I'm focusing on Meta, but the same goes for Palantir and such ilk of companies whose clear and only output is a net negative for society.
Is it really just money? Or do you actually believe these companies are not the societal wrecking balls they are? Would you argue that their toxicity itself is not as evident as I claim? You just don't give a damn?
I understand this is a provocative question, but bear with me and possibly change my mind. I'm genuinely curious.
As in a hypothetical scenario where someone pointed a gun at me and told me to pick one of them to work for.
Otherwise there many better and worse options.
I just relatively compared the two companies in context in my opinion.
Not try to defending them, but I do believe Meta is doing much more harm, purely based on Instagram for children.
Are they worse than Meta? I don't know, a strong argument can be made that both organizations are very harmful and there's no point in trying to rank which is worse.
I can say, however, that’s not the best decision from a financial standpoint, but what is the value of morality if you are not willing to sacrifice something for it?
Of course there are much more ethical places to work at.
Their whole idea of the metaverse was purely toxic, so is their idea about social media.
What makes you buy chocolate from giant corps that have slave/child labour in their supply chain?
But there are different kinds of harm.
That's wildly false.
Prove me wrong.
- cool project that is somewhat not related to shady stuff (Oculus)
- cool people I knew there
- I got down-leveled, so money was just a small % bump to my previous salary
I ended up quitting after less than a year due to said toxic culture and a bunch of other reasons.
Meta employees had (has?) this little stat on your profile page that gives you a title based on how long you were there. Staying 4 years gave you the title of "Mercenary". I think it speaks by itself :-)
Honestly speaking, some people actually thrive in the Meta culture and end up making bank with repeated promotions, but they are also clearly able to abstract the ethical side of things to focus on maximizing impact at all cost.
It's all a slippery slope anyway. If you were to work for yourself and publish your research, people might do bad things with it anyway. Consider YOLO [1] as an example of where things might have gone wrong. Another fine example is Fritz Haber [2], who intended some of his inventions for good, some for bad, but eventually society found a way to reverse his intentions.
Given that most computer scientists are pretty good at putting things in perspective, they might come to the conclusion that working for Meta isn't so bad in the grander scheme of things. Slaving away in academia and having your work ignored isn't a very tempting alternative.
Instead of considering how we can make smart people stop working for idiots, it might be more fruitful to spread the idea that we should stop worshipping idiots altogether. If there is one thing I miss from the days when religion was still a thing, it is this suggestion [3].
[1] https://www.deeplearning.ai/the-batch/code-no-evil/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber
[3] Exodus 20:3-5
This is a terrible argument and is defeatist in the same was as 'what does anything matter at all if the sun is going to explode'.
If you choose to do work for bad leaders, you are going bad in the same way that 'just following orders' for bad things is also bad. You are responsible for the outcomes in those cases. If you are ok with the resulting bad outcomes because the science was interesting and the pay is good, that's your decision. But there is no absolution just because you can suppose that someone else would have done it so it might as well have been you.
It would not surprise me if this is the exact reasoning that underpins decisions made by leaders of these big companies.
It's terribly hard to convince some people that this is not a sound argument.
In fact, I think it's mostly an evolutionary trait that most of us have, but looking at other species, I don't think it's universal to help others.
There's a whole world of difference between someone using your work in a way that you find objectionable and volunteering to accept a paycheck doing work for a company that you know will be using the work they're paying for in a way that you find objectionable.
This is why I have to assume that anybody working for a company is fine with what that company does.
Those who worked for IBM voluntarily and serviced the Third Reich if they suspected what was happening and did nothing were collaborators in mass murder. Engineering and all professional disciplines must be restrained by honesty and ethics.
Some other common reasons that I disagree with, but are quite defensible:
"Well-targeted advertising is a net positive, or at least not hugely negative, for the world. Better targeting has helped many small businesses succeed where they would otherwise not been able to get customers"
"I am working on account security/React/ML/etc which is a good thing. I don't endorse all the bad things"
"It is more complicated than it seems, and most people at Meta try to do the right thing"
"I might as well work at the company and try to make it better from the inside" (while making lots of money)
I am unwilling to bear the burdens of fixing a society that doesn't give a shit and asks me to pay the price while they continue not to care.
At times and in places, many of the young and optimistic have been able to believe that. Or at least to proclaim such beliefs - without immediately being called on it.
But similar to "Santa Clause won't bring presents to naughty boys and girls" - that ain't how the real world actually works. And the usual social convention for those "in the know" to allow young optimists to figure things out for themselves. "Don't spoil their youthful joy, the world is shitty enough as it is." );
The obvious followup question is why the users that flagged this did so. If any of you flagged this, it would be interesting to hear your reasons.
“If I don’t take that job (and that fat paycheque) then someone else will. Whatever Meta is set to accomplish, irrespective of whether it’s actually evil or not, will most likely be achieved. So might as well take the job and the money. As a bonus, you get to work on interesting stuff rather than the usual CRUD webapp.”
And the sad truth is, they were right.
Not only that, marketing yourself as an ex-FAANG afterwards (whether the faang is meta or whatever) will likely yield better positions or salary anyway. And the experience you get working on larger scale systems (along with much higher quality standards) improves you a lot as an engineer.
So long story short, it’s mostly upsides.
“…it’s not about following your heart. It’s about security” - Noah, the notebook
“Money! He’s got a lot of money” - Noah, the notebook
Check your assumptions
(NB. There are two assumptions about Meta employees in the quoted excerpt, not one)
Yes, Zuckerberg is known for being competitive and facebook gets a lot of flak for creating addictive tech products (and yes, I agree, it's excessively addictive), but to me at least, it's not that much worse than MS, which is more of this business machine whose goal is often just to win.
Yeah, to be honest, your question kind of took me a bit by surprise. But maybe there is something I'm not seeing? Thanks!
Why not? Look at the kinds of discussion that happened in their absence.
I worked at Meta for a few years. Facsimiles aside, it's no different than any other corporate machine.
When I was given an offer to join Meta, I was very much conflicted. This was not long after the Cambridge Analytica scandal and I worried about what type of company I was joining. After going through a string of startups that ran out of runway, I needed something more stable for my family. I had interviewed at Amazon and would have been happy to go back to Microsoft - but Meta made me an offer and I decided to try it.
I worked in a product team and in part dealt with ensuring we wouldn't have issues like with CA again. Later I dealt with ensuring we complied with the FTC order.
I've worked with multiple VPs, numerous directors and managers across the company. My particular role literally had me working across the company.
Despite my initial fears, I never saw anyone do anything but take seriously protecting user data and complying with all the policy, laws and regulations that were required. We often went above and beyond.
I honestly have a hard time understanding this compared to some of the stories I read in the press. Can I say for sure Meta never did anything that was described? No I can't. Every company has great, good, ok and bad people. But from all the leaders I worked with I never saw anything but people being moral and respecting privacy. I'm sure I'll be flamed for this, but it's what I saw and I believe.
One example is - when I joined Meta I received a work phone and they paid for my mobile service. Initially I carried two phones, a work and personal phone out of paranoia that Meta might be snooping on my work phone. Shortly after I started and saw things first hand -- I gave up my personal phone. I trusted my employer would act responsibly. But I've seen many meta employees choose to carry two phones, some for control, some to manage work/life balance... I don't understand it but everyone makes up their own mind.
I was at Microsoft and in Windows in the old days when everyone in the industry was afraid of Microsoft. This was before chrome and the early days of the internet. We'd read press stories about how Microsoft had this grand strategy that was evident in how multiple products were strategizing towards an outcome. We joked amonst the employees we WISH we were that organized. If we were the borg, it was pure chaos.
If you've worked at a large tech company, I expect you can understand that even if there was an evil leader (and I don't believe Zuck is at all evil) he still couldn't make the entire company act in the way they do. Meta's culture is absolutely about moving fast, building compelling features and connecting the world. I honestly believe Zuck cares about what he says.
I've seen Zuck at company Q&As stand up and take on the hardest questions -- employees standing up and vigorously arguing against certain people having their accounts not banned or reinstated. And Zuck doesn't dodge. He speaks from his values and perspective. I may not always agree with him but I respect his position and that he's willing to be so transparent.
Sorry if I don't respond to follow ups, I'm on a cellular tethered connection and my password manager failed to save the password on this account so once this incognito browser is closed I'll lose access to this account.
Anyway flame away. I'm not a shill, I'm just yet another tech worker and I do have morals and I see a different version of the stories that you see.
One last thing. While I have tremendous respect for the press and I worry about this moment in history where the fourth estate is under attack... I've also seen plenty of press stories about things at Microsoft and Meta which I've known the true story inside. I'd never talk to the press, but I've seen them get it very wrong or attribute motives to the company which we absolutely don't have. Most of the time we just fucked up, not intentionally but someone didn't catch something. I actually believe more things in the world can be explained not to necessarily incompetence but the challenges of large companies... And I understand the media is motivated to write stories that people will be outraged at and read. But I'll give them a pass because just like my time at Meta and Microsoft, I think they are just doing their best with what they can do...
Most comments I’ve read seem to come from folks who are NOT working for Meta. Guess it makes sense, few people are. It’s much easier to answer and judge from that position. While these comments are interesting reads, not sure if they are adding the insights the question wants.
While I am not with Meta, I do work for an HFT, which arguably have even worse reputation than Meta. FYI - I’m in tech and make $1-2mm, depending on the year. Some random observations from past years:
- you can rationalize pretty much anything. I do think that vast majority of the people in the firm think of themselves as good people. I like to think that this holds true even for the absolutely most abysmal pages of human history. E.g. I find it hard to believe that the average Nazi thought of themselves as bad.
- your co-workers are really smart and friendly. We encourage collaboration and some work-life balance, so that people rarely burn out. People are super dedicated and in general love coming to work. I know tens of really high net worth individuals who keep coming each day and staying voluntarily long hours since they just enjoy what they are doing.
- the firm does a lot of charity work, tens of millions each year. People are incentivized to give back, via various matching programs and volunteer opportunities. E.g. Some go for weeks just to do volunteering and it’s partially offset in your PTO. Some spend six figures+ on their favorite charities. Whether it makes them a better or worse person than you dear reader, it is not for me so say. I personally do less of this, but still try to chime in a couple $k / help a few times in a year. Regardless of what you do, you could try it, it tends to make you feel better.
- I am yet to meet an asshole who lasted more than 1-2 years. The firm eradicates this kind of behavior religiously.
- there is a strong belief among the workers that there is value in what we do and that we are one of the ‘good’ HFTs. I did not think that when I joined, but now I do. Again, you can rationalize a lot and the firm has subtle messaging to shape people with time.
- I guess it goes without saying, but the pay package allows you to lead a very different kind of life.
- I have been hiring the absolutely top of the class of top of the universities for a while now (HFTs get the absolutely first pick, way ahead of the big tech). None of the students seemed to have any problem with the firms mission, or lack of thereof. All of them dreamed of landing the gig. I’ve rejected really smart people who failed the behavioral (I.e assholes) regularly.
- finally, I’ve rejected offers of $3mm+ from firms I believe to be evil (you are virtually bombarded with offers each week if you make in the HFT world. Think of the AI hype, just 24/7 and since 2000s :) ). But I can easily imagine taking these from places which I consider only slightly more evil.
dotcoma•5mo ago