Let Them Eat Pizza

 How about a billionaire with the inability to "read the room?" 

Sounds familiar, but in this version of the story it won't be the decrepit felon who hosted a celebrity fight club in front of dozens of paid subscribers.

This one goes out to Mark "The Zuck" Zuckerberg who had this fantastic idea to bring his employees together for an all-day "hackathon" to build team spirit at The Facebook after the dismissal of nearly one tenth of his company's workforce. What is a "hackathon?" It's an intensive collaborative event where programmers, designers and subject matter experts gather to build working software or hardware prototypes. The hopes for this marathon of innovation is that the group or company can create fresh new product to offer up to an excited public. Or in this case, an anxious and frustrated nerd of a boss. 

If this whole thing reads a little like an episode of The Office where self-proclaimed World's Best Boss Michael Scott requires attendance from his crew at a company picnic, then you're not far off. At Dunder Mifflin, the staff tends to roll their eyes at the boss and go along after realizing that these misadventures are a distraction from the otherwise dull grind of a work week. This is not the general feeling at Meta, formerly The Facebook. 

One Meta employee said, “I’m literally preoccupied with keeping the lights on for my team. I have no incentive to participate, let alone have the time to do so.” As if the phrase "Meta employee" weren't discouragement enough, these minions of Zuck were being asked to come in and work feverishly on new AI product that could quite possibly eliminate their own position, then you're starting to get the picture. 

Certainly in a culture spawned in feverish nerd gatherings like a hackathon, this might be a little confusing, but when the boss issues his command to code from behind the walls of his exclusive Hawaiian estate the "fun" of pizza and beer and pulling an all-nighter loses some of its spark, especially after eight thousand of your fellow employees were just laid off to "offset other expenses." 

Other expenses such as hiring a "beach water person" to oversee liquid-based activities at the Zuck Beach House. That and paying for all that pizza.