{"id":503737,"date":"2026-06-17T04:50:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T04:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/503737\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T04:50:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T04:50:20","slug":"mark-zuckerberg-orders-his-employees-to-start-having-fun-again-after-brutal-layoffs-culled-their-colleagues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/503737\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Zuckerberg Orders His Employees to Start Having Fun Again After Brutal Layoffs Culled Their Colleagues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2332080205bbda2ba6981e43991ec3e9.jpeg\" alt=\"A man with curly hair wearing a white button-up shirt with rolled-up sleeves stands with his hands resting on a railing. He is looking to his left with a thoughtful expression. The background is filled with a crowd of people, all bathed in blue lighting.\" loading=\"eager\" height=\"640\" width=\"960\" class=\"yf-lglytj  loaded\"\/> Chris Graythen \/ Getty Images; Futurism      <\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Morale at Meta has seemingly hit rock bottom.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Employees have been roiling from multiple rounds of major layoffs. Last month alone, the Mark Zuckerberg-led company <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/05\/19\/technology\/meta-layoffs-ai.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:laid off a whopping 8,000 workers;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;laid off a whopping 8,000 workers&quot;}\" class=\"link \">laid off a whopping 8,000 workers<\/a>, roughly ten percent of its workforce, as part of its <a href=\"https:\/\/tech.yahoo.com\/ai\/meta-ai\/articles\/meta-desperate-compute-building-data-163000792.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:chaotic refocusing efforts around AI;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;chaotic refocusing efforts around AI&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">chaotic refocusing efforts around AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Many of those who remain are now forced to perform the grunt work to train AI models, weekly busywork that\u2019s already <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/mark-zuckerberg-meta-employee-meeting-interrupt-ai\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:driving some of them up the wall;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;driving some of them up the wall&quot;}\" class=\"link \">driving some of them up the wall<\/a>, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/mark-zuckerberg-meta-employee-meeting-interrupt-ai\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Wired reports;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Wired reports&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Wired reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">In an internal memo to employees on Friday, Zuckerberg attempted to lift their spirits in what appears to be a notable failure to read the room. Specifically, the billionaire promised to host a companywide AI hackathon in July \u2014 only to get brutally shut down by workers who were in no mood for such a thing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Meta has regularly hosted hackathons in the past, but given last month\u2019s layoff announcement, the reception was extremely chilly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">\u201cI\u2019m literally preoccupied with keeping the lights on for my team,\u201d one employee wrote in an internal message quoted by Wired. \u201cI have no incentive to participate, let alone have the time to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">\u201cI\u2019m not sure that this company supports a hackathon culture anymore,\u201d another employee added, pointing out that \u201cpeople are being asked to cover more work with less support while their colleagues get laid off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">\u201cI\u2019ve participated in previous hackathons, but this no longer feels like an option alongside pod sprints in my corner of the company,\u201d one worker wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Zuckerberg offered employees access to permanent desks, a symbolic gesture that unintentionally illustrated how expendable many of them had become. Many employees at Meta have been working from \u201chot desks,\u201d a controversial scheme involving multiple workers sharing the same desks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">For all its employees\u2019 pain and suffering,\u00a0Meta has surprisingly little to show. The company continues to trip over its own feet, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/tech\/ai\/meta-keeps-delaying-the-release-of-its-new-ai-model-to-developers-f8569c8c?eafs_enabled=false\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:struggling to release impressive new AI models;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;struggling to release impressive new AI models&quot;}\" class=\"link \">struggling to release impressive new AI models<\/a> as its competitors pull ahead further in the ongoing AI race.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">In his memo, Zuckerberg predicted that even more difficult days could be ahead for the company, despite <a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/sectors\/technology\/articles\/zuckerberg-tells-tattered-remainder-workers-170752615.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:vowing;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;vowing&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">vowing<\/a> to hold off on any future layoffs for the rest of the year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">\u201cGiven the complexity of these changes, we\u2019ve made mistakes and will almost certainly make more,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">More on Meta: <a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/sectors\/technology\/articles\/meta-super-expensive-ai-team-144749090.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:Meta\u2019s Super Expensive New AI Team Is Already a Complete Catastrophe;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Meta\u2019s Super Expensive New AI Team Is Already a Complete Catastrophe&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Meta\u2019s Super Expensive New AI Team Is Already a Complete Catastrophe<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Graythen \/ Getty Images; Futurism Morale at Meta has seemingly hit rock bottom. Employees have been roiling&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,1226,80,41833],"class_list":["post-503737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-meta","tag-technology","tag-zuckerberg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}