Unpopular opinion: Facebook is widely disliked by the loudest voices in the room (for good reason), but the vast majority of people still just treat it like a fancy forum. It's not going to stain your CV.
Plus, Facebook-the-app is far more disliked than Meta-the-company especially now that's a formal distinction. I imagine it's still relatively cool to work on Instagram, for example.
I’m firm, firm in my belief that the people who have chosen of their own free will to work for FAANG have made moral compromises that disqualify them from my employment.
I don’t get how this is “sanctimonious”.
These people have made some absolutely terrible life choices, and alienation is a part of the consequence package that comes with those life choices.
Why FAANG specifically? For instance, how does Apple fail ethically, in your view, compared to the others? Are there any other companies- Microsoft, Uber, Twitter and so forth you would also have a problem with?
Hi, I’ve worked for two of FAANG, it’s super duper easy to work outside of SV.
The reason you sound salty is because you evaluate candidates based on whatever perception you have about who they are instead of trying to understand who they are.
I’m sure you don’t care, sounds like it’s working for you, so in any event congrats on finding what makes you happy!
I firmly believe that actions speak louder than words. People will say all kinds of things to project an impression, and then you see what they actually do or did, and sometimes it's quite surprising with the inconsistency.
Shall we also start making moral judgements about the city or country you live/lived in? The products you choose to purchase? The schools you chose to attend? The political party you choose to support? The religion you are or aren’t a part of? The sports teams you support?
Shall we look down on NASA engineers because it’s part of the US government and pulls heavily from the US military/has overlap with the intelligence services/some of its top secret projects maybe do things I’m morally opposed about?
This kind of guilt by association is pretty bad and that’s the pushback you’re seeing in this thread. Humans are social animals. No social group will be without it’s flaw and larger groups have more and larger problems. This same line of reasoning is what fuels religious and political persecution. It’s barely acceptable in sports but that’s because it’s mostly harmless and in good fun until you hit riot levels of idiocy. Heck, the big tech companies are massive. They have so many individual teams that do totally unrelated stuff to the things you might have issues with.
As for the bitterness someone else noted, it’s not that you stated your values. You went further and made the claim that these engineers would have trouble finding jobs outside of SV because of the association. That part is blatantly false on its face. They may have trouble because of niche skills that aren’t relevant elsewhere because the scale doesn’t exist elsewhere. Are there some employers who won’t hire us because of our association with some company? Sure. So? I’ll not choose companies for myriad of arbitrary reasons too. That doesn’t mean I’ll struggle to find a job overall.
As an aside, I find it a bit telling that you lump Netflix into it and then your primary complaint about the company was that they canceled a show you are attached to. That’s not even about morals and is fairly arbitrary. This is why there’s feedback that it looks like you’re salty about something unrelated and note you’ve attached a larger reason behind it based on morals.
So I keep seeing things about Netflix so I felt I might comment. Netflix is in a profoundly evil field. They work to manipulate people through media. They are not the only company, of course, but they are egregious.
For example, Netflix infamously pulled Hasan Minhaj’s episode on Saudi Arabia from Saudi Arabian Netflix in exchange for allowing Orange is the New Black to stay. They want to, for lack of better words, morally corrupt societies and they do not care if that means more injustice and political suppression.
Their leadership has stated one of their intentions was to promote things from western culture in other countries in order to change the culture and society there. This is blatantly cultural imperialism and an extension of US soft power projection.
The media has that addictive quality of captivating masses. I see Netflix as like a tobacco or Juul company — profoundly damaging for the groups of people they seek to captivate. And maybe a comparison to an oil company is apt; Netflix certainly pollutes in terms of the minds and behaviors of people. Time and focus and cognition spent watching their shows pushed by their algorithms entrenches their position in a world where they do not care for their negative externalities.
Netflix are accused every day of the exact opposite, i.e. "pushing social justice narratives". They're a media company caught up in some nonsense internet culture war, don't read too much into it.
I assume you live in the United States. By your logic, you are complicit with the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of peoples from Africa then.
> Most of you on here are all woo woo Linux this and FSF that, but you won’t put your money where your mouth is.
Some big companies are also big FOSS contributors. Some people even join these companies to do mostly FOSS (like Golang, AOSP, React, VSC). So if there's a contradiction there, I don't think it's that obvious for everyone.
> I won’t hire you if you work for these assholes
Actually this might be a good strategy if you have too many applicants and you pay closer to the median of the market rather than the top 10%, since such applicants are less likely to accept your offer. So better stop the process early.
I would have more respect for this comment (and your entire crusade in this thread) if you were complaining about Facebook for political reasons. I would disagree with you, but, I couuld understand your perspective.
But, all FAANG, really? What business are you in that's so noble by comparison?
Or the job is grueling and requires more time commitment/energy. Or it’s a very niche technical problem. Or the person has an outsized impact on the company in other ways like bringing prestige and making it easier to hire more people.
There’s lots of reasons people get paid large sums.
What do I have to be salty about? I’m honestly a very happy person.
I’ve found some incredible people that fulfill me, and that’s freed me.
I used to be afraid of what people would think if I said what I felt. Now I can say what I believe with little consequence and to be honest? Not going back.
I think it's worth reflecting on the fact that you took time out of your happy life to leave your original comment, which declared that you will use whatever small amount of professional power you have to enforce your personal grudge against a small set of companies you hate by refusing to hire their former workers.
Edit: Just realized you've left like 20 comments on this thread that are all grinding the same axe.
Hey. I've never worked for a FAANG, but I am considering joining Facebook. They way I see it, Facebook is hugely impactful and there is real work to do there, ex: flagging disinformation, flagging external government influences, etc. It's challenging and extremely valuable work.
If everyone who works at Facebook is blacklisted by people like you, it would just make the company a worse influence on the world because there would be noone left there to make it better. So I would prefer if good people had the freedom to try to make an impact according to their will without fear that people such as yourself will then work hard to tarnish their reputations. Thanks!
Plus, Facebook-the-app is far more disliked than Meta-the-company especially now that's a formal distinction. I imagine it's still relatively cool to work on Instagram, for example.