Mark Zuckerberg warns Meta staff of ‘intense year’ ahead as he announces low performers will be cut
Fortune
Internal memo to Meta staff, reported by Bloomberg
“I’ve decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out low-performers faster”
Mark Zuckerberg14 January 2025- What you'll lose4/5
About 3,600 jobs.
- Condescension3/5
'Low-performers', in a memo that reached the press.
- Tone-deafness3/5
An 'intense year', starting with the cuts.
- Doom0/5
None.
- Hypocrisy0/5
None.
Full time10 pitchforksof a possible 25
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The occasion
Internal memo to Meta staff, reported by Bloomberg, 14 January 2025.
Context
In a memo obtained by Bloomberg, Zuckerberg told staff to expect an "intense year" and said Meta would do "more extensive performance-based cuts during this cycle" than its usual practice. About 5% of staff (roughly 3,600 people) were cut on 10 February. A work-and-jobs remark rather than an AI one; included because the brief covers jobs and work.
Crowd reaction
Widespread criticism
After the cuts, laid-off employees posted on LinkedIn that they had good reviews and were not low performers; one told Business Insider "we have the scarlet letter on our backs" (quoted by Fortune and Entrepreneur). Fortune reported that workplace experts called the "low performance" label "highly subjective and potentially unfair", and Fortune's Diane Brady wrote "There’s something to be said for letting people leave with their dignity intact rather than branding them as subpar performers".
- FOX 13 Seattle: Meta cutting 'low performers' in latest round of layoffs
- Fortune: Mark Zuckerberg warns Meta staff of ‘intense year’ ahead as he announces low performers will be cut
- Futurism: Zuckerberg Announces Layoffs After Saying Coding Jobs Will Be Replaced by AI
- Fortune: Mark Zuckerberg warned employees to prepare for an ‘intense year.’ He just laid off 3,600 workers—including some who claim they got glowing reviews
- Entrepreneur: Fired Meta Workers Say They Have Records of Good Performance
- Fortune: Meta's 'low performer' layoffs disputed by fired staffers and criticized by experts
- Where the exact words are printed