Prolly nothing... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/20/technology/silicon-valley-cryptocurrency-start-ups.html The New Get-Rich-Faster Job in Silicon Valley: Crypto Start-Ups Tech executives and engineers are quitting Google, Meta, Amazon and other large companies for what they say is a once-in-generation opportunity with crypto. Credit...JR Bee By Daisuke Wakabayashi and Mike Isaac Dec. 20, 2021 OAKLAND, Calif. — When Sandy Carter left her job as a vice president of Amazon’s cloud computing unit this month, she announced in a LinkedIn post that she was joining a crypto technology company. She included a link for open positions at the start-up. Within two days, she said, more than 350 people — many from the biggest internet companies — had clicked the link to apply for jobs at the firm, Unstoppable Domains. The start-up sells website addresses that sit on the blockchain, the distributed ledger system that underpins cryptocurrencies. “It’s the perfect storm,” Ms. Carter said. “The momentum we’re seeing in this space is just incredible.” Ms. Carter is part of a wave of executives and engineers leaving cushy jobs at Google, Amazon, Apple and other large tech companies — some of which pay millions of dollars in annual compensation — to chase what they see as a once-in-a-generation opportunity. That next big thing is crypto, they said, a catchall designation that includes digital currencies like Bitcoin and products like nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, that rely on the blockchain. ridiculous crypto investments like Dogecoin, a digital coin based on a dog meme, to life-changing wealth. Bitcoin has soared around 60 percent this year, while Ether, the cryptocurrency tied to the Ethereum blockchain, has increased more than fivefold in value. But beyond that speculative mania, a growing contingent of the tech industry’s best and brightest sees a transformational moment that comes along once every few decades and rewards those who spot the seismic shift before the rest of the world. With crypto, they see historical parallels to how the personal computer and the internet were once ridiculed, only to upend the status quo and mint a new generation of billionaires. Investors, too, have flooded in. They have poured more than $28 billion into global crypto and blockchain start-ups this year, four times the total in 2020, according to PitchBook, a firm that tracks private investments. More than $3 billion has gone into NFT companies alone. “There is a giant sucking sound coming from crypto,” said Sridhar Ramaswamy, chief executive of search engine start-up Neeva and a former Google executive, who competes with crypto companies for talent. “It feels a bit like the 1990s and the birth of the internet all over again. It’s that early, that chaotic and that much full of opportunity. Image “There is a giant sucking sound coming from crypto,” said Sridhar Ramaswamy, chief executive of Neeva, outside the company’s office in Mountain View, Calif.Credit...Jessica Chou for The New York Times Crypto, which has also been rebranded as the less foreboding web3, may be no different from past speculative bubbles like subprime mortgages or the tulip craze of the 17th century, skeptics said. Much of the mania, they said, is being driven by a desire to get rich quick by trading an asset class that often seems based on internet jokes. a more decentralized internet that is not controlled by a handful of companies. While such possibilities have existed since Bitcoin emerged in 2009, crypto products such as NFTs broke through to the mainstream only this year. That has accelerated the exodus from Big Tech companies into the crypto world. This month, Brian Roberts, the chief financial officer of Lyft, left the ride-hailing company to join OpenSea, a popular crypto start-up. “I’ve seen enough cycles and paradigm shifts to be cognizant when something this big is just emerging,” he said in an email. “We are Day 1 in terms of NFTs and their impact.” (John Zimmer, Lyft’s co-founder, said he wished Mr. Roberts well on his new venture.) Last month, Jack Dorsey stepped down as Twitter’s chief executive to spend more time on cryptocurrency and web3 efforts at his other company, Square. In a nod to the blockchain, Mr. Dorsey also renamed Square as Block. He underscored the change by revamping the photo portraits of Block’s executives as block-headed avatars, and built a software tool so others could create their own block-headed avatar. And David Marcus, the head of cryptocurrency efforts at Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced that he was leaving by the end of the year to follow his “entrepreneurial DNA.” Mr. Marcus, 48, plans to work on his own cryptocurrency project, two people with knowledge of his plans said. Coinbase went public in April, Mr. Chatterjee’s stake in the company soared to more than $600 million in value. He had worked there for just 14 months. Such vast amounts of crypto wealth have created a fear of missing out, or FOMO, among many techies — especially those whose friends bought Bitcoin several years ago and now are hugely wealthy. “Back in 2017 or so, people were mostly in it for the investment opportunity,” said Evan Cheng, co-founder and chief executive of Mysten Labs, a start-up focused on building blockchain infrastructure projects. “Now it’s people actually wanting to build stuff.” A Guide to Cryptocurrency Card 1 of 7 A glossary. Cryptocurrencies have gone from a curiosity to a viable investment, making them almost impossible to ignore. If you are struggling with the terminology, let us help: Bitcoin. A Bitcoin is a digital token that can be sent electronically from one user to another, anywhere in the world. Bitcoin is also the name of the payment network on which this form of digital currency is stored and moved. Blockchain. A blockchain is a database maintained communally, that reliably stores digital information. The original blockchain was the database on which all Bitcoin transactions were stored, but non-currency-based companies and governments are also trying to use blockchain technology to store their data. Cryptocurrencies. Since Bitcoin was first conceived in 2008, thousands of other virtual currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, have been developed. Among them are Ether, Dogecoin and Tether. Coinbase. The first major cryptocurrency company to list its shares on a U.S. stock exchange, Coinbase is a platform that allows people and companies to buy and sell various digital currencies, including Bitcoin, for a transaction fee. Crypto finance. The development of cryptocurrencies spawned a parallel universe of alternative financial services, known as Decentralized Finance, or DeFi, allowing crypto businesses to move into traditional banking territory, including lending and borrowing. NFTs. A “nonfungible token,” or NFT, is an asset verified using blockchain technology, in which a network of computers records transactions and gives buyers proof of authenticity and ownership. NFTs make digital artworks unique, and therefore sellable. Mr. Cheng, 50, left Facebook in September after six years there, most recently working on Novi, its crypto effort. Of Mysten Labs’ roughly 20 employees, most of whom are scattered across San Francisco, London, New York and elsewhere, roughly 80 percent come from tech companies like Facebook, Google and Netflix. written on the potential upsides of crypto start-ups for tech workers. In some cases, crypto start-ups offer compensation packages on a par with the biggest tech firms because of how easily employees can convert their company’s “tokens” — or the underlying cryptocurrency backing the start-up — into cash. “It’s not necessarily the case that you have to go take one-third of your Big Tech salary anymore, because a lot of these companies are so well capitalized,” Mr. Cheng said. Ms. Carter, the former Amazon vice president, said people were interested in working at crypto firms for more than just money. Some were drawn to the ethos of web3, which strives to decentralize power and decision making. It’s an alternative to how Google and Facebook came to dominate the internet by sucking up personal data from users to sell targeted ads. Ms. Carter said there was a great deal of interest about web3 at Amazon but was not recruiting there because she had agreed not to solicit her former colleagues. So would the exodus of tech employees to crypto continue? “The answer is absolutely yes,” she said. “The time is just perfect to jump in on it.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Alex Wong/Getty Images https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-contractor-austin-job-cuts-accenture-break-time-tracked Inside the ‘messy’ end of a Facebook contractor’s job. Break time was tracked intensely, perks evaporated, and workers were put on performance plans for showing up late. Facebook, now called Meta, has been looking to rein in costs due to an ad market downturn. One contract worker in Austin said their performance and break time were tracked intensely. "It would be inaccurate to report there are layoff actions in Austin," an Accenture spokesman said. Many Facebook contractors in Austin, Texas recently lost their jobs after seeing perks evaporate, their work habits monitored intensely, and being put on more performance-improvement plans, Insider has learned. The cuts started late last month and impacted people contracted through Accenture to work for Facebook, according to a former worker whose role was eliminated. No other work was offered, but people affected were told that the loss of work wouldn't affect their ability to be rehired by Accenture in the future, said this person, who got no severance. The process started in mid-July. A mandatory meeting with Accenture HR suddenly started to appear on people's work calendars with no explanation or warning. The people were then called in individually and had work taken away. In the weeks running up to these meetings, dozens of contractors were placed on a "performance plan" for purported issues, such as starting work late, the worker said. "It was messy," the worker added. This person asked not to be identified because they were concerned about potential retribution. "It would be inaccurate to report there are layoff actions in Austin. Beyond this, we do not comment on individual personnel actions," an Accenture spokesman said in a statement. A Facebook spokesperson declined to comment. A recession in the US and a sharp downturn in the digital advertising market has put Facebook on the back foot. CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said the company will "steadily reduce head-count growth" and warned that many teams will "shrink." Full-time Facebook employees have been bracing for job cuts of up to 10%. This is part of a broader end to the hot market for tech talent during the pandemic. Facebook, which now goes by Meta, has a reported $500 million a year deal with Accenture to provide hourly content moderation and business-integrity services. Such workers scan Facebook and Instagram posts for content like violent images and trademark infringement, then flag it for review. Austin is one of Facebook's relatively new hubs. The worker who spoke with Insider estimated that about 500 contracted staff were based in a building there that was leased by the company in 2018. They received various perks directly from Facebook and worked entirely through the company's internal platforms, like Workplace. While the workers contracted through Accenture were required to come back into the office even as full-time Facebook workers could stay remote, they still received perks like breakfast, free use of conference rooms and the building, gas reimbursement, access to free snacks, and a food stipend for weekend work, according to the worker who spoke to Insider. Beginning in late April and early May, contractors started seeing Facebook roll back some of these perks. That was around the same time Facebook implemented a hiring slowdown and partial freeze, as Insider first reported. The weekend food stipend was suddenly taken away, even as all contract workers are required to work at least one weekend day every week. Gas was no longer being reimbursed. Although hourly pay increased from $19 to $22, with the loss of the additional benefits workers started with, many people felt like their pay had actually gone down, the worker said. Productivity trackers used to oversee and log contractors' work became more "intense." Workers' computers started to register any time of inactivity over 8 minutes as "time away," which was counted against a person's allotted break time of a 30-minute lunch and a 30-minute break each day, the worker said. Workers who exceeded their allotted break time were put on a performance plan in recent weeks, this person said. Being "late" also became a focus of performance, as workers were expected to be actively working right at 8:30 am, the time shifts started, the worker added. Still, being let go came as a surprise. "Even though they were getting more intense about things," the worker said, "I really wasn't expecting it all."
Who else is crying crocodile tears today? 2 hours ago | Gregor Stronach https://stockhead.com.au/news/asx-small-caps-lunch-wrap-who-else-is-crying-crocodile-tears-today/ Facebook (or Macebook or Feta or whatever it’s called today) and Google have both recently flagged that there are firings on the horizon. The tech giants have both grown so bloated and unwieldy that there are, as Mark Zuckerbeg put it, “probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here”. “Part of my hope by raising expectations and having more aggressive goals, and just kind of turning up the heat a little bit, is that I think some of you might just say that this place isn’t for you. And that self-selection is okay with me,” he continued. As near as we can tell, that’s Zuck-speak for “if you want to be able to say you resigned, rather than being fired, you’ve got about a week to do so”. It’s a horrible way to let people know that the decision to thin the herd has already been made and all the employees are essentially passengers on a theme park ride. Except that every 10th roller coaster carriage has been tampered with, and its occupants doomed to be thrown from the ride to die horribly between a hot dog stand and the queue to have Goofy sign your girlfriend’s chest. But it’s 100% pure Zuckerberg – it’s terrible news, delivered with the kind of poker face you’d only realistically expect to find scattered around the entrance to Medusa’s lair. Refreshingly, though, not all tech CEOs are Zuckerbergs – some of them are capable of wearing their heart on their sleeve… like Braden Wallake, the CEO of HyperSocial, who took to social media (because of course he did) to post a video about laying off workers. Specifically, those from his company. It was essentially the ultra-modern equivalent of being fired by SMS, except this new way is heaps better, because it’s hard to show emotion in a text message, even if you are a social media expert. And if any CEO did decide to rely on emojis to describe your emotional state while firing someone, no one’s going to believe a row of tearful little round faces, even if they do put grandma-level numbers of them at the end of the message. Even using a “:sadface: :sadface: :shoe: peach: :burning fire:” combo to say “I’m really, really sorry but I have to boot your arse outta here – you’re fired” could still be misinterpreted as a sexual advance – provided you squint a bit and you’re quite open-minded. But anyway – Ol’ Mate Wallake gave a very sad spiel, straight to camera, about how bad he felt about having to fire a bunch of people – complete with sad puppy dog eyes and what looked like tears streaming down his face: Braden Wallake, HyperSocial CEO, clearly having a sad. Pic: Supplied The underlying message was pretty clear. “Taking away your source of income to protect my tech company’s profits makes me sad – but I hope we can still be friends and that if you see me at Crying Man – sorry – Burning Man, please do come up and say hello.” The internet, quite rightly, laughed itself collectively sick. But we will say one thing about Wallake’s video – it’s a pretty good ad for his company, which specialises in helping other companies get their content to rank, or even go viral, on LinkedIn. Well played, Braden. Well played.
‘I got this wrong’: Zuckerberg sorry as Meta cuts more than 11,000 jobs ByAditya SoniandNivedita Balu UpdatedNovember 10, 2022 https://www.smh.com.au/business/com...iggest-layoffs-this-year-20221109-p5bwzj.html The pandemic-led boom that boosted tech companies and their valuations has turned into a bust this year in the face of decades-high inflation and rapidly rising interest rates. “Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected,” chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a message to employees. “I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that. “I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.” Meta, whose shares have lost more than two-thirds of their value so far this year, are more than 7 per cent higher on Wall Street on Wednesday. The company also plans to cut discretionary spending and extend its hiring freeze through the first quarter. But it did not disclose the expected cost savings from the moves. Meta will pay 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service, as well as all remaining paid time off, as a part of the severance package, the company said. Meta shares jumped on Wall Street after the layoffs were announced.CREDIT:AP The employees affected will also receive their shares that were set to vest on November 15 and healthcare coverage for six months, the company said. Zuckerberg is among several top US executives who have this year sounded the alarm on an upcoming recession. Some of Meta’s wounds, however, have been self-inflicted. A pricey bet on metaverse, a shared virtual world, has seen the company forecast as much as $US100 billion in expenses for 2023. That has drawn scepticism from investors who are losing patience with investments that Zuckerberg himself expects a decade to bear fruit. The company is also grappling with stiff competition from TikTok and privacy changes from Apple, while being in the crosshairs of regulators around the globe. Meta had 87,314 employees as of the end of September. Reuters