Meta Layoffs Reveal a Deeper Truth: Tech Exceptionalism Is Dead
Silicon Valley for too long equated rapid head-count growth with success.
From hiring boom to the “year of efficiency.”
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
During the tech sector’s pandemic-era boom, employee headcount became one of the reigning barometers of success. Quarter after quarter, alongside traditional metrics like revenue growth and operating margin, companies across Silicon Valley reported to analysts and investors the thousands of workers they had added to their ballooning payrolls.
A prime follower of this more-the-merrier hiring approach was Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc., which for the last three years grew its employee base at a dizzying pace. Between the end of 2019 and its peak headcount in 2022, the company nearly doubled in size to some 87,000 employees.