I am wondering if Zuckerberg somehow stumbled upon the old Decimation thing on Wikipedia one late evening and decided it was a good idea to try.

I don't really understand the rationale otherwise, hiring is hard, and they are not forced to reduce cost now.

This seems like a colossal mistake. Not the first of course.

1-more 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> stumbled upon the old Decimation thing on Wikipedia

He took Latin at his first high school and at Exeter when he went there for 11th and 12th grades, so he almost certainly knew it without Wikipedia.

But yeah, whenever I've survived a layoff it feels a bit like surviving a decimation or some other collective punishment.

mrguyorama 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The industry standardized on this as "Stack ranking" like two decades ago.

	▲	stephc_int13 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This is more of the Bezos style, maybe inspired by the same idea. Appears less random and continual.

what is the Decimation thing?

	▲	1-more 14 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Roman legions would execute every 10th man as collective punishment. Kept the survivors in line. No idea if it ever actually happened.
	▲	stephc_int13 14 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It is something that occured a few times in Roman history. A collective punishment, 10% of the soldiers killed by their peers, randomly choosen.