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Nobody is safe from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s now permanent efficiency measures, not even the company\u2019s upper echelons.<\/p>\n
As of last year, Meta employed an army of 300 vice presidents staggered into five levels of seniority that are now the prime targets of Zuck\u2019s efficiency cuts, Business Insider<\/em><\/a> reported citing three people with knowledge of the company. In previous years, there were half as many VPs at Meta, BI<\/em> reported, and Zuckerberg reportedly wants to slice the roster down to 250.\u00a0<\/p>\n The VP massacre comes after Zuckerberg first declared 2023 the \u201cyear of efficiency<\/a>,\u201d last February, which resulted in more than 20,000 layoffs in 2023, according to BI<\/em>. Zuckerberg later made the changes permanent after witnessing employees \u201cexecute better and faster,<\/a>\u201d and promised a \u201cleaner\u201d operating structure that included a flatter hierarchy.<\/p>\n To help cull supposedly lagging VPs, Meta is leaning on mid-year performance reviews and formal annual performance reviews usually conducted in the first quarter. VPs who don\u2019t measure up to their peers through a process called \u201cstack ranking\u201d are likely to get the ax.\u00a0<\/p>\n The VPs are also under the microscope of their superiors, who under company rules are required to label 10% to 12.5% of their reports as underperforming. The tactic could lead to these employees being put on a performance improvement plan and then being laid off.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment and referred Fortune<\/em> to a February Facebook<\/a> post by Zuckerberg where he went into detail on Meta\u2019s earnings and added that his \u201cyear of efficiency\u201d changes would become \u201ca permanent part of how we operate.\u201d<\/p>\n Zuckerberg\u2019s productivity measures stand in stark contrast with Meta\u2019s growth of between 20% and 30% every year prior. But since Meta started its layoffs last year, it hasn\u2019t stopped, and other big companies including Google<\/a>, Microsoft<\/a>, and Tesla<\/a> also joined in. Overall more than 250,000 tech employees were laid off last year, according to Layoffs.fyi<\/a>.
Zuckerberg\u2019s risk in making the major job cuts has been rewarded by investors over the past year. Some analysts have lauded<\/a> the CEO\u2019s efforts, including those at MoffettNathanson, who in a research note candidly wrote<\/a>: \u201cMr. Zuckerberg is a capitalist after all.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nSubscribe to Data Sheet, our daily newsletter about the business of tech. Sign up<\/a> for free.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n