I saw the video - didn’t see any problem. What did you think the problem was?

Metas real problem is TikTok, Apple and the cultural zeitgeist

> Metas real problem is TikTok

Yeah it was particularly funny that it was posted on Tiktok not Instagram.

Meta's real problem is Zuck.

I have no idea what she works on ... but surely at least some of Meta's product staff _ought_ to be regularly using TikTok both as consumers and creators, right? How could they attempt to compete without making an effort to understand why TikTok has been eating their lunch?

There has to be a balance though. I remember hearing (probably a HN comment) that all the UI designers in the Windows team at MS use Macs, which blew my mind, but also explained so much.

If you have people working on designing and improving a product who are ultimately not even willing to use it as a their daily driver, you get the kinda of disconnected mess that is that UI in Windows and the sometimes baffling decisions made.

Understanding it, doesn't mean obviously trying to become an influencer type on it. Did you really watch the video and see someone doing market research?

Yah, she even mentioned working during appropriate times; the video just showed the morning, lunch, and evening highlights.

I can't help but conclude that the problem is that it's presented by a young woman.

Surely it's not giving impression that employees don't actually work at the company, but sexism, right?

She mentions the times she works, but didn't show it; I don't see how one could have that impression unless they didn't pay attention to what she says. Which wouldn't be surprising.

More like the complete lack of anything resembling work.

She says repeatedly that she was working between the things she showed. What do you want? Her literally staring at some code for four hours between breakfast and lunch?

She said it was a day in the life of a Meta PM, and I take it at face value. Looks like a day in the life is pretty cushy.

> Looks like a day in the life is pretty cushy.

Because she's allowed to take a break for lunch and she can work from an outside space? Your standards are too low.

She claims to be a PM, not a coder.

Strictly speaking, she says she did some work "on the roof in the morning" and then doesn't mention work again at any point. In particular the video gives the strong impression that she might have simply gone home soon after lunch. Maybe not in reality, but it strongly looks and sounds that way from the vid. She says explicitly "I got lunch, I got a snack always, I then shuttled home" i.e. the phrasing means going home immediately followed lunch. You also have to wonder how hard she can be working and how well supervised she is, if she's posting videos to their primary competitor of herself dancing on the roof.

There's also a more subtle issue here than the lack of work. She talks like someone whose primary interest is her own looks, not anything to do with tech. She talks repeatedly about how cute she looks, how she spends time working out to look cute, and a large part of the video is her posing in the mirror. At 23 how much product management knowledge or skill can you really have, or heck any form of management skill? Traditionally, managers are meant to be people who have done the work of the people they're managing so they can make informed decisions. Given the widespread awareness that tech firms do 'diversity hiring' all the time it leads directly to the suspicion that maybe she was hired because she's a cute 23 year old girl and not, say, because of her extensive experience of product design or committed work ethic. Firms like FB used to have very strict hiring standards, but look at the employee growth in the past few years and tell us that this can still be true. Someone like that would simply never have made it through the interviews 10 years ago. So of course that will lead to resentment. The pay for these jobs is famously good. What possible value can this person be delivering to meta?

> There's also a more subtle issue here than the lack of work. She talks like someone whose primary interest is her own looks, not anything to do with tech. She talks repeatedly about how cute she looks, how she spends time working out to look cute, and a large part of the video is her posing in the mirror. Even something like the actual product she works on, isn't worthy of a mention.

I'm not going to read too much into your complaints about her priorities; but suffice to say, perhaps consider that she doesn't mention the details of her work because being a PM is generally breathtakingly dull.

> Traditionally, managers are meant to be people who have done the work of the people they're managing so they can make informed decisions. Given the widespread awareness that tech firms do 'diversity hiring' all the time it leads directly to the suspicion that maybe she was hired because she's a cute 23 year old girl and not, say, because of her extensive experience of product design or committed work ethic.

And yet you then sought out her linkedin and found evidence that she has, indeed, quantifiable and valid experience. But of course, you dismiss it out of hand because she's "clearly a bullshitter". But is she, really?

I've been out of school for ~20y, and even back then I knew at least five people who had successful business ventures during their tenure at post-secondary. At least two of those companies exited in rather substantial acquisitions. There was also the people who spoke at TedX, who were featured on magazine covers, who...

Post-secondary is already a sample of the top-tier students that there is available, it shouldn't be surprising that some of them are super achievers.

I think all that evidence you gave of her being a bullshitter is actually relevant work experience and a top-tier education.

I could never pass a FAANG interview, or get into UCLA, or run a startup. She’s clearly extremely talented.

What anyone really has against this person is they don’t like that a conventionally attractive confident young woman with a social life and goals is doing better than they are. Good for her - I hope she keeps making them angry.

With the work you've done on TruffleRuby? You should absolutely be able to pass a FAANG interview, you'd be more like the kind of person they were hiring 10 years tbh. I did a lot of interviewing candidates when I worked at a FAANG company and if you didn't pass then you'd be a false negative, simple as that.

It's amazing anyone is taking her LinkedIn postings seriously. Making a startup is a LOT of work. People who are famous for doing that in college are mostly also famous for dropping out because they can't do both a company and their course at once. She's claiming she did that three times whilst studying nothing more specific than political science, and then decided none of them were worth pursuing, but instead the pinnacle of ambition was low level PM at Meta? She's using the word "startup" here to trigger progressive ideologies in recruiters, not to indicate an actual serious effort to build a firm.

I suspect you and dleslie are very lucky to not have encountered these sorts of #womenintech before (the hashtag is important here). The sort of people who describe themselves that way invariably have absolutely no interest in tech, let alone in founding companies - unless they get to be a #femalecofounder, which helps unlock more VC money for the male actual founder. These people get jobs by loudly deploying feminist ideology at any possible opportunity and will typically be found on panel discussions about #womenintech complaining that men don't take them seriously enough, invariably blamed on sexism and not, say, their lack of any interest in or knowledge of tech. They certainly will not be found enthusing about a new product idea they had or banging out code at 3am.

"all anyone really has against this person is they don’t like that a conventionally attractive confident young woman with a social life and goals is doing better than they are."

Lol, no. This is HN, a lot of us here have worked for big tech firms in much better paid roles, including me. Junior PM at a company the size of modern day Meta is nothing special. The reason we criticize her video is exactly because of that experience - because we know that such firms increasingly bloated up over time with people who were there for ideological reasons and not because they contributed anything to the team. Another poster called them "plant pots" which sounds about right. They contribute either nothing (best case) or strongly negative value (worst case) and for those of us who have had to deal with them it wasn't a pleasant experience at all. If you never did, be glad!

> Making a startup is a LOT of work. People who are famous for doing that in college are mostly also famous for dropping out because they can't do both a company and their course at once.

That really depends on many factors, like whether you've taken on VC funding.

Several of the student business ventures that I'm aware of among my own peers had founders that continued to finish their undergraduate. Some took funding, others did not; all had employees and clients, so they weren't paper tigers.

You really haven't shown a good reason why she shouldn't be believed.

> and will typically be found on panel discussions about #womenintech complaining that men don't take them seriously enough, invariably blamed on sexism and not, say, their lack of any interest in or knowledge of tech.

I suspect the irony is lost on you that you are stating this while arguing that she should not be taken seriously.

> Junior PM at a company the size of modern day Meta is nothing special.

In which case, her stated experience is more than adequate.

No irony is lost. She displays no interest in anything actually technical, neither in her choice of subject to study nor anything in her video or LinkedIn posts. That's exactly the point being made here: why should such a person be taken seriously? If we lived in a world without diversity hiring, Meta's generic credibility would help, but we don't so it doesn't.

Fundamentally, neither of us know her and we're coming from very different places so there's no way to resolve the disagreement. You're taking everything she says at face value with the maximally generous interpretation possible. The video went viral because most people aren't willing to do that. Instead they're applying their priors based on experience with similar people. 23 year old TikTok influencer types who like to post clips of their easy life have a very high correlation with people who aren't entirely honest, and the #womenintech hashtag combined with humanities backgrounds has a very high correlation with women who don't care about tech at all beyond it being a gateway to an easy life. The video does nothing to dispel that impression and absolutely everything to reinforce it. It doesn't help that the PM title can mean anything from a Steve Jobs to a glorified meeting note taker.

But sure, if you want to believe that there's nothing wrong with that video and it says nothing about decadence at Meta then by all means, go ahead. Makes no difference either way. Others will draw their own conclusions.

It's possible to be passionate about technology while being young, female and prosocial. Hell, she's expressing herself using the technology platform most popular with her generation.

She should be taken seriously because many people erroneously believe that can't be true.

I've worked in tech for decades, and this doubt you express about a fairly typical-behaving young woman is not unfamiliar to me; and it's rarely proven valid, among my peers. Rather, it's almost always an expression of the jealous misogyny of the complainant.

_Every_ attractive woman I've known in this industry has had to suffer endless doubt about their abilities, beyond what I consider normal.

Yes I was wondering how long it'd take you to start claiming anyone who doesn't fall over themselves to praise this layabout is "misogynistic". Three posts isn't bad, many would do worse. But it was inevitable.

The widespread scepticism you see isn't woman hating. It's directly created by people like you, who make blind deference of women an ideological imperative. Your defence of this girl is not any evidence of real technical skill or effort but that she's "pro-social". And then you claim - again without evidence - that anyone who points out the obvious (that she doesn't seem to be working very hard) must be motivated by generic sexist hatred. It's an absurd and deeply offensive slur that you can't recognize as such only because the left engages in it so often.

You're also conflating using tiktok with being passionate about tech, another switcheroo.

It's that exact attitude that leads to a decadent culture in which work and skill are devalued, people being hired because of their gender or ideology, and a large population of people who notice that. By the way, I've worked with women who are actually passionate about technology. They hate this stuff too, exactly because it devalues their own work and career. You aren't helping women with this sort of thing, you're hurting them.

> It's possible to be passionate about technology while being young, female and prosocial.

Absolutely it is. However there's no evidence that she is at all.

> Hell, she's expressing herself using the technology platform most popular with her generation.

That's an interesting take. Most people would say the _social media_ platform most popular. I know a lot of people who use social media extensively, and it doesn't appear to correlate with a passion for tech. Does your experience differ?

Whilst I don't disagree that sometimes this view is a jealous misogynistic one, I disagree with "almost always". I suspect you've seen the behaviour enough though that you're expecting it and looking for it.

This women having no identifiable technical skillset is a fair reason to question her. It would also be in a man. If you can indicate otherwise (rather than just hand wavey "this is misogyny"), I an very open to being proven wrong.

Posting a video that shows your work would get you fired at any big tech company. Even if your work isn't that interesting. You can't risk it.

That's why all of these big tech TikTok videos only show cafes.

Work is boring bullshit. That’s exactly the correct mindset as an employee. She showed the parts of her day that actually matter. No reason to assume she doesn’t work, it‘s just boring.

She got there well before her 8am meeting and and stayed through to what looks like a happy hour at the end of the day. Meanwhile even working from home I feel good if I start working by 9am.

She should show her confidential requirements docs on screen? Film internal meetings? it's clearly much, much worse to record her actual work. This is such a weird complaint.

> that it's presented by a young woman

With a hint of ignorance and jealousy.

I’m jealous, I’m grinding away for 8 hours at desk, not chilling on a roof, eating and dancing. I’d take that fake job. Plz…

Maybe you should find another job and grow out of this 1950s mindset.

Because you can be productive working outside, on a roof top, on a beach etc.

And making the time to eat well and look after your mental health has been proven to increase productivity.

I think you misunderstood his comment. There's no reason to lash out at him for his job situation. Many people don't have that many options of great jobs where you chill all the time.

Most jobs out there are sitting nearly 8h at a desk, with breaks of course, even in Europe. Not everyone has a hot jobs market where you get to set your terms.

Dicking around all day without doing much work is something I've never seen at any tech company I worked here but only in YouTube videos on life at top tech US companies.

Maybe I was born in the wrong county/continent.

Well why don't you apply then?

If you think you can get through the infamous Meta interview like she has then go for it. I probably couldn't pass that interview myself so she's better than I am.

I've often heard about how hard Google's hiring process is. And I like to think I have a really good knack at getting an idea of someone's proficiency.

I have a distant relative who was working in javascript as his main job. But he didn't know what typescript, coffeescript, or web assembly were; even though he was working with javascript as his primary language. Nothing he described or talked to me about gave me the impression that he was able to do any programming whatsoever.

But, he was 100% a "total frat bro". And of course he landed a job at Google. As a programmer. Am I jealous? Sure. Do I think he is capable of creating intricate things? Absolutely not. Do I think he will survive at Google for a long time? Definitely.

> Nothing he described or talked to me about gave me the impression that he was able to do any programming whatsoever.

Maybe he's just good at the job even if it isn't his whole personality?

Like how do you think someone would get through Google's interview without being able to program? You have to be the very top of your field to pass that interview.

I have known ex-Googlers who were not very good programmers. You definitely have to be smart to grind the FAANG interview process, but you can still be a bad programmer.

> how do you think someone would get through Google's interview without being able to program?

You really will be surprised if you have a decent standard

She will be unemployed within the next 6 months. Same applies to young shopify entrepreneurs (dropshipping)... I don't think it is about gender.

I am just giving my opinion as someone who has worked as an investor and now works in tech: almost none of these people will be working in tech in five years, and most companies won't have PMs.

You saw this kind of thing at investment banks pre-08, people who did literally nothing, created no revenue, they were just a $200k/year plant pot, left the industry in 08 and never came back.

From what I have seen, the situation in tech is worse...I am not even in the US, and have interviewed at places where cost is obviously out of control but they hired this guy with a CS degree who has literally no idea how to run a business (one place I interviewed at, the unit built the front-end for a savings product, iirc they had five sprint teams, each team had 3 business analysts, 1 PM, 1 test dev, 2 devs...it was madness, and the guy interviewing me was maybe 30, no business experience, had worked as a "senior dev" at Wipro or some other consultancy place, this guy couldn't even get people back into the office, no-one would go).

I think people have been in the machine so long they forget what reality is. Reality is here now, everyone is getting fired, the free money machine has been turned off.

> this guy couldn't even get people back into the office, no-one would go

What does this have to do with anything else you brought up?

Most programmers I know would sooner quit than return to the office; that doesn't mean they aren't productive.

What does that have to do with anything else you brought up?

My point is: the guy has no management experience, and is unable to lead his team. That is why he is running a bloated mess that will get everyone fired.

There is no amount of management experience that will get us back into the office, we will quit first

Good for you, but you appear to have missed the point entirely. The GP isn't arguing people should go back, just picking from the air an example (likely amongst many) why the person is a poor people manager.

> What did you think the problem was?

She was sharing it on TikTok, that's the problem. If Meta product people have already stopped eating their own dog-food then something is very amiss.

It was comedy though, right? Making fun of "Day in the life of..." videos.

Yeah, I perceived it and others as an overdubbed mashup of other short videos.

Nothing new on the internet.

People even take entire movies and mix clips around to change the storyline entirely.

She was 100% at the Meta offices on SLU, so she's a Meta employee posting a video about Meta life. Even if it's comedy, it's unlikely the company would agree IMHO.

Do you have a link?

Having wasted my time watching that I hope this comment can encourage others to not make the same mistake. Urgh.

This started out as hilariously funny...until it faded into jealousy. Times like these, i almost wish society was organized into equal pay and benefits for everyone. Yes, yes, i know i sound like communist/socilaist (n othing wrong with that by the way)...But honestly, i felt like things were not fair *before* seeing that video...But now, i feel worse. /sigh

Why equal pay? Why not just interview for Meta and pass like she did ?

“Equal pay and benefits for everyone” just means shit for everyone. Cutting down people who achieve something great is tall poppy syndrome.

Focus on how to build others up and make that the norm instead.

There will always be people that have a better life than you have in every dimension. Learning to deal with that fact is part of life.

I'm choosing to believe this is satire... The alternative makes me depressed

The most baffling part of this is eating broccoli for breakfast. WTF?

It’s a vegetable… you can eat those an any time of the day…

this seems

fine? I don't get the hubub

I'm just going to guess a lot of people are grumpy that they make less, work harder, and have less perks.

I'm not being sarcastic, that's just my guess on why it bothers people.

People are pissed because she’s some quota hire and isn’t there on her own merits.

Idk its a very short video and doesn’t show any part of how to work is. Isn’t a bit like tacking a selfie. You take 10, pick the one that looks best, and you only take them when you are standing in the Grand Canyon.

I’ve seen Twitter uproars against Google and LinkedIn employees who have uploaded similar content:

https://twitter.com/coldhealing/status/1561022408206729216

A lot of the lavish perks they’ve showed have been part of these companies since these two young women were toddlers. It’s privilege discourse meeting the cringey nature of TikTok.

These things are just recruitment videos. They're made to get lots of views by being a little controversial. Their HR departments want people to see the free coffee, fancy office, etc.

These videos are more a tiktok trend for flexing than an HR thing. They attract a lot of negative attention, most unjustified IMO. I don't think ideal candidates for big tech would find these videos that appealing anyway.

Seriously? Do these companies really need to market their cozy do-nothing earn-lot middle management positions?

I can assure you the people making these videos are not in middle management.

The video said she was a PM at Meta, no?

You should have shorted Meta the day this video dropped. Not because it showed lazy workers, but because the worker shared it on TikTok, not a Meta-owned property.

Went viral on Twitter though, so maybe Musk will be having the last laugh after all

Yes, and once we answer the question "How come Twitter is the centre of culture for monetizable users yet appears to be unmonetizable" we'll have the answer to why twitter's stock price has been stagnant for years.

Personally, I think the answer is "twitter is popular because it isn't monetized, when it gets monetized it won't be popular".

I work from home, my in my day also consists of working out at the [home] gym, making coffee [in the kitchen], sometimes getting a view from my deck while working, walking the dog to the park, dinner and a movie with my wife and dog.