Leah Feiger: Let’s invest.
Zoe Schiffer: They have that thing for a while.
Leah Feiger: It wasn’t full of Google, but—
Zoe Schiffer: Somewhat there.
Leah Feiger: -he had that excitement. For me, someone outside of this in every way, I know about these layoffs because they have been, A) very chaotic, but B) somehow, without reason. It goes without saying that some tech companies aren’t always laying off their workforce. That feels like something we discuss on this podcast from time to time, but this is happening in a big way and in a way that makes employees feel really bad about themselves.
Brian Barrett: Well, because it’s not just a layoff, right? Also, even if you stay there, if you are not removed from the herd, you will have to deal with this world that you have. The spyware on your laptop teaches AI to take over your work sometime, right?
Zoe Schiffer: Explain that a little bit.
Brian Barrett: Meta announced, and this was more public, that they would put software on employees’ laptops that would track their keystrokes and how they move their cursors and basically how they do their job as Meta engineers and use it as training data for their internal models to try to make their AI models better because they’re running out of other sources.
Zoe Schiffer: Can you choose from that, Brian?
Brian Barrett: That’s a big question. I’m glad you asked. You could not opt out.
Zoe Schiffer: I felt you didn’t know the answer to that.
Brian Barrett: In fact, when an employee asked in a very public forum within Meta, “Hey, we couldn’t do this?” Zoë, what was the answer?
Zoe Schiffer: Oh, absolutely you will do this and shame on you for asking. And some of the workers who stay, especially the thousands of workers who stay, are enlisted in the ranks of AI. We published a piece today that was about morale within the company, but also how there’s been this crazy streak of using the benefits and perks that employees have. But one of the things that has been said at the end is that the remaining employees are asked to join the AI teams. So whatever your job was before, it’s being prepared internally. You are enrolled in the ranks of AI, now your work will look completely different.
Brian Barrett: That’s about 7,000 people.
Zoe Schiffer: Yes.
Leah Feiger: I have actually heard people use the word rapture.
Zoe Schiffer: Oh, my god.
Leah Feiger: Not so—
Zoe Schiffer: And I wish we had that in the story.
Leah Feiger: I’m very sorry, but I was grabbed in other teams. Suddenly one day they are gone. After these layoffs, have Zuckerberg and his colleagues proposed some kind of plan or concrete leadership proposal? What happens after this?
