I know a few earlyish employees at Facebook, and they are easily the happiest people I've met at any company. In some respects this can be credited to joining the right company at the right time: they got in early at a company that makes insane amounts of money and has a huge influence on the world. But this seems to be the icing on the cake to them. Everyone I know at Facebook who got in before 2010 credits Mark Zuckerberg ("Zuck", ugh). They call him a friend and say he never wavers in his passion or mission. They seriously look up to the guy and won't work anywhere else, even though they have built up generational wealth.<p>Honestly I don't care much for Facebook's methods and I think they are a net negative on the world, but I still really look up to Mark Zuckerberg as a leader.
I recently interviewed there, and I definitely got this sense. Everyone in management had been there at least 3 years, and the directors / VPs had been there 8+. When I asked one person where people go if they leave Facebook, he didn't answer. He just said Facebook works hard to retain employees, and that if he ever felt bored he would leave.
The campus is idyllic, designed apparently by the same person who designed Disneyland. Free food, arcades, ice cream, movies, etc.
I think they try very hard to make you comfortable (no "stick") and keep presenting you with opportunities to have more impact ("carrot"). To the point where people don't appear to think as much about the bigger picture and who they want to be / where they want to go. I often heard that phrase "as long as I'm challenged and having impact, I'll stay here".
“There are more could-be CEOs at Facebook than any other company”.<p>This is such a meaningless non-statement.<p>“There are more could-be Picasso’s at Facebook than any other company”. Wow. #inspired. If only they picked up the brush.<p>Be less concerned about being a CEO and more concerned about creating things of value.
"Impact" is the new buzzword of the creative class, aka the knowledge worker. Also, it might be noted, someone else cleans the toilets, that comment from the social good person was just argument by example, and a strange example coming from the person whose title kind of most closely resembles advocating for working people. Because the people who actually clean their toilets don't likely talk much about 'impact'. For folks who are worried about groupthink and feedback loops at FB look no further than comments like these.
Snap, Twitter and Uber have all had unprecedented amount of turmoil in the executive ranks of the company. Snap and Twitter's stock are both trading below IPO. Uber is not public yet.<p>It makes me wonder about the deeper causality. Do execs stay because of the mission and that causes stock appreciation? Or do execs stick around because of stock appreciation and then explain it through the mission?
Call me cynical, but how many companies could they become a CEO where they would own more / more valuable stock and/or earn more from said stock?
> “When we learned our platform was abused and interfered with, that was super shocking to all of us,” said Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan in a recent interview with Recode. “[I was] shocked that we were abused. Angry that our platform was abused, manipulated.”<p>Really? I am genuinely confused about how this would come as a surprise.
If money is no longer a driving force and FB is a happy place to work at then power / influence / impact is what is left. Perhaps the execs simply believe that they will have more of this by remaining than starting a new company. Power can be a good or bad thing depending on perspective.