Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's actions to curry favor with the president have rattled employees, but people familiar with his efforts say there's a clear strategy.
It’s pretty clear that billionaire owners of publicly traded companies will do whatever is needed to continue the “number goes up” philosophy of American capitalism. It’s the rot that underlies the whole economy. This isn’t to excuse Zuckerberg but this is America as a whole. The need to increase profits takes priority over bucking fascism, pulling back on vitriolic public discourse, stuffing hyped AI products into every crevice of tech, and pursuing monopolistic business practices. It’s all baked in. And it makes everything worse. No one is attempting to address which is why America is absolutely doomed to collapse. No one is willing to even have the conversation about corporate control/influence of government as well as the philosophy of delivering shareholder value.
Tech companies used to think that they were only limited by their ability to hire talented people. They went crazy competing for talent. That has changed. Obviously they no longer consider talent to be vital. Their businesses are more mature now and have network effects and lock-in. It’s kind of inevitable that tech companies would eventually reach that point. But I think it’s only true for the largest companies. Big tech souring on its employees is probably great news for a huge galaxy of small and midsize companies who’ve had no hope of attracting top talent for many years now. It really was impossible to compete with the pay, perks, and developer experience at a place like Meta. And that’s too bad because there are software business opportunities everywhere, still. Maybe this will be a good thing in the long run.
It’s pretty clear that billionaire owners of publicly traded companies will do whatever is needed to continue the “number goes up” philosophy of American capitalism. It’s the rot that underlies the whole economy. This isn’t to excuse Zuckerberg but this is America as a whole. The need to increase profits takes priority over bucking fascism, pulling back on vitriolic public discourse, stuffing hyped AI products into every crevice of tech, and pursuing monopolistic business practices. It’s all baked in. And it makes everything worse. No one is attempting to address which is why America is absolutely doomed to collapse. No one is willing to even have the conversation about corporate control/influence of government as well as the philosophy of delivering shareholder value.
Tech companies used to think that they were only limited by their ability to hire talented people. They went crazy competing for talent. That has changed. Obviously they no longer consider talent to be vital. Their businesses are more mature now and have network effects and lock-in. It’s kind of inevitable that tech companies would eventually reach that point. But I think it’s only true for the largest companies. Big tech souring on its employees is probably great news for a huge galaxy of small and midsize companies who’ve had no hope of attracting top talent for many years now. It really was impossible to compete with the pay, perks, and developer experience at a place like Meta. And that’s too bad because there are software business opportunities everywhere, still. Maybe this will be a good thing in the long run.