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Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

(www.theverge.com)
492 points Lionga | 6 comments | 22 Oct 25 16:44 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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ceejayoz ◴[22 Oct 25 17:14 UTC] No.45672187[source]▶
Because the AI works so well, or because it doesn't?

> ”By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact,” Wang writes in a memo seen by Axios.

That's kinda wild. I'm kinda shocked they put it in writing.

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1. renewiltord ◴[22 Oct 25 17:28 UTC] No.45672367[source]▶
What's wild about this? They're saying that they're streamlining the org by reducing decision-makers so that everything isn't design-by-committee. Seems perfectly reasonable, and a common failure mode for large orgs.

Anecdotally, this is a problem at Meta as described by my friends there.

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2. asadotzler ◴[22 Oct 25 18:34 UTC] No.45673284[source]▶
Maybe they shouldn't have hired and put so many cooks in the kitchen. Treating workers like pawns is wild and you should not be normalizing the idea that it's OK for Big Tech to hire up thousands, find out they don't need them, and lay them off to be replaced by the next batch of thousands by the next leader trying to build an empire within the company. Treating this as SOP is a disservice to your industry and everyone working in it who isn't a fat cat.
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3. renewiltord ◴[22 Oct 25 19:21 UTC] No.45673895[source]▶
No, I'm totally fine with it. No one can guess precisely how many people need to be hired and I'd rather they overshoot than undershoot because some law stops it. This means that now some people were employed who would not otherwise be employed. That's spending by Meta that goes to people.
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4. LunaSea ◴[22 Oct 25 21:23 UTC] No.45675334{3}[source]▶
> No one can guess precisely how many people need to be hired

Overshooting by 600 people sounds a lot like gross failure. Is someone going to take responsibilities for it? Probably not. That person's job is safe.

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5. halfcat ◴[22 Oct 25 23:20 UTC] No.45676396{4}[source]▶
They’ll get a promotion for such effective cost cutting measures.
6. renewiltord ◴[23 Oct 25 00:07 UTC] No.45676708{4}[source]▶
I suspect Mark Zuckerberg isn't going to fire himself for getting headcount wrong by 1%.