At the same time, he has changed his tone, and experts say his inconsistent behavior is hurting employees still at the company.
“This is going to be an intense year, and I want to make sure we have the best people on our teams,” he said at the time.
While Zuckerberg has not commented on the latest 700 layoffs reported this week, there is a clear vibe shift in his approach to layoffs since 2022, Stevens Institute of Technology business professor Haoying Xu told Fortune.
“At the very beginning, layoffs were something that he had to do—he had no choice,” he said. “Now, it seems to be a norm.”
This inconsistent leadership, as Xu describes it, may increase quiet quitting among the workers who remain and cause them to lose faith in Zuckerberg’s decision-making.
Because he went all in on the metaverse by changing his company’s name to Meta in 2021 and pouring billions into the VR and metaverse-focused Reality Labs division, employees may think twice about buying into the CEO’s grand ideas the next time.
“You will lose credibility [among] your followers, because what you did and what you said—it’s just unpredictable and untrustworthy to the employees, because you keep switching back and forth,” Xu said.
Meta did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
To be sure, the layoffs could also be seen as demonstrating Zuckerberg’s willingness to course correct on the metaverse, even though the initiative was his idea, said Jessica Kriegel, chief strategy officer at consulting firm Culture Partners, which advises companies on strategy and workforce shifts.
“He made a massive bet on the future with metaverse. He staffed up for it. He was unapologetic about it,” she told Fortune. “And then when the results didn’t match the pace, or the market shifted, didn’t slowly unwind it—he just reset the system pretty quickly.”
A lot of founders would not have done the same, Kriegel noted.
“Founder-led ideas sometimes die way too slow of a death,” she said.
If these tech companies can’t promise workers job security, said Xu, employees will demand other benefits, for example, more flexibility in terms of remote work or schedules as well as occupational training. The training is especially important, he added, because it may increase the odds of a worker getting a job later on even if their current employer lays them off.
As for Meta, Kriegel said Zuckerberg needs to bring some semblance of normalcy back to the company to reassure workers following layoffs. The best approach, she said, is to be candid about the business reasons behind them and not overexplain. Employees need to be able to buy into the company’s vision to move forward.
“Consistency matters more than inspiration at that point,” she said. “Employees don’t necessarily need a bold vision speech. They need to see the same priorities being reinforced over and over again in decisions and investments and even what’s getting rewarded internally.”
