Mark Zuckerberg's company has begun the largest internal restructuring: thousands of employees lost their jobs, and another part of the staff is being reassigned to AI projects.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Meta, launched a large-scale reorganization. The company laid off 10% of its staff — about 8,000 people.
Another approximately 7,000 employees will be transferred to new projects related to artificial intelligence. This was reported by The New York Times and Bloomberg.
Notifications were sent to employees in the morning. Management had previously asked staff to work from home on the day of the layoffs. Those who still came to the office told NYT that flyers against the company’s new strategy were hanging on the walls. In particular, against the tracking of their screens for AI training.
According to sources at Bloomberg, the layoffs hit Meta's engineering and product teams the hardest. The company promised severance pay to those laid off, maintaining their base salary for at least 16 weeks, as well as health insurance and assistance in finding new jobs.
These layoffs were the result of Zuckerberg's massive investments in AI infrastructure. As calculated by Bloomberg, the investment volume exceeded $100 billion. Inside the company, Mark Zuckerberg published a message stating that the firm "does not expect any other mass layoffs this year." He also added that it is necessary to improve communication with employees.
In the editorial's opinion, what is happening at Meta shows how rapidly the largest IT companies are restructuring around artificial intelligence. However, such drastic changes are increasingly causing tension within the corporations themselves, where employees fear that the development of AI comes at the expense of people.
