
Facebook Reports First Quarter 2020 Results - hkmurakami
https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2020/Facebook-Reports-First-Quarter-2020-Results/default.aspx
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noncoml
> Facebook daily active users (DAUs) – DAUs were 1.73 billion on average for
> March 2020, an increase of 11% year-over-year.

So despite all the hate and rumors that less and less people use FB, the
numbers tell a different story

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fossuser
Yep - it's easy to look back at all of the bad HN predictions from two years
ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16683278](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16683278)

General HN anti-FB sentiment has been wrong on this issue for a long time.

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aaomidi
It would be interesting to see the demographic changes that come with
Facebook.

I have a feeling younger users are leaving and older users (especially now
that they're more isolated than before) are joining.

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sanderjd
But that's what the theory has been for years. At some point if it's actually
become only for older people like we all keep saying, you'd see that in the
growth numbers, and that keeps not happening. Which is what the parent meant
about how we've been wrong on this for a long time.

~~~
aaomidi
The data doesn't really talk about the demographics of the users from what
I've seen. Maybe I'm wrong.

~~~
sanderjd
Sure, but this narrative about it being for older people and hemmorhaging
younger people has been going on for so long that if it were true, there is no
way the growth could have been what it's been, because they would have run out
of people in that demographic. The more plausible explanation is that young
people are still joining, even if perhaps begrudgingly.

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holler
Just saw TikTok cracked 2Billion downloads and had the thought that it's
confirmation that the best way to "beat" any of the major tech companies is to
build a great product that people enjoy. I'm sure Zuck is feeling the heat,
and personally I've noticed I'm receiving mostly tiktok links now from
friends.

[https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/29/tiktok-tops-2-billion-
down...](https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/29/tiktok-tops-2-billion-downloads/)

~~~
actuator
As someone who has not used Tiktok what does Tiktok do differently from
existing products like Instagram? Wouldn't videos in Instagram stories/posts
already cover Tiktok's usecase?

Also, I guess give Zuck time. He weathered the Snapchat storm and left them
far behind.

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throwaway1777
TikTok is winning at making random people famous. It’s not really about
friends and celebrities as much as Instagram. It’s also picking up from Vine
on surfacing short videos that are super addicting to watch. Twitter really
killed a golden goose with Vine.

~~~
holler
btw the creator of Vine launched a new TikTok competitor called Byte
recently.. it's basically the same thing but clips are limited to 8 seconds
and less press...

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byefruit
Their effective tax rate is only half what it was the previous year. Any ideas
what changed?

~~~
chapplap
The $3B FTC fine was deducted from Q1 2019's income, substantially increasing
the effective tax rate for that quarter. The fine was not a tax-deductible
expense.

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actuator
It has been interesting to see the different approaches to future planning in
the wake of Covid-19 by the two big ad players.

While Google is looking to scale back on things like hiring, FB looks to be
going all in on this opportunity and doesn't seem to be slowing down with
future plans specially wrt hiring(though they have pushed back joining dates
to the later half of the year). They even considered it wise to do an all cash
deal for $6 billion for a minor stake in a telecom provider in India.

~~~
mcharezinski
FB to the win. Younger company. PIP culture. Hot products. They will collect
nice talent during current recession. Bad for Google.

~~~
actuator
Don't all companies have PIPs? Does Facebook have disproportionately high
percentage of PIPs compared to their peers in FAANG, even Amazon?

~~~
throwaway1777
The original post was about Google and generally I’d say FB is indeed faster
to hire and also faster to pip/fire than Google. Compared to Amazon and
Netflix, probably not.

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nappy-doo
I was a manager at FB for a couple of years. Basically, my first official act
as a manager was firing someone. From there, it was pretty much, "find one
person on your team per year to fire."

It was an extremely high performing team, and even the less talented engineers
were still very good.

I quit rather than live in the culture.

~~~
actuator
Was this similar to MS's infamous stack ranking system where some teammates
will be always rated bad even if everyone is doing well?

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ra7
Yes, FB has a similar system.

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throwaway1777
That’s bullshit. FB does not stack rank.

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thewarrior
There is stack ranking at the org level. It’s all a bit hush hush but it’s
there.

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mobileexpert
Stock appears to be soaring after hours.

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yalogin
Wonder if Amazon will beat numbers too.

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Steve886
Not great results

