Mark Zuckerberg was wrong, and he knows it. He was wrong about two things; one was his miscalculation that the e-commerce spending spree at the beginning of the pandemic was permanent.
That was more of a byproduct of the fact that governments wouldn’t let people leave their homes.
His second mistake was fully embracing the metaverse and changing the name of his parent company to reflect what he thought was another new cash-printing phenomenon that was here to stay.
Because of those two mistakes, he’s trimming his employee count, big time, with layoffs looming and a hiring freeze going into 2023.
Here’s an excerpt from the letter he sent to his staff.
“I’ve decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go. We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1. I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry for those impacted.”
The employees that are left will enjoy far fewer perks than they had before. Zuck is on a mission to cut costs, so workers will probably have to pay for their dry cleaning now.
Zuckerberg said layoffs were a last resort, and they’ve been doing what they could to save money, including having workers share desks.
The 11,000 being let go will receive 16 weeks of base pay as severance and an additional two weeks for every year of service. Meta is also picking up the tab on health care for six months.
This is terribly unfortunate news. I can’t help but think he tired to impose his vision on the world at precisely the wrong time.