Antiban | Zuckerberg cuts staff, closes projects, what next?

March 20, 2023

Zuckerberg cuts staff, closes projects, what next?

{"time":1679302500519,"blocks":[{"id":"_0-6H7jilR","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Mark Zuckerberg has shared his plans to optimise the company with Meta staff, below are his words and our comments."}},{"id":"0tYJVNS8_l","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Zuckerberg:"}},{"id":"yMUgZ3oGPh","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"Meta is building the future of human connections, and today I want to share some news about the upcoming Year of Efficiency that will help us do just that. "}},{"id":"QO4ZkmNlfy","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"The goals of this effort are to:"}},{"id":"T9VIT7y0US","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"1) make us a better technology company"}},{"id":"scA2wyxG72","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"2) To improve our financial performance in a challenging environment so that we can realise our long-term vision."}},{"id":"4bp-MSPAhE","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"We are:"}},{"id":"kYFwRzOdMr","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"At the peak of the \"fat\" years (20-21), the tech giants were actively burning through money investing in new projects, hiring tens of thousands of additional staff. Then there is a downturn, there is less and less \"cheap\" money, projects that seemed promising never take off, which leads to the logical conclusion - either invest in something that already brings money or fall into financial ruin."}},{"id":"v3Ary6KQsU","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Zuckerberg:"}},{"id":"CsjG_Elsrg","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"Our efficiency work has several parallel work streams to improve organisational efficiency, significantly increase developer and tool productivity, streamline distributed work, remove unnecessary processes and much more. "}},{"id":"SeMB6Vs96Q","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"I have tried to keep an open mind about all the current work, and while I know many of you find this inspiring, I also recognise that the idea of upcoming organisational changes creates uncertainty and stress. "}},{"id":"WfgOCFCVRQ","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"I hope to make these organisational changes as soon as possible this year so that we can overcome this period of uncertainty and focus on the important work ahead."}},{"id":"oDpUtsW_fC","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Here is the timeline you should expect:"}},{"id":"DPoXtqhROY","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"1. Over the next few months, business unit leaders will announce restructuring plans to align our organisations, close low-priority projects and reduce hiring rates. "}},{"id":"94QwlgsRRF","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"2. With the reduction in hiring, I have made the difficult decision to further reduce the size of our recruitment team. Tomorrow we will let the members of the recruitment team know if they are affected. "}},{"id":"30YhYQaN1T","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"3 We expect to announce restructuring and redundancies in our technical teams at the end of April and then in our business teams at the end of May. In some cases, it may take until the end of the year to complete these changes. Overall, we expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people."}},{"id":"xWYA5DAeMT","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Following the restructuring, we plan to lift the hiring freeze.\""}},{"id":"Burekt0-WP","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"We:"}},{"id":"bbOBvN1rvF","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"To be clear, Meta - employs around 90,000 people, at least they did before the last reductions. After the current reduction there will be 80-70 thousand people left? Mark, we are worried about the quality of support, which even now leaves a lot to be desired. "}},{"id":"IUPznp6M3k","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Zuckerberg:"}},{"id":"heyWPNdyJ7","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"Talking about efficiency this year, I said part of our job cuts will be to create a leaner, more tech-savvy company, and to make our business more efficient in order to realize our long-term vision. "}},{"id":"SEAlxpgLSe","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"As we reduced our workforce last year, one surprising result is that many things have gone faster. A leaner organisation will deliver on its highest priorities faster. People will be more productive and their work will be more enjoyable and satisfying. "}},{"id":"oaPleIry0h","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"We will become an even bigger magnet for the most talented people. That's why, in our Year of Efficiency, we are focused on eliminating projects that overlap or have a lower priority, and on making every organisation as lean as possible."}},{"id":"fNTOThF5eF","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"We are focused on the long term. That means investing in tools that will make us as efficient as possible for years to come, not just this year - whether that means creating artificial intelligence tools to help engineers write better code faster, allowing us to automate workloads over time, or identifying outdated processes that we can abandon."}},{"id":"aItRQaes-F","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Our work on developer tools is ongoing and yielding good results. For example, Buck2 is our new open-source build system that compiles assemblies about 50% faster, so engineers can spend more time iterating and less time waiting. Our analysis showed that engineers whose builds were accelerated by Buck2 often created significantly more code.\" "}},{"id":"bqHWLaeCod","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Us:"}},{"id":"NEwTj77-p_","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"The practice of optimising the internal structure, introducing substitute and/or assistive artificial intelligence technologies can be seen in most technogiants. It was Elon Musk, whose solutions were rejected by many, but then copied amicably, that started this story)."}},{"id":"mKRyCKBuEb","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Zuckerberg:"}},{"id":"OWsYh1ZX3L","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"Our analysis of productivity data shows that engineers who either joined Meta in person and then moved to a remote job, or stayed in person, performed better on average than people who joined remotely. This analysis also shows that engineers at the beginning of their careers worked better, on average, when they worked in person with teammates at least three days a week. This requires further investigation, but our hypothesis is that it is still easier to trust a person, and that these relationships help us work more effectively."}},{"id":"4v_zSLWxBU","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"As part of the Year of Efficiency, we will focus on understanding this better and finding ways to make sure that people make the necessary connections to work effectively. In the meantime, I encourage all of you to find more opportunities to work personally with your colleagues.\""}},{"id":"yP7aB3SgJO","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Us:"}},{"id":"WouRk95gPT","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"The pandemic years have led to a large number of professionals moving to remote working, a forced measure that has caught on in many companies. But as these same companies have shown, remote working is less efficient and so hello office)."}},{"id":"NYmjjIvoiB","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Zuckerberg:"}},{"id":"iwZafF-_QU","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"\"As well as helping to build a better technology company, our other goal in the Year of Efficiency is to make our business more efficient in light of the new economic realities. Profitability drives innovation. Managing our business more effectively will give us the resources and confidence to achieve our long-term vision, delivering sustainable financial results that make us an attractive company to work with and invest in."}},{"id":"mHx5daw1kV","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"When I wrote my first letter to investors during our IPO, I described a core principle that remains true today: \"We don't create services to make money; we make money to create better services."}},{"id":"Xsl6RtldjA","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"For most of our history we have seen rapid revenue growth year on year and have had the resources to invest in many new products. But last year was a wake-up call. The global economy has changed, competition has intensified and our growth has slowed considerably. We cut budgets, reduced our real estate footprint and made the difficult decision to lay off 13% of our workforce."}},{"id":"nEV1VClBKl","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"At this point, I think we should prepare for the possibility that this new economic reality will continue for years to come. Higher interest rates lead to a less efficient economy, increased geopolitical instability leads to greater volatility, and increased regulation leads to slower growth and higher costs of innovation. Given this outlook, we need to work more efficiently than we did in the previous downsizing to ensure success."}},{"id":"bMOUwYJqCu","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"In the face of this new reality, most companies are cutting back on their long-term vision and investments. But we have the opportunity to be bolder and make decisions that other companies cannot. That is why we have put together a financial plan that allows us to invest heavily in the future, and to deliver sustainable results if we manage each team more effectively. The changes we are making will enable us to execute this financial plan."}},{"id":"_XrYFn6EDX","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"I believe we are working on one of the most revolutionary technologies our industry has ever seen. Our biggest investment is in developing AI and incorporating it into every one of our products. We have the infrastructure in place to do this on an unprecedented scale, and I think the experience it will provide will be amazing. Our leading work in creating the meta-universe and shaping the next generation of computing platforms also remains central to defining the future of social connectivity. And our applications are growing and continuing to connect nearly half the world's population in new ways. This work is incredibly important, and the stakes are high. The financial plan we've put together allows us to make it happen.\""}},{"id":"kDF1iOW-Pz","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Us:"}},{"id":"L4l8KOeRfV","type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Mark's faith in the Metaworld is unshakable. Will it justify itself or will it become a financial noose around Meta's neck? We'll see in the financials. Is Meta rolling into the sunset? Probably not. Everyone will improve the \"efficiency\" of processes and employees sooner or later. Knowing how to make a great product, marketing is not enough for survival. There is less and less \"easy\" money, there is more and more competition, and the winner will be the one who is able to strike a balance between development, the ability to retain clients, employees and not to go bankrupt on it."}}],"version":"2.26.5"}

Zuckerberg cuts staff, closes projects, what next?

Actual articles

Instagram will help sear…

Instagram is testing a l…

Facebook ads were blocke…