Marek, CEO of Meta Zuckerberg’s internal announcement on Friday about a “major” company-wide artificial intelligence hackathon next month quickly sparked frustration and disbelief among employees.
In internal messages obtained by WIRED, some employees wrote that additional responsibilities due to recent mass layoffs at the tech giant left them little time to join in such extracurricular activities. Others claimed that they felt discouraged from participating in the program due to what they believed to be low morale and dwindling trust in management throughout the company.
“I am literally busy making sure my team is included,” one employee wrote on Friday. “I have no motivation to participate, let alone have the time.”
In a post shared with approximately 70,000 Meta employees, Zuckerberg described the hackathon as a way to build camaraderie among employees at a time of widespread internal unrest. Ime Archibong, vice president of product management at Meta, later shared additional details about the event, which he said will take place July 14-16 and will focus “solely on AI innovation.”
Archibong’s post was met with swift backlash from several employees, who responded with irate messages and sarcastic memes. “I’m not sure this company supports hackathon culture anymore,” one employee wrote in a comment that generated over 200 thumbs up and heart reactions. “People are being asked to take on more work with less support while their colleagues are made redundant, while at the same time trying to avoid the risk of causing SEV1 [serious technical errors] with careless use of artificial intelligence.”
The same employee claimed that hackathon efforts would not count towards performance reviews, fueling frustration among employees at the prospect of other projects being booked to participate.
Dozens of people reacted with laughter and thumbs up to the meme inspired by this comedy We are Millersstating, “Do you have time for a hackathon?”
“Honestly, I don’t have time to focus on this and I’m expected to be 100% committed to regular work,” another employee wrote. “I have participated in previous hackathons, but it no longer seems like an option alongside pod sprints in my corner of the company.”
A third employee called what he described as a “disappointing change in culture” because “I don’t think there’s enough of a sense of security to spend time on innovation during a hackathon.”
Meta declined to comment for this story.
Meta has long held internal hackathons, but two sources tell WIRED that this is the first company-wide event of its kind since it laid off 8,000 people last month.
The Meta software engineering veteran responded to some of the employee complaints, saying everyone was encouraged to participate. But the message still hasn’t quite sunk in. “Every organization I know has very ambitious goals of increasing productivity and significantly reducing employment,” commented one employee. “There is less time to focus on a different axis.”
The hackathon was one of several initiatives Zuckerberg unveiled Friday to energize his employees and address internal criticism about recent layoffs and other concerns. He said that budgets for teams working outside the company’s headquarters would raise and that the concept of sizzling desking, i.e. employees staying only in the office part of the time and sharing desks, would be abolished in some offices.
Last year, some workers gathered to survey co-workers about the removal of desks and the chaos and loss of productivity they believed it had caused, according to a person familiar with the effort who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions. The group insisted that management return to giving each employee their own space. The layoffs seem to have opened up recent opportunities, leaving less time for hacking.