Facebook is giving $1k to every employee | Hacker News Reader

Facebook is giving $1k to every employee

theverge.com

194 points0xedb203 comments

The much bigger news here is that they're suspending performance reviews for this half and giving everyone an "exceeds expectation" rating. This is huge for working parents who are having to give up family responsibilities just to grind for their employer.

To the point. It removes the pressure when pressure is everywhere else.

I hate defending FB, but these measures are really good.

To be fair, even though a lot of people rightly or wrongly criticize Facebook, I don't think most of the criticism has been about their treatment of employees. I'm pretty sure it's always been pretty great.

The other thing that wasn't really covered is that contractors are getting paid even if they're unable to work (for example, people that work in security and culinary teams that aren't required because the offices are closed). That's one of the best things IMO.

Facebook is giving $1k to every employee

And $100 million in cash grants and ad credits to small businesses in 30 countries.

https://www.facebook.com/business/boost/grants

#idontspeakforfb

Not sure why there are so many negative comments. This is a win and sets a great example that hopefully other companies can follow.

Yes, software engineers at FB have probably no (or very little) problem working from home and get their $200k salary, but this is a win regardless.

> Not sure why there are so many negative comments

It’s seen as rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. the median compensation for a Facebook employee is $228,651 That’s not a group facing huge financial issues which 1k is going to do much about.

I am not saying it is a poor use of 45 million dollars, but I can see people viewing this as meaningless.

Eh, imagine Facebook hired remote workers. I bet they would be fine giving them 1k upfront for tech setup

I suspect it was to offset the costs of setting up a home office. And in that context it seems like a completely reasonable thing to do.

The title misses the other, and more impactful/unprecedented change of giving everyone "exceeds" rating and skipping perf review for them (except for those high performers who will get separate review).

That does far more than $1000 to relieve everyone and make it fair for those who have to take care of others in the family during such time.

Yeah, this change is easily worth something on the order of $20k this year and then $10k per year for the three following years for every engineer who wouldn't have otherwise achieved this rating. It's huge.

Interestingly, I assume they're doing this because it means they can skip the performance cycle entirely. That's a good way to save process. It's gonna harm some people who were on track to do better than exceeds, though. (On average it should help people.)

> It's gonna harm some people who were on track to do better than exceeds, though.

There's no news about this yet, but I've heard that people that are on track to do better than exceeds will likely still have a review so that they don't miss out.

I work for FB and wanted to shed some more light on this

Several employees are pledging to donate that to charities, including me. Internally, employees are mobilizing to help others in need, via fundraising and other causes. It's a beautiful sight.

FB is giving away around $100 million to 30K small businesses. Zuckerberg has pledged to match up to $20 million in donations. And he's pledged money via his philanthropic arm to fight COVID-19.

Stop complaining and start doing. What did you do today to help others ?

>It’s not clear if Facebook will also give a bonus to contractors who are content moderators.

Let me guess: it doesn't.

Have Facebook contractors been given the right to work from home yet?

By definition, don't all contractors have to generally not work from an office? Otherwise it's very easy to deem them full-time employees and they are entitled to benefits. Not sure of Facebook's specific situation or what roles they are contracting, but I'd imagine most of them aren't at HQ.

"By definition, don't all contractors have to generally not work from an office?"

At Facebook or in general?

I don't know FB's specific policies but in general, no, being a contractor does not automatically imply that you can work remotely.

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/12/coronavirus-facebook-con...

This was in the news last week. Pretty sure I picked it up from Hacker News.

They're just permatempts. Every company has them these days. The content moderators specifically work out of an Accenture office and aren't really contracted to facebook. They are Accenture's w-2 employees.

> They are Accenture's w-2 employees.

Then Accenture should be giving them allowance to work from home, not facebook.

These contractors at tech companies typically are full-time employees, they're just full time employees at other companies. The setup is that Facebook, or Google, has a contract with company like Accenture, which in turns provides its own full-time employees to do some work on FB/Google projects.

"Given the rapidly evolving public health concerns, we are taking additional steps to protect our teams and will be working with our partners over the course of this week to send all contract workers who perform content review home, until further notice. We’ll ensure that all workers are paid during this time."

https://about.fb.com/news/2020/03/coronavirus/#keeping-our-t...

> Have Facebook contractors been given the right to work from home yet?

Facebook contractors have that right implicitly. If the contractor is required to perform their work in a certain way, they are a statutory employee. By filing their taxes as employees, rather than contractors, this would hit facebook with an IRS investigation and hefty fines. They don't need to be given permission to work from home.

Facebook had mandated that some work had to be done from an office.

>A Facebook spokesperson told The Intercept that “for both our full-time employees and contingent workforce there is some work that cannot be done from home…for content reviewers, some of this work must be done from the office for safety, privacy and legal reasons,” adding that “we’re exploring work from home options on a temporary basis, and have already enabled it in some locations.”

As someone else stated above, the individuals in content moderation working at the office are not contractors but employees of Accenture, the real contractor.

It might be a gesture at a company like Amazon where they employ many low paid workers, but at FB a high proportion of workers will see this as a 0.2-1% bonus.

The 'exceeds' performance review will have a much bigger impact on income.

The 'exceeds' performance review will have a much bigger impact on income.

Not until mid-September bonus payout, though.

Exceeds bonus: great!

Not having to write perf reviews: priceless!

I suspect that for many employees, the important thing isn't even the income aspect of the 'exceeds' rating, it's the fact that they don't need to be stressed about maintaining high performance when they are dealing with a lot of challenges related to newly working from home and being near quarantined and possibly having kids doing kid things all day.

Damn, say what you will about FB, that's a gesture and a half.

Why? It's a fraction of a percent of most employees' annual pay, which presumably they are still receiving. If anything, it's like giving everyone a tiny bonus for some PR. At least that's how I read it.

If they gave that money to contractors, that would actually be a gesture of good will. Honestly I feel like they'd be better off only giving it to contractors and ignoring their employees, who are already extremely well-paid.

If you read the article you will see they are also giving every essentially a full bonus irrespective of performance. Depending on individual agreements that could be a significant sum so it's definitely not a fraction of a percent of anybody's annual pay.

Facebook has always given out bonuses, that's not news. The news is giving every employee $1000, and I'm saying that's a horrible decision on Facebook's part and they should be shamed for it. They should use that money to help those in need, or just not do anything at all.

Facebook has always been known for its unethical decisions, but this is just dumb - unless their goal is to get some incredibly superficial PR for what is a very small amount of money to them (tens of millions is a rounding error compared to their quarterly revenue).

You've failed to comprehend the article and now you've failed to comprehend my comment. Facebook isn't simply 'giving bonuses'. Bonuses are based on performance. It's rare at a company that you will get 100% of your performance bonus. In this case Facebook is giving everyone a high performance score (and therefore a high % of their bonus) regardless of how well they performed.

For perspective: someone on a $100k salary with a 10% bonus might normally expect $4-8k bonus. Not it'll be $9-10k. Depending on how high the salaries are and how large the bonus %'s are the difference could be quite a lot.

pleasing cynics is like pissing outside on a windy day when you have to go - damned if you do and damned if you don't.

read the article - they're giving out 1k to each of the 45k employees. i'm sorry for the contractors (i don't know if it includes them) but that's still a small city's worth of people. they're also guaranteeing bonuses for the next two quarters for all of those people. i don't care about fb but the move definitely clears the bar for nice gesture even if it's not nobel peace prize worthy.

like how about we just rejoice in one small nice thing instead of taking meaningless cynical potshots?

I'm cynical because I still don't see how this is helpful. It's giving more money to people that already have money, instead of spreading it around to people that don't have money. Facebook employees are about the least economically vulnerable population you can find, apart from people who inherited their wealth.

Why not actually do something useful with the money, like donate it to a charity in need that's trying to help those suffering from the epidemic?

Yes - I genuinely think this is a bad move, as in they should have not done it at all. As someone who does make a stupid amount of money, I wouldn't care about an extra $1k, but I know people that would. This is just trickle down economics.

Not everybody at the company is a six figure software engineer.

Sure, but the vast majority are. This is basically targeting the group that includes mostly engineers to give them more money, instead of giving the money to content moderators or other lowly paid employees.

Again, this is basically the worst use of the money Facebook could have considered for anything with a remotely philanthropic angle. It reeks of a PR grab to me, and even if not it's just a horrible decision if their goal is to help those in need.

> this is basically the worst use of the money Facebook could have considered for anything with a remotely philanthropic angle

Huh, this isn't philanthropic. The $100 million they are giving to small businesses is philanthropic.

This is simply a benefit that they are providing to their employees.

Your comment is purely nonsensical. You're acting like FB sent out a press release that talked about this as how they are helping the world fight coronavirus.

It's helpful because it dramatically reduces stress on employees (due to guaranteed bonus without performance review) during a turbulent time.

I can't see why this is so hard to understand.

the median compensation for a Facebook employee is $228,651

It’s not clear if Facebook will also give a bonus to contractors who are content moderators

Kudos to Facebook for trying to help their team weather the storm. Hopefully the folks who need it most get the bonuses as well.

It may be tough for a company to provide bonuses directly to contractors (especially those that are earmarked for buying equipment to wfh). FB has said that they have agreements with all the contracting companies that they work with that even as people stay home they will continue to get paid their normal pay (even if they can do nearly no work from home, e.g. including food service contractors). They haven't said what that means, but you can be sure that pay isn't coming out of the contracting companies pockets.

I don’t know what the deal is, but I feel like the cynicism on HN has just constantly ramped up over the past couple of years. I actively feel worse after reading the comments on a lot of articles posted on here, and it’s just not an enjoyable experience.

There was another article posted recently about a CEO raising the minimum salary of all of his employees to $70,000 and cutting his personal costs to afford it, and even with this gesture there were many negative comments and conspiracy theories about it.

HN comments remind me of how monkeys would rather have nothing than see another monkey get more than them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg

People are not always rational utility maximizers. See the Ultimatum Game[1]. There are always people who would rather get nothing than get a small amount when they know the other person would get more.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game

Assuming a game is played more than once (a safe assumption for human social behavior), I think an occasional Defect / Nobody Gets Anything is quite rational: it's a credible deterrent to disincentivize a grossly unfair distribution.

The number of non-tech articles with social/political slant on HN is increasing.

Seriously, I don't know why people are trying so hard to find the negative here in a thousand bucks bonus to all employees. The top ranked comment in this entire thread is currently "But why? [...] What do they need the extra money for?" Talk about crab mentality. If your employer gives you extra money, you take it! Good on Facebook for redistributing some vanishingly tiny fraction of their cash to their employees in this time of crisis.

Here is why:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_primacy

Why did they choose $1,000? Why not $2,000, $6,000 on any other number for that matter? They are piggy backing on the good will Andrew Yang and Mitt Romney generated.

Stated another way: this is a $45m PR investment.

Considering that the only way HN knows anything about this is because some jerk leaked an internal post from Mark, this has nothing to do with PR.

"leaked"

"Mark". Is he your friend?

In my experience, people mostly refer to him internally as "Mark". Just like at Google they refer to Larry and Sergey as, well, "Larry" and "Sergey".

Why pay their employees $200k/yr? Why not $100k? Why not $50k? Why not $0? I mean they are just playing on computers all day.

I know this may be a __radical__ idea, but possibly paying your employees more and giving them good benefits helps you: 1) get the best candidates 2) keep the best candidates 3) keep workers happy (read efficient) 4) keeps them working longer hours and taking less time off (less stress). If only there was a plethora of studies and historical evidence to back this.

Because life is so easy that people need a crisis. This is especially true in the United States, where life is exceptionally easy.

Hahaha life is exceptionally easy for people in the US. I had no idea working 2 service jobs and living paycheck to paycheck was the good life!

It is exceptionally easy in the US to not end up working 2 service jobs and living paycheck to paycheck, some people just screw it up. Not much you can do about that then. People don’t listen, they don’t take things seriously, until it’s too late.

If you can’t be an example, be a warning.

Or maybe, just maybe, people face different struggles and adversity that prevent/delay them from "rising above" the level of working service jobs (which someone still needs to do btw, and those people deserve to live. I see this perspective way too often on here, usually from people with tech jobs/salaries. It's super, super fucked up.

It's not actually exceptionally easy to make the jump from service worker to professional for most people. It can be done, but it's not exceptionally easy to study and advance through a professional career path while working multiple minimum wage jobs and supporting a family, struggling with mental illness/addiction/health/etc.

Sure it's exceptionally easy if you have a comfortable home life and no responsibilities and are given the opportunities and guidance and support to develop professional skills. And sure there are tons of people who take those opportunities for granted. Fuck those people though we're not talking about them they're a small minority and they fucking suck. The VAST majority of people who get stuck in this wage slavery system don't have any of that. It's not easy at all.

Honestly really sad how many people on here don't get this. This shouldn't be controversial in any way. Humans are selfish, lazy creatures in general, including the "successful" ones. We should always have compassion for those less fortunate. I'm on my way to getting a good salary and I recognize how incredibly fortunate I will be to have that. I wont think someone else still working a service job is just lazy or whatever because I understand how hard it is out there. I could care less about downvotes but it's sad to see people "disagree" with empathy.

Life is only easy for about 1% of the country... Most of us are barely surviving

Most Americans who are 'barely surviving' are still surviving. Surviving means you have all your immediate needs met. That means your life is exceptionally easy. Most of the world cannot have their basic needs met. That is the typical state of humanity. Most Americans can not only have all their immediate needs met, they are also able to pay off the debts they have taken, which puts them lightyears ahead of most of the world.

Well yeah that's survivorship bias, many Americans die every day from direct results of poverty. Most Americans I know barely have their needs met, I've lost many friends to suicide and drug overdoses etc. Of course there are places that are still worse off, that doesn't excuse in any way the horrible inequalities in our current system. It would honestly only require simple things like m4a, higher min wage, to make life moderately livable for the working class. UBI would be a lot better. The only real argument against it is that it would cost rich people money.

> The only real argument against it is that it would cost rich people money.

If that is your characterization of the arguments against UBI, you are not paying attention, and I am someone who is rather favorable to UBI (or a negative income tax). Your characterization of your opponent's argument is extremely disingenuous.

I mean I'm seeing stuff about the velocity of the dollar being affected and causing inflation but I don't even really see it increasing that much when people are so strapped for cash already. The idea that businesses will raise prices to match is ridiculous, we hear that about minimum wage as well; are these businesses not charging the most they can already? 1k/month isn't going to make anyone flush, it'll just be helping them make ends meet.

I shouldn't have spoken so absolutely there, I'm totally open to hearing any and all real concerns about this. We should really be pursuing it seriously though and trying to find solutions to these concerns instead of just identifying and using them to write it off. It really can't be overstated how amazing this would be for working class people, and it really can't be overstated how much they deserve it.

It'll have untold positive ripple effects in our society, and as I understand it all we really have to overcome is maybe some inflation. We should experiment and run simulations and research the hell out of this because we owe it to the people who make our food, deliver our packages, etc

This isn't meant to diminish the plight of those suffering in America, but it takes approximately $32,000 to be in the top 1% for worldwide incomes. Much of America's poor are relatively wealthy when you consider the global scale.

I don't know that there's any object lesson in that, but it's worth remembering that most of us live positively enveloped in so much privilege that we take for granted how much more difficult the struggle could be.

Except very rarely can you live worldwide while earning that. Someone on that much money is going to be struggling in Sydney, not the sort of person you would call the 1% to their face. It's actually around the legal minimum wage not including annual/sick leave and retirement benefits.

Well sure if you look at income alone and disregard cost of living. 32k is barely enough to live on here in CA (yet somehow I survive on well under half that). At min wage you have to work hard for at least 40 hrs/wk to make 32k, and then you can hopefully break even if you're healthy and don't have kids/family to take care of.

We're all suffering. Americans are very spoiled in certain ways, but we miss out on basic human things like buying homes, starting families, self actualization in general. People living in shacks are generally much happier than most people I know here, despite all the struggles one faces in such conditions.

It's all relative. It doesn't matter if I would be the richest man in some village in Belize if I don't and can't live there. The reality is that we have the resources for everyones basic needs to be taken care of, but that would be socialism which is a sin. Instead we let a small percentage of the population hoard all of those resources and force us to work ourselves to death to get back just enough to survive. It's horrific, and it's even more horrific to see working class people defending that system. There is no reason everyone can't sleep in a warm bed with clean sheets tonight and eat a warm meal of their choosing.

The comment[0] you reference is more nuanced than your brief copy-and-paste shows, and keeps a more neutral tone than you. Despite that, I'll respond.

Some of the frustration is because millions of people in the U.S. may be losing their service jobs soon and may find themselves in financial difficulty.

Meanwhile many Facebook employees already lead a life of privilege with excellent access to healthcare, free on-site perks, and good base salary and stock options. They are isolated from many of the experiences and problems of the daily grind across the U.S.

This bonus can also be seen as a political move by Facebook to undermine the current administration by essentially 'acting faster' than them in providing a demand-side financial stimulus.

It doesn't seem likely that they've co-ordinated with government or other tech companies on this policy, since not many employers nationwide would be able to provide the same kind of bonus, raising further inequity concerns.

Alternatively it can be seen as a bonus for people who might have been able to cope anyway by adapting their lifestyles temporarily. The median compensation for a Facebook employee is $228,651 according to the article.

Either way it will likely be an interesting decision to reflect on as the situation and political landscape develops.

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22606846

I immediately found myself asking "why" too. It's curious, and to an outsider borderline nonsensical. Of course we all know that Facebook didn't get to where it is by committing random acts of kindness, so it's worth thinking it over and trying to understand what might be behind this decision.

It's reasonable to question the actions of one of the most powerful surveillance apparatuses the world has ever known.

Shopify also gave its employees $1000 to fund work-from-home office equipment. ie, chair, desk, screens ... A thousand bucks doesn't go very far in America.

Feels like the wrong thing to be paranoid with Facebook over.

It's always been that way. Most notably, the launch of Dropbox.

It's pretty obvious: big tech companies like Facebook and Google have done a ton of horrible shit over the past decade, and have burned all the optimism and good will amongst the general public.

the cynicism on HN has just constantly ramped up over the past couple of years

People are waking up to how oppressed and abused they are by their governments and employers. They are frustrated and upset, and they are venting those frustrations on HN (among other places on the internet).

Instead of bemoaning how it makes you feel bad (you poor thing!), why not take a look at what they're actually saying?

At least in this thread the naysayers aren't really saying anything.

I work for Facebook and a lot of employees were quite stressed with all these changes (especially the ones with kids). I can tell you that this has been a huge boon for people's morale.

(Just an insider's point of view, as I feel like HN doesn't get too many of these.)

Boom -> boon?

Also moral --> morale.

Morale is something I find fascinating, because half the normal boosters don’t work on me even though I expect them to while the other half do work even though expect them to fail [0].

Gifts like this are a good example: $1k is objectively small compared to annual salary, but it feels like a lot, so it is great to get given it.

[0] I don’t work for FB, but I had a similar effect with the ~£60 “birthday” gifts at my first post-uni employer: small number, big morale impact. Conversely, the carnival and fireworks they arranged to celebrate a certain threshold made me feel less connected to everyone else at that place.

The more I think about it, I’m wondering if I’m normal and it was all just anchoring bias because of details I don’t want to repeat in public…

Don’t forget the additional bonuses that will come in Q3 due to all employees receiving “exceeds” on their 6 month review

This is the real big one. I'm not at Facebook (but I am at a similar company), and I expect to be getting meets in biannual review process. If I instead got exceeds that would be a huge boon to me. It'd mean a bigger bonus and a bigger stock refresher, and would easily be worth tens of thousands of dollars in the first year alone (plus the remaining three years of the refresher).

Is it note worthy that people who will not have issues are getting even more?

I would say no?

There should be some cynical response to that.

"Oh you loose your business? I just got 1k extra to my FB salary"

I'm not even sure why FB would not try to do something for the society directly with it's money instead of giving it to there well paid employees.

FB is donating to WHO, is creating a fund to help small businesses, partnered with CNN to spread awareness and keep people safe, and the Chan-Zuckerberg foundation has been helping test people across the Bay Area.

Can they not help their employees too? I'm a FB employee and while I'm not in need, not everyone is a developer. Life is expensive here in the bay. I think some people need to chill.

I don't mind it but I do sympathize with people who might see this as an inappropriate news.

So true ... let's give praise where praise is due even if we're not fans of an individual or organization. Kudos Facebook (for this policy/action). I also appreciate articles that provide a bit of humor - the sentence "In an effort to create social distancing, which can help prevent the spread of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, Facebook has also asked its Seattle and Bay Area employees to work from home if they are able and banned social visitors to its offices" made me laugh because Facebook is promoting social distancing (next they'll recommend you delete your account).

Man, not fan of company toward public. But these acts are changing my view and their work to improve mis-spread of information.

I feel like they are becoming a new company (growth from teenage years I guess).

Proud to work here. Confused by the all downvotes.

But why? Aren't most of their employees going to still be making their salary anyways? What do they need the extra money for?

The people in the economy that really need the money are not the people working at Facebook.

I mean, congrats to Facebook employees, I just don't understand why.

Maybe they think all their employees will spend an extra $1000 they wouldn't have otherwise. Some of it might be spent keeping local business running for a week? I don't know.

I don’t work at FB, but I’ve definitely spent a few hundred these past couple of weeks preparing for the current situation.

arent local businesses closing?

Not sure about the Bay Area but a lot of restaurants are switching to delivery only (inc. the kind of places that never did delivery in the first place) so this money could go to them. Money can also be spent buying things in advance - for example concert tickets for late in the year. This will help performers/venues remain afloat in the meantime. Also - for local businesses that weather the storm, these people now have an extra $1k + extra bonus that they can spend to help get them back to black sooner.

Yes. In washington and california, which isn't surprising. Some businesses can't cope with the shutdown, some were barely getting by and have just pulled the trigger (eg The Stranger in Washington State, bakeries, restaurants, gyms, etc) to close or drastically reduce services. This will get more common, as the MONTHS drag on.

Not every FB employee is a highly paid software engineer who has savings to weather a multi-month public health crisis.

then not everyone should get it

That’s certainly a valid opinion. Nonetheless, giving the bonus to everyone does no harm, looks better in terms of PR, doesn’t foster an “us and them” mentality, and is probably easier to administer than just giving it to select employees. The difference on the bottom line is a rounding error.

Means testing is a strategy but not really expected of a private corporation, e.g. you're just asking the company to do more work to accomplish less.

Why is it bothering you so much that other people are getting a thousand dollar bonus? I'm happy for them, and I'd love for it to happen to me too.

Facebook is not short of money. I'm glad they're doing something extra for their employees in these times.

Based on public data, I'd say most are. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Facebook-Salaries-E40772.ht...

Yes, but in the Bay Area it's not uncommon to have household workers – cleaners, nannies, etc. Something like this would allow people to continue to pay those folks who are not working now, and have no other form of income or assistance. It would help the FB workers, because they're going to be doing that work on top of their normal jobs.

Not saying that's what people will use the money for, but it ups the odds at least.

If you're a tech worker and you have savings to weather a crisis: consider your plans for all the people who rely on you, who are waiting for something and not sure when and if its coming.

So the classic argument of 'trickle down economics'. I"d wager that that $1k will just go into their bank account, like their bonus would.

Facebook is not the government.

They are doing something positive in their locus of control. And of course people are upset about it because... reasons.

Are they giving their content moderation contractors $1k? I’m guessing not.

Why would they need it? They are still coming into work.

</sarcasm>

I think the main reason I'm personally cynical about these types of 'good deeds' - whether it's Facebook giving $1K to their already well-paid employees or Bill Gates giving billions to charities - is that, in a perfect world, these ultra wealthy do-gooders probably shouldn't have so much fun money to give away in the first place. Our system should be much more balanced, where employees and researchers and charities don't need trickle down handouts.

Bill Gates became (one of) the world's richest individuals via a monopoly and predatory capitalism, and destroyed many companies and individuals on their path to riches. Facebook's wealth derives from selling users' personal information that they should have never been allowed to obtain in the first place.

I realize someone like Gates or a company like Facebook is going to be damned if they do and damned if they don't, but it doesn't change the fact that our system is not even close to as fair as we're constantly told it is.

> charities don't need trickle down handouts.

How do you define a charity?

Well, certainly not “the clinton foundation” for starters...

(fb employee here) fwiw I've heard of a ton of people continuing to pay housekeepers, nannies, etc. - I was going to pay our house cleaner to stay home anyway, but this removes any hesitation/excuse not to. I agree it's unnecessary, but it's a nice gesture and these FANG companies have the cash in the bank to help the Bay Area weather the storm safely.

Thanks for the response. That sure helps it make more sense. That extra bit to help make sure people like nannies are still employed but not working.

I'm confused on this. Are FB workers getting laid off?

Scenario: 1 month ago, you're an FB employee, and working, and you pay a nanny.

Today: you're an FB employee, and working, and you pay a nanny.

How is FB giving the FB employee changing anything at all? There's something I'm missing in this.

Because people are going to have to keep paying for services they no longer get value from. Someone has to clean the house, watch and educate the kids, etc.

because.... they're working from home? if that's the case, that was a piece of info I was missing.

I suspect even if they're working from home, having a nanny/cleaner/etc at home isn't "no value" just "less value".

But I still don't know why - if this is the case - why people who are still employed/working full time, getting their regular paycheck, just working from home, would feel the need to stop whatever domestic services they had in place.

>But I still don't know why - if this is the case - why people who are still employed/working full time, getting their regular paycheck, just working from home, would feel the need to stop whatever domestic services they had in place.

Because there's a pandemic going on and they don't want outside people in their house? Also, some of these services are now illegal in many cities including SF (Child/adult/senior care is still allowed. I'm assuming cleaners aren't.)

This is just employer giving money to an employee, not a national charity. I’m not sure where the moral derision is coming from. Are you a FB stakeholder who thinks the money is going to waste?

Do you have a notion of who owes whom how much? Then please share.

Nothing like extra cash to buy when market is low.

I’m making a direct appeal to the people receiving this money — people who frequent this very website — to consider the people who work for their households.

I’m not making a policy argument, nor am I a proponent of trickle down economics.

This is about a specific, local situation in the midst of a crisis.

Trickle down of course. Those Facebook employees are expected to donate their bonuses to the others in society that aren't getting any help. Isn't that what other companies are asking? People to donate their sick days?

But if that's the goal, why doesn't Facebook just donate the money to an organization that can actually help these people?

I think the comment you are responding to was being cheeky :)

Because then you would be taking away the employee's bonus? Not every employee might be charitable. Probably giving everyone 1k is keeping them within budget.

Facebook should be doing this for their contractors. (not the software development ones).. the guys who clean the office, maintain the landscape, cook the food, clean the dishes in their cafeterias, etc.

I don't work at FB, but I think they're continuing to pay contractors and hourly workers while shut down. It sounds like they're generally doing the right thing for their people?

Haha I'm a contractor at my current job and while my job is extremely secure, all those benefits and assurances my company is sending out don't apply to me.

Its great that none of the employees at my company have to show up sick and will still get paid, but what about us temps and contractors? The temps and contractors are the ones that will be spreading covid-19 due to our circumstances.

I've commented about my situation elsewhere, but I'm in a very similar situation. I've spent quite a bit of money I can't really afford right now to allow me to not need to leave my home for a couple of months if need be. I've also had to buy extra cleaning supplies and ppe as my employer either can't acquire or afford ppe for all their staff. I hope I don't get sick before I get laid off, but I have to leave my house to work in a very high traffic area. My employer also isn't making any statements about being paid while at home on leave. It'd probably kill the business. The owners taken on loads of debt and spent it rather frivolously over the past few years.

Isn't that a call you make when you sign on as a contractor though? At least at my company, contractors make a boatload more money, with the provision that you don't get any of the normal benefits provided by the company.

I make less than everyone around me because all that extra money goes to my agency. This is the the main entryway for the poor man to get into a company these days. After a year or 6 months I'm eligible for becoming a real employee if the bosses feel like it and maybe then I can get health insurance too!

Ah that sounds rough! The contractors at my company aren't from agencies, they get paid more in place of getting company benefits. Didn't realise there were other kinds - Thanks for explaining!

>Facebook should be doing this for their contractors. (not the software development ones).. the guys who clean the office, maintain the landscape, cook the food, clean the dishes in their cafeterias, etc.

AFAIK, the company is continuing to pay these folks, even when the offices are closed.

Shopify did it too, mostly it was to help with buying monitor, desk, chair, etc. to set up a home office.

Not sure if that’s the intent here, but makes sense.

1. That was shopify

2. It's an expenses budget for home working equipment, not just cash in their paychecks, and not with max performance rating for max bonus

1. My bad, fixed in edit (originally said Spotify).

2. Does that matter? Paycheck stipend is easier to process for everyone and just makes it the same amount for everyone so policy is easier.

Seems like a nice thing to do for employees that might have extra expenses during the lockdown (higher grocery cost, etc.)

It may matter quite a bit for tax purposes.

Because working from home with kids unable to leave house produces extra expenses for child care (switching from daycare to babysitter will be expensive) etc.

If you do not do that, you need to cut hours, which reduce your income.

What FB does here is to comfort their worried employees with some money, push the overall moral and mitigate some of the impacts ppl feel.

You can replace babysitting with caregiving, being sick, etc.

Is babysitting even legal with the shelter in place order?

Childcare is explicitly listed as an essential service :/

That kind of defeats the purpose of "shelter in place", doesn't it? With so many asymptomatic carriers and children being germ magnets, those babysitters are going to become a very effective vector for spreading the virus.

Not everyone is capable of going without babysitters though. I see nothing wrong with it for exceptional cases.

Then you either have people whose situation worsens due to coronavirus illness or people whose situation worsens since they can't earn money and instead need to focus on child care. Pick your poison.

The latter doesn’t put the entire population at risk.

I assume that this is exactly why Facebook gives that money to its people. The fewer childcare workers are required to help around while also spreading the virus, the better.

I'll pick the one that isn't self-replicating and rapidly spreading undetected.

In fact, we've already cancelled our babysitter's visits. She's a nurse-in-training, so she understands.

I think the Bay Area order mandates small and unchanging groups of kids.

In SF it's actually a bit more nuanced than that:

https://sf.gov/stay-home-except-essential-needs "Are nannies permitted to be used? What about other in-home child care? In some instances. If the nanny provides medical/health care for the child, then yes. If the nanny lives with you, then yes. Otherwise, nannies not necessary for medical care are not permitted. Also, parents required to work away from home for essential services may need in-home child care, which is permitted."

The actual text of the law seems to contradict this though. From: https://www.sfdph.org/dph/alerts/files/HealthOrderC19-07-%20...

f. For the purposes of this Order, “Essential Businesses” means: xviii. Home-based care for seniors, adults, or children;

h. For the purposes of this Order, “Essential Travel” includes travel for any of the following purposes. ii. Travel to care for elderly, minors, dependents, persons with disabilities, or other vulnerable persons.

The Santa Clara(?) one that I read had some other specifics about daycare. IIRC the kids have to be in groups of 12 or fewer that aren't mixed around from day to day, and anyone in contact with one group can't be in contact with any other groups.

I have been following this and the wording here appears to have changed in the last couple of days. The wording you quoted has been removed.

I just checked in on this and noticed that it seemed like the FAQ language changed as well. I can't find the old wording anymore, and the new wording has done a 180

In Bay Area, you’re no longer allowed to have a baby-sitter who doesn’t live with you while current covid-19 measures are in place.

This is untrue - please don't spread misinformation. The order explicitly lists "Home-based care for seniors, adults, or children" as a permitted essential business.

In SF it's actually a bit more nuanced, and in most situations nannies are not allowed:

Each county issued the same order. The page you cite is explanatory, but not part of an official order. Any of it that is enforceable in SF is also enforceable in the other counties.

That's not the actual text of the law. The actual text says:

f. For the purposes of this Order, “Essential Businesses” means: xviii. Home-based care for seniors, adults, or children;

It says nothing about limitations to this based on need for medical care only.

That’s not my understanding. Child care professionals are considered ‘essential’.

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22609375

>If you do not do that, you need to cut hours, which reduce your income.

Are Facebook employees paid by the hour?

They have a lot of contractors, who are. And there is (used to be) a caste like energy on how contractors were viewed as opposed to actual FTEs.

As far as I can tell, contractors aren't included in this initiative.

As far as I can tell, they are included.

Well, when you only work 50% they surely will pay you less. And that is what parents face. When eliminating private life, maybe you can work 75%.

>Because working from home with kids unable to leave house produces extra expenses for child care

Why on earth would you need childcare if you work from home? Oh such hard work at FB.

Let me rephrase your comment for you: "I don't have kids."

So instead of reducing hours without cutting pay, or even just finding ways to give parents more flexibility in their work arrangements, we increase the demand and thereby the cost of those services so those employed in less cushy/flexible industries have no recourse.

True. But that would imply less work done for them. Not their interest.

$1,000 pays for maybe two days of childcare at home. I don't see $1,000 making much difference for them if their interest is to free up resources for working at home.

If you earn 300k$ a year then $1k is a rounding error to their megabucks employees.

Maybe, but earning $300K a year really tells us little about someone's financial situation. I'm sure you can imagine a world in which many things - eg: Mortgage, medical costs, loan payments, family needs - can make $300K gross income disappear very quickly.

Also remember that that 300k really translates to $130-$180 (guestimate numbers) base and the rest if stock which has also been falling

Yeah, the stock is down about 25% last time I checked.

I'm a current shareholder, and will be a larger one if the price keeps going down :)

income from RSUs will be down 30%

Right. This isn't charity, this is just another perk/bonus like free food or bean bag chairs.

The stock market has dropped significantly and a large part of employee compensation at FAANG companies is RSU. This could be seen as making up for lost stock value.

I don't work for Facebook but here's my thinking:

not everyone is making a software engineer salary at Facebook.

personally, i never had a proper work from home setup so i would spend it on an ergonomic chair, keyboard, mouse, noise cancelling headphone, dual monitor etc.

Cause they can and the decided to do it. Adjusting to remote work does have a cost or two

Google is being flexible about letting employees not use their PTO while school is out, which IMO is a far better thing to give.

My employer, Mozilla, is reimbursing employees up to $1,000 towards equipment for working from home [0], childcare, etc. The guidance has been for employees to be reasonable and for those approving expenses to be flexible.

[0] The roughly half of the company that works from home already got to expense setting up their home office when they were hired, so this mainly helps the people who were working from a company office.

Meanwhile Facebook relies heavily on contractors for catering, security, cleaning, and content moderation. The first 3 of these will be severely cut back during the virus as offices are closed.

> The first 3 of these will be severely cut back during the virus as offices are closed.

Facebook are still paying all contractors their regular pay, even if they're not needed at the moment:

> Facebook will pay contingent workers that cannot work due to reduced staffing requirements during voluntary work from home, when we close an office, when we choose to send an employee home, or when they are sick

https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/06/facebook-commits-to-paying...

> It’s not clear if Facebook will also give a bonus to contractors who are content moderators.

It seems like they are the most at-risk, considering they are not paid as much as all the developers.

I work with some of them in Greece. They have monthly contract extensions and are paid by day, no sick leave. Most offices have skeleton crew now. Technically it is not fb, but agency who employs them.

> Technically it is not fb, but agency who employs them.

And that's part of the problem, IMO. It enables Facebook to say "we're giving these protections to all our employees" which is technically correct but leaves out many people who labor for Facebook.

Disclaimer: Former FB engineering employee.

I have rarely seen a greater bunch of whining here. Don’t like FB as a business? Fine, I don’t really either. But they take care of their people. If there must be an outpouring of whining, maybe direct it at those other companies that also have cash on hand and aren’t giving some of it to employees?

Shopify did the same. Supposedly to help employees to buy stuff they need for working from home. It's really a pair of decent monitors + a good usb hub.

That seems oddly tax inefficient. If you're buying equipment for work it should be expensed through the business. You shouldn't be paying income tax on it.

Bonuses just got issued at most if not all SV companies, I work at Uber and ours checked in 3/13, so more money is the last thing SV techies need at this time. The funds should have been directed to orgs supporting freelancers etc

What does one have to do with the other?

fwiw, after taxes, looking at $600-$800 depending on tax category.

Are the contractors who serve food or drive the employee shuttles also receiving this?

Probably not (possibly giving bonuses skirts the contractor-employee line, idk). But they are still getting paid even if they are sitting at home all day when the cafeteria shuts down and the shuttles stop running.

What if Facebook gave a $1,000 to every user... Now that would be news...

FB has ~2.5B MAUs, so you're talking ~$2.5T. Facebook is worth about $0.5B, but they'd be worth much less than that if they tried to turn the business into cash to distribute. FB doesn't have anywhere near the money you're talking about.

Yes, botnet operators would love that.

Require a photo ID and tax documents.

And then the headline becomes "Facebook wants to harvest your ID and tax documents"

How about giving out some masks which are more effective than just money? We can't even find any masks to buy in the Bay Area, and we are at risk.

Is it possible that some FB employees have problems that can be solved with cash, but not with N95 filters? And where is FB going to get these mask, and how would they distribute them to their employees working from home?

this sounds tone-deaf. Much better to give that money to employees other companies who actually need it.

You want... Facebook... To give 1000 dollars... To every employee of some other unnamed company...

this could be e.g. in the form of food delivery vouchers etc, speficically aimed to keep small businesses running

They're doing something like that here: https://www.facebook.com/business/boost/grants

This will not do anything substantial. When monetizing the debt, the Fed should instead helicopter money to everyone. Everyone can then be a millionaire like in the Weimar Republic.

Leaked video of Zuck making the decision: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYHO7FRsQAA

If Facebook actually wanted to help, they would instead give every employee a $1,000 donation budget. Pick a charity and Facebook will donate on your behalf.

Why give an extra $1,000 to someone who is still making their salary? Or you know at least cut it off at people making over $100,000 or something.

> as the median compensation for a Facebook employee is $228,651

Meanwhile in silicon valley people making an average of $228k a year get a $1,000 for no reason. They are on salary already and $1,000 doesn’t move the needle for them. This is absurd.

Median != average

I thought FB was global, and doubt that all of their staff make that much?

If it doesn't help, what have we lost, other companies are doing nothing, it seems. https://about.fb.com/company-info/ says 85 locations around the World.

I don't understand what sort of person jumps to this response. Would you be similarly negative if FB decided to give their employees 6 months of parental leave?

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