Meta Employee Survey: 82% of Staffers Believe More Could Have Been Done to Prevent Current Layoffs

We saw Twitter employees' opinion of the company in the Elon Musk era last week, now here's a survey of Meta employees taken as the social media giant started laying off thousands of its own staff. Courtesy of Blind, the anonymous messaging app, this survey reflects the opinion of 1,179 verified Meta professionals in the U.S., and was taken between November 10 to 11, with a reported 4% margin of error.

The most striking answer is above: 82% of Meta staffers believe more could have been done last year to avoid the layoffs rolling out now. The way the question is phrased, this probably reflects at least some Meta employees blaming the company for spending many billions on making its metaverse platform. We saw a similar sentiment in anonymous Blind comments by Meta employees recently reported by Business Insider:

"The Metaverse will be our slow death," one user, who called themselves a senior software developer, posted on Wednesday. They added: "Mark Zuckerberg will single-handedly kill a company with the meta-verse." 

Zuckerberg apologized to staff for the need to cut 11,000 jobs, admitting that he "got this wrong".

In fairness, Meta's recent woes are more directly attributable to Apple's recent policy shifts which hurt advertising revenue collected via Facebook's iPhone, but Meta spending some $36 billion on metaverse-related technology is still a massive opportunity cost. 

Related to that, compare and contrast Meta employees' opinion of the company, versus Twitter employees:

Most Meta employees think the layoffs were handled humanely. An unbelievable 95% of Twitter employees thought layoffs at their own company were handled poorly.

... while at the same time, a third of Meta employees would still recommend a friend work at the company; about 30% were neutral on the topic. Only 2% of Twitter employees (!) would recommend that company to friends as a place to work.

These last two points are significant for Meta's prospects, because if it's going to succeed to any degree in its metaverse plans, it will need to keep talented staff from jumping ship and while attracting other talented applicants to join up.  

See also this Blind survey from 2021: Facebook Staffers Strongly Support Meta Name Change, Metaverse Goals -- Pros With Other Metaverse-Related Companies Skeptical

Comments

[Luther Weymann]

Mark has spent $36 Billion since 2019 on Reality Labs, which does the VR business and builds Meta's so-called metaverse. $36 billion? If it's 80/20, then he spent $29 billion on VR. $29 billion on VR? Do you know what kind of company you can build with a capitalization of $29 billion? Then if the 80/20 is even remotely accurate, he spent $7 billion on a virtual world. Linden Research spent not even 1% of Meta's possible $7 billion, and Linden Research created Samsar and launched it. These numbers are crazy expenses. Imagine if my guess of 80/20 was actually 50/50. When will Meta's board wake up from their coma and start asking the majority stockholder what he is doing?

[Kate Nova]

I agree with Luther - it's hard to make sense of these huge numbers. The only thing that costs billions is buying companies. Like the $19B Meta, then "Facebook," paid for WhatsApp, or the similar price they offered for SnapChat. Or, of course, "Elon's Folly". Everyone seems aghast at the $36B or $10B/year Zuckerberg is spending on Metaverse. Myself included. But if we do keep WhatsApp, Snapchat & Twitter in mind, the expenses aren't exactly out of line with our times. Still, as Luther notes, where did it go?

Regardless of whether Meta's Metaverse ultimately dominates the world or becomes another Google+, Blue Mars, Cloud Party, InWorldz, Sansar, HighFidelity, etc, only time will tell. It's easy to think that Zuckerberg has lost it. But for Facebook's entire run he's been a pretty adept leader. I personally think that Facebook is evil, nonetheless, he's been an effective founder & CEO. In Silicon Valley, and perhaps life itself, you're wrong, till you're right. Zuckerberg may well be right in the long run. Then again, much as I love Second Life, it seems clear that not everyone wants to spend a lot of time, or any time, in a virtual world. Super-immersive headsets and other gadgets might make it easier and awesomer, but it's still not clear that it's where everyone's going to live.

As for Zuckerberg's track record, while he has been an effective CEO, is he a genius? He's had one big idea, Facebook. After that he's been in acquisitions: Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus VR, etc. If you believe the Winklevoss twins, he didn't even invent Facebook. But he did take the company from startup to world domination. Friendster was huge in its day. Till it was steamrolled over by Myspace. Which, in turn, was steamrolled over by Facebook. Which was not steamrolled over, or even dented, by Google+. Still, other than Walt Disney and Steve Jobs, I can't think of many entrepreneurs who've managed to bottle lightning twice.

Back to Luther's original point, I just can't see how you can spend $36B other than buying companies. Where did it go? It may be that the annual expense is too high for investors to stomach, hence the current loss of confidence. Perhaps if he stays aggressive on metaverse, but scales back the annual costs, he can have it all. His core premise as I understand it, does make sense. Facebook is a gargantuan success reaping billions and billions in profits. But it's also passed its zenith. If he only guides that ship ever forward, they will in some distant future be the "new Yahoo". Betting on what's next is a smart move. But being right is hard. The first time I saw someone with a little Bluetooth headset stuck in their ear I thought they looked ridiculous. My next thought was that we'd all be wearing them in a few years. It didn't go that way. It turned out that tiny earpieces were not the evolution of voice calling, text was!

Finally, a thought about these polls of Meta and Twitter employees by Blind. When we put opinion in the form of numbers on charts it's tends to be very persuasive. I think we have a tendency to believe numbers. As all the recent American elections with way off polling have shown, it ain't necessarily so. Peeps saying that the Meta layoffs didn't have to happen or that Musk's already destroyed Twitter seem like obvious water cooler comments that any of us would make. I'm not sure they have business significance. And I'm not clear how Blind avoids selection bias. Are more disappointed, angry, and unemployed people more likely to respond to the poll?