Meta founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is steering the company into an unprecedented morale crisis, a US newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources among former and current Meta employees.
According to them, Zuckerberg “has lost his vision and the trust of his workforce” amid economic tumult and waves of layoffs that rode roughshod over the company.
“It’s like they went from ‘move fast and break things’ to ‘slow down, break things,’ then ‘maybe fix it later on a case-by-case’” basis, one of the sources claimed.
Another insider underscored that “what was special about Meta was the trust.”
“We drank the Kool-Aid and really felt like it was our company [and] even willingly defended it when everyone said we were evil incarnate. But that’s been shattered, so it feels like a betrayal,” they added.
In an apparent nod to Zuckerberg renaming his company Meta in October 2021, which mirrored a new emphasis on virtual reality, one more source argued, “it was built like a software company that was trying to experiment instead of a mature hardware company that was trying to build hardware.”
One insider referred to data showing that the devices which Meta previously developed were missing their sales targets. “They missed their goals regularly. But everyone knew that didn’t matter,” the source pointed out.
On top of that, the company’s stock plunged by more than a quarter, and Meta has also been losing billions unsuccessfully trying to turn its metaverse vision into a reality.
This unfolds against the background of numerous layoffs in the company which come as part of the company’s “year of efficiency” – a plan to cut costs as Meta struggles to monetize its ambitious virtual reality venture, the metaverse.
Right now, the social media firm is in the midst of its second round of layoffs, which will reportedly eliminate about 4,000 jobs before the end of this month, in addition to 11,000 staffers who have already been fired.
* Meta and Facebook are banned in Russia over extremist activities.