Last Friday, Meta announced plans to fire 10% of its workforce (representing approximately 8,000) starting on May 20th. This is an INITIAL reduction in force (RIF) since they plan additional cuts for this year. The company had mass layoffs back in 2022 (11,000), 2023 (21,000), and 2025 (11,000). Meta is one of the WORST tech companies to work for and spill your loyalty out to (because the “leadership” at this company, does not CARE ABOUT YOU).
For 2026, Meta’s push to use AI to replace workers is one of the main drivers (and Wall Street views that as a great thing because of the expense cutting which means increased margins). The company of course sends out terminations via e-mail (companies nowadays don’t even have the decency to have actual face to face meetings even if in an auditorium setting, highlighting the lack of respect they have for their workforce).
People often times wonder why I divested from Facebook (in 2020 before the company rebranded itself to Meta in October 2021), why I am always highly critical of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and why I give zero shits about calling him Fuckerberg. The company is raking in billions in dollars of revenue and is highly profitable. It makes a lot of that money from ad revenue spending (including from a lot of questionable sources).
He is the definition of the emotionless, greedy, and morally depraved corporate executive that also isn’t as smart as what has been crafted by his PR handlers (what happens when you’ve become excessively wealthy on the backs of others early on). There are many corporate executives who are easy pickings when it comes to not having any respect for; Zuckerberg is on an entirely different level in this department though where I am physically repulsed by anytime I see/hear him.
Another former early (venture capitalist) investor in Facebook is Roger McNamee (Elevation Partners). He was extremely supportive, helpful, and a early believer in Zuckerberg. But he eventually learned the decisions for the companies business model, was troubling and he’s written/spoken out a lot about how the company is terrible for this country/world, how the company was a threat to democracy in the U.S. (which I also agreed with — and look at what it has enabled/contributed to since then), how he later felt that company executives deserve to be criminally investigated (which I also agreed with) and if found responsible, to face prison time, and supported regulation for the company (and industry in general) which is something I also agreed with.
McNamee began to sell that stake in 2019 a little less than an year before I divested (of course he garnered a huge realized gain because those were early preferred shares that were “penny on the dollars” compared to what the IPO ended up being priced at for folks like myself. McNamee could’ve held longer and raked in even more but like myself, it was difficult to remain invested in good conscience with a company that was making really “dirty” money.
I know a lot of people use Facebook, Instagram, Threads, or WhatsApp in some form (which is their personal choice). Privately for those who I know closely, my advice has been to transition away from the platform if they can with a laundry list of reasons why (which I am not going to repeat). Most have thankfully left (leaving just their account in order to hang on to the username). Myself, I also deactivated my accounts for statistical reasons. For others, if they have to use the platforms (for business), I recommend being careful about their personal info (having a private profile means nothing).
