I worked at Facebook when covid first hit. Zuckerburg treated everyone in the company very, very well. There was a blanket “don’t worry about performance, take care of your families” guarantee that honestly was an enormous help.

The thing that particularly struck me though was the way he handled contract workers like (some of) the kitchen staff, cleaners, etc. These people don’t work for Facebook and he had zero obligation to them, yet he paid all of their wages for the full length of the pandemic just so they could stay afloat.

If it were just about the money, I doubt he’d have done this.

from alasdair_.

As the owner of a successful small business, one which has sadly been through many hiring and firing booms, along with general productivity swings with changes in the macroeconomy, I can confirm that Mark Zuckerberg did not layoff 13% of his workforce at Meta for just “the money.”

Sure, cutting 13% of the workforce could be for any number of reasons floated by Meta over the last few days. It might be “ghost workers,”¹ idling do-nothings who take up precious space in the office (not to mention their burden on payroll and benefits, which we won’t mention, because that wouldn’t be a reason to fire them). It might even be in the messaging sent to employees: the cited “capital efficiency”² (which again, has nothing to do with money, but is instead about capital, which is very different) including freezing discretionary spending and boasting about reducing perks.

More realistic reasons for layoffs at a publicly-traded company with lowered earnings estimates include:

• a case of the Mondays
• he stubbed his toe
• bad gas
• countering hustle porn
• so they would have time to have a catch with children
• they owned shares of Hawaiian land³
• gender dysphoria
• woke leftists

My theory: the arrival of winter bringing a desire to usher all of the ants workers towards their cold deaths (because it’s fun!).