You Chose to Get Into Bed With Them

Meta just announced 8,000 layoffs. Another 6,000 open roles cancelled. 14,000 careers affected in a single memo.

The comments are predictable. Outrage. Solidarity posts. The usual chorus of "how could they do this to people."

Here is my question: why are you surprised?

You Knew Who They Were

This is a company that became popular by asking college students to rate each other's looks. That was the founding idea. Not connection. Not community. Comparison.

And in the twenty years since, nothing fundamental has changed about the way that company sees people. Users are inventory. Employees are costs. The language has evolved. The underlying logic has not.

When the Chief People Officer writes that layoffs are needed "to offset the other investments we're making," the translation is simple: your salary is being redirected to data centres and chips. You are a line item being reallocated.

If that shocks you, I'd gently suggest you were not paying attention when you accepted the offer.

Career Decisions Are Values Decisions

I have spent 25 years in this industry. Executive search, leadership advisory, coaching. I have sat across the table from thousands of candidates making career decisions. And the pattern I see over and over is this: people choose companies the way they choose a holiday. What looks exciting. What pays well. What their friends will be impressed by.

They do not choose companies the way they should: the way you choose a partner.

Because that is what you are doing. You are getting into bed with them. You are spending more waking hours with this organisation than with anyone else in your life. Their values become the water you swim in. Their culture becomes the air you breathe.

And if you did not look at those values before you signed, you have no standing to be outraged when those values show up in how you are treated.

The Shiny Object Problem

Fifteen, twenty years ago, the entire industry lost its mind over tech. Everyone wanted in. Google. Facebook. The platforms. The scale. The stock options.

Very few people stopped to ask the harder questions. What does leadership here actually believe? How does this company treat people when the numbers turn? What is the real North Star, not the one on the careers page, but the one in the boardroom?

Those questions felt unnecessary when the share price was climbing and the perks were extraordinary. They feel very necessary now.

This is not unique to tech. I see it in advertising. I see it in media agencies. I see it across every sector I work in. People chase the brand on the business card and forget to interrogate what that brand actually stands for.

Companies Do Not Owe You a Job

This is the part that people find uncomfortable, but it is true: no company owes you employment. Not permanently. Not unconditionally. That is not how the relationship works.

What you can do is choose who you work for with your eyes open. You can look at a company's stated values and test whether they are real. You can look at how leadership behaves, not what they say at town halls, but what they do when it is difficult.

And if a company has no values at all? That is actually useful information. It tells you their North Star is profit. At least they are being honest about it. You can make your decision accordingly.

But if they do have values, real ones, written down and visible, you can hold them to it. And if things go wrong, if the market shifts, if AI reshapes the cost base, you can at least say: I worked somewhere that stood for something. And so did I.

The Ogilvy Test

I was fortunate. Early in my career, I worked at Ogilvy. They had values. Real ones. Not laminated posters in the lift lobby. Principles that shaped how work got done, how people were treated, how decisions were made.

Twenty-five years later, I still talk about it. My friends and colleagues from that era, we all do. We talk about those experiences because they still align with who we are today. That is not nostalgia. That is proof that values compound over time.

The companies that shaped us were not the ones that paid the most. They were the ones that stood for something we could stand behind.

The Real Question

The next time you are considering a role, before you look at the compensation, before you count the RSUs, before you imagine the title on your LinkedIn profile, ask yourself this:

Do I believe what this company believes?

Not "can I tolerate it." Not "does it look good enough." Do I actually believe it?

Because if you do not, you are borrowing someone else's values for convenience. And when those values show up in how they treat you, the surprise will be entirely on you.

Companies tell you who they are very early. Most people just choose not to listen.