[rybosworld]

People always answer this question with money. But if we think of it as a version of the prisoner dilemma (Meta is one prisoner, the employee is the other), the right move is probably to work somewhere else for a lower salary. By working for Meta, they are defecting against you (openly screen recording you to train your AI replacement). Choosing to work somewhere else would be like you defecting against Meta.

Extremely simplified example. Ignore inflation, raises, etc.

Which choice is better?

- $400k/yr for 5 years followed by a layoff, with the possibility that the thing you've helped Meta build rolls out everywhere, and there are next to no job opportunities

- $200k/yr for the rest of your career, and employment opportunities don't dry up because you didn't help build the thing meant to replace you

[singron]

After 5 years, you'll have an extra $1M in savings, and you can safely pay yourself 4% or $40k each year in perpetuity without doing any work.

This is also a really extreme version of the prisoners dilemma. In the standard formula, there are 2 prisoners, so it's somewhat practical to not defect, but there are hundreds of thousands of qualified candidates for working at Meta in these roles, so your personal decision to defect or not has likely no effect on the ultimate outcome. I.e. for the second option to work, you actually need to organize a unified labor movement with no defectors, which is probably impossible.

[ProfessorLayton]

>After 5 years, you'll have an extra $1M in savings, and you can safely pay yourself 4% or $40k each year in perpetuity without doing any work.

The only way this could be remotely true on a 400k salary is by saving +80% of take home pay. After taxes that's only 40k/yr to live on.

In a HCOL area. This doesn't even touch on the fact that tenure at most tech places is well below 5y, especially at Meta.

[lbrito]

Those are easy choices, but unrealistic. Its also not like offer packages are a click away from showing into your email inbox, they are excruciating and highly random.

More realistic choices are: - $400k/yr for 5 years followed by a layoff, with the possibility that the thing you've helped Meta build rolls out everywhere, and there are next to no job opportunities

or

- 150k/year for 3 years followed by being laid off due to runway ending, Meta out-competing your company, or whatever. Despite you not helping build the thing meant to replace you, it still got built.