
‘I Don’t Really Want to Work for Facebook.’ Say Some Computer Science Students - JumpCrisscross
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/technology/jobs-facebook-computer-science-students.html
======
yaacov
> Ms. Brown said a lot of students criticize Facebook and talk about how they
> would not work there, but ultimately join. “Everyone cares about ethics in
> tech before they get a contract,” she said.

This describes my what I've observed perfectly. There are very few companies
that make new grad offers comparable to Facebook's, and career advancement
opportunities and working conditions at Facebook tend to be better than the
other 'Big-n companies'. So it's hard for a new grad to say no to a Facebook
offer, even if they're morally opposed to its products.

~~~
gpm
My theory is that pay and working conditions at Facebook are as good as they
are precisely because of people feeling like this. They are having to pay a
premium to attract engineers as a result of the moral opposition.

~~~
ralusek
It's very similar to when you hear people say "I love my job but they don't
pay a living wage!"

It's because you love your job, you have to pay for that.

~~~
AlexandrB
This kind of post-facto justification for poor working conditions or wages
needs a name, so it can be dismissed out of hand. It seems to assume that the
market is “fair” and getting poor pay must be justified by some other factor
about the job.

In reality, there are plenty of jobs that have garbage pay _and_ suck. As well
as jobs that are both lucrative _and_ “easy”. Consider the average CEO: not
the exceptional visionaries but the type that loses the shareholders money for
years and then exits on a golden parachute. These jobs are hard only in the
sense that you have to know the right people, (being born to the right people
helps) to even be considered.

On the other side of the ledger, you have immigrants with medical degrees, who
are driving cabs for minimum wage (or now, Uber, for below minimum wage).

The free market is not fair, and it is not a meritocracy. It is subject to all
the same tribal impulses and inequalities that have persisted in humans
throughout history. In western societies, no job should pay less than a living
wage, no matter how enjoyable it is. That’s just an excuse for exploitation.

~~~
kansface
> In western societies, no job should pay less than a living wage...

Pay is determined chiefly by supply and demand in the labor market. Jobs that
are more fun pay less because the supply of workers is higher. Fairness is
_literally_ not part of this equation.

> On the other side of the ledger, you have immigrants with medical degrees,
> who are driving cabs for minimum wage.

Medical licenses are controlled by the government, not the free market.

> [The free market] is subject to all the same tribal impulses and
> inequalities that have persisted in humans throughout history.

... and also the Civil Rights Act of 1964. All snark aside, why should we pay
a high school paperboy a living wage? What does a living wage even mean - the
ability to live in a single bedroom apartment? That runs ~3K/month in SF which
is roughly commensurate to $50/hour.

~~~
tropdrop
> What does a living wage even mean..

The definition of living wage is fairly established. It is the minimum income
necessary for a worker to meet their basic needs. Needs are defined to include
food, housing, and other essentials such as clothing. This definition is why,
in the United States, at least, every few years Minimum Wage (used
interchangeably here with Living Wage) would be raised, to keep up with
inflation. It allowed the average American to start saving for a down-payment
for a house _even if all they had was a high school education and nothing
else_ (so, the paperboy you mention). Until, for some reason, we stopped doing
that as much.

Instead of looking at one of the most inflated rental markets in the country
(SF), let's look at somewhere like Idaho - you'll find that inflation has
still affected that place, but minimum wage (living wage) to be able to
provide those basic needs has not kept up. This is why, countrywide, 40% of
non-elderly adults report difficulty meeting basic needs such as food,
housing, health care and utilities [1].

But let's consider that paperboy, for a minute. Do you really believe that the
only people who deserve the most basic income to be able to live (living wage)
are those that are capable of getting a higher education? What about all the
other members of a functional society that we rely on?

[1] - [https://www.urban.org/research/publication/well-being-and-
ba...](https://www.urban.org/research/publication/well-being-and-basic-needs-
survey)

~~~
glglwty
Maybe a functional society doesn't necessarily rely on jobs with below-living
wages? Point is, the question of whether you should pay living wages to every
worker is basically equivalent to whether you should provide living income to
every person, employed or not. When you enforce a living wage, some jobs would
disappear and you have to answer question 2 to people who lost their jobs. I
don't have an answer for question 2 but I think recognizing the theoretical
equivalency here would make the discussion much more straightforward.

------
eksemplar
I get that we don’t like Facebook, but isn’t this a bit much? Are they worse
than google or amazon? What about people who work for Coca-Cola? What about
the people who make mobile games and loot boxes for Blizzard?

Where is it ethical to work?

I mean, I’ve been in public service for decades, so I know a thing or two
about choosing idealism over money, but that’s not for everyone and I frankly
don’t think Facebook is really that more evil than around 90% of the hundreds
of software companies we deal with.

Like we recently ordered a system for abused children journals. A nationwide
bidding landing in a 120 million danish or deal, for a piece of software that
30 municipalities build an equivalent of on their own for 2 million danish kr
a few years back.

So some company is making 118 million because the world is rotten. That
company is the most popular tech destination for newly educated CS grads in my
country by the way.

~~~
deanmoriarty
From my experience, most of this negativity just appears on HN or on channels
who have some strong bias (usually business related) against Facebook.

All my acquaintances working in tech, which includes people from very wide
sociodemographics ranges, consider Facebook an absolutely prestigious
employer, with top talent, top challenges, top compensation and top name for
building a personal brand.

Hell, I interviewed at FB about a year ago and was _thrilled_ to get an offer
(which I ultimately didn't accept for other reasons) and I loved the technical
challenges that they are working and how they are advancing the state of the
art on some really cool scalability problems.

I'll be downvoted, but when it comes to Facebook, HN is a broken record.

~~~
gxigzigxigxi
As a Googler, Facebook would certainly be a place I would consider if I wasn’t
at google. You’re right, of course, that it is a better than fine employer.

~~~
blub
That doesn't prove anything though: employee at biggest surveillance machine
in the world considers working at the 2nd biggest surveillance machine in the
world.

A lot of us software engineering types lack integrity and are perfectly happy
to work on socially harmful projects as long as the pay's right and there's
opportunity to grow one's skills.

~~~
deminature
> A lot of us software engineering types lack integrity

This is pretty insulting, working at Facebook doesn't necessarily mean you
don't have integrity. The majority of the company is engaged in development
efforts that aren't related to the odious part of the business to do with
brokering personal data.

Additionally, I'm sure Facebook would move away from that if there was a
viable way to get people to pay directly for social media. It's not like
they're selling data because they're moustache twirling villains, they're
doing it because it's the only business model anyone can make work for social
media.

Further, it's interesting how Google is in exactly the same business at
Facebook, yet receives a small fraction of public hatred for it.

~~~
blub
Working at the company which is responsible for making election manipulation
easier, facilitating murders and manipulating billions of people into giving
up their private information is _not_ ok, even if one actually works on some
cool JavaScript library and not the evil bits themselves.

~~~
deminature
By this definition, anyone working for any platform that facilitates
communication _could_ be responsible for this unless they're policing
literally every message, in which case they're grossly violating the privacy
of users. This is a ridiculous standard to hold engineering staff against.

~~~
pathseeker
No it's not ridiculous. If Facebook is paying you to work on anything, they
are getting more value out of you than your salary in their tracking
endeavors.

Would you justify working for the Nazis if it was on open source libraries to
better enable tracking people?

------
Animats
_...the head of the start-up incubator and investment firm, Y Combinator, gave
opening remarks, recommending that young people avoid jobs in big tech. “You
get to program your life on a totally different scale.... The worst thing that
can happen to you is you get a job at Google.” He called those jobs “$100,000
a year welfare” — meaning, he said, that workers can get tethered to the
paycheck and avoid taking risks._

Why would you want to work for a YCombinator startup if you're not a founder?
You're taking the risk, you get underpaid, and you don't get the big potential
payoff.

~~~
marssaxman
Same reason you'd work for any startup - because startups are fun and
interesting? You get a level of autonomy you can never have at an established
company, with freedom to experiment and work creatively.

~~~
tombert
As someone who has worked for five separate startups, I have to disagree.
While you do get close to your teammates, in my experience the managers in
startup-land tend to be a _lot_ less flexible because they have their vision
of how something is supposed to be done.

I work for a giant evil megacorporation now, and I honestly feel like I have
more freedom here to explore new stuff than I ever did as a
JS/PHP/GOLANG/MONGODB Ninja/Rockstar/Guru in startup land.

~~~
avinium
It's an interesting dynamic. BigCo doesn't live or die by a single employee or
customer, so they can afford for devs to explore tech/ideas/etc.

But in terms of actually commercializing/releasing something, there's so many
hoops to jump through that good ideas simply get stifled.

Startups are the opposite - they can ill afford a developer spending a week
learning NewStack, but if someone floats an idea that fits (or improves) their
business model, they can execute in the blink of an eye.

As with most things in life, there's pros and cons to both.

------
nprincigalli
Related, humor, by The Onion

Facebook Employees Explain Struggling To Care About Company's Unethical
Practices When Gig So Cushy

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DiBc1vkTig](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DiBc1vkTig)

~~~
nabla9
It's good satire as always, but its also reality. People are not following
strictly their morals or money. They try to balance them both.

People should be more frank about it: "I demand satanic compensation for
making people feel bad and agitated."

------
wesleytodd
Personal anecdote:

I was contacted by a facebook recruiter a few years ago. I started the process
and also started thinking about if I would like working there. I realized that
I disagree strongly with the product, its effects on society, culture and
politics. But more importantly I realized I hadn't used the product in like 3
years. I just said no thanks before even finishing the "take home" exercise.

At the time I was not a college grad, I was a team lead at a startup. This was
before all of the recent news (2016?). It turns out I was right to make that
decision.

I think there is strong incentive for engineers who commit to working on
projects which they would actually use themselves. I am not overly ethical as
a person (although I do have opinions I try to stick to), but I am very happy
to have the opportunity to work at companies with products I actually use.

~~~
spike021
>But more importantly I realized I hadn't used the product in like 3 years.

How does this matter? Most people don't personally use the products they work
on.

If someone works on software in flight computers (I don't know the proper
term), in most cases I doubt they're pilots actively using said software.

I certainly don't personally use the products I work on for my job.

A job is a job. Sure some people find work "doing what they love" or doing
things they enjoy/can benefit from personally, but not everybody, and that's
certainly not a standard.

~~~
umanwizard
> flight computers (I don't know the proper term)

avionics?

~~~
spike021
Ah, yep I'd say that word fits the concept I was thinking of. Thanks!

------
minimaxir
After Susan Fowler wrote her exposè on Uber's culture a couple years ago, many
commented saying that they would have trouble attracting talent given their
tarnished reputation. Did that ever happen in practice?

~~~
arthurcolle
Sure, I think it is happening in practice.

With respect, I think you might be succumbing to a weak form of selection bias
(perhaps theres a better bias at play). In my thinking, people who don't work
at megacorps have issues with bringing technocratic dystopia into reality
(either due to horrific cultural issues at these companies, or by turning
humans into labor-machines, either internally, or via externally-developed
markets) aren't taken seriously as "opposing voices" in the narrative. No one
is debating the fact that you get cheap goods using these practices, but it
certainly seems to have a negative effect on overall empathy/humanity, in my
perhaps naive opinion.

To bring the point home, if you aren't at Google, Facebook, Amazon, or any of
the other gigantic tech companies, you aren't considered part of the "talent
pool" unless you have some kind of in, or just deal with the interview process
and get one of the roles. I've noticed that because I haven't worked at a
"real tech company" individuals at one of the larger Internet companies seem
to discount what I have to say, with perhaps what you'd call 'pure
tech'-adjacent software development experience at a large investment bank.

I think a huge number of talented people are choosing not to work at one of
these firms, Uber as one example, specifically because of moral issues with
one of the above issues mentioned.

~~~
neffy
I think you´re right. I certainly wouldn´t work for any of those companies,
and have repeatedly turned down interview requests. Would not have had Google
on that list up until a year ago, but am starting to feel glad I escaped
there.

------
cbanek
> Now, she said, job candidates “want to meet the team. They’re not just going
> to blindly take a company because of the name anymore.”

This seems to not be only Facebook, but Google and other big names where the
people interviewing you aren't going to be working with you.

I don't think most people realize how this actively tilts the interview
against being useful for the interviewee - a large part of it is knowing who
you will be working with, and if you like them and can make a good team
together. Not knowing the team you will work for (by design) can really make
it hard for a candidate to make a choice, given they don't have all the
information. I think this is especially true for minority candidates, since
you don't know if someone on the team you will be working with might have a
problem with you.

------
sigi45
While facebook is huge and everyone knows it, i still don't see facebook the
same way i see companies like: Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon, ...

Sure they have so much money that they do research, build open source tools
etc. but how that company came by and what it is actually doing, is so
different to all the others.

In a bad way.

------
mbrodersen
I have always wondered why (especially junior) software developers glorify
Facebook/Google/Netflix/whatever claiming that they are the best places to
work and "only the best people work there". What a load of nonsense. Those
companies are about making money getting people to look at and click on ads.
Nothing else! An activity that provide _no_ real value to society. And (adding
insult to injury) are responsible for increasing the distribution of non-fact
as facts. Compare that with software developers working for companies
providing real beneficial products for people, saving lives, giving happiness
and improving health. Now _that_ is companies worth working for.

~~~
dandandan
Because delivering ads to a few billion people is a hard problem which leads
to needing good engineers. They pay _really_ well compared to smaller orgs
because it's difficult to hire that talent and ads are _very_ profitable.

~~~
oliveshell
It’s a hard problem that engineers- if they _really_ are _good_ engineers-
should question the utility and consequences of solving.

Thank God some of them are.

------
Jonanin
I have concerns about Facebook just like everyone else, but I'd also like to
point out that the New York Times is not repeatedly publishing articles
criticizing FB simply because of their superior moral stance. They are doing
it because FB took away a lot of revenue from publishers like them, and they
are very, very angry about it.

~~~
bepotts
And it's so transparent at this point. I've listened to podcasts with
reporters and they _lament_ the rise of Facebook and how "Facebook is stealing
their business" through ads and algorithm changes that hurt them.

But the bias doesn't matter because everyone on the internet hates them (and
Google) so they just rush to pile on. Anything negative about Facebook gets to
the front page very quickly. The thing is, Facebook has billions of users and
you don't get billions of users by being evil. People may not love Facebook,
but there really isn't a better way to keep up with friends, family, and to
organize get togethers. I don't use Facebook that much, but I'll never delete
it. It's just too valuable in my life.

As an aside: we're all engineers here, and if Facebook offered you guys a job,
_almost_ everyone here would take it. Their engineering team, quality of life,
and compensation is extremely hard to beat. The NY Times found a couple
college kids who don't want to work for Facebook. Okay. As a recent college
graduate I can assure you that almost everyone in my graduating class would
have taken a job at Facebook if given the chance. Facebook came and hired the
smartest of my graduating class and the "hackathon" crowd puts Facebook at
close to the top of their list of companies to work for. Facebook isn't
hurting for talent and they have the compensation packages to compete for the
best of the best.

~~~
craigsmansion
> you don't get billions of users by being evil.

Tobacco companies would disagree, no, actually, they would agree, full-
heartedly, and pay well for your study that backs that up.

> Their engineering team, quality of life, and compensation is extremely hard
> to beat.

Working for Facebook in any meaningful technical capacity makes one a
Machiavellian opportunist. For some, that's never worth it.

> As a recent college graduate

Yes, money is great and alluring. You can buy stuff with it, except for stuff
you can't buy.

> there really isn't a better way to keep up with friends, family

Facebook puts a tax on being human, on trying to exist outside of a social
vacuum. Doesn't that bother you?

~~~
traek
> Facebook puts a tax on being human, on trying to exist outside of a social
> vacuum.

I don't know what "trying to exist outside of a social vacuum" means. I also
don't know what type of "tax" Facebook puts on being human that isn't levied--
to at least some extent--by every other technological advance (telegraph,
phone, internet, email, SMS...)

------
uoflcards22
I'm at university right now and have a ton of friends in CS (I was previously
as well), and I can tell you the overwhelming majority are more than ok with
working for FB.

------
hacknat
I was getting heavily recruited, by Facebook earlier this year (they checked
in with me every two months), and I finally decided to send them more than the
canned LinkedIn, “I’m not interested”, response. I told them that I didn’t
think I was a good fit, because I didn’t use the product and would probably
have a hard time understanding it (if you’re going to help build a consumer
app you really ought to use it in my opinion). I thought the recruiter would
be surprised by my response, but I actually got the vibe from her that she had
heard that before, promptly removing me from their recruitment tool (and to
their credit they haven’t contacted me since).

It makes me think that Facebook will probably end up being one of the better
places to work as they know they will have to offer benefits to make up for
the stigma and/or lack of interest in working there.

------
_hardwaregeek
Yeah...I doubt that. Especially people attending hackathons. Underlying modern
hackathon culture is a serious amount of careerism and showmanship. Most of
the kids at hackathons would sacrifice a lot more than morals to get a job at
Facebook.

~~~
saagarjha
Not everyone attends hackathons. You just see those kids more because of the
reasons you listed: they’re a lot more visible.

------
aylmao
This is.. odd to me.

I graduated college not too long ago, and you hear stuff like this all the
time. A big one is Financial Tech-- people talk a lot about how they don't
want to work for those companies.

Some people are against working in big-tech, or AirBnB because of the housing
crisis, Uber because of the sexual harassment and competitive culture, etc.

This is however the first time I see a NYT article about this. They're really
going after Facebook with all they can find.

------
johan_larson
I have to wonder how many of the top 50 or so tech companies have really
sterling reputations for warm-hearted goodness. Powerful organizations usually
end up stepping on _somebody 's_ toes either in getting to the top or staying
there.

And really, where else are you going to work if you are a developer and want
to make money? One of the big banks? Plenty of dirt there. A defence
contractor? Ditto.

~~~
jedberg
I'd say Netflix has a pretty good external reputation. They do good by their
customers and don't sell them out. They take your money and show your videos
and don't share your data. They have hits and misses on their original
content, but they don't actually make that stuff, they just compete with all
the other big entertainment outlets to distribute what production companies
make.

There is of course strong opinions about their internal culture, but as I
described it to someone recently, it's an environment where you have to choose
what to work on and then make it successful without a lot of help and
guidance. If that's the kind of place that you thrive, then you'll love
working at Netflix.

~~~
mawburn
And yet, even Netflix has a famous history of having a firing culture. Which
from the outside looking in, seems toxic and incredibly unethical.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-10-26/netfli...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-10-26/netflix-
s-firing-culture-works-for-netflix-nflx)

~~~
jedberg
That's the internal reputation, not external. And as I said, many of us
_liked_ that culture. I liked that fact that I didn't have to deal with people
who were clearly there just to collect a paycheck. Those folks didn't last
long. Like I said, you had to take control of your own destiny with little
guidance. If you like that kind of thing, Netflix is a great place.

~~~
mawburn
I have worked in places that refuse to fire anyone and it's not fun. The cruft
just builds up.

But, plenty of places are willing to fire people who have given up or
completely check out and nobody is really has that aspect of their company
culture talked about as much as Netflix's.

I'm not really trying to imply what Netflix does is wrong if it works for
them, but it could definitely be interpreted as unethical and sounds like it
could be toxic. I'm just trying to play devil's advocate and saying that every
company has their skeletons, even respectable companies like Netflix.

------
adjkant
Finishing up my degree in spring, very few people say no to prestige coming
out of new grad, but there are some, and those are absolutely avoiding
Facebook among a few others. Currently, the main blacklist companies in my
book are Facebook, Palantir, and Uber. Google still isn't evil enough. Amazon
gets a bad rep overall for work environment but isn't avoided on moral
grounds.

------
rifung
Is it weird that when reading this I just think how nice it must be to be able
to turn down such a high paying job when many people are just trying to make
ends meet?

Don't get me wrong I am happy now working at Google but I am sure I would have
been elated to get a job at FB earlier in my career.

~~~
gaius
How do you know when someone works at Google? They’ll tell you...

------
leroy_masochist
Allowing 19-year-old kids to have their name and photo published in the
newspaper of record in an article that quotes their snarky comments about how
they're not sure if they'd deign to work for any given company is journalistic
malpractice.

I don't blame the kids. They're young and naturally earnest, and are
marinating in an environment where performative wokeness results in positive
social reinforcement. They don't know any better.

~~~
icedchai
They're probably not smart enough to get in, anyway. If they were, they'd go
to FB, milk that huge salary, unload their RSU's on a regular basis, save and
invest, and FIRE by age 35.

Signed, a CS graduate and FB stock holder with 500% return.

~~~
hacknat
Is it possible that someone smarter than you doesn’t want to work at Facebook?

There are plenty of reasons, beyond ideological ones, not to want to work
there. I don’t think I have any ideological objections to Facebook, but the
product itself doesn’t interest me and I’m not a user.

~~~
rifung
> I don’t think I have any ideological objections to Facebook, but the product
> itself doesn’t interest me and I’m not a user.

I don't work at FB but I'm sure for a product of that scale even if you don't
use or care about the product itself, there may be interesting projects for
you to work on.

I also don't think I'd care to work on FB the product, but I'm sure it'd be
interesting to get to use Haskell to fight spam and work with Simon Marlow.
They also use OCaml for some compiler stuff that I'm sure would be
interesting.

~~~
saagarjha
Just because you work on something interesting does not absolve you of the
moral responsibility you have to yourself. And just because your project
doesn’t seem like it will be used in one way today doesn’t mean it won’t be
used to censor people the next.

~~~
rifung
> Just because you work on something interesting does not absolve you of the
> moral responsibility you have to yourself.

I agree and am not sure why you think I thought otherwise.

The person I was replying to said "I don't think I have any ideological
objections to Facebook" which I assumed to mean they don't see any moral
problems with Facebook.

I was merely disagreeing with the idea that someone's lack of interest in the
exterior facing product implies there are no interesting projects for that
person in the entire company.

------
skdd8
While I trust FB has very good work perks. I will not be inclined to work
there.

It comes down to what do you value in life.

Do you wanna literally help promote fascism and misinformation? Go work at FB
and moonshine at Monsanto on your free time.

~~~
hacknat
Moonshine? Do you mean moonlight? ;)

~~~
jfk13
Not sure I'd want to try moonshine from Monsanto...

~~~
mmmeff
At least you wouldn't have to _see_ the fruits of your labors

------
RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u
Sure, I can accept that CS students say and believe that; ask them again when
they're CS _graduates_. Also, stated & revealed preferences are often
dissimilar, plus virtue signaling costs nothing.

Bottom line, until the FANNG initialism changes, I wouldn't take the report
seriously.

~~~
KerrickStaley
*FAANG

------
oh-kumudo
While I feel this title is sensationalized and a little too over your face,
like come on you guys all know it is NOT easy to get a facebook job, it is
well paid and definitely can have a lots of challenging fun and had a offer
from Facebook and at the same the determination/confidence to reject it, IMO,
is a privilege not that many people in the world have, I do sympathize with
the fact to have a long term career within certain company, you have to align
your mission with the company's, otherwise it will eventually leads to
suffering. Facebook has now its own identity crisis, a lost cause from within.
It needs to rediscover or reinvent its vision, if not successfully done, such
loss of great minds will definitely continue.

~~~
saagarjha
I mean, you can often find a high paying, interesting job building missiles as
well, but I’m sure many would turn that down. The same can be true for
Facebook, which has generally had a history of not being the most ethical
place to work for. It’s only recently that it’s started to have a negative
effect if it’s on your resume, though.

~~~
oh-kumudo
Would surprised to know if they are paying half of what Facebook is paying to
new grad, which can reach 200k.

Well, i think saying Facebook has a negative effect on the resume is
definitely a stretch. It is probably more proper to say that working at
Facebook no longer bears the showing off value it once did, though that is
largely true for ALL tech companies as well. The general public just grows
more skeptic and indifferent towards tech industry overall.

------
b1r6
I was very recently one of those students. Knew from the very beginning I
never wanted to work for FB. If you don't totally agree with their political
leaning, disagree with censorship, and hate ads, why would you want to work
there? Sounds miserable.

------
throw2016
There is a great dissonance between what people claim and what they do and
without bridging these gaps discussions on ethical issues become useless.

For instance commentators here may stridently criticize Facebook and others
and yet if they were in Zuckerberg or Sandberg's position may do no
differently. It's techies who went to town about liberty and freedom and now
are building the most invasive and creepy surveillance systems. This is
perhaps the biggest betrayal of our generation.

There are always excuses but if you cannot stick to stated principles its your
responsibility to examine yourself and not make claims you will not follow
through in circumstances of power.

------
ionised
> "Now it’s like, just because it does what you want doesn’t mean it’s doing
> good."

I'm actually impressed that an 18 year old has this attitude and hasn't been
swayed by the free-market fundamentalism so prevalent among the HN crowd.

Too many people treat as a truism the idea that if people are buying or using
something provided by a company then that thing is obviously of great positive
value to society and should be nurtured and grown.

It's an incredibly naive, irresponsible and socially and ecologically
destructive viewpoint in my opinion.

------
mehrdadn
On this topic: could someone tell me whatever happened since the "security
incident" that they were "very sorry" for? Did they commit to making even a
single tangible change to their coding practices to prevent millions of
people's accounts from being hacked again? Or is it business, condolences, and
hoping-the-wind-blows-past-quietly as usual?

~~~
irrational
Oh, you were supposed to have forgotten about that by now.

~~~
jordache
Never forget! I still do not have my "View as Public" option.

------
readhn
For every One person who says they dont want to work for FB or GOOG or
whatever other "evil" Co. there are millions who do. GooG last year received
1.1mil resumes. There is no shortage of people who will gladly take away your
paycheck if you dont want it. This was always the case and will always be
(until we progress to a new level humanity as a whole).

------
kachurovskiy
Most missions ring closer to truth if you prepend them with "Make money and
maybe ".

------
saagarjha
Personally, I’ve just never applied. Based on what they do, I wouldn’t be
surprised if I could do something useful at Facebook, but I just don’t think I
could stand working there as it is now. Am I missing out on some potentially
interesting projects? Of course. Will I have a lower salary? Probably. But
generally I believe the compromises I need to make aren’t all that large, and
I can feel better about myself just not working there. If they change their
culture, sure, I might reconsider, but from what I’ve seen so far nothing has
changed (down to the people they hire-some of my acquaintances who have gotten
good offers from them are what I might call “morally dubious”).

------
azangru
I despise Facebook as a product (not because of any ethical qualms; I just
don't like it as a social network).

At the same time, I have enormous respect for Facebook engineers. Facebook
gave us, frontend web developers, React, Flow, Flux (and eventually redux),
GraphQL, ReasonML, ImmutableJS, DraftJS. They are maintaining Jest now,
gradually making it into one of the most pleasant testing frameworks to work
with. Don't know about their contributions in other areas, but they must be
numerous.

So I can totally understand those who want to work for Facebook. Fuck their
social network or their ads delivery platform; their tech looks dope!

------
ashwinaj
Funny coincidence, there was a new grad hire event yesterday at "The Patio" in
Palo Alto. FB don't seem to be having a problem hiring new grads despite what
this article says.

------
blueprint
Pshh I was accidentally turning down Facebook job offers by getting ghosted
after expressing my initial ethical reservations to recruiters back in 2012
before it was even cool

------
matthewmacleod
It’s obviously not black and white, but I do feel that joining a company as an
employee endorses the activities of the company, to some extent. That’s
definitely more true for sought-after tech workers, who at least have the
luxury of choice in many cases. We all ultimately compromise some beliefs or
desires when we take employment - but is this something more tech workers will
take into account when choosing who to work for?

------
gwbas1c
I remember casually looking at Facebook back in 2010:

I was invited for lunch; I liked their campus, but it just had the "freshman
year at college" vibe. Even though I was still early in my career, I felt like
I was already too old for that.

Later, when I started the interview process, they demanded that I sign a broad
NDA. That was the what really pushed me out. I don't sign broad NDAs to
interview for a job.

------
sizzle
“I’ve heard a lot of employees who work there don’t even use it,” said Niky
Arora, 19, an engineering student, who was recently invited to a Facebook
recruiting event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif."

This is really thought provoking, I think I'm going to start asking
interviewers if they use their products and see if they squirm.

------
Wehrdo
As a soon-to-be college grad, I can attest to this. I applied and interviewed
at a number of big tech companies, but explicitly avoided Facebook because of
ethical concerns.

On the other hand, I know of only a few classmates whom I believe would not
consider them as an employer.

------
perseusprime11
Facebook and its properties Instagram are destroying the very fabric of modern
relationships by creating an always hooked experiences in the name of
connecting the world. The sooner people realize the better it will be for it’s
wellbeing.

------
thecleaner
Yeah sure. Ask debt ridden students to take the high ground. Anyways I have no
problems working for Facebook. So fellow hackers how would you most
efficiently prepare for an fb interview ?

------
ilovecaching
This is just character assassination. Where are the metrics that say new grads
don't want to work for Facebook? Cherry picking quotes is journalism as its
worst, and the fact that this crap keeps popping up in HN disturbing. What's
worse is that they're preying on young adults.

If we really wanted to fix the problem instead of virtue signal and mud-sling,
we'd be encouraging bright minds to join and make things better, and offer
better solutions like real engineers.

I've really lost a lot of faith in HN lately, when I keep seeing these posts
pop up and the comments are just dog piles of negativity and confirmation of
views with no data.

------
blang
This isn't new to STEM jobs and ethics Mechanical Engineers - Defense
contractors Chemical Engineers - Chemical companies Geological Engineers - Oil
and gas companies

------
prepend
“Say some computer science students” sounds like an onion article. Nytimes
needs to do better. This article can be written on any subject.

------
benbristow
If someone would fly me from the UK over to SV and give me somewhere to stay
I'll take their position anyday.

------
joepour
It seems the NY Times have been going pretty hard after FB, recently. Does
anyone know why this might be?

~~~
conanbatt
Maybe because they are competition.

------
jiveturkey
In other news, "I don't really want to work for IBM." Say Some Computer
Science Students.

------
KKKKkkkk1
The NYT keeps peddling this idea that what Facebook and Google are doing is
somehow dirty. These companies are disseminating information in exchange for
ad revenue. This is exactly the NYT's business model. Which arguably is why
the NYT is so upset.

------
ThomPete
This will all change once these people get into the real world.

It's easy to have high morals when you don't have to make your own living yet.

This looks like a classic NYT hit piece which can be lumped together with the
other articles they are firing against FB.

------
perpetualcrayon
Today's Facebook is yesterday's Oracle and Microsoft.

------
laurencerowe
I was excited to explore the possibility of a job at Facebook last week. An
opportunity to work with some of the smartest (and nicest!) engineers in the
world on a problem space I've been intellectually invested in for several
years. This latest revelation crosses a line for me.

> But this Soros thing is different. This is no passive failure. It’s a
> malevolent action taken against groups who criticize Facebook for things
> that Facebook admits it has failed at. It takes advantage of and contributes
> to the most poisonous aspects of our public discourse. \-
> [https://twitter.com/juliacarriew/status/1062932740729856000](https://twitter.com/juliacarriew/status/1062932740729856000)

Facebook's response is utterly confused. When the unseemly smears their
PR/lobbying firm propagated come to light they quickly sack them but also
attempt to defend the smear. Which is it?

> Lastly we wanted to address the issue of Definers, who we ended our contract
> with last night. The New York Times is wrong to suggest that we ever asked
> Definers to pay for or write articles on Facebook’s behalf – or to spread
> misinformation. Our relationship with Definers was well known by the media –
> not least because they have on several occasions sent out invitations to
> hundreds of journalists about important press calls on our behalf. Definers
> did encourage members of the press to look into the funding of “Freedom from
> Facebook,” an anti-Facebook organization. The intention was to demonstrate
> that it was not simply a spontaneous grassroots campaign, as it claimed, but
> supported by a well-known critic of our company. To suggest that this was an
> anti-Semitic attack is reprehensible and untrue. \-
> [https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/11/new-york-times-
> update/](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/11/new-york-times-update/)

It clearly plays into the modern anti-Semitic conspiracy theories being pushed
in right wing media and Republican campaign ads.

Someone senior at Facebook needs to take responsibility for this.

~~~
laurencerowe
Good to see Facebook's message is evolving in Sheryl Sandberg's post. No
longer attempting to defend the indefensible. (Edit, on a second closer
reading it does still attempt to defend it, just in more finessed language. It
does not acknowledge that it was smearing critics with an antisemitic trope.)

> I also want to address the issue that has been raised about a PR firm,
> Definers. We’re no longer working with them but at the time, they were
> trying to show that some of the activity against us that appeared to be
> grassroots also had major organizations behind them. I did not know we hired
> them or about the work they were doing, but I should have. I have great
> respect for George Soros – and the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories against
> him are abhorrent. -
> [https://www.facebook.com/sheryl/posts/10160967443525177](https://www.facebook.com/sheryl/posts/10160967443525177)

Who was responsible for hiring them?

------
baby
This looks like a "the Onion" headline.

------
LordHumungous
Which tech companies are the ethical ones?

------
jmduke
The headline is actually _So Say Some Computer Science Students_ , which I
think is a non-trivial difference.

~~~
minimaxir
Blame HN's 80 character limit on titles.

~~~
Falling3
Dropping "so" instead of "some" keeps the intent of the headline and still
manages to stay under 80 characters.

~~~
RandomInteger4
Alternatively we can just use camel case: "ISoSaySomeComputerScienceStudents"

------
techelitism
Few comments on this because I think about this quite a bit.

1) I always read these articles and sigh. Seems like they only focus on 2
elite tech companies at the expense of all the others while only interviewing
students at the #1 CS school in the country. I feel like a 2nd class citizen
in the industry because of it. When will the normal people be heard?

2) I'm kind of surprised they listed a $140k starting pay. That's pretty low
for new grads in the industry and _very_ low for Facebook.

3) I think it requires an immense amount of privilege to say no to a company
for relatively trivial reasons (you're probably _not_ going to be working on
product code if you don't want to) that pays as much as Facebook does,
especially given the $75k signing bonus on the table for interns. I think any
discussion about this on the student level _has_ to start with this. Any
comparison to the defense industry is silly because defense pays
_significantly less_ than big tech.

~~~
vonmoltke
> I'm kind of surprised they listed a $140k starting pay. That's pretty low
> for new grads in the industry and very low for Facebook.

You are living in a Valley bubble if you think $140k is "pretty low" for a new
grad in general, and that's as total comp (not just salary).

~~~
saagarjha
Facebook mostly hires inside the “Valley bubble”-so it’s pretty important to
discuss salaries taking that into account.

~~~
vonmoltke
I know. That's why I was addressing the broader assertion.

------
thanosnose
Why is this even a story? Most computer science student don't want to work
period. They don't want to work for any company.

Most CS grads would like to win the lottery and spend their days pursuing
their own interests, contribute to open source or starting their own
companies. I know that was my dream and my classmates' dream.

But when graduation comes and the offers come, they'll work for any company
that'll pay well.

There are journalist students who don't want to work for the nytimes. Is that
a news story?

I'm failing to see what is newsworthy about this story. Where is the line
between creating news and reporting on it?

The nytimes could manufacture the exact same story about itself or microsoft
or google or any company in the US. Go to any campus and you'll find someone
who doesn't want to work for microsoft or google or apple or [insert company
name here].

------
mynameishere
_How do I remind my bosses of the company mission statement?_

If someone asked that question at an interview I would honestly be stunned.
Like, either you're the biggest suck-up in the world, or the biggest fool.
Either way, no hire.

Anyway, Facebook's actual mission seems to be to reimplement MySpace and they
are honestly getting pretty close. Not all the features--but almost. So, at
some point the need for Caltech engineers will drop off, and if more of them
want to work on jet engines or whatever, maybe that's for their best.

