The Blubber

Meta, $META, CEO Mark Zuckerberg tells employees to 'buckle up' for an 'intense year' in a leaked all-hands recording.

The mood at Meta was tense ahead of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s first all-hands meeting of the year.

Employee-submitted questions highlighted several key concerns: his announcement that “low-performers” would be laid off on February 10th, changes to Meta’s content moderation and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and his comments to Joe Rogan about wanting more “masculine energy” in the workplace. One employee asked bluntly before the meeting, “Are the changes we’re seeing influenced by the new U.S. president? If so, why are we making decisions based on these factors?”

Sensing the unease among employees, Meta’s HR team worked to keep the meeting under control. Before the Q&A began, employees were informed that “we will skip questions that we expect might be unproductive if they leak.” Unlike previous all-hands meetings, the most upvoted questions were no longer publicly ranked, and comments were disabled during the livestream.

Zuckerberg opened the meeting by addressing the leaks directly: “We try to be really open, and then everything I say leaks. It sucks.”

“We’ll cover the main topics, but there are just some things that would be value-destroying for me to talk about right now,” he said. “So I’m just not going to talk about those.” (Meta declined to comment for this story.)

Despite the restrictions, Zuckerberg did respond to several employee concerns. When asked about a potential return-to-office policy change, he said, “I haven’t been focused on this at all. I think the status quo is fine. Carry on.” Regarding the elimination of some employee perks, such as free EV charging at the office, he explained, “Part of the reason we’re doing well financially is because we’re being disciplined on costs.”

As for the upcoming “low-performer” layoffs? “The right thing to do is just rip the band-aid off,” Zuckerberg said. “In a lot of ways, it’s a kinder approach for people who aren’t likely to make it here in the long run.”

Wearing a gold chain and a white long-sleeve shirt, Zuckerberg also addressed the decision to cut back on Meta’s DEI programs. “The direction of policy and regulations now is that you can’t favor specific groups, even if you’re trying to address past inequalities,” he explained. However, he added that Meta might reintroduce unconscious bias training for employees, though it wouldn’t “just focus” on a “few underrepresented groups.”