Meta Employees Really Hate Zuckerberg’s Plan for a Company-Wide AI Hackathon

CEO of Meta Mark Zuckerberg internal announcement Friday’s “senior” company’s AI hackathon next month quickly caused frustration and mistrust among employees.

In an internal memo seen by WIRED, some employees wrote that they had added roles later Recently many people have lost their jobs the tech giant had left them with little time to join other projects like that. Others said they were discouraged from participating because of what they perceived to be low standards and a lack of trust in management across the company.

“I’m too busy keeping the lights on for my team,” wrote one employee on Friday. “I have no motivation to participate, even to have time to do so.”

In a post shared with nearly 70,000 Meta employees, Zuckerberg created a hackathon as a way for employees to build relationships during times of intense internal turmoil. Ime Archibong, Meta’s vice president of product management, later explained more about the event, which he said will be held from July 14 to July 16 and will focus on “AI Innovation.”

Archibong’s post quickly drew backlash from several employees, who responded with angry messages and offensive memes. “I’m not sure that this company fits into the hackathon culture anymore,” one employee wrote in a statement that included 200 fingerprints and heart reactions. “People are being asked to do more work with little help while their colleagues are being laid off, while also trying to avoid the risk of causing SEV1s (serious technical errors) by using AI intelligently.”

The same employee also said that the hackathon exercise cannot be equated to a performance review, which is causing frustration among employees about the prospect of setting aside other tasks to participate.

Many people reacted by laughing and giving a thumbs-up to the meme inspired by the comedy film. We are the Grinderssaying, “You all have time for a hackathon?”

“Honestly, I don’t have time to think about it, and I’m expected to be fully committed” to a permanent job, one employee wrote. “I’ve participated in hackathons in the past but this doesn’t sound like the right way to create pods in my corner of the company.”

A third employee called what he called a “disappointing change in culture” because “I don’t believe there’s enough security to spend time on hackathon tools.”

Meta declined to comment on the matter.

Meta has been working internally don’t sayBut two sources tell WIRED that this is the first companywide layoff since 8,000 layoffs last month.

A former Meta engineer responded to some employee complaints by saying that everyone is encouraged to participate. But the message has not yet arrived. “Every organization I know has very aggressive goals, high performance expectations and understaffed staff,” he once commented. “There is less time to focus on other axes.”

The hackathon was one of several activities Zuckerberg held on Friday to reinvigorate his staff and address internal criticism of the recent layoffs and other concerns. He also said that the cost of buying team offsites will increase and that the idea of hot deckingor office workers except when sharing desks, are terminated in other offices.

Last year, some workers agreed to investigate their colleagues about the removal of their desks and the chaos and loss of productivity they believed it caused, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive discussions. The group urged management to return to each worker having their own place. The layoff seems to have opened up space, leaving less time available.