The night before Meta’s mass layoffs on May 20th, a software engineer posted a sardonic farewell to the company’s internal group on Workplace. The post carried lyrics from Linkin Park’s “In the End,” a song he had heard playing in the MPK gym that evening while colleagues in orange lanyards (Meta’s designation for contractors and visiting workers) strolled through the campus cafeteria, oblivious or unbothered. “In the end, it doesn’t even matter,” he wrote, “sure hits different with 5/20 coming up.”
The X post, shared by Meta engineer Jeremy Bernier, instantly went viral. He catalogued exactly who it does matter for: H-1B visa holders with 60 days to find a new employer, engineers carrying $12,000-a-month mortgages in San Jose, mid-level developers without Stanford degrees dealing with a ruthless job market.
“Print this out, put it on your fridge, and prove me wrong,” he wrote, addressing anyone who believed the CEO’s promise of an AI-driven job boom. “We just don’t know when yet.”
‘In the end, it doesn’t even matter’
“I just got laid off from Meta,” Bernier wrote. “Obviously, it su*** to lose the income. But between the never-ending layoffs, stack ranking, etc., I’m good. Pretty convinced that when I look back at this moment a few years into the future, I’ll be grateful it happened.”
He added, “There’s a lot I want to say here, but I’ll save that for another day. Either way, it’s been a privilege to have been a part of the ride. On to the next adventure.”
He wrote that he suddenly became hyper-aware of the lyrics: “I tried so hard, and got so far. But in the end, it doesn’t even matter.”
Bernier took a moment to reflect on the culture of constant output inside big tech, including meetings, metrics, documentation, AI tools, internal processes, all the things people do every day without thinking too much about the bigger picture. “I still own a lot of stock. I hope the stock will recover. Layoffs will reduce company costs, which should boost the stock price,” he added, looking at the brighter side.
“No matter how tough it may be, remember that in the end it doesn’t even matter. Be grateful you got to contribute to the impact, even if your final impact was sacrificing yourself for shareholder value,” Bernier concluded.
‘My wife just got laid off by Meta’
In another widely shared post, one X user revealed that his wife had been laid off by Meta, saying the signs had been building for weeks. He opened up about a recent internal “AI week” at Meta, where normal work was paused, and employees were asked to build early-stage AI tools for internal use. According to him, teams were then evaluated based on whether their projects aligned with the company’s AI direction.
He wrote that his wife had spent months refining an approved AI project with senior colleagues, only to eventually be laid off despite the work. “This isn’t a sob story, we will figure out how to move forward,” he wrote, while calling it a wake-up call for people in white-collar roles.
He also warned that AI-driven restructuring could make entry- and mid-level job opportunities even harder going forward.
Meta’s recent layoffs have impacted around 8,000 employees, according to figures being widely reported in connection with the latest restructuring drive.