Which makes his response read all that more hollow. Calling it a straw man? The post seems to have been an all out justification for immoral behavior by an executive. I can't imagine a Jr. Engineer or someone fresh out of college with their MA in Stats feeling super comfortable hopping in and going, "Hey this sound unethical and if people saw you saying it they would think we're hella fucked up." I'm relatively low-ranking at another big SV company and the thought of needing to stand up to a high ranking employee like that is more than a little intimidating.
And not just that, but to be expected to "contribute to a discussion" in such a way that all your coworkers can see. I think as somebody who takes objection to that memo I'd probably be more inclined look for alternative work.
That's good though. Boz already made the decision to prioritize connecting more people, despite the costs. He didn't have to tell his employees, but he did. This allows you to make the decision on whether it's worth staying at Facebook.
But I’d sure as hell take that situation over many others I’ve had where my only contact with execs is through occasional, content-free memos.
But yes, the people in power do tend to be heard more in internal debate. (Not necessarily just managers though. Good or controversial writers can also have a lot of influence.) And this does mean more soft-spoken people sometimes don't get an equal voice.
Online discussions are often more heat than light. I don't think internal discussion can be replaced by surveys, though? They're both useful.
There are also problems that equality doesn't fix. As the number of people scales up, the power of each person gets smaller. Filling out a survey when you know it's one of hundreds or thousands tends not to feel very empowering, or even a good use of your time.
They canned an employee for saying something unpopular they disagreed with.
The fact that this went such a different way says something. Maybe that something is "the cultures of Google and Facebook are so different it explains the discrepancy." But maybe it's "Facebook wanted to float this as an ethical trial balloon."
Basically this is the end of the tech world and all those people who used to join these firms because they believed tech would make the world a better place.
Now its going to be pretty much closed communication and minimal interaction internally. IF you have an issue, well tough balls, tech is no longer good for that - god forbid it shows up on HN. If it shows up on the media thats career suicide.
I suspect its probably time for HN to be shut down soon as well.
If he actually believed that stuff, it would be extraordinary scary. I don’t think he does.
Trolling is a terrible leadership technique.
Boz’s pieces over the last few years tend to fall into the “Strong opinions, weakly held” category. I also suspect he argues a point that is stronger in sentiment than he really believes, to help his message stand out.
He can’t come back and say he didn’t mean it. Besides, if he was trying to spark debate, doesn’t that mean he though my it was even potentially justifiable to use unethical practices to drive growth?
In my daily casual conversations with co-workers and friends, the topic is very rarely raised, and only to speculate why the timing of the issue seems to tied to a rise in conservative politics.
I'm not going to make any assertions about the intent of the meme because I don't know the context, but the logic expressed in the meme seems to have been their strategy already to me, from the outside.
Yes, and there were discussions internally about this. One could argue that the recent shift from promoting pages content to promoting your friends content might have been the result of that.
The post in full doesn't read at all like it was to stimulate discussion. It reads more like it was to silence dissent.
If you really wanted to stimulate discussion and gather employee views on this stuff, you'd send a survey round. But the relationship is still asymmetrical between boss and employee.
All you're doing when posting something like this semi-publicly is creating an environment where more quiet conscientious views get shouted down by the loudest voices.