Technology

keep making the same fundamental error: treating his employees as if they're not human beings deserving of respect and care.

It's not just Meta. It's capitalism driven by financialization with sociopaths at the helm. It's not an error. It is essential. Whatever changes they might make to increase their profits, they will not include actually caring about employees as human beings. AI might produce memos that better conceal the callous exploitation and fraudulently proclaim caring, but it doesn't care either.

It's "its".

Also, thou shalt not editorialise headlines.

i promise you Facebook (not Meta, Facebook is the company's name) has not reached its breaking point, it will continue to get much worse.

"Mark Zuckerberg is realizing there's a limit to ruthless efficiency".

Cost cutting is not synonymous with efficiency. It's sad that a business focused magazine doesn't see through the bullshit.

• Losing 70+ billion on the failed VR experiment and laying off workers related to VR has zero to do with efficiency. It's just stopping losses without having any other positive effects. No efficiency gain here because the whole thing is mothballed.
• Putting AI bros in decision making positions and demoting highly payed engineers who actually know how the platform works to AI training babysitters: Not very efficient so far because the fuck ups are getting costly quickly.

There is more, but why should I give a fuck about Meta. Let this dumpster fire burn.

It...

Well, it's not just about "too much ruthless efficiency."

Zuckerburg fired a lot of brainpower in their ML divisions. He torched their landmark in the "AI" landscape, THE thing that literally set the standard for open weights LLMs (Llama), and hired a bunch of Tech Bro narcissists in their place, because he's doesn't have the first clue about how LLMs work, nor how important Llama and its wake is.

They were on track to be at the center of open weights LLMs, setting the standard for the whole world, but Zuck, and only Zuck, blew it up because he is an ignorant coward. He ran, like he does from every bandwagon he jumps on at the first bump.

Meta still develops PyTorch and a few non-text models openly, but we'll see how long that lasts.

Aside: I'm sick of everyone pretending like these ultra-wealthy industry runners are somehow geniuses. Like Bezos swallowing the "space datacenter" scam whole, Google's leadership consciously sabotaging their core product, or gestures at Elon Musk's Twitter page.

They're making terrible choices. They clearly do not have the scientific/technical background to make them. Their decisions aren't "hard" like the headlines make it out to be; even for their own pure self interest, they're irrational.

Enshitification in real time

You work for such a company and/or use its products? You're part of the problem. You helped create the predator that will devour you.

It's really simple NOT to use the products. And you will also find a job elsewhere if you managed to land one there.

Burn it to the ground

The whole point of adopting this hard-charging management style was to get employees to innovate faster and catch up to competitors like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google in the all-consuming battle over AI. Instead, Meta has been falling farther and farther behind.

Falling behind in what exactly? The race to the bottom?

Zuckerberg doesn't really want ruthless efficiency. He wants ruthless control.

One gets productivity from happy, well-cared-for workers. Like Bezos, he tries to micromanage them instead.

Fear and surprise, no prob. Ruthless efficiency = pushback. Fanatical devotion to the Pope -- WATCH OUT BRO.

Zuckerberg is a sociopath. Articles sanewashing him are missing the main point.

Good. Carry on.

Break it up like Ma Bell.

Frickin AI idiocy. Makes me miss the even more idiotic "metaverse".

I'm out.