SAN FRANCISCO — Mark Zuckerberg has a message for Meta employees: get ready for tough times ahead.
In an internal meeting on Thursday, Meta CEO Zuckerberg said the Silicon Valley company was facing one of the “worst downturns we’ve seen in recent history,” according to copies of his comments shared with The New York Times. He told Meta’s 77,800 employees to prepare to do more work with fewer resources and that their performance would be assessed more intensively than before.
Mr. Zuckerberg added that the company — which owns Facebook, Instagram and other apps — lowered its hiring targets. Meta now plans to hire 6,000 to 7,000 new engineers this year, down from an earlier target of about 10,000, he said. In some areas, hiring will be halted entirely, especially of junior engineers, although the number of employees in other parts of the company will increase, he said.
“I think some of you may decide that this place isn’t for you, and that self-selection is okay with me,” Mr Zuckerberg said during the phone call. “Realistically, there are probably a lot of people at the company who shouldn’t be here.”
The CEO’s comments, which were some of the most sharply worded comments he’s made to employees, reflect the level of difficulty Meta faces with his business. The company, which has been growing financially stronger for years, is in an unknown position this year as it struggles. While it experienced strong growth in the early parts of the pandemic, it has recently faced turmoil in the global economy as inflation and interest rates rise.
That economic uncertainty is setting in as Meta navigates through turmoil in its core social networking and advertising businesses. Mr. Zuckerberg stated last year that his company, which was renamed Meta by Facebook, was making a long-term bet to build the immersive world of the so-called metaverse. He has spent billions of dollars on the effort, which has lowered Meta’s profits.
The company is also facing a blow to its advertising business after Apple made privacy changes to its mobile operating system, limiting the amount of data Facebook and Instagram can collect about its users.
As a result, Meta has posted consecutive earnings declines this year, the first time it has happened in more than a decade. In February, following a dismal financial report, Meta’s stock plunged 26 percent and its market value plunged over $230 billion in what was the company’s biggest one-day wipeout. In March, the company told employees it was eliminating frugal or free services such as laundry and dry cleaning.
In a memo to employees on Thursday, Chris Cox, Meta’s chief product officer, echoed Mr. Zuckerberg’s sentiments, saying the company was in “serious times” and the economic “headwinds are fierce,” according to a copy of the memo. which was read to De Tijd.
“We need to perform flawlessly in a slower-growth environment, where teams shouldn’t expect massive influxes of new engineers and budgets,” said Mr. Cox’s memo. “We need to prioritize more relentlessly, think about measuring and understanding what drives impact, investing in the efficiency and speed of developers across the business, and operating leaner, meaner, better-executing teams.”
Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Cox’s comments to employees were previously reported by Reuters. A Meta spokesperson said Mr. Cox’s memo echoed what the company has said publicly in earnings calls and that it was candid about its “challenges” and “opportunities.”
During Thursday’s internal meeting, which was held via video conference, Mr. Zuckerberg’s comments appeared to stem from a sense of frustration, said an employee who watched the conversation. After someone asked if the company would continue to hold “Meta Days,” an internal name for paid vacation time in 2022, Mr. Zuckerberg paused and thought aloud about how to properly answer the question, said the employee, who spoke anonymously. because they were not authorized to speak.
The CEO then said the company needed to crack down and work harder than before, “turning up the heat” on internal targets and metrics used to assess employee performance. He said he expected some level of attrition from employees who fail to meet those targets and some will leave as a result of the increased pace.
But Mr. Zuckerberg noted that he was not averse to spending big on projects that matter in the long run, not just for profit. He cited efforts to build the metaverse over the next decade with virtual and augmented reality products.
Mr. Cox also said in his memo that Meta continued to focus on investing in Reels – the TikTok-like video product common on Instagram – and improving artificial intelligence to drive discovery of popular posts on Facebook and Instagram. Meta is also working to monetize its messaging apps and is looking at more opportunities in ecommerce sales on the platform, he said.
Internal recruiters at Meta said that following a wave of new hires during the pandemic, the company’s recruitment has slowed this year. The company mainly hired people for vital roles, and many roles were filled internally, said two recruiters who wished to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak with reporters.
There are currently no plans to fire people, said two people with knowledge of the company’s plans, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak. In chat room channels accompanying the live broadcast of the workers’ meeting, some workers said they were celebrating wanting to reduce “dead weight” after feeling the “bar was lowered” for hiring over the course of the pandemic. , according to comments described to The Times by one of the contributors.
