Ask HN: New hire at Facebook, getting weird cult vibes
Going from big L to Facebook I see lot of differences in onboarding. First there is huge cult like behavior. "The meta way".."interpretation of our values is the only one".... Then from start to finish there has been defensive explaining / self consciousness how we are visionary despite what they say.. almost begging salesy about metaverse .. like dude I'm not joining the meta team get over it. Also seem to take pride in being overbearing, prev company was like take time and settle in and this is like go go go give me 100 soldier... cringe
I recently overheard a Facebook employee who was on a date explaining how cool the Metaverse is and how it's going to change the world. It was really weird and cringy to hear. It's clear he's been drinking the Facebook Kool aid.
The same thing happened to me working at Microsoft a long time ago. You spend so much time on campus, around other Microsoft people, and you feel like you're at the best company in the world and you're working on the most amazing things. I was convinced Internet Explorer was going to become the top browser again because of how it's JavaScript engine could tap into GPUs better on Windows due to better GPU drivers and how it could do things no other browsers could because of Windows OS integration possibilities. Inside Microsoft, we "knew" Internet Explorer was coming back. The illusion got shattered in my mind about a week after leaving. It was really weird. I had obviously drank the Kool aid too.
Try making friends w some people in their late 30s / 40s and have a few beers away from bosses… I bet the charade comes off and you can meet some actual humans.
A lot of companies have that weird part of the onboarding where it sounds like you joined a cult. From what you described nothing is super off-mark here.
After some time you'll see if it's the actual internal culture or just the onboarding that is weird.
This 2014 Alternet piece by Harmon Leon only really talks the cult-like aspects of Facebook from a consumer POV [1]. The only other thing I saw (but have not read) is Minda Zetlin's article here [2]
I do know people who got sucked into FB, not as individuals but via acquisition. I don't hear from those people any more and suspect they realised any association with me would not be in their career interests.
[1] https://www.alternet.org/2014/12/8-ways-facebook-cult-just-s...
[2] https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/facebook-culture-cult-like-...
Sounds like Sauron’s pitch with rings of power to Men…. It’s great, you’ll be a member of a VERY exclusive club and get to work with all sorts of special features. Don’t worry that you wake up some nights in the small hours with a vague empty feeling…
Yup. That's the vibe of facebook. Profit makes the hype believable to the point people can no longer distinguish hype from the concrete positives.
There's also the salty ones who, in private, will admit they loathe the company but aren't against working for it anyway.
Dunno what else to tell you. Try to keep your head on straight because the valley conformity game just got turned up to 11.
I don't get it... you want money or to preserve your soul? If the former, bend over to the occultists. With the time as you prove obedience, you'll have served fresh meat in form of new hires as well.
You are in one of the modt privileged positions in the world. Don't drink the coolaid but a little annoyance is nothing, nothing compared to what you are getting out of them.
Onboarding is a weird one, i got the same vibes but the actual work is much different once you are done with that.
I kinda hated first 3 days because of that tbh.
I mean, what were you expecting.
Start a counter on when your stock options vest. Hope that the stock doesn't tank more than it already has recently. I don't know the correct terms but there is an option/grant type where when you exercise there is a strike price tied to the option/grant, hopefully you don't have those.
Reasons the stock might go down further: user counts go down/market saturation, aging fb user-base and not growing usage by younger people means when all the aunts, crazy uncles and grandmas pass away the active user population will plummet.
You didn't watch "The Circle" [1] did you? I expect it's a somewhat accurate, if hyperbolic, picture of what life there is like.
Take their money, as long as it doesn't eat your soul. You'll likely learn a lot of interesting technologies along the way.
When you say "big L" do you mean biglaw?
If so, would love to compare notes a bit. I was a dev for a years, currently in biglaw, planning on becoming a dev again soon (and targeting bigtech).
I recommend reading “Disrupted” by Dan Lyons and Broken by Design by Mike Monteiro.
Will help you preserve your sanity.
I think the metaverse will be huge and there is a lot of exciting potential. It's not just VR but also about pervasive computing, something that we haven't seen yet but have only glimpsed in smalltalk.
What's big L?