Mark Zuckerberg Lays Off Thousands Of Employees And Admits He Was Wrong
Mark Zuckerberg lays off thousands of employees in order to build a "leaner and more efficient company." He announced that he had sent a message to all of his employees outlining the company's difficult challenges. These difficulties were to be met by laying off approximately 11,000 employees, or roughly 13% of Meta's total workforce.
Author:Rhyley CarneyReviewer:Paula M. GrahamNov 10, 202226.2K Shares354.3K Views
Mark Zuckerberg lays off thousands of employees in order to build a "leaner and more efficient company." He announced that he had sent a message to all of his employees outlining the company's difficult challenges.
These difficulties were to be met by laying off approximately 11,000 employees, or roughly 13% of Meta's total workforce.
Mark Zuckerberg Lays Off Thousands Of Employees After Spending On Metaverse
Mark Zuckerberg addressed laid off employees today — here's what he said
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus VR, is laying off 13% of its workforce, or approximately 11,000 people. This follows the company's extraordinary $15 billion investment in its so-called "metaverse" project.
According to a post on Meta's site today, Zuckerberg apologized to his employees.
“„Today I’m sharing some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history, I’ve decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go.- Mark Zuckerberg
In explaining why he believes this is necessary, Zuckerberg blames a convenient universal gimme, Covid. Except that Covid was too good for them as a company.
Zuckerberg also announced that a hiring freeze would be in effect until the new year, making it unlikely that any of those who had been laid off would soon be hired back.
He stated that he would "take responsibility for these decisions" and expressed his "special regret" to those affected.
Those who are laid off will receive 16 weeks of severance pay, plus two weeks for every year they have worked for Meta.
Reason Behind The Shed Of Thousand Employees
In an attempt to explain why a company the size of Meta had to lay off 11,000 people, Zuckerberg claimed that the coronavirus pandemic was one of the main causes.
While many companies were affected by Covid-19 and had to make cuts as a result, Zuckerberg stated that the pandemic resulted in a "surge of e-commerce" and "outsized revenue growth," which made a lot of money for Meta.
He wrote that the surge in revenue from the pandemic led them to believe they would see a 'permanent acceleration,' but that was not the case.
After spending a lot of money while making a lot of money during Covid, now that revenues are down (and has spent $15 billion on the Metaverse, which doesn't really do anything), they need to cut costs, which means employee heads will roll.
Mark Zuckerberg Taking The Responsibility
Another takeaway from the Meta layoffs is Zuckerberg's acceptance of responsibility for the decisions that led to this point. He was open about how he came to the conclusions he did about the Metaverse and accepted responsibility for the cuts and financial difficulties.
“„Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected. Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.- Mark Zuckerberg
Furthermore, he apologized for the layoffs and expressed sympathy for those who had lost their jobs. He also expressed gratitude for their contributions. Zuckerberg has been vilified in the press, and he does come across as robotic or uncaring at times. He is not held up as an example of compassionate leadership.
In this situation, however, he did everything correctly. HR leaders can learn from this experience by advising managers and leaders to be humble and sympathetic when letting people go. It's just the right thing to do.
Conclusion
Financially, things haven't been going well for Zuckerberg recently. He started 2022 with a net worth of around $125 billion, but he's now worth less than half that.
For the first time in several years, Zuckerberg has dropped out of the top ten richest Americans list. Meta isn't the only major technology company laying off workers as part of a cost-cutting drive, with Twitter laying off a large number of employees following the arrival of new CEO Elon Musk.
Rhyley Carney
Author
Paula M. Graham
Reviewer
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