They are surfacing it in a weaselly way which absolves them of personal responsibility.
In reality, they approved the strategic direction of the company and signed off on the outrageous hiring plans. They were responsible for fostering a culture of execution and measuring the results of their teams. They were responsible for ensuring their investments were paying off.
Instead of messaging that "As CEO, we did not invest in the correct strategic direction of the company with the associated supporting culture to execute on our plans and as a result need to re-calibrate our investments" - they instead say "Too many employees aren't working, it's all the fault of the low performers!" or a variation of that message.
I heard from former, recently departed Facebookers that their standards for hiring dropped quite a bit during the pandemic.
If I had to guess why Zuck isn't happy, it's that the new hires plus the increased organisational bloat of such a massive amount of new hires didn't materalize into spreadsheet numbers that looked good.
Any idea why these companies all ballooned in size so much during the pandemic? Was it purely about more time spent online = more money = more hiring or was there some actual strategy behind it?
That seems like a red herring given the amount of expansion that FB has had - DEI or no DEI, doubling your headcount is going to result in a quality drop
I'm not sure how you expect the process to go? As the CEO of a big company you aren't personally involved in hiring or managing line engineers. Your input is to tell underlings to tell their underlings to hire more or work more or whatnot. Feedback is just as slow moving up the chain.
The CEO may not be involved in hiring line engineers sure, but the buck still stops with the CEO. The least they can do is be sensitive in messaging. "Some of you don't belong here" just comes across as crass and insensitive. Given how FB is doing may be Zuck himself doesn't belong there anymore? Did he think about that before making the comment?
In reality, they approved the strategic direction of the company and signed off on the outrageous hiring plans. They were responsible for fostering a culture of execution and measuring the results of their teams. They were responsible for ensuring their investments were paying off.
Instead of messaging that "As CEO, we did not invest in the correct strategic direction of the company with the associated supporting culture to execute on our plans and as a result need to re-calibrate our investments" - they instead say "Too many employees aren't working, it's all the fault of the low performers!" or a variation of that message.