.
Also remember that your net income does not scale proportionally to your gross income. The math still works out, but "rent is more and that's it" doesn't even get close to an accurate picture.
And sure, a Porsche in California costs the same as a Porsche in Kansas, but if you're in "porsche ownership" territory then none of this matters to you, no matter where you live.
This thread is about someone working at Meta or similar FAANG. At those levels you make around 500k$/year as an engineer (a lot of times more).
What you are highlighting above is at maximum a difference of ~1000$/month of increase... 12k$/year. That is almost insignificant.
And you forgot to mention that those companies will bump your salary by 10-20% if you move to the Bay Area. Which covers more than the difference.
...no? I've not been acquainted with anyone at any of those companies making more than $330k who isn't a senior manager. Rank-and-file devs (who aren't getting laid off left and right) are high-200s.
And to return to the original point, it's not that you take home more cash elsewhere, obviously that isn't true. it's that what cash you have left goes further than it does in SV. The number you see on a job listing in middle america looks a lot lower than it actually is.
https://www.levels.fyi/?tab=levels&compare=Meta%2CSpectrum%2...
That is the starting package for a senior engineer at Meta. Most of them are in their mid-20s. Other FAANGs have similar pay.
Anyone that started more than 2 years ago also includes a crazy amount of stock growth as part of the package.
If you are a senior engineer and make 350k$/year (Meta is more like 500k$/year) and you pay 5000$/month for rent and could potentially pay 2500$/month instead in a MCOL, that's only 30k$/year of savings? Negligible compared to your income.
And on top of that most companies will cut your income for moving to a MCOL/LCOL by more than those savings.
If anything it is an argument to stay in SV!
I’d probably still be in that job and would have a few million in the bank (instead of $10,000) if I had taken it, but I would have sold out my principles.
So yes some of us live by principles
Most big enterprises get really good at paying you just enough to live comfortably, but not enough to give you financial autonomy. This makes the "why do you still work there" question land as naive most of the time.
It's not a naive question. In fact, the question is mostly rhetorical. We know the answer is money.
> Of course there is more to life than money, but people still need some base amount of money to live safely, especially if you have a family.
Are you trying to tell me that this base amount of money equals a FB salary? Don't be ridiculous.
The very point of ethical behavior is that you stick to your principles even if it may cause you financial or otherwise disadvantage. Sure, many people prefer more money, but this doesn't make their decision ethical.
That's what I told myself when I was in my 20s and early 30s. And then I realized that I had no savings and no opportunities to save, unless I switched to a more lucrative career (which I did, with zero regret).
We don't know what tomorrow will be made off, now I reached a stage where I think I should save as much as possible while I can. And I'm not a materialistic person at all.
I am not saying Meta is a paradise. I completely want Meta to face their reckoning for what they have done to the world, but painting it as like a prison camp is misplaced I feel.
I'm sorry but if you're at meta it's not because you are smart, it's because you are a human that derives money from ruining lives. Thinking has very little to do with situation outside of deciding how much greed you're entitled to for the human misery you personally create by enabling such a system.
I think when I went in, it was too interesting a system/opportunity to not do it. I was open to many roles and interviewing, and I just really wanted to understand how it works.
I don't touch ads, I don't touch integrity, or any of the "dodgy" stuff. I used to hate Facebook (and then Meta), and not have accounts on any of their platforms (bar Whatsapp), until I joined. I care about doing good and making a positive impact in the world (don't think I'll do much at Meta though). I'm probably the closest to a 180 on this you can imagine.
And... I don't have a good answer to why I still work there? It's an interesting anthropological exercise? My everyday is working with great people on a facet of a product that is entirely wholesome and inoffensive? When I came in, I found that my coworkers (locally, in my team/sister teams) were extremely talented, hard working, and cared a lot about the systems being good. Yes we are all pissed off by the recent changes, a couple people left (not mainly due to these changes though). I mean, the people just seem entirely normal? I don't imagine it's so different to working elsewhere. People are not obsessed with money or in any kind of dire situation, they are not grappling with hard moral questions about the value of money versus corrupting the world.
I guess I just feel like I'm not contributing to the awful stuff? I think you tend to get used to your everyday life and see the stuff around you in your little bubble. I guess if my part of the product gets better, Meta sells more ads and then has an incentive to do bad stuff, I suppose?
Anyway, yeah. Open to other convincing opinions about why I should feel awful for what I do and quit my job, and the right way to think about this (genuinely!).
No reason to be that sarcastic, the job market is not dead (at least not in Europe).
A few years on a salary like that and you may find that you can live fairly comfortably for a long time… in a place where the cost of living and housing are inexpensive.
I have an aunt who is quite old, who has been living for decades in a trailer in Eloy, Arizona. I suspect few people reading this will think that's any kind of an "escape plan", but I have been jealous of her seemingly contented and relaxed retirement for a long time now.
Perhaps you have to weigh it against, "working in the industry you hate for an other decade or two." Could you enjoy yourself in your retirement in your trailer? Is there something more you need to enjoy your retirement?
They forgot what the end-goal is. They are just on the hamster wheel waiting for the next vest or next promo so they can brag they were made "staff" or "director". Every other discussion was about artificial levels and other corporate BS that those companies put in front of you to keep you grinding.
Meanwhile when you ask why not retire now that they saved 10M$. Most of them have no idea what they would spend their time doing. Their biggest achievement and satisfaction is to play that artificial money game.
The mean became the end. Very sad.
This is of course a very extreme and hopefully rare case, but I think that there's a large range of cases where unfortunately money does make a difference I a significant way. Additionally, I think that it also does make a huge difference if you are the only one affected by you decisions or someone else is.
I think when going for a decision for such a position, these and other points that consider the more practical implications might weight in.
Pick your poison.
Also, Meta interviews are generally not regarded as too difficult, which further fuels the imposter syndrome (everyone has a sense that they're overpaid considering how easy it is to get in). I almost suspect this is a deliberate strategy.
Despite corporate propaganda, work is not self-fulfillment, moral quest, or meaning for most people. It's money and future. When you earn $191K-$4.36M+ and don't want to move your family to some cheaper neighborhood, you put your head down and keep working.
Unless you are hardcore libertarian, these questions of workplace privacy are solved individual by individual. They are political questions. Improve labor laws, privacy laws etc.
I don't understand why this is news.
....but both of those are gone to layoffs and restructuring, so it's basically just money, and I'm hanging on by an actively fraying thread of cowardice and burnout.
Make them fear for their professional and personal reputations.
Make them embarassed to show their face or state their place of employment.
We need to treat these people like Nazis.
But I do agree with the general premise. Instead of Meta being seen as a signal for being a high-quality engineer, I hope the signal being sent is more like: engineer who is so money hungry they are willing to abandon almost all sense of responsibility and reasonable character.
We need to make engineers who work in surveillance or advertising ashamed enough to avoid putting that work on their resume.
I think that's a pretty big difference.
You think people raised in such a culture will save you? More likely they’ll be hooked by the next moneybag or hoodwinked by some insane philosophy (Libertarianism, AI Singularity, Effective Altruism...).
Really? Its quite obvious to me. They get astonishing resume and salary. That is until they get fired or burned.
Not sure about that one.