12th March 2023 – (New York) A middle manager at Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has taken to social media platform Blind to express his anger and concern about the company’s recent belt-tightening measures. The anonymous employee, who goes by the handle “sadduck”, claimed to earn a salary of US$550,000 per year as a tier 1 manager at Meta. The post, titled “Angry/Worried that it’s all going to be taken away from me!”, has since gone viral.
In the post, the employee complained about the recent “flattening” ultimatum issued by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to middle managers to improve their performance or leave the company. The employee claimed to have rejected offers of up to US$750,000 per year from rival companies such as Google, Square, Uber, and Stripe last year, only to regret it now as Meta’s fortunes have taken a turn for the worse. The company’s stock price declined by over 65% last year, and Zuckerberg recently laid off thousands of employees, with more expected in 2023.
The employee wrote that they had financial projections to retire by the age of 40 with a total compensation of US$1 million, but now their odds of survival were 50/50 due to the recent belt-tightening measures. The post has drawn criticism on Twitter, with many users expressing little sympathy for an employee earning around 10 times the median American income. Some users called for Zuckerberg to fire all middle management at Meta.
It remains to be seen how Meta will respond to the employee’s post and whether the company’s recent measures will have the desired effect of improving its fortunes.