I don't know about Facebook in particular, but what you're missing is that the reason employees can debate internally about policy is that they trust it won't leak externally. The risk of leaks eventually results in companies clamping down on security, so most employees aren't told anything that's not already public, unless they need it for their job. (Much like Apple has been all along, where employees only know what they need to know.)
So I would ask you where you'd rather work? At an employer that trusts you not to leak stuff, or somewhere that doesn't trust you? If it's the latter, you might as well be a contractor.
You'll find this is true in most organizations, not just companies. They want to know if they can trust you with their secrets. It does require some faith that internal debate will help the organization make good decisions most of the time, which admittedly can be a stretch sometimes.
I think you're missing the greater context here. Bosworth's memo is classic end justifies the means. This is almost an admission that they knew things they were doing would be deeply unpopular.
The post in full doesn't read at all like it was to stimulate discussion. It reads more like it was to silence dissent.
If you really wanted to stimulate discussion and gather employee views on this stuff, you'd send a survey round. But the relationship is still asymmetrical between boss and employee.
All you're doing when posting something like this semi-publicly is creating an environment where more quiet conscientious views get shouted down by the loudest voices.
Which makes his response read all that more hollow. Calling it a straw man? The post seems to have been an all out justification for immoral behavior by an executive. I can't imagine a Jr. Engineer or someone fresh out of college with their MA in Stats feeling super comfortable hopping in and going, "Hey this sound unethical and if people saw you saying it they would think we're hella fucked up." I'm relatively low-ranking at another big SV company and the thought of needing to stand up to a high ranking employee like that is more than a little intimidating.
> the thought of needing to stand up to a high ranking employee like that is more than a little intimidating.
And not just that, but to be expected to "contribute to a discussion" in such a way that all your coworkers can see. I think as somebody who takes objection to that memo I'd probably be more inclined look for alternative work.
Same. I'm not even THAT low-ranking, and it's still a big deal when I push back against a VP or director on something that's in my area. For some topic where I didn't even feel like an expert, against such language, and with morals concerned? I think I'd just silently start looking for a new job.
> I think I'd just silently start looking for a new job.
That's good though. Boz already made the decision to prioritize connecting more people, despite the costs. He didn't have to tell his employees, but he did. This allows you to make the decision on whether it's worth staying at Facebook.
I had disagreements with Boz via text while I was a rank and file employee at Facebook. It didn’t change his mind, and I still thought he was incorrect.
But I’d sure as hell take that situation over many others I’ve had where my only contact with execs is through occasional, content-free memos.
I'd guess that sending a one-sided bombshell like that would tend to stimulate debate rather than suppressing it, at least in a company with a tradition of lively internal debate. Maybe in more top-down companies it's different?
But yes, the people in power do tend to be heard more in internal debate. (Not necessarily just managers though. Good or controversial writers can also have a lot of influence.) And this does mean more soft-spoken people sometimes don't get an equal voice.
Online discussions are often more heat than light. I don't think internal discussion can be replaced by surveys, though? They're both useful.
There are also problems that equality doesn't fix. As the number of people scales up, the power of each person gets smaller. Filling out a survey when you know it's one of hundreds or thousands tends not to feel very empowering, or even a good use of your time.
I guess I'm comparing and contrasting this with the infamous Google sexism memo.
They canned an employee for saying something unpopular they disagreed with.
The fact that this went such a different way says something. Maybe that something is "the cultures of Google and Facebook are so different it explains the discrepancy." But maybe it's "Facebook wanted to float this as an ethical trial balloon."
They canned an employee for creating an unholy PR shitstorm outside of the firm.
Basically this is the end of the tech world and all those people who used to join these firms because they believed tech would make the world a better place.
Now its going to be pretty much closed communication and minimal interaction internally. IF you have an issue, well tough balls, tech is no longer good for that - god forbid it shows up on HN. If it shows up on the media thats career suicide.
I suspect its probably time for HN to be shut down soon as well.
I must admit, when I read it, it did absolutely read to me like a contrarian attempt to start debate. I find it hard to believe that anyone would post sentiments along the lines of ‘we connect people, so what if someone commits suicide’ without it being a deliberate attempt to start debate.
If he actually believed that stuff, it would be extraordinary scary. I don’t think he does.
Have you read any HN’s opinions on self driving cars? There is a strongly held belief that individual deaths don’t matter as long as, on average, deaths go down. You can argue the connecting people is inherently good, so how are Boz’s opinions any different?
Boz’s pieces over the last few years tend to fall into the “Strong opinions, weakly held” category. I also suspect he argues a point that is stronger in sentiment than he really believes, to help his message stand out.
The problem is, you might think that but this is senior leadership putting out an email that is setting the general culture and direction for the company. He’s explicitly recognising and endorsing “questionable” (his words!) decisions made.
He can’t come back and say he didn’t mean it. Besides, if he was trying to spark debate, doesn’t that mean he though my it was even potentially justifiable to use unethical practices to drive growth?
I agree it was very poorly judged. Regarding your last point, I honestly assumed that he had seen stirrings of this kid of reasoning within the company and was attempting to ridicule it.
Are they truly unpopular? The events in question happened several years ago, and while this specific incident wasn't known, it was well-understood that FB profiting from harvesting personal data.
In my daily casual conversations with co-workers and friends, the topic is very rarely raised, and only to speculate why the timing of the issue seems to tied to a rise in conservative politics.
The consequentialism is not the talking point in the meme. What's controversial is his valuation of "the ends": that "connecting people" has greater utility than the life or happiness of a minority of those connected.
I'm not going to make any assertions about the intent of the meme because I don't know the context, but the logic expressed in the meme seems to have been their strategy already to me, from the outside.
> This is almost an admission that they knew things they were doing would be deeply unpopular.
Yes, and there were discussions internally about this. One could argue that the recent shift from promoting pages content to promoting your friends content might have been the result of that.
Perhaps you would send a survey, Bosworth chose for a different option. Internal memos leaking out to the public without context is a classic case of causing FUD.
I've never worked for a company that gave employees a forum to talk openly. Company policy was always set by upper management behind closed doors and broadcasted down to everyone else. Discussions and disagreements were handled privately.
I like the idea of employees having open discussions about company policy and direction, but I would never would have believed such a thing could exist at enormous companies like Facebook and Google. Though, given headlines recently, I'm not sure it will survive much longer.
How about a company where decisions are shared internally and employees feel empowered enough to speak up, *externally if needed, against what they see as an injustice when internally nothing is done? That shouldn't be too much to ask for. Perhaps some tech unions are needed to enforce this, as shareholders and owners would probably rather have just the dichotomy you presented.
This just reveals how big the power imbalance is between employees and executives that we’d have to make such decisions.
> At an employer that trusts you not to leak stuff, or somewhere that doesn't trust you?
That's a false dichotomy. I'd like to work for an employer that would not mind me discussing my work related stuff outside without immediately classifying that as a leak, and I'd like my employer to trust my judgment in knowing what is and what is not appropriate in such discussions.
Discussing stuff outside work is different from leaking internal communications verbatim.
I left Facebook for a place where the stakes are a lot lower, but information leaks like a sieve.
It’s really disheartening to know that a lot of new coworkers would prefer to leak their “spin” to the press and actively try to damage the company when they don’t get their way.
It all depends on what the public interest angle is. In the case of Facebook the hypocrisy on display borders on the unbelievable. Facebook arguably infringes in the worst way possible on the privacy of a very large chunk of humanity but is highly offended when its own 'private' communications are exposed.
If it's good for the goose it is good for the gander and companies with this much influence on the world should welcome transparency, not oppose it. And if they do not welcome transparency then we'll have to help them along a bit every now and then.
Employees would probably feel more comfortable about debating opinions regardless of company trust if their opinions didn't involve Orwellian kinds of user manipulation and "questionable practices".
Unfettered leak-free debate, or, heavy secrecy? Seems like an easy choice, especially on paper, just like unlimited vacation vs. 3 weeks paid — the devil is in the implementation and unforeseen consequences.
I think the reality with FB is that the current idealized system is not necessarily the best, and likewise, the occurrence of leaks is not necessarily a sign of impending doom. Sometimes leaks are a necessary symptom for when an organization has gone off the rails and has failed to self-correct. I don’t think any organization enjoys or wants leaks — just as no human enjoys sneezing or diarrhea — but sometimes the temporary discomfort is necessary for long-term health.
So you could say, they value their privacy and don't want their comments shared with people they didn't authorize?
It's ironic to see employees complaining about what is essentially a lack of privacy, when the company they work for goes out of its way to convince everybody that privacy is a thing of the past, and in so many words, so does the very Bosworth post they would protect and keep private. Eat your own dog food.
And then one of them says that whoever leaked the post (the whistleblower, is how I would refer to them) lacks integrity. Integrity? You work for Facebook. Has it never occurred to you that maybe you're the baddies?
The word "integrity" may have a different meaning inside a tightly-knit corporate culture[1] than on the outside, just like "honor" means something different inside the Mafia, where it means "you can steal and murder, but above all, keep your mouth shut".
A corporate code of silence that insists on the absolute privacy of internal communications is similar to the Mafia's code of silence, in which it's considered bad form (punishable by death) to blab to the authorities:
"Omertà is a code of honor that places importance on silence, non-cooperation with authorities, and non-interference in the illegal actions of others."
It will be interesting to see what kind of documents this and other whistleblowers will decide to leak in the future. Facebook needs its own Snowden to expose its inner workings.
[1] I suspect that the corporate obsession with secrecy we're seeing here is not unique to Facebook. What's unique is the irony of a privacy-destroying company insisting on its own right to privacy.
> So I would ask you where you'd rather work? At an employer that trusts you not to leak stuff, or somewhere that doesn't trust you? If it's the latter, you might as well be a contractor.
Employers which still use trust at scale are ignoring their risk analysts. The risk of a secret leaking is proportional to the number of people who know the secret. You can reduce the risk with Stasi-style surveillance, or legal enforcement (e.g. legally classified state secrets), but few people wish to work under those conditions.
It's a false dichotomy because people would rather work for an employer that trusts them with the secrets they need to get their job done, and doesn't trust them with the secrets they don't need, a.k.a. the principle of least access. Openness in organizations is important insofar as people can attain access to information they need when they need it, but not unlimited access to everything, which ultimately reduces organizational trust when leaks inevitably occur.
> At an employer that trusts you not to leak stuff, or somewhere that doesn't trust you? If it's the latter, you might as well be a contractor.
I'm a contractor, in the same team of FTE devs for a year, it's going really well, but I was a little hurt when I realised they were reading CVs to fill a vacancy in the team without putting me in the loop.
Edit: I understand why they are doing it, I mean I'm from a big consulting company (Alten), but still it stung a little, especially since I'm on pretty good term with the rest of the team.
So I would ask you where you'd rather work? At an employer that trusts you not to leak stuff, or somewhere that doesn't trust you? If it's the latter, you might as well be a contractor.
You'll find this is true in most organizations, not just companies. They want to know if they can trust you with their secrets. It does require some faith that internal debate will help the organization make good decisions most of the time, which admittedly can be a stretch sometimes.