Ex-Meta recruiter says she was paid $190K ‘to do nothing’
A former recruiter for Meta said that she was paid a $190,000 salary to do “nothing” at the social-media giant — where CEO Mark Zuckerberg in recent weeks has revealed plans to slash 21,000 jobs.
Career strategist Madelyn Machado posted a video on TikTok on Friday titled “Getting paid $190k to do nothing at Meta” — recalling a six-month stint at the owner of Facebook and Instagram that ended last spring.
Machado said in her TikTok video that upon her arrival at the company in September 2021, she was told by her bosses not to hire anyone.
“We weren’t expected to hire anybody for the first six months, even the first year,” she said. “This is something they tell you when you start.”
“That really blew my mind,” she added. “Like ‘perfect, I’m just going to ride this out for a year, obviously I didn’t make that.’”
The Menlo Park, Calif.-based social media giant, along with other blue chip tech firms including Google, Amazon and Microsoft, have fired tens of thousands of workers in recent months as they reverse their pandemic-era hiring sprees that were meant to keep up with explosive growth.
In her viral video — viewed more than 342,000 times as of Wednesday — Machado then revealed that instead of hiring, her days at Meta were filled with “learning.”
She praised Meta for offering “the best onboarding and training I’ve seen from any company ever.”
Machado said that the “expectations” her bosses had at the beginning of her tenure at Meta was “learning and taking it all in.”
She said the experience was akin to “drinking from a fire hose” — or being inundated with information.
Machado then described “the crazy part,” saying: “We had so many team meetings.”
“Why are we meeting? We’re not hiring nobody,” she said.
Machado told her 221,000 TikTok followers that the meetings were “just to hear how everyone else isn’t hiring anybody.”
“And also, I was on a team where everyone was new, so none of us were hiring anybody,” she added.
Machado said that she, her colleagues, and her boss were “trying to figure things out.”
“I really miss it,” she added. “I wasn’t doing sh-t pretty much. Um, that’s nice.”
The Post has sought comment from Meta.
In a follow-up video, Machado told her followers that she was fired in spring 2022 by the company because an earlier video in which she touts the benefits package she received went viral.
Machado said that her superiors weren’t pleased when she revealed that the firm offers “$4,000 in baby cash” as well as “$3,000 for child care reimbursement.”
Facebook this month announced a second round of layoffs impacting 10,000 jobs — fresh on the heels of the 13% workforce reduction claiming 11,000 jobs that the tech firm unveiled in November.
Zuckerberg told investors earlier this year that 2023 would be Meta’s “year of efficiency.”
He also instituted a new “flattening” policy aimed at shedding middle managers so as to remove bureaucratic layers from the corporate structure.
Meta has been offering nonessential managers buyout packages while cutting teams.
On Wall Street, Meta’s stock price was trading 0.5% higher as of 10:42 a.m. Eastern time.
Meta, Apple rivalry enters new phase as tech giants go after headsets
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., demonstrates the Meta Quest Pro during the virtual Meta Connect event in New York, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook have spent the last several years sparring over internet privacy and digital advertising. But they’ve never competed head-to-head in a real way.
That’s about to change.
With Apple officially announcing its long-awaited mixed-reality headset — the Vision Pro — on Monday, the iPhone maker and Facebook’s parent are now firmly in the same market.
Zuckerberg and Cook both see the next major era of personal computing as one that involves people putting on a headset to enter a virtual world and interacting with digital objects in 3D. Cook describes it as spatial computing, and Zuckerberg calls it the metaverse. Other technologists refer to it as mixed or augmented reality, because digital imagery can be superimposed on to the physical world.
Facebook jumped into the market nine years ago, when it acquired VR headset startup Oculus for $2 billion. In late 2021, the company changed its name to Meta, and Zuckerberg committed to spending billions of dollars a quarter developing the underlying VR and AR technologies needed to make his vision of the future a reality.
As of today, Meta owns the lion’s share of a nascent market, far outpacing rivals like Sony, HTC and Magic Leap in headset sales. Research firm CCS Insight recently reported that global shipments of VR and AR headsets fell over 12% to 9.6 million in 2022 from the prior year, as consumers pulled back on discretionary spending.
Several technology analysts told CNBC in December that Apple’s entry into the VR and AR market could give the sector the jolt it needs to start getting consumers more excited about the upsides of the technology.
As CCS Insight analyst Leo Gebbie said, “If one company has the ability to transform the VR market overnight, it’s Apple.”
But Apple hasn’t said exactly when Vision Pro will be available — only that it will be sometime early next year. More important, it’s hardly designed to be a mass-market product, at least at the beginning. The initial price is $3,499.
That gives Zuckerberg some breathing room. Meta’s Quest family of VR headsets include the $300 Quest 2 and the $500 Quest 3, which will be available in the fall. The company’s Reality Labs division, which is responsible for hardware and software development, lost $13.72 billion last year and $3.99 billion in the first quarter.
Wall Street hammered Meta in 2022, sending the stock down by almost two-thirds, partly on concerns about the excessive metaverse costs. But the shares have rebounded this year after Zuckerberg reeled in expenses in other corners of the company, including customer service, and trust and safety.
Business model spat
For Zuckerberg, turning mixed reality into a business reality has become central to the company’s future.
Unlike Apple or Google parent Alphabet, Meta doesn’t control an operating system akin to iOS or Android. Those platforms have allowed Apple and Google to dominate the smartphone market, helping them generate billions of dollars from their respective app stores and allowing them to dictate the rules that third-party developers — including Facebook — must follow.
Apple’s 2021 privacy change to iOS so badly wounded Facebook that the company predicted soon thereafter that it would result in a $10 billion hit to revenue in 2022. The update limited the ability for Facebook and other social media companies to track users across the web and deliver targeted advertising. Meta’s massive and fast-growing online ad business suddenly found its business shrinking.
Zuckerberg has been vocal about what he considers to be Apple’s unfair iOS and app store policies. His company said that by removing targeting capabilities, Apple was badly hurting the many small businesses that used Facebook’s ad model to reach new customers in an efficient way.
Last November, Zuckerberg said at a conference that “Apple has sort of singled themselves out as the only company that is trying to control unilaterally what apps get on a device.” He added, “I don’t think that’s a sustainable or good place to be.”
For his part, Cook has been unsympathetic, long criticizing Facebook for being in the business of making money off users’ personal information rather than selling a product that people want to buy. In 2021, Cook linked Facebook’s business model to real-world consequences like violence or reducing public trust in Covid.
Apple CEO Tim Cook stands next to the new Apple Vision Pro headset is displayed during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference on June 05, 2023 in Cupertino, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
“If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform,” Cook said at a data privacy conference in Brussels. He didn’t mention Facebook by name at the time.
By developing the metaverse on its own terms, Meta has its best shot at sidestepping Apple’s dominance and writing its own rules. It’s a giant gamble, though, envisioning that the metaverse will tip into the mainstream.
Meanwhile, Apple knows all about making consumer products for the masses, whether it’s computers, digital music players, smartphones, tablets or watches. And Apple has its own new operating system for the Vision Pro that it’s calling visionOS. That means Meta and Apple will be competing for developers, who want to get their games and apps to the widest audience possible.
Disney provided some potentially concerning news on that front to Meta on Monday.
After previously touting the promise the metaverse, Disney recently killed its metaverse division under the leadership of Bob Iger, who returned to the company last year.
On Monday, Iger took to the stage at Apple’s WWDC event and said his company’s streaming service would be available for the new headset. While some Disney content is available on Quest devices, Iger suggested that a whole new set of experiences are coming to Apple.
“We’re constantly in search of new ways to entertain, inform and inspire our fans by combining extraordinary creativity with groundbreaking technology to create truly remarkable experiences,” Iger said during the keynote address. “And we believe Apple Vision Pro is a revolutionary platform that can make our vision a reality.”
Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
WATCH: Apple’s VR rollout is a paradigm shift in how consumers do computing
Shotgun shell wedding placeholders that are up for sale are shamed on Reddit as ‘tacky’ and ‘trash’
A Facebook Marketplace listing that’s advertising shotgun shell placeholders for weddings and similar events has set tongues wagging on social media.
The screenshotted listing, which shows two red shotgun shells with a bride and groom place card, has caught the attention of the “Wedding Shaming” subreddit, a 535,400-member Reddit forum where anonymous users shame wedding themes, brides, grooms, guests and vendors.
“Nothing says classy like shotgun shells!” A Reddit user captioned their screenshotted post on Sunday, June 4, which has received more than 750 upvotes and a “tacky” label.
The Facebook Marketplace listing is advertising over 100 shotgun shell placeholders for $100.
“All cement filled for weight to ensure they wouldn’t blow over. Name cards not included in,” the listing explains.
One Reddit user commented on seeing the shotgun shell placeholder listing discussed in a Facebook group — and that the lister is based in New Zealand, so the price is in New Zealand dollars (NZD).
A Facebook Marketplace seller (not pictured) from New Zealand is listing shotgun shell placeholders for sale — which can be used in weddings and similar formal events. (iStock)
“It’s $100NZD, which is like $60USD,” the person wrote. “Not that it makes it any better. I was shocked it was an actual buy/sell group and people were commenting that they were cool.”
Several Reddit users agreed that they found the seller’s asking price to be steep, since it’s a decor project that can be done relatively cheaply.
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Other members of the “wedding shaming” subreddit questioned the possible message a bride and groom might want to send with shotgun shell placeholder.
“Gives a new meaning depth to a shotgun wedding,” one Reddit user wrote.
“How romantic, giving your guests a bullet with their name on it. Literally,” another user wrote.
Said yet another Reddit user, “So trash. I’m sorry if this offends anyone but guns are horrendous things that ruin people’s lives every day.”
“Why do we get the ugly color?”
This same commenter added, “What’s wrong with having harmless flowers? When did a rose or peony ever commit an atrocity at a school?”
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One Reddit user wrote that the placeholders are a “waste [of] reloadable shells” — and questioned why another color wasn’t used for the wrapping of the shotgun shells, such as pink or purple.
Some wedding hosts add name placeholders to tablescapes when there’s arranged seating for guests — while others skip this entirely for open seating. (iStock)
“Why do we get the ugly color?” the user asked.
Not every Reddit user in the “wedding shaming” forum is against the Facebook Marketplace seller’s shotgun placeholders.
“Is it bad that I kind of love it now?” one user wrote. “It’s tacky as hell but it’s a great joke,” the person added.
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“I actually like this for upcycling, and it is one less bullet in the world,” another user wrote.
“I knew someone who did shotgun shells in their wedding that was not cowboy-themed because someone who had passed in the family had actually made their own ammo with those shells and they wanted that member represented in some way,” another user shared. “Actually kind of cool in my opinion.”
Shotgun shell placeholders seem to be a common decor addition in gun-themed weddings. (iStock)
One Reddit user defended people who might find the shotgun shell placeholders appealing for their wedding.
“Oh, come on … Not all of them are bad etc. I honestly think some [people] are just having fun with it ’cause they can,” the user wrote, which earned more than 10 downvotes.
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“It all depends where [you’re] at,” the person added. “I’ve been to weddings where most had [guns] or [were] carrying,” the Reddit user continued.
“It was fun and interesting and they were very nice people.”
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Fox News Digital reached out to the Facebook Marketplace seller for comment.
Shotgun shell boutonnieres are another gun-themed decor item that grooms and groomsmen have incorporated in nontraditional weddings. (iStock)
The Facebook Marketplace listing was uploaded on Thursday, June 1, in Hastings, Hawke’s Bay, which is an inland city of New Zealand on the east coast of North Island.
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Users of the “wedding shaming” subreddit have generally frowned upon wedding themes that involve guns, including engraved bullet casings, bullet boutonnieres, hunting cake toppers, camouflage attire and wedding portraits with firearm props.
Micro-social media: What is it and which tools should you try?
About seven out of 10 Americans use social media to keep up with each other’s lives, for entertainment, and to stay on top of the news, according to the Pew Research Center. But as many people reach a decade or more of perusing mainstream social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, their attitudes toward social media are shifting.
That’s not to say people are living more of their lives offline, but that people are instead shifting their online presence from general social-networking sites to more niche ones that pander to their interests and encourage online social interaction beyond likes and reposts.
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Sites like Twitch, Discord, Reddit, and TikTok encourage people to interact with the content they care about and connect with others, whether they’re talking about food, gaming, movies, or TV shows.
To support this focus on their interests, people are turning to micro-social networks, which are specific to one topic and include fewer users to interact with.
LinkedIn is a mainstream micro-social network because its only purpose is to connect with people about professional topics. BeReal is another example of a micro-social network, as it encourages people to only connect with people they know personally and share updates about their lives.
Also: LinkedIn introduces AI tool to make curating your profile easier
Nextdoor, another micro-social media network, is a digital space where people share updates about local events or happenings.
So, how can you create your own micro-social networking atmosphere online? Group texts that include both iPhone and Android users can be messy and laggy, and private groups on mainstream social media sites exclude those who don’t have an account. Here’s two alternatives.
Create a WhatsApp group
In a WhatsApp group, users can add up to 256 people and control who is in the group. Users can send text messages, GIFs, photos, videos, and documents. And because WhatsApp is available in the Play Store and the App Store, the app is available for iOS and Android.
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WhatsApp is also ideal for any social groups that span borders, as sending messages and making calls internationally on WhatsApp uses your device’s internet connection instead of minutes.
A WhatsApp group is best suited for people who want to mimic a group text without the technical difficulties that can arise for Apple users when texting an Android device.
Create a photo album for sharing
If you’re interested in sharing photos with a group of family or friends, consider creating a shared photo album on Google Photos.
Third-party apps — rather than Apps connected to the device operating system — are better to use in groups of people that mix iPhones and Android phones. That’s because Apple makes a point that only its products, apps, and services work best within its device ecosystem. So, sharing an Apple Photo album with Android users could prove difficult.
Also: How to set up a locked folder in Google Photos on Android
Google Photos works well on iOS; users can share one album with multiple people. Each added person can upload photos, look at photos someone else has uploaded, and leave comments on each photo.
PhotoCircle is another photo-sharing app, but it has an emphasis on sharing shots from an event or occasion. For example, if you’re attending a wedding, you can share photos from the wedding with guests and participants. If you work with people around the country, a shared PhotoCircle album makes it easy to share project-related photos.
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Users can leave comments on photos shared in a PhotoCircle album, all photos are backed up in PhotoCircle’s cloud, and only people with access to the album can see the shots. Shared photo albums and photo-sharing apps are best for people who prefer sharing photos to sending messages, making calls, or sharing videos.
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