Shortly before a somber video call with tens of thousands of employees on Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg hosted a smaller call with managers at Meta.
The Facebook parent company had just laid-off around 11,000 employees, 13% of its workforce, in the first major mass layoff in its 18-year history.
Citing slower user and revenue growth, and lavish spending on Zuckerberg's vision for the "metaverse," employees had been bracing for cuts for months. Still, some managers and directors felt blindsided by the company's new cost-cutting plans.
The manager-only Zoom call was billed as providing more information on the layoffs, but Zuckerberg hewed closely to the text of a company-wide email announcing the move. The 38-year-old founder and CEO said the "macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss" had more negatively impacted Facebook's business than expected, one person who listened to the call said.
Zuckerberg fielded questions from managers asking how laid-off employees were chosen and how long the plan had been in the works. They did not receive clear answers, the attendee said. While some attendees were "just relieved" the layoffs were over quickly, others are angry.
"It doesn't seem like any managers were consulted," another person on the call said. "Those who had teams impacted are upset."
Thousands of shell-shocked employees are also asking questions, as they try to ascertain what parts of the company were impacted, and come to terms with one of the most dramatic upheavals in the company's history.
There's no clear breakdown of who was impacted
Meta's internal Workplace tool called Quitter tracks attrition at the company, giving workers a day-by-day peak into departures at the firm.
On Wednesday, the company abruptly shut down access to the tool, a person familiar with the company said. Thus, workers have been left largely on their own to figure out who has been let go, and which divisions are most impacted.
Zuckerberg's company-wide email said, "every organization across both Family of Apps and Reality Labs" was impacted by layoffs, noting recruiting and business teams were seeing even deeper cuts. Individual employees received notes on whether their job was impacted, prior to one-on-one meetings with managers about what was next. "Right now, most people in the company don't know who has been laid off unless they've directly spoken to someone," one current employee said. "It's not really public knowledge."
Aside from the managers-only call, Zuckerberg held two other mass calls on Wednesday. One was an all-hands meeting with those who survived the cull, and another was with those who did not. Zuckerberg did not answer questions during either call, sources who attended meetings said, and largely stuck to the script of his prior, company-wide email.
The cuts are wide-ranging: Product marketing managers (PMMs) on content partnerships and data scientists have also been let go, along with some workers in compliance, governance, and global insights. Employees at Facebook and Instagram were cut, with the latter seeing a significant cut to those working on Reels partnerships.
The short-form video product and TikTok clone had been called out repeatedly by Zuckerberg as a growth driver, but a laid-off worker estimated as much as 70% of product marketing managers for Reels were let go.
"Honestly I'm more shocked than anything," the person said. "It was pretty much a PMM and 'Business Team' bloodbath."
Engineers and engineering managers were also laid-off, two people familiar with the cuts said, including in Reality Labs, the division responsible for building Zuckerberg's vision for the metaverse. One of the people familiar estimated that 10% of Meta's engineers were let go. Vice presidents, directors, and many team managers were laid-off, too.
As much as 98% of at least one recruiting team at the company was cut, according to a private message seen by Insider. Many recruiters had been bracing for layoffs after Meta first instituted a broad hiring freeze in early May 2022 — ultimately the scale of the cuts was still shocking. "Eleven thousand people? No, I didn't think it would be that many," one former recruiter said. "It took very poor leadership and mismanagement to get us in this position."
Despite new performance mandates of "increased intensity" and a call for directors to cull 15% of their bottom performers, four people laid off said performance was not always a deciding factor in who lost their job. "Many higher performers who were 'exceeding expectations' or 'rewriting expectations' were let go," one laid-off worker said, referring to the highest performance grades at the company.
Employees are shocked — and some are angry
Many employees were shocked by the scale of layoffs, even if they were expecting some headcount reduction.
"People really didn't expect layoffs at that scale, even after the news," a spared employee said. "Going above 10,000 was definitely more than I had in mind, and more than people had in mind."
Tempers are now running high among fired workers. "Class act as always," one departing employee said sarcastically of Zuckerberg's call for laid-off workers. "Least it was on brand." Another person who was impacted said "I couldn't even bring myself to log in," while a third person said they didn't feel the need to hear from Zuckerberg as they processed the news.
Some are questioning whether Zuckerberg's focus on virtual and augmented reality "metaverse" technology contributed to the painful reduction. "I certainly feel negatively towards him, and I'm sure many more people feel the same," an impacted worker said. "There's too much focus on metaverse and Reality Labs."
A Facebook spokesman declined to comment.
The sentiment among some remaining workers is more forgiving. Zuckerberg "clearly appeared emotional" addressing the remaining employees, a worker on the call said. "I could hear his voice crack a little bit when he talked about it," they added.
Another said he seemed "genuine" in how he took responsibility for the layoffs, and acknowledged being "overoptimistic" and "wrong" about growth trends.
A former executive who left prior to the layoffs said the situation is "very painful" for employees, and said the company had experienced significant "bloat." Meta had added 15,000 employees since the end of 2021, according to corporate filings.
"It's not the employees' fault," the former executive said. "Really the incentives were wrong for 'lean times' and here we are."
Workers are trying to help each other through this
Employees past and present are turning to one another for support.
Workers are offering help on everything from job prospects to guidance on what international workers on work visas should expect, as well as basic information about who was let go.
In a now-deleted Slack group for former employees, members shared what department they were in before being let go.
Laid-off workers also turned to LinkedIn by the hundreds, posting to commemorate the end of their time at the company and advertise their availability for new work.
Others turned to apps like Fishbowl and Bind, both anonymous work-focused social networks, to chat. Rumors and questions swirled in such forums since The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday the cuts were imminent.
Workers discussed whether senior roles were at risk, shared intel on which divisions were impacted, and commiserated over the shock of waking up on Wednesday to find themselves locked out of work tools.
"At the end of the day, this is just a job — hug your kids, call your mum, go outside and touch grass," one Fishbowl user urged.
Times are a-changing at Meta
Meta's layoffs are part of an unprecedented wave of cost-cutting throughout the technology industry.
Stripe, Lyft, and dozens more companies have shed thousands of jobs in recent weeks, as they face increased costs, sustained inflation, and the threat of an economic crunch.
Wall Street has cheered on Zuckerberg's actions, with shares of Meta rising 5% on Wednesday on the news. Analysts at Jefferies called it a "Zuck U-Turn" in a research note to clients, saying the job cuts will boost profits while not impacting Meta's growth trajectory. Mark Mahaney, a longtime internet analyst at Evercore ISI, called it "the biggest two-week pivot we've ever seen."
As recently as October, Zuckerberg was adamant that costs would grow, as would Reality Labs' losses — prompting an investor revolt and plunge in share price to a seven-year low. Asked about the stock drop on a call with employees the following day, the CEO acknowledged "investors are demanding more action" by the company, without providing specifics.
On Wednesday, he explained his new frugal outlook included shrinking Facebook's office footprint, requiring workers to share desks, as perks and travel are being dialed back. And more austerity measures are on the way. "This will add up to a meaningful cultural shift in how we operate," Zuckerberg told remaining employees.
Some layoff survivors, while grateful to still have a job, are already grumbling and joking about having to "schedule office time" to secure a desk, and wondering what else they may lose.
"Will the snacks be taken away?" one worker wondered.
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