[izacus]

You're missing the point - the point is to send a message, to employees and to the investors. That they're SERIOUS COMPANY that does the right thing. Follows the market. Listens to economy. That won't hear complaints from the entitled lazy overpampered engineering workers. That they need to get back to the factory and be like all other quiet labor. That HARD DECISIONS can be made without regret when bankers ask for them.

[tedivm]

Exactly- Facebook laid off 7% of their staff and then followed it up with a $40 billion stock buy back. That's over $3,600,000 per laid off employee. The economy isn't the issue here, the companies know that since layoffs in mass are happening they can get away with it without taking the same reputational hit as if they did this on their own.

[vintermann]

Yes, making the same bad move as everyone else is safe. "Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM", as they say.

[disgruntledphd2]

> Exactly- Facebook laid off 7% of their staff and then followed it up with a $40 billion stock buy back

FB laid off about 14% of their staff.

[mjburgess]

The stock buy-back really exposes the game though... for $20bn they could retained their employees for another <5 years and just waited for the economic climate to change a bit... it's unlikely to take more than 18mo.

Whilst there's good arguments to be made about workforce planning during recessions, and how you need to not have "slack employees" doing nothing... there are similar arguments to be made about stock buy-backs (ie., that having 40bn in reserves is a massive economic cushion).

That they choose to weaken their cash position for the sake of a temporary boost to stock prices shows that their incentives arent well-aligned to most stakeholders in this.

[disgruntledphd2]

Both the layoffs and the buybacks are sacrifices to the Gods of Wall Street, to earn the right to invest in the metaverse ;)

[mattgreenrocks]

It's incredible how submissive these companies act to capital.

[johngladtj]

The companies belong to "capital", it would be far more distressing if they weren't doing what it's owners want them to do.

[Aperocky]

Funny though, since Meta is actually fully controlled by Zuck. He wanted the metaverse and $40B buyback, otherwise he could just simply not.

[disgruntledphd2]

Sort of yes, but also no. He pays his employees with that stock, and it being higher makes that a better deal. Additionally, being valued as a growth company is much better than being a value stock.

Mind you, Im not interested in buybacks but if they paid a dividend I'd hold them till they lose their advertising business.

[bogomipz]

>"Additionally, being valued as a growth company is much better than being a value stock"

Could you elaborate, how does the buyback help them to be valued as a growth company? Also doesn't the fact that he paid for the buyback with employee layoffs really damage FB as a prospective employer when FB at some point in the future again needs to hire? What was the logic here?

[disgruntledphd2]

> how does the buyback help them to be valued as a growth company

Buybacks are what growth companies do, dividends are what value companys do (for whatever reason). But more generally, FB needed to show profit growth to go back up in value, and the easiest way to do that is lay off a bunch of people.

> Also doesn't the fact that he paid for the buyback with employee layoffs really damage FB as a prospective employer when FB at some point in the future again needs to hire? What was the logic here?

Maybe it does. But if they offer shedloads of money, I can't see people worrying about. For context, FB performance reviews are hardcore, so it's not like people were resting and vesting there. I dunno what his real logic was (I left in 2018), but the above seems reasonable, to me, at least.