The Structure

Meta announced on May 20, 2026, that it was eliminating approximately 8,000 positions. The company memo explained that the layoffs were not performance-based.

This phrase is doing a great deal of work.

"Not performance-based" means the people being let go did their jobs. They showed up. They met the targets. The performance review that would normally document the problem with someone's employment did not happen, because there was no problem with their employment. The problem was structural. The structure is not being let go.

(Meta made $56 billion in revenue last quarter. The memo does not explain the relationship between this number and the 8,000 people. The absence of this explanation is itself a structural feature.)

What "not performance-based" means, in the vocabulary companies use when they need to eliminate people who did nothing wrong, is: "the decision was ours, not yours." The people being eliminated performed adequately. The people making the elimination decision performed a calculation. The calculation performed well. Only the 8,000 performed inadequately, in the sense that they are the ones being let go.

The specific structure that became incompatible with 8,000 employees is not named in the memo. Structures rarely name themselves. They simply become apparent, the way a wall becomes apparent, after you've been walking toward it.

(The word "structure" in corporate communication means: a decision has been made, the decision is final, and the decision precedes this conversation. The structure is not open to feedback. The feedback form has been deprecated.)

Meta has 3.27 billion users. The 8,000 employees were involved in serving the 3.27 billion users. The 3.27 billion users will continue to be served, by the remaining employees, who were not part of the structure that changed. The users are not aware that the structure changed. The users are the structure.

The word for a document that explains you no longer have a job while assuring you it is not your fault is a severance notice. The word for receiving one while your employer earned $56 billion is: not performance-based.

The structure is still hiring.