They have been involved in so many shady things and have had such a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach it sounds maddening.
I think a lot of people working there just made the calculated decision that Meta being at the very high end of the compensation scale made it worth it.
Even if you are in the ML/AI stuff. You have to balance out that they were funding at a very high rate versus that they were funding the work for less than stellar reasons.
Ok.
All of the replies you are getting are trying to tell you that there’s no deep thinking involved. There’s no “hey I considered it and the comp overcame my concerns” etc. Most of the leetcode-into-fang people are not doing a moral calculus or even spending thirty seconds thinking about the ethical aspects.
There are no concerns. There are no ethics for most of the people in our industry. It is an employer who pays well so they work there.
Your comment implies that, yes, it came down to comp, but also implies that for Facebook employees, on average, there is any thought process beyond economic maximization. There isn’t.
I know a ton of facebook and ex-facebook engineers. They also worked for famously ethical companies like Zynga and Uber. Now and then they’ll do the pretend performative handwringing or whatever but their decisions are consistent.
There is just money.
The former approach means you can’t do anything with clear conscience: do you take that vacation or donate the money? Do you punish yourself if your work on databases eventually was used for a scam?
I find it paralyzing to operate in the former way: so I take the traditional stem person approach. I just ensure what I do is good (obviously for the highest bidder). I won’t work for an explicitly criminal organization - but as long as the government approves, am in. I am going to let them do the policy making and governing because frankly I am tired and probably incompetent at that since I don’t sink much time thinking about it.
There is nothing tricky about it. No one works at Meta thinking they are feeding starving children.
It’s also “difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it”
I’m not making any moral stand either way.
Engineers in Meta have advanced technology in so many ways (buck / react / so many contributions to distributed software / leveldb …). I think it is very reductionist to discount all that work.
There’s nothing about salary depending on it here: there’s a ton about your work contributing to the global good irrespective of who’s funding it (and whatever ways they end up utilizing it).
Maybe because, I don’t know, Meta pays well? I don’t go to work for self fulfillment. I work to exchange labor for money to support my addiction to food and shelter.
No I don’t work for Meta nor have I ever.
> I think a lot of people working there just made the calculated decision that Meta being at the very high end of the compensation scale made it worth it.
Is this our level of laziness now? To read the first sentence and base our snarky replies entirely off it, ignoring the fact that it’s a rhetorical question that was answered immediately after?
That didn’t help. It’s like saying “I don’t know why the guy died. Maybe it’s because he got shot in the head at point blank range”?
Of course people work at Meta because of the money. No one works for Meta to make the world a better place
Because your comment indicates that you clearly don’t understand that people sometimes ask questions not because they want an answer but for emphasis or dramatic effect.
This was, clearly, such a case.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question
Digging down on your snark when you’re called out is a bold play that doesn’t generally work. Most people have this thing called humbleness but I guess you left it with the rhetorical questions.
Largely because much of the company is a great place to work. Actually working there, I don't find this hard to see at all.
