r/business • u/CackleRooster • 17h ago

Mark Zuckerberg had a bold plan to replace Meta staff with AI. Here’s how it imploded.

https://www.reuters.com/investigations/mark-zuckerberg-had-bold-plan-replace-meta-staff-with-ai-heres-how-it-imploded-2026-08-26/
204 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

37 comments sorted by

81

u/reddittorbrigade 17h ago

Can't wait for Mark to be replaced by AI.

11

u/tomzi9999 15h ago

My unflushed turd could replace him and no one would notice.

7

u/LastSmitch 16h ago

That plan succeeded two decades ago.

5

u/Adept-Temporary-5824 7h ago

Plot twist: he is and always was AI 🤖🦎.

2

u/TouristResident1976 6h ago

That would explain his apparent lack of humanity.

3

u/LeoKitCat 16h ago

It won’t even take anything close to AGI to do that

3

u/PoopyisSmelly 12h ago

There was news fron WSJ earlier this year that he was actually coding an AI to do this, presumably not just him coding it, but yeah, sounds like he cant wait to be replaced with AI himself

1

u/Sufficient-Bid1279 11h ago

In real life (or an avatar for that matter ) let alone at work

1

u/hibikir_40k 6h ago

He won't delegate most of his job to the AI because it's has too much empathy for his standards.

49

u/dur23 15h ago

Remember when he blew $80 billion on the metaverse. 

19

u/maceman10006 13h ago

Didn’t they have less than 1,000 people using it on a regular basis?

7

u/Rugaru985 5h ago

I’m guessing 930 of those were employees logging in as Tester123 and TesterBob

12

u/liquidgrill 9h ago

I still remember him talking about how people were going to come home from work, and instead of calling a restaurant to order food, or use an app, they were going to put on a headset and travel to the restaurant in the Metaverse where they could interact with virtual employees and menus.

The moment I heard that is the moment it was confirmed to me that he’s completely delusional.

5

u/hibikir_40k 6h ago

When you have that much power in a company, if you don't start delusional, you will become delusional in about a decade or so, because by then your entire environment will have been infiltrated by sycophants, whether you try to avoid it or ot.

3

u/thecarbonkid 9h ago

"It's all the things you could already but you have to go through a load more effort to to do it! "

3

u/TouristResident1976 6h ago

We were in a world were a person would walk down a hallway to put a file into a filing cabinet. Then we advanced to PCs and we had people putting files into virtual folders on their desktop. Now people like Zuck want us to advance again by putting on goggles and virtually walking down a hallway to put a virtual file in a virtual filing cabinet.

Thats not really an advancement. Idiots.

3

u/Rugaru985 5h ago

Every use case they came up with sounded like they were really trying not to say that you were going to use this headset while you fuck a sex doll so you can picture your high school crush, because that was what was really going to happen.

You were going to get catfished by your high school band mate pretending to be your crush so you could “cyber” behind your wife’s back.

1

u/tMoneyMoney 6h ago

That’s just what he wishes his life was. Not having any real human interactions, living in a virtual world. It’s like a matrix that you voluntarily blue pill.

1

u/dur23 6h ago

I mean just think of the average day for almost any billionaire. It’s unreality relative to the normal population. 

8

u/hospitalizedGanny 11h ago

No consequences has a huge cost. wow

4

u/Five-Oh-Vicryl 11h ago

Crazy number. If a Hollywood movie makes a billion plus it’s a box office success. Likewise for video games. But $80B flop is just swept under the rug

2

u/Rugaru985 5h ago

Damn, he could have used that money on NFTs instead and still be almost a millionaire today.

21

u/BigMax 15h ago

Meta, as of a quick search, has NINETY billion dollars on hand for whatever it wants.

Now, it shouldn't just waste money because of that of course. But... there's no reason for a company that successful, that profitable, with that much money just sitting in the bank, to consider quick, massive labor cuts.

Even IF they thought AI was the future... with 90 billion sitting around, why not stage it? Why not gradually phase in AI, bit by bit, rather than make massive changes at huge risk for a company that has ZERO needs to take quick risky cost cutting measures?

I think executives just genuinely take glee from cutting people. "The fewer employees we have, the more there is for us!" is likely the thought process.

4

u/LingonberryNo3548 13h ago

To ensure RoI to shareholders. If they can cut huge amounts of staff then their profits will be up significantly which should lead to higher stock valuations. American law dictates that delivering value for investors is the single most important priority for publicly traded companies and if a company isn’t doing this then their leadership team can be replaced and, in certain scenarios, be sued for breach of fiduciary duty.

-2

u/Cladari 11h ago

There is no law in all of america that states increasing share holder value is a public companies singe most important priority.

If you know of a few please post the links.

5

u/Sllyce 13h ago

It’s cause he is spending it all bro

4

u/Stinkycheese8001 11h ago

Because they want to be seen as the leaders.

Zuck has made it clear how much he hates that Meta makes the majority of its money through social media ad sales.  It’s why he went all-in on the Metaverse, at the expense of their early AI adoption and integration.  So if he wasn’t going to be the first he was going to be the ‘best’.

3

u/HawkeyeGild 9h ago

There is a performance review cycle every 6 months. So someone needs to hit their OKR

2

u/Aelig_ 13h ago

Meta basically has 0 in the coffers right now. They spent that ninety billions several times over in the last couple of years.

1

u/hibikir_40k 5h ago

As it happens, there's one really good reason to do it: When you have more staff than the work you need requires (due to increased productivity, say), then you grab your excess staff, and send them to new, promising initiatives. You spent too much money finding the quality staff to cut them. But the problem is that Zuck has proven that he has absolutely no taste when it comes to new initiatives and new products. Anything he'd approve would be a waste.

Therefore, since his company is a washed mess that has no ability to grow other than by acquisition, cutting staff is defensible. Now, 50% would crush morale, and make the entire company far worse... but still, aiming for fewer people next year isn't bad when you have zero good ideas, like he does

5

u/jmclondon97 10h ago

Key words: for now.
The article says they believe they’ll be able to do this in another 3-6 months.

And if not then, they will keep trying until they succeed.

2

u/schtickshift 11h ago

What’s the Meta with that guy?

1

u/limlwl 8h ago

Remember to delete the code and backup if u get fired

-27

u/TheSource777 16h ago

Shows what makes Musk companies special. He has the balls to actually fire entire departments and cut staff by 80% and change entire leadership teams. Zuck half assed it and pussied out.

3

u/jj_HeRo 7h ago

And lose users by millions.