Layoffs suck, but you don’t.

Tech layoffs continue for a third consecutive year and are not actually performance-based

Layoffs suck. They suck more when the companies doing the layoffs try to minimize the negative press by lying about why they laid off the people they did. Sometimes companies are irresponsible and hire too many people too fast. Sometimes companies invest too much in a product that doesn’t have a sufficient market. And, sometimes unpredictable crazy stuff just happens, like global pandemics or great recessions. Getting laid off for any of those reasons still sucks, but it isn’t as cruel as what is happening in tech today.

Many of the companies announcing the largest layoffs are financially doing very well, posting record earnings year-over-year. In fact, 4 of the companies who have laid off the greatest number of employees over the past couple of years have all posted record profits (Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft), so it’s not that the costs have grown more than revenue. In fact, the profit margins are growing somewhat faster than revenue is. This is impressive, considering the astronomical investments in products that lack demand, like the $60B Metaverse. Had Meta not gone on what their Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth called a potentially “legendary misadventure”, their profit margin could have been ~10% more than the observed record profits for a cool $12B more in their coffers in each of the last five years.

In countries with stronger labor protection laws where companies are prohibited from conducting layoffs without a sufficient business justification, the layoffs have been rejected. For example, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands have all rejected attempted layoffs from Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta. For the attempted layoffs from the end of 2022, these companies face lawsuits with these countries. In an attempt to resolve this battle, companies are still offering those employees unheard of (in the US) exit packages including a full year’s worth of severance, additional time to permit more restricted stock units to vest and receive more of their scheduled bonuses (which they seem to have to pay out as long as the people they attempted to layoff are in this liminal space between employed and laid off).

In other words, these companies don’t have the relatively more socially acceptable justifications for cutting the jobs of hundreds of thousands of people. How will they possibly save face when handing out pink slips to the very people who helped them make those record profits?

Aha! They can lean into the narrative that people don’t want to work and are slackers. There’s just one problem: The people who work at these companies are generally exceptional. These people are brilliant, mostly overeducated at elite universities who work hard and kick ass at whatever they set their minds to. There’s a reason why these companies recruit aggressively and boast difficult interview loops -- the jobs are hard and require these types of people for the companies to innovate enough to regularly post record profits as they change the world.

This isn’t to say that all of these impressive people put in impressive effort or get to work on the specific things that they have expertise in, but by and large, the people I’ve met in these companies have been mind-blowingly sharp and productive. When I attended my first product team stand-up at Facebook, Inc., I felt incredible imposter syndrome. I adjusted to the pace and received glowing performance reviews once my on-boarding probationary period ended. I ended up working on a number of C-Suite and VP-level taskforces that involved advising the White House Coronavirus Taskforce and being the lead researcher for an 8-person team working on trying to figure out how to deliver on something Zuck wanted, despite all of the data indicating it was a bad idea. Eventually, my alternative proposal ended up being adopted and saved the company millions of dollars while also delivering users more of the content that they found valuable. I was even promoted (again) after this feat, so when the company announced that they would be conducting performance-based layoffs, I thought I was safe.

I thought wrong.

November 9, 2022, I was laid off. As I checked my text messages and social media, I was shocked to see who else was laid off that day. All of the people I knew who had been owned reputations for

1. leading high-priority, company-wide projects,

2. getting exceptional performance reviews, and

3. were very senior (IC6 + IC7) and had fancy advanced degrees.

Outside of my on-boarding time, I never received any rating less than Greatly Exceed Expectations.¹ Based on the publicly available data, these ratings are given to employees in the 90th to 97th percentile (which corresponds to the top 10% of performers). I was shocked. Like my fellow high-performing colleagues, I was let go after hearing Mark Zuckerberg say publicly over and over again how they were cutting the “resters and vesters” (tech lingo for people who slack and just wait for more of their stock package to vest). It was probably the first time in my life that my belief that working harder and producing far more than is expected failed me.

In time, I caught up with many peers who were laid off and followed others’ investigative reporting and came to learn that the teams tasked with fighting harmful stuff, like child sexual abuse, foreign election interference, terrorist recruitment, and violence incitement, were disproportionately hit. Unfortunately, the stink from the label of being laid off when the company put their vast PR team to blast the airwaves claiming the layoffs were performance-based is particularly putrid and top of mind to potential employers.

A month later, the company sent me a box labeled “leaver”, which contained a “wow” and a “sad” emoji luggage tag. I guess they really wanted me packing my bags… literally.

Two years and a whole lot of therapy later, I see these companies doing the same things again. These companies are posting record profits and stock valuations, but still choosing to layoff the hard-working people that helped those companies succeed. Instead of making this decision and treating the former employees with dignity and thanking them for their contributions, the companies disparage and ridicule them.

Vishal Garg, CEO of Better, informed those he laid off that they were “DUMB DOLPHINS [who] get caught in nets and eaten by sharks.” Strangely, Stripe emailed those they laid off a picture of a duck.

Layoff messages

Yet, none of these companies were as aggressive in painting those they laid off as low performers as Meta. Amazon, Microsoft, and many others have made the same claims, but none have doubled-down when high performers shared their performance reviews on LinkedIn (e.g., 1, 2) and Reddit, or with journalists. A number of the people recently laid off by Meta had scored on the higher end of the evaluation system and all at least exceeded expectations. When some journalists questioned Meta’s spokespeople, they were told “Simply because someone had a history of meeting or exceeding expectations, does not mean they continue to consistently meet the bar.” This sounds like a perfectly reasonable response… until you realize that performance evaluations had been done weeks prior to the layoffs and the excellent performance ratings were given to the people who were laid off just prior to being laid off.

Bullocks.

As the investigative journalists dug deeper they found more evidence that leadership and managers had been telling their reports that they were “doing great” and did not have “any areas to be worked on.” They were even assured that they “would be fine and not impacted.” Yet, they were impacted.

I would guess that more will come to light as investigators continue to dig and the evermore demoralized remaining employees share more insider info with reporters like Jyoti Mann (email, Signal: jyotimann.11) and Hugh Langley (email, Signal: hughlangley.01). Until then, I want to reiterate to prospective employers that many of those laid off are not actually low performers. In fact, the ones I know personally are truly exceptional and companies would be lucky to have them.

And, to the people who were laid off, I hope you realize that you are better than what the PR spin room of these uber profitable mega corporations are saying about you publicly. It’s really competitive getting the jobs you had, and if your performance reviews over time were stellar, you are stellar. Having some stranger on the internet say this probably doesn’t fix anything, but hopefully it helps break down this bogus narrative and provides a vote of confidence.

When I was laid off, existential confusion and self-doubt were my biggest challenges. For me, I found some comfort in connecting with my former colleagues (many of whom were also laid off, either at the same time as I was, or in the subsequent wave of layoffs several months later). They’ll have similar experiences and can help process some of the agitation, anxiety, and dread.

I also recommend trying to find community. In the immediate aftermath, I connected with many people over LinkedIn (and even created a group for those laid off by Meta; a friend created a similar private Facebook group). In time, I found community at the Integrity Institute, where many other members had also been laid off, but also were nerds about some of the same things that get me up in the morning -- child safety, misinformation, political violence, building AI tools responsibly, and graduating from dumb engagement-based recommendation systems at the core of so much garbage on the internet. If those groups sound good to you, check them out.

Resources

• Integrity Institute -- II is a non-profit with >500 current and former trust and safety in tech experts who come from 40+ different platforms. We have regular community events, a fair number of people who have gone through layoffs (and likely were laid off recently) who can provide support and share resources, and work on some really important projects related to building a safer internet.

• All Tech is Human is another group dedicated to creating community for the folks building new tech responsibly. They also maintain a job board that may be easier to navigate than some of the giant job platforms.

• Google doc with Resources for Technology Policy.

• Alice Hunsberger’s website links to a number of job boards related to trust & safety, AI, and fraud. She also shares a Career Planning Template that may be useful for folks figuring out what they want to do next, and how best to prepare for that.

• Katie Harbath’s “How I mapped out my post-Facebook journey.”

• Ex-Meta Employees (Layoffs) private group on Facebook

• Ex Meta XFN FYI on LinkedIn

• Me. I went through this a couple years ago, applied for and interviewed for lots of jobs, and eventually came out the other side working on stuff I care about. Feel free to DM or email me, and I’ll do my best to help.

What I’m reading

• Meta speeds up its hiring process as it cuts thousands of ‘low performers’ -- Jyoti Mann, Business Insider

• Tech layoffs reveal the unintended consequences of mass job cuts -- Naomi Nix, Washington Post

• Tech giant Workday lays off 1,750 employees in shift to AI -- Kelsey Ables, Washington Post

• Meta carrying out performance-based layoffs starting Monday, cutting 5% of staff -- Jonathan Limehouse, USA Today

• Layoffs surging in a strong economy? Advice for navigating uncertain times -- Sandra J. Sucher, Frances X. Frei, & Maria P. Roche, Harvard Business School

• Okta, SF tech company worth $16 billion, lays off staff after turning its first profits -- Stephen Council, SF Gate

• A comprehensive list of 2024 and 2025 tech layoffs -- Cody Corrall & Alyssa Stringer, TechCrunch

• Microsoft layoffs: Tech giant’s job cuts stretch into 2025, now focusing on performance -- Todd Bishop, GeekWire

• Tech layoffs 2025: Salesforce to slash 1,000 jobs as it joins Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and more in cutting roles -- Michael Grothaus, Fast Company

• Meta layoffs have begun: Here’s everything we know so far -- Pranav Dixit, Jyoti Mann, & Hugh Langley, Business Insider

• Meta prepares for layoffs Monday -- Katie Paul, Reuters

• Affirm CEO said helping staff pack their boxes during layoffs made everyone feel better -- Shubhangi Goel, Business Insider

• CEO says assisting laid-off workers in packing their boxes eased the pain for everyone: Not being laid off probably would have helped more -- Rob Thubron, TechSpot

• Stripe accidentally sent an image of a duck when notifying some employees they were getting laid off -- Jyoti Mann, Business Insider

• While the metaverse never really took off, Meta is scrambling to try and scrape it off the pavement -- Shaun Cichacki, VICE

• Vulgar rants and public outbursts: How Better CEO Vishal Garg went from the visionary atop America’s best startup to the poster child for bad bosses -- Alex Nicoll, Carter Johnson, & Daniel Geiger, Business Insider

• An employee laid off by Meta says he got a strange package from the company marked ‘leaver’ with two emojis inside and no note -- Jordan Hart, Business Insider

1. Performance ratings at Meta range from Meets Some, Meets Most, Meets All, Exceeds, Greatly Exceeds, and Redefines Expectations.