It's not that simple or easy. Many of these guys are giving up tends of thousands of dollars in benefits (stock options/ bonuses). Also, the assumption that everyone with a good paying job at Facebook is going to be able to quickly pick up a comparable job in a short amount of time is a huge stretch.

Ultimately developers leaving and people refusing to work for Facebook, drive up Facebook's costs and speaks to their management in the only language Facebook management seems to understand: Profitability.

It's not really a huge stretch, his post on LinkedIn [0] has 200K+ reactions, and it's an understatement to say he'll have no trouble _at all_ getting a job within a few weeks.

[0]: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/timothy-j-aveni_blacklivesmat...

I woudn't be so sure, not at FANG anyway. Those public stunts are no go for most big compagnies.

One more data point that no one with self-respect could work at a FAANG company?

That’s great. In that case, I encourage more Facebook employees to vote with their feet (before voting with their ballot paper in November of course).

Google and Amazon won't touch him with a barge pole, considering how many problems they already have with internal dissent. I'm sure he'll find something, but it might well be less cushy than the big-co job. It is a sacrifice. Not everyone can be like St. Francis, but a sacrifice is a sacrifice.

I think he's doing the right thing and I wish more people could feel like they are in a position of walking the walk, every day.

You're making the assumption that he knew what the reaction would be. The post could have easily gone ignored, especially in the current turmoil.

I agree that software developers have it pretty good. But let's not, on that basis, discount acts of moral integrity.

Not really, given the left bias of technology companies there is zero chance that his act will be ignored by companies. If anything, standing behind free speech is brave nowadays

If nothing works he can probably open a gofundme campaign.

This might be overly cynical, but it might be possible that he was already thinking about leaving his job, and now found an excuse to do it in a way that potentially gets him more LinkedIn profile views and thus a better next job (he does end his message with advertising himself)

This is overly cynical and also quite far fetched.

Is it though? Let's do the math:

Number of Facebook employees: about 45k. Let's say half of them work in the US (20k). Let's assume people tand to stay at a job for 5 years on average and think about leaving for 6 months before they leave. That means there are 2000 Facebook employees thinking about leaving right now.

Now, what is the probablity that if someone is already thinking about leaving they would take advantage of this situation? Let's give Facebook employees the benefit of the doubt and say that only 1% of them would do such a thing. That means we should expect to hear from about 20 Facebook emloyees making socal media and LinkedIn posts about them leaving Facebook citing policy as a reason while just taking advantage of the situation. Is it really far fetched to say that this guy could be one of them? If anything I would expect 19 more posts like this!

This is obviously too complex for a quick calculation of that sort. This is not really something that math can enlighten. You’re conjecturing out of a bias towards the negative. We simply have no access to his mind, and the information that we have barely justify exploring the possibility of bad faith. In other words: you’re being cynical.

> Also, the assumption that everyone with a good paying job at Facebook is going to be able to quickly pick up a comparable job in a short amount of time is a huge stretch.

Especially since at some companies such a public statement can put you on a no-hire list. Some companies avoid potential "trouble makers" or avoid hiring, which might be interpreted as making a point.

Still risk of high total loss is quite low for individuals from FAANG companies.

Of course it is. Arguably the people with that privilege should have more obligation to exercise it in the service of what’s right.

Listening to that argument is a clear “catch 22”. If he quits his job, it’s not much of a stance but obviously staying is not a stance either. What was he supposed to do? I think that in a capitalist country we choose who we buy from and who we work for. These are two powerful choices that can shape society. He’s doing the right thing.

> He’s doing the right thing.

He worked at Facebook, let's not get carried away.

Working at Facebook and then leaving because of the non-intervention wrt to the President is a bit like manufacturing landmines quite happily, but having a change of heart because you saw a dog stepping on one. You've still been manufacturing landmines all that time, making money and not giving a damn.

Beating people up for not having your morals is not a great way to get them on your side.

Facebook has been on my list of companies not to work at for a long time, but I have friends who work there. Accepting that other people value different things and being willing to interact with them on a basic, human level is a lot more likely to build bridges and lead to constructive conversation about important matters down the road than casting people aside because they don't conform to your worldview today.

I'll grant you that Facebook, among others, enables exactly the sort of thing I'm advocating against. I'll grant you that it seems to promote people yelling at each other over the internet instead of building the relationships that enable difficult conversations in time. And I'll grant you that they do it to sell ads for shit we mostly don't need.

But that doesn't make everybody who works there bad, and it doesn't mean that people who decide that continuing to work there is no longer consistent with their values should be equated with merchants of death when they publicly leave.

You're castigating somebody for voting with their feet, but presumably mostly because they didn't do it as soon as you did.

> You're castigating somebody for voting with their feet, but presumably mostly because they didn't do it as soon as you did.

No. I'm saying they did always vote with their feet. And "get money, fuck society" was the vote they cast.

Facebook isn't the army, there is no draft, they had and have plenty of other options. It's greed and a general feeling of superiority that sees the general population the same way the owners of factory farms see pigs.

That analogy does not work though. Landmine's sole purpose is to kill/injure whoever steps on it. I don't use Facebook much, but plenty of people have benefited from it.

Instead of personal cost to him, I'd rather view it through the lenses of the impact of his action. It's inviting a lot of constructive conversation and making people re-evaluate Mark's decisions, which I think overall is a net positive.

> I don't use Facebook much, but plenty of people have benefited from it.

Namely those who hold stock options or who used it to hyper target unsuspecting fools and scam them.

> Instead of personal cost to him, I'd rather view it through the lenses of the impact of his action.

Let's. The "constructive conversation" has been going on already. This doesn't move the needle on that conversation, it's not one with a lot of grey area where the world is on the fence. This is great - for him. But not much else.

> Namely those who hold stock options

Oh sure those too. But small businesses benefit from it immensely, e.g using fb live and fb groups to connect with their customers for example.

> Let's. The "constructive conversation" has been going on already. This doesn't move the needle on that conversation, it's not one with a lot of grey area where the world is on the fence. This is great - for him. But not much else.

If that's the case, what do you think he should have done, or we should have done?

> obviously staying is not a stance either

This is not obvious to me.

I think the suggestion here is: if you are in a position to leave your job, and you do not, then than is implicit support for your employer.

I might even say explicit support. After all, how better to support a company than directly working for them? In some business models you're probably generating more value for the company working for them than you would as a customer.

Ah sorry, I think I parsed this wrong. I thought it meant "no stance" instead of "not much of a stance".

Whilst his stance is to be applauded, it lessens the value of the stance given that he’s not sacrificing much and won’t suffer for his cause.

Doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do, just that it would carry more weight if he was leaving to go work at Burger King. Then you’d say “man that guy stands tall”.

Edit: Ok reasonable criticism, I’ll withdraw.

He would stand even taller if while he was quitting Facebook, he was running in to a burning building to save a child. Of course, while saving a child is to be applauded, it lessens the value of his stance that he's not also saving 10,000 from starvation. Of course, that would be nothing next to achieving world peace while eliminating corruption in every government in the world. I'm not saying he shouldn't quit Facebook over his convictions, it's just that it would be awfully nice if he solved every global problem and then was crucified on an actual cross for doing it on the way out.

While there's no proof of life on other planets, there's equally no proof there's not, and it might be suffering terribly and frankly I don't see this guy doing anything about that either.

Until he does it's just virtue signalling.

(yeah, I don't get some people either)

Public resignations are an honorable form of protest. There is probably some consequence for doing so publicly, but suffering isn’t a requirement.

Resigning isn’t about sacrifice to the volcano god, and if that is what you’re looking for, you are not the audience.

Wouldn't you say that a society that only places high value on taking a stance if that comes at great personal cost will probably not find too many people willing to take a stance?

Currently he's leaving his ~250k job with no other job lined up. I don't think it lessens the value of his stance at all.

Yeah, he might have to move away from the west coast and live like a king on whatever scraps he saved.

I think you have to measure these things (if at all) by the person's own context, not by external comparisons.

It reminds me of the old joke about the skinflint who accidentally put a pound in the collection plate instead of a shilling. "Oh well", he says, "I'll get credit for the pound." The priest hears him and replies, "No, you'll get credit for the shilling."

I think that the idea that one must suffer to be valid is a way to ensure that no radical transformations of society take place, because in such a culture the most radical people can only be validated by dying.

So it would be more valuable if a janitor quit their job at Facebook than if a developer quit?

Only if the janitor was clearing 250k at Facebook. OP’s idea is sacrificing a high paying job that isn’t easy for you to replace.

Facebook loses much more money with this employee's departure (if their salary is indeed 250k like you're claiming) -- the cost of recruiting, training, and keeping employees is incredibly high, especially in tech.

Now imagine that OP inspires 100 employees quit -- now Facebook has a problem that it must address, because it's threatening their bottom line.

>it lessens the value of the stance given that he’s not sacrificing much and won’t suffer for his cause.

You are literally the only person who thinks this.

> Not judging this way or that, just saying.

Simply adding this to your post doesn't make it true. Clearly you've judged it to not be as valuable of an act as it could have been.

Not saying you're being dismisve, just saying.

I respect the privileged for speaking out. They are the ones that often can affect change and have their voices heard. A packaging employee at an Amazon warehouse quitting over principles isn't a blip on the radar. When the VP does it and explicitly makes the argument on why he's leaving, Bezos hears and takes notice. He might not change anything, but he hears.

I look at it a little differently. The point is not to make some noble sacrifice, but to actually try and create actual substantive change. I would imagine that Facebook, like all tech companies, cares A LOT about their ability to recruit and retain talent. So if their employees start resigning and talented engineers are averse to work at Facebook then that will absolutely be something that FB tries to solve.

To be fair, it doesn't sound like he has another job lined up. There's no guarantee his next job will pay that well.

With the amount of fame he is getting with this post, I would be surprised if he did not receive 30+ offers that pays well yet.

Edit: Of course, the big 5 (FAANG) will not touch him even with a 10 meter pole, but there are other places also pays well.

If one of the five wanted to kick FB butt in the future, they happily will.

Why would a they need an outspoken Dev with 1 year of total work experience to kick butt?

Exactly, this guy is getting enough traction on linkedin and facebook as well. His inbox would be flooding with invites for interviews right now.

Reading this most charitably, the implication seems to be that his action _isn't enough_.

That he should also devote his efforts full time to combating the problems he speaks about for less compensation, or donate the excess compensation to related causes, otherwise the action is unworthy.

These are restatements of classic utilitarian dilemmas, as stated by, among many others, Peter Singer[0].

"In a society in which the narrow pursuit of material self-interest is the norm, the shift to an ethical stance is more radical than many people realize."

[0] https://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/199704--.htm

It's a highly-privileged position to be in to make vapid comments HN, but here we are.

he's a "Software Engineer" at facebook. He's not even a "Senior Software Engineer" He is NOT making 250k and he likely lives _near_ facebook which means _most_ of his money is going directly into housing. There are a LOT of people working what is normally considered a high income job in the bay area and living out of their vans because that's the only way they can actually have any money left over at the end of the month.

Yes, he's a privileged white male and will likely get a job offer soon, but that doesn't mean he's rolling in cash. Also, take a look at average salaries. Devs don't make $250,000 in the US unless they've got some really high profile public backstory.

You are extremely out of touch with actual bay area compensation for big companies. I made more than 250K total comp as a senior eng at Google in 2015.

The average facebook dev in the Bay area with 0 years of experience starts over 180. The average FAANG dev hits 250K around 3-4 years of total industry experience.

180K total comp or yearly before-taxes salary or ...?

Total comp. You don't get to 180K salary (at least at Google) till you're L5 (Senior).

> Devs don't make $250,000 in the US unless they've got some really high profile public backstory.

In my experience, this is VERY far from accurate in high-paying markets like Seattle and the Bay Area

Levels.fyi disagrees with you

Maybe not 250K salary, but with bonuses and equity, absolutely you can get there.

Imagine the damage to the business for not having someone creating more than $250k of value annually.

Of course at Facebook's scale it's a small number, but given the damage to their reputation, they will have to take note once this crosses critical mass.

Unless he was in a very unusual position of leading some kind of research project related to Facebook's core business, there will be close to no damage. It's a huge corporation, not a bootstrapped startup, everyone is highly replaceable.

Luckily, he made a very public post about it which is currently being discussed in one of the most influential tech news aggregators on the internet. If others are inspired and also leave the company, it will make an impact.

Unless you know some specifics that is not public, he would be leaving significant money on the table. That is, financially sacrificing. If a portion of salary is paid as RSU, that portion would have unvested portions carried over from prior years. My best guess would be that he is losing at least $50k until he closes the gap in about 2 to 3 years at the new job. of course the new job could pay him lot more, I am not ruling that out.

Give him credit for what he did. He is losing a lot more than us armchair pundits.

Don't forget we are in the middle of a pandemic, it's not the easiest time to find a job.

Also I don't think it ads much to the conversation to try to minimize someones sacrifice, you don't know their personal situation, and even if its not that hard on them personally who cares, it's still a principled stand of where to invest ones time and energy.

Agreed.

I don’t think that’s their fault, I’m happy they=’re leaving, but the people commenting and upvoting these threads should question how much attention this one person deserves. There are people working jobs in far worse conditions with far worse bosses we never hear about.

Not sure I agree with the premise that this has to be only or primarily about how much this guy deserves the attention.

Maybe the goal of praising him isn't to make his life better but is instead to encourage other people to also stand up for what they believe in.

Or maybe it's to contrast him with other people who are in a similar position of privilege (and feel the same about Zuckerberg's lack of action) but chose not to sacrifice anything at all for their principles.

I think it's still a respectable sacrifice. a) There's often an emotional toll to looking for a new position, b) even if the job search only takes a month, that's 250/12 = $20k of a financial hit, which is not a trivial loss.

> Not judging this way or that

I can’t help but think this actually is a judgement.

“Just saying” is judging. The anxiety created by his move is real. At the same time we can accept that other people are in a worse financial situation.

Certainly sounds like making a judgement. That taking a moral stance has a different values based on one's socioeconomic position.

Leaving your job in the middle of an recession/depression is scary for anyone.

People with this level of income could also manage to support 3 or 4 others with UBI. Not saying one person making a moral stand is bad, but economically hundreds of thousands of FAANGers could make a humongous impact.

it's much more than most people have done and having the skills to be payed $250,000 is not a privilege. you don't wake up one day knowing how to code it'a a lot of work.

>having the skills to be payed $250,000 is not a privilege

It is privilege having a stable life to get there, but we're calling out this dude's privilege like he's Jeff Bezos throwing a million dollar coin to a witcher.

It's definitely a sacrifice to quit a nice job during a pandemic and nationwide riots.

It's a privilege when it is relatively accessible to some and not to others. Given that it's much easier for a kid in the Western hemisphere to learn coding than for a poor kid in a remote village in Bangladesh, it is a privilege for the former that the latter doesn't have.

I come from a poor country, I was selling shoes since the age of 13 to be able to pay for my school books, now I have a 100k job ... I didn't get here because I was privileged, I worked my ass off. was I lucky? yes but not privileged.

The other people back in your country of origin who didn’t make it because of physical or mental illness, lack of opportunities you may have had, bad turns of fate, etc —- would you not think of them as even less privileged than yourself?

TIL everyone is privileged now

- Have two eyes? what about the blind - Can you speak english? What about those that never had the opportunity to learn - Are you alive ? What about those that passed away

The judgement never ends

The "logic" behind this concept of privilege as often applied within HN does not add up.

For who has the privilege of judging others privilege and where does it end?

There are a lot of things that are even more work but don't pay nearly as much. It's a privilege. I consider myself lucky to be born in a time where what I like to do (programming) aligns with what pays well. This will not last forever.

True. Most likely he was well educated and taught skills that enhanced his ability to work hard in a stable enviroment.

Likely, yes. But we know nothing about his background so it's also quite unfair to assume anything.

Maybe you are working in the job of your life at FB and leaving to a less stimulant job.

Imagine if all the people that are in a privileged position just say "fuck it, let's do something about it" how life would be better for all.

No one is going to hire him.

No large company will touch this kid with a 10 ft pole, all that messaging that they want disrupters is media hogwash. He is burnt, pure and simple

"“If you keep in mind that he is what I refer to as a corrupt idealist, then you can be assured that he will move mountains for you.” The green-eyed man laughed. “Okay, that’s a new Americanism on me. What the hell do you mean by a corrupt idealist?” Claude folded his hands. “That’s a person who will do everything he can to make something happen when he is convinced that he is working for the good of the many, while managing to ignore the fact that he is being paid handsomely for his work while his countrymen suffer in poverty.” “In other words, your typical non-governmental organization type,” Park Dong Woo said. Claude winced. “I suppose so. I expect that Ritesh would fit right in working for one of those NGOs, except they don’t pay enough.” “Fortunately, we can, if he is up to the task.”"

Excerpt From: J. Lee Porter. “Crypto Citizens.”

Don't have any commentary on the substance of this quote, but man that is some terrible writing.

Absolutely. It's practically unreadable.

I'm calling total BS. He should stay to change the system from within. Total waste of hard work to give up now. This is a knee jerk reaction and the poor lamb is going to live to regret it.

I'm surprised they didn't have him out on his ass the same day and gave him a whole extra week to potentially sabotage the systems.

Edit:

OK fine. I agree it's totally an uphill struggle and in all fairness it's one we're all fighting. It's one man versus a sea of apathy where all the incentives are geared towards productivity at all costs and bitter disempowerment and ostracism for anyone that steps out of line.

I were him I'd go hardcore until they actually fired me i.e. make it hard for them rather than take a gallant bow -- how's that for starters?

Whatever happened to fighting for what you believe in? How can you leave all your hard work in the hands of people you no longer trust?

I've actually gone all the way up and been fired by a roomful of directors and a vice president for calling out bullshit agile theatre.

Part of it rests on everyone's shoulders because I know for sure a lot of people reading this thread right now would jump at the chance to take his place, struggle be damned.

Look at what happens to anyone that expresses a dissenting opinion I'd like to see more downvotes just to make sure I'm on the right side of this issue.

How many times have people at these companies tried to "manage up" from within and it didn't work? I honestly lost count by now. This will continue as long as there are enablers on the other side who keep offering to foot the bill in exchange for the lion's share of management's attention. I see this quite often. As a rank-and-file employee, there comes a point where a lot of people have to cut their losses and realize that, within whatever their current trajectory is, the chances of becoming a VP or C-level and making a real difference within a reasonable timeframe are slim. I wish it wasn't so, because as you can see, the only option in that situation is to quit.

Totally agree but there are many people there now who could use his help to fight for what they believe in. He's not just one guy trying to get some hair brained initiative passed.

Our problem is we seek acceptance and agreement too much and don't fight for what others believe in on principle.

We're all to blame but now we have one less person who can do anything about it. Look at the world from the outside in for once and quit suffering your blasted anecdoche.

How many times have they tried to manage up only to be hamstringed by their own peers?

The peers are all jockeying for the same limited number of promotions. I don't know what the solution is, but protesting won't resolve what is fundamentally a conflict of interest.

Or perhaps a misalignment of incentives

Clearly it's not working though? At some point you need to wake up and realize that efforts to "change the system from within" are futile.

Yea so he's moving to another company for more of the same hoping the issue will never come up again.

Can you advise us on how to change such systems from within?

Actually agile is supposed to be a disruptive process that enables upward change but we keep doing it all wrong squeezing features out our asses when we should be making organizational changes.

We should all know we're trying to change them and help each other, how else?

Tell me you've never tried and failed due to "politics" but have you ever stuck your neck out even a little?

Your last question seems like a personal attack which is against HN guidelines.

I was responding to your claim that it was illegitimate to quit in protest, and that people should stay and change organizations from within.

Given this belief, I assumed you might have some insight you have about how to do this effectively. Maybe even examples of when it has been done?

Oh c'mon when someone rage quits in protest these corporations have safeguards in place to prevent rogue actions. I'm surprised they didn't trigger a visit from the thought police given the high profile and instead let a potential bad actor remain on the premises a whole extra week?

And yes all our energies should be towards changing the organizations, as systems professionals, rather than competing on "look what I can do" while the world outside our gated communities crumbles.

Can you actually point to a success story in changing an organization from the inside?

It's already happening within Facebook this gallant lad falling on his own sword was an important motivator I'm sure

https://www.theverge.com/interface/2020/6/3/21278233/mark-zu...

Yes, it almost certainly is helping.

Being willing to walk away is fundamental bargaining tool.

If some people quit over an issue, it strengthens the bargaining position of those who stay behind.

Both tactics are required.

Can you quantify that?