Mark Zuckerberg Confronted by Staff Over Mass Firings and Bonuses for Execs

"We're in a different world now."

Red Wedding

Those who survived Facebook/Meta's mass firings earlier this month have a bone to pick with CEO Mark Zuckerberg as the threat of further cuts looms large.

As Insider reports, Zuckerberg fielded questions from aggravated employees about the most recent round of layoffs that occurred last week while he was at home on parental leave following the birth of his third child.

People who were on the call told the site that the Metamate-in-chief confirmed the company had let go of 4,000 people total this month — a figure which includes 20 percent of managers, who were either terminated completely or moved to non-management positions.

These Q&A town halls, the report notes, revolve around pre-submitted employee questions that are upvoted by staff, and the majority of the queries during this one centered on questions about further cuts — which Zuckerberg did not rule out — and on why senior management were given even bigger bonuses than usual last year amid the company's massive November layoff round.

Half Baked

To that last question, Zuckerberg responded that multiple senior executives who'd been at the company for a decade or more "received good ratings because they stepped into new roles that they haven't held before and that they've taken on expanded scopes," someone familiar with the CEO's remarks told Insider.

He reportedly added that there was a "baked-in" reduction in bonuses due to the company's historically-low stock and revenue performance last year, but some of the staffers that the website spoke to said those remarks seemed "patronizing" and "shallow."

"Employees change roles all of the time with expanded scope and they don't automatically exceed expectations," the same individual told Insider on condition of anonymity. "We are supposed to be outcome-focused."

Overall, Zuckerberg reportedly was said to blame himself for the company's downturn several times — though he did not appear to have named the problem, which analysts, investors, and even Meta's own ex-virtual reality head believe lies with his dogged and uber-expensive attempt to build out his capital-M Metaverse.

"We're in a different world now," the CEO said, per several people who were on the call.

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