11 ms·

I just spent three months hiring in NYC, and now that I think about it, I haven't seen a single person mention they were considering counteroffers from Facebook

• clairity 7y ago
  > "It's telling that a substantial portion of our candidates admitted to considering competing offers from Google, but literally no one was considering Facebook." intersting anecdote. google is a bigger concern for privacy and personal liberty, yet jobseekers are shunning facebook because of the more wide-ranging negative press.
  • rongenre 7y ago
    I wonder how much of it is that Facebook isn't all that much fun anymore, and working there would provoke all sorts of "I don't use it anymore" comments from one's peers.
    • humanrebar 7y ago
      Or maybe prospects don't use Facebook either and it seems odd to contribute to a website you don't even visit.
    • code_duck 7y ago
      Instagram and WhatsApp are more popular than ever, though.
  • mrtksn 7y ago
    >google is a bigger concern for privacy and personal liberty Big claim. Any proofs? With Facebook, what annoyed me was that they set up internal teams to help with political candidates social media campaigns - no matter who the candidates are. Extremely worrisome if you prefer to have people elected through a democratic process that is based on the discussion. This is not like understanding what people want or how do they think through big data analysis but manufacturing it. Sure - provocations and lies are not new, it was always the case for politics but with a social media everything is at scale and everything is happening violently.
    • elorant 7y ago
      Just look at the amount of personal information Google knows/records about you. Your search history, web stats through Chrome, location history through Android, with whom you exchange emails if you're using GMail, which sites you visit and how long you stay on them through Google Analytics, probably online purchases with a combination of AdSense/AdWords & Analytics, everything you watch on YouTube etc. They definitely collect much more data than Facebook. The only reason they haven't faced the same shitstorm is because they don't seem to share all that data with 3rd parties.
      • jdormit 7y ago
        > The only reason they haven't faced the same shitstorm is because they don't seem to share all that data with 3rd parties. This is the whole point though, is it not? As far as we know, Google treats the data they collect more thoughtfully and responsibly than Facebook. And so they are (rightly or not) viewed as less of a threat to the public good. Of course, they could just be better at hiding their abuse of our data... But that's a conspiracy theory, not a matter of public record like the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
        • underwater 7y ago
          Is that really any better? Google is so monolithic and all encompassing that data collected by their services can be shipped around internally instead of having to be sold to third parties.
  • bhtru 7y ago
    If you have time, can you elaborate why you believe Google is a larger threat to personal liberty and privacy?
    • malvosenior 7y ago
      Google has far greater potential for invading an individual's privacy than Facebook does. Google has Android, Chrome, search, maps and gmail (and now photos). Those are all very critical pieces to a person's real world life. Facebook has FB, Instagram and WhatsApp. Yes, some private communication but it's limited to "social networking". Your taxes and utility bills don't get mailed to FB Messenger. You don't search for cancer research on Instagram and Facebook can't tell what other apps are installed on your phone.
      • code_duck 7y ago
        I’ve been getting ads on Instagram for health issues I discussed on reddit.
      • tozeur 7y ago
        I met a lady the other day who said that her job at google was a PM for their advanced technologies group doing “infiltration” into people’s lives.
    • dylan604 7y ago
      I too was curious of this balance weighting. FB slurps in all of the data that users voluntarily post. Google just learns things through inference about users whereas FB is getting data posted directly by the user. Seems to me that FB is able to be way more invasive.
      • malvosenior 7y ago
        Do you not consider Gmail data posted voluntarily by the user? How about search queries or calendar entries?
        • 7y ago
  • pan_peter 7y ago
    Social networks live by the sword of voyeurism and die by the sword of voyeurism. This is not something Google has to worry about.
  • walls 7y ago
    Google has your data and uses it for themselves. Facebook has your data and gives it (or leaks it) to anyone with money.
    • 55555 7y ago
      They both sell ads and offer advanced targeting options. Very similar businesses.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • jonny_eh 7y ago
        Facebook didn't get in hot water for selling ads.
    • JohnFen 7y ago
      Google and Facebook are exactly the same on this score. They both collect as much data about you as they can get their grubby paws on, they both use that data for themselves, and they both allow others to leverage that data in exchange for cash.
  • fromthestart 7y ago
    Has there been any evidence of abuse and misdirection on the part of Google at the same level as Facebook? This is more than just negative press, this is a question of how data collection has been misused, and what lies executives have told about current and future plans surrounding privacy and data abuse. But, personally, I'm staying away from FB, Google, Amazon, Snapchat, et al for the reasons you've mentioned; negative press or no, I cannot ethically work for companies that are haphazardly building the foundations of a potential technocratic dystopia in their chase for profitability.
  • GCA10 7y ago
    Google makes a lot of genuinely useful products and services. We've all got to wrestle with the privacy tradeoffs of "free" maps, "free" email, "free" Android, etc. But at least the satisfaction of using well-built tools to accomplish more is enough of an offset to many people. Facebook is much more likely to be seen as a guilty pleasure, or a marvelous time-waster, or something else that's a bit farther down the utility curve.
    • citrablue 7y ago
      Perhaps in some countries/demos. I'd bet Instagram and WhatsApp for free, basic communication are seen as much higher utility in a significant amount of the global population.
      • Vinnl 7y ago
        But much of that utility comes from the fact that everyone uses it, rather than some inherent quality of the product, like is the case for Maps. Feeling somewhat "forced" to use it does not help with a positive view of the company.
      • screye 7y ago
        > Instagram Don't see its utility. It is a proper time waste. > Whatsapp It is indeed the most popular, but isn't unique in what it offers. Many others do what whatsapp does just as well, but none have the number of users.
    • saagarjha 7y ago
      Facebook makes products that many people find genuinely useful, it just makes fewer of them.
  • _bxg1 7y ago
    Google collects more data, but they're much less free-wheeling with how they share it around. Pick your poison I guess.
    • JohnFen 7y ago
      I pick neither. This whole debate about who is worse, Google or Facebook, is a bit ridiculous. They're both unacceptably awful, and practically speaking I don't think it matters which is more awful than the other.
  • JohnFen 7y ago
    > google is a bigger concern for privacy and personal liberty I disagree. I think that on the whole, they're both about the same. But in terms of integrity, honesty, and ethics, Google has a (small) lead on Facebook.
• Balgair 7y ago
  There is also an issue with the 'evaporative' effect. If no one who works there is seen as 'ethical', then you'd expect the people that do work there to be unethical/dubious. So, trying to get a promotion is then more cut-throat, the lunch crew has a few more 'jerks', the HR is a bit more biting, etc. Your hackels get raised and you are more suspicious of the motivations (however begnin) of others. Better to just not get involved.
  • taurath 7y ago
    Sheryl hired the swiftboat campaigners to stop Congress. Finding out about that made me assume that over time most of their employees would trend in the opposite direction of optimistic.
    • Despegar 7y ago
      I wonder if the exec team realizes that the ad-tech industry had their Great Financial Crisis. Nobody is in love with them anymore. They'll get as much reception from politicians as Wall Street did when Congress passed Dodd-Frank. Banks don't earn much more than their cost of capital anymore.
      • tomrod 7y ago
        > Banks don't earn much more than their cost of capital anymore. This doesn't sound right. Can you add some citation or detail?
        • dmoy 7y ago
          It isn't right. The majority of banks are profitable, the industry is somewhere around $200B/year of profit (I think that's just retail banking, not including brokerages and stuff). This is historically high.
        • Despegar 7y ago
          Goldman Sachs's return on equity used to average 20-30% before the crisis. Now a decade after the crisis they're glad to be doing more than 10%. https://i.imgur.com/gtE05WX.png https://i.imgur.com/gtE05WX.png
• tanilama 7y ago
  It is not only ethnical. With SO much negative press, I feel that Facebook had lost its mission among wider public. If it is net bad for the society, even just the perception of it, it is hard to hire someone who shared that vision with you, only mercenaries. Good people are weird, though. They work for money, like everyone else, but not just money.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• zjaffee 7y ago
  I agree with everything you've said until the last part. Google is only marginally better than fb when it comes to some of these issues of privacy. The issue people have with facebook is that it has a reputation for being a pressure cooker.
  • hinkley 7y ago
    In other words, Facebook now has no redeeming qualities. I've gotten a bunch of pings from them over the last few months, and I just chuckle, say "hahahano", delete it and move on. I don't know if it's a coincidence that the pings happened after the scandal or if they have gotten into 'look under every rock' mode.
    • jboles 7y ago
      I think it is the latter. All the pings I see now are so mundane and banal (most of mine are friend suggestions for people I’ve never met). They really must be scraping the metaphorical bottom of the barrel.
• bradlys 7y ago
  And, yet, here in the bay - my company (a startup) sent out two offers to candidates quite recently and they both went to FB instead. There is no shortage of people joining FB because there's no shortage of people wanting to join a big company. Maybe if they're all comparing offers between big companies then they'll join some other big co but if the difference is startup vs Facebook... FB wins.
  • swivelmaster 7y ago
    Are you offering a competitive salary?
    • bradlys 7y ago
      I mean... does any startup when compared to FAANG? Salaries are basically the same but the total compensation is, obviously, wildly different since expected value for startup stock is horrible.
      • swivelmaster 7y ago
        Facebook is offering new CS grads from top schools $180k+ a year plus $30k+ signing bonus. That's cash. Most startups can't afford that unless they are very well funded.
        • bradlys 7y ago
          $180k salary? I know they offer some ridiculous numbers for top candidates but that seems high for any new grad. That'd push them near $250k with stock.
        • screye 7y ago
          Levels.fyi seems to disagree See here : https://www.levels.fyi/salary/Facebook/SE/E3/ https://www.levels.fyi/salary/Facebook/SE/E3/ It is closer to a 155K + signing Bonus.
          • 7y ago
• telltruth 7y ago
  > It's no wonder the substantial portion of people who care about their employer's ethics are turned off Nope. People who I know have turned down FB offer was purely because they see them as less stable company and have doubts if their stock will keep falling. No one wants to wake up a month later to find out that their signing bonus just got reduced by 10% due to bad news cycle. I would estimate that less than 10% of people turn down employer due to privacy related ethics. Also, on side note, FB has jacked up stock bonuses for existing employees. Their attrition rate is virtually unaffected despite of all the bad news.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• filoleg 7y ago
  Anecdotal, but in the past year, I had tons of recruiters from Google/Amazon/etc. knocking on my LinkedIn box. However, not a single one from Facebook. Maybe they just simply didn’t fund recruiting efforts as much as the other tech companies or weren’t hiring as aggressively.
  • taurath 7y ago
    Plenty from FB here, to add another anecdote.
  • JohnFen 7y ago
    One of the (many) things that pleased me about deleting my LinkedIn account was that I no longer routinely heard from the likes of Google/Amazon/Facebook.
• elgenie 7y ago
  IIRC, Google places a much higher emphasis on making counteroffers in the first place, as well as making those counteroffers hard to refuse.
  • tudelo 7y ago
    Definitely not true.
• sizzle 7y ago
  In my experience, Facebook used to be a cool thing to be on when you were documenting college party shenanigans and sharing pictures with friends, before it reached mass adoption to the point that your parents/grandparents were trying to add you as a friend. This was a time when organizing/sharing pictures with friends digitally was not a straightforward process. I've come to terms with a simple fact of life that after graduating, it gets harder to make friends as you get older and start to settle down away from your college towns. Most of the acquaintances I've added on Facebook might as well not exist as we don't talk offline and my core circle of friends communicate over imessage/sms or various chat apps and we try to make time to see each other, further cementing our friendships offline. Another thing that bothers me about Facebook since I first joined around the time a .edu ending email address was required (I think?), is that everytime I visit the site the new interface and feature bloat makes it feel less and less like what made it dead simple to connect with people back in earlier times. The current experience for me consists of a noisy ad infested newsfeed, ultra-optimized to inject itself straight into your brain's reward center with statistically significant A/B tested precision and autoplaying clickbait media nonsense, all while functioning as an echo-chamber for long-lost acquaintance's political outrage spam. I wonder if people from my age cohort feel similar cognitive dissonance and that's why Facebook isn't even on their mind career wise, cause it's like an ancient digital museum that houses dusty pictures from their younger years and has long been replaced by Instagram. Anyone out there relate?
  • scrape_it 7y ago
    you are not alone and I can definitely relate. 12 years ago FB was such a different place as I remember it. It was thriving and everybody was having a good time on it. I recently joined Facebook again for my small side biz and immediately I get Friend Adds from Korean call girls and weird chinese gambling sites. It's great that a province in India likes my content so much but not exactly a target market. Then I get weird messages from people telling me about their life situation. What's most striking is the seemingly absent moderation, its like sometime in the past 12 years, theres nobody at the driver wheel, that "vacancy" despite the huge number of people on the platform, feels so familiar, literally the exact same vibe I got from MySpace, then it hit me, Facebook has been in MySpace stage for at least a year. In addition, the political image of FB and Mark Cuckerberg has certainly taken a nose dive. I can't believe he still thinks people are going to vote for him. It's arrogance, and the organizations are largely a reflection of its founders, and it shows. Tl;dr: joined FB as a small biz, gets immediately spammed, reminded of MySpace.
• amelius 7y ago
  > It's telling that a substantial portion of our candidates admitted to considering competing offers from Google, but literally no one was considering Facebook. Perhaps they were ashamed to admit it (?)
• krageon 7y ago
  > one of the things candidates respond to most is the story we tell about our company's past, present, and future I hear this storyline fairly often (though exclusively from corporate recruiters) and I have a super hard time understanding why this would matter. Can someone who actually listens to this kind of (IMO) propaganda weigh in and help me understand why it matters to them?
  • JohnFen 7y ago
    It matters to the same degree (and for the same reasons) as any other marketing pitch matters.
  • ck425 7y ago
    It matters in terms of internal opportunities to advance. Say your one of the first data science or product people in a fast growing company, that's a lot of potential opportunity for someone ambitious and self driven. It also matters in terms of how good will this look on my CV/the story I can tell later. I joined a now well established and fast growing tech company as employee no 267, we're now at ~1200. That looks great on my CV or in an interview where if I talk about scaling issues (both technical and cultural) they'll likely believe me.
• stubish 7y ago
  There was a time when recruiters would put on a sheepish and embarrassed-to-bring-it-up look when mentioning the higher paying jobs they had for tobacco companies. Paid more, but few wanted the social stigma, even if their personal ethics were OK with it.