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During my tenure at Facebook, now Meta, from 2014 to 2017, posters were plastered all over the grounds. The job is only 1% done. Move fast and break things. I was struck by one in particular on my first day of orientation: Nothing at Facebook is someone elses problem. No matter my department or title, I had permission to take ownership of a problem and fix it. Its the corporate version of If you see something, say something, or, in this case, do something. The irony is that Im saying something because I see what Meta is now doing. It is actively making their problem with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) everyone elses problem. To me its clear the company’s ethos has changed from those days of open innovation. DEI helped Facebook grow, make better products and be more profitable During my time at Facebook, I was an attorney who primarily served supply chain and procurement. One thing that was not in my purview was diversity. However, I couldnt help but notice that I was the only Black attorney in the Legal department, and I was well aware of the infrequency with which I saw Black colleagues walking around campus. Within our supply chain, I saw an opportunity to save the company money, create goodwill in the communities where Facebook had offices, and build better products by working with suppliers as diverse as the companys users. So, I started the supplier diversity program. It was strategic to take the heat off of the company for the low employee diversity numbers that were the focal point of each annual report by providing another mechanism to demonstrate our partnership with marginalized communities while opening bids for business that would save the company money. In addition to the cost savings and the goodwill the program could provide, it was also a mechanism to build better products by partnering with diverse-owned businesses that reflected our user base. There is no better collaborator than people representing those you want to use your products, and with over a billion users at the time and growing, that needs to reflect the world. While no DEI program is perfect, improvements are part of playing a long game, and gains wont be made overnight but incrementally. The supplier diversity program was an answer to several problemscollaboration for better products and new use cases, harm mitigation, economic opportunity for marginalized communities, and to slow the creep of gentrification of Facebook headquarters into the Black and brown community of East Palo Alto. I was incredibly devoted to this cause. I gave up weekends, late nights, and early mornings. I even spent part of my maternity leave to get the program off the ground. Both Facebooks General Counsel and Chief Financial Officer reviewed and approved the program at various stagesthe company was fully onboard with the aims when the program launched in October 2016. Confident I had built something that would last, I moved on to other opportunities. From a billion-dollar commitment to shifting blame and denouncing DEI In June 2020, Facebook pledged a $1.1 billion investment in Black and diverse suppliers and communities in the U.S. In 2022, the company reported: In 2021, we exceeded our diverse supplier commitment, spending $1.26 billion with US certified diverse suppliers and more than $306 million with Black-owned businesses in the US. As recently as October 2024, Meta hosted the Billion Dollar Roundtable conference celebrating corporations that spend $1 billion with minority and women-owned suppliers. Now, over the course of just six weeks, Meta has dismantled diversity programs, including supplier diversity, that took years to build, and Mark Zuckerberg has attributed them to former COO Sheryl Sandberg as he distances himself from all DEI. While no DEI program is perfect, these programs are part of a long game, with incremental progress built on top of hard work and trust. Companies and their leaders are free to change their minds and priorities due to politics, economics, or anything else. But if the pendulum swings in the other direction in the future, companies like Meta that scrap DEI programs will now have an infinitely harder time rebuilding them. The trust of users, employees, and suppliers has been destroyed. Users cant trust Meta, so disengagement is the only answer From my experience at Facebook, what happens on the inside is what is mirrored externally in the products. When you eliminate DEI initiatives, you lose people from around your table. When you lose those voices at the table, you lose product insight. And for those still at Meta, their voices will carry less weight as soon as they advocate for those viewpoints, use cases, and outcomes. I imagine that the environment inside Meta is very different from when I worked there. Some employees and suppliers are likely nervous about what this new landscape will mean for their jobs. Users can expect a different product experience as a result, and they will judge whether it is for the better. I believe the only path forward for users is to show Meta the true cost of abandoning diversity. If we arent welcome within these companies, and we arent welcome to service them, then we shouldnt reward them with our engagement, our data, or their ability to earn ad revenue from us. For marginalized communities, boycotts worked once before and also spurred entrepreneurship and safe spaces a generation ago during the Civil Rights Movement. In my view, disengagement is the only answer. Meta is no longer following its own adages. This is the opposite of Shipping Love, but it shows us what Zuckerberg and Meta do when they arent afraid. Sometimes, people dont realize that there are consequences until they are faced with them. Users control the end of this story. This can be the opportunity to see how Zuckerberg and Meta rise to the occasion (or not). Regardless of their response, we must remember, “When people show you who they are, believe them. We need to believe this is the world Meta wants to create, and if we dont want to be part of it, we need to leave.
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E-Commerce
Nearly three in five people worldwidea significant 58%plan to look for a new job in 2025. Thats a lot of people in the hunt and if you’re one of them, it can feel a bit overwhelming. It doesnt help that many job seekers are also feeling stuck, applying to more positions than ever yet hearing back less often. The shifting job market, influenced by more competition and the growth of AI, has made old strategies less effective. To succeed, job seekers need to rethink their strategyfocusing on roles that align with their skills, crafting tailored applications, and finding ways to stand out. The good news? With a clear, intentional approach, you can navigate these challenges and make meaningful progress in your career. Heres how to take control of your job search in 2025: Be Adaptable: Go where the opportunities are The job market is changing quickly. Consider this: Nearly three-quarters of todays fastest-growing rolesthink Artificial Intelligence Engineer or Chief Growth Officerdidnt even exist 25 years ago. Its a good reminder that building a sustainable career means staying ahead of the curve. Identify which skills are in demand and which industries are growing. Resources like LinkedIns Jobs on the Rise report can be helpful in spotting trends. For example, we’re seeing a willingness among job seekers to pivot into new industries. Making such a leap begins with assessing your transferable skillsattributes like communication, leadership, problem-solving, and adaptabilityand exploring how they align with roles in unfamiliar sectors. By pairing curiosity with preparation, you can position yourself as a strong candidate in emerging fields. Highlight your expertise Simply claiming expertise isnt enoughyou need to show it. Hiring managers look for specific skills, so align your profile and résumé with the job description. Highlight achievements that show how your skills have produced results. Update your LinkedIn profile as well; listing at least five key skills can help you get up to 5.6 times more profile views from recruiters. Think of this as your opportunity to build a digital portfolio that speaks for you. Whether its showcasing a project, sharing industry insights, or highlighting new skills youve gained, your profile can become a dynamic representation of your expertise and professional brand. Focus on quality over quantity Applying to as many jobs as possible might seem like a good strategy, but its not effective. Instead, focus on quality instead of quantity. To help you be more strategic in the roles youre applying for, consider using LinkedIns new job match feature to see how your skills and experience line up with what hiring managers are looking for. It can also help you identify any skills you may be missing that could improve your chances of hearing back from recruiters. And, take the time to customize your applicationwriting a cover letter tailored to the role lets you clearly explain how you can meet its needs. It may seem like overkill, but it will help you stand out to employers. Navigating the current job market doesnt have to be frustrating. Small, focused actionslike improving your profile, expanding your network, or learning a new skillcan move you closer to your next role. In a fast-changing job market, being focused and strategic is the best way to stay ahead.
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E-Commerce
It was the year 2000. We survived Y2K and sat at our computers obsessed with a strange new game called The Sims. It was the first game I ever played where the protagonist could be late to work, forget to take out the garbage, or be so preoccupied by the doldrums of life that they might pee themselves. I, alongside millions, was hooked and could not articulate why. Born from the mind of Will Wrightthe same designer who bucked the industrys penchant for arcade games for world simulators like SimCityThe Sims is almost as hard to define now as it was then. Is it a virtual dollhouse? A simulacrum of suburban life? A neighborhood of tamagotchis with jobs? An HGTV home improvement show crossed with Real Housewives? [Image: EA] By design, whatever you call The Sims may reflect on you more than it. From its earliest days, The Sims universe has attempted to be anything but prescriptiveright down to its progressive view on relationships without labels or gender expectations. Twenty-five years later, the franchise, now owned by EA, has amassed half a billion players. The Sims 4 came out over a decade ago at this point, but after it became free-to-play in 2022, its popularity ballooned to reach 85 million players, and its released 17 expansions that allow people to do everything from arguing over family inheritance to convening a court of vampires. For the 25th anniversary, I sat down with two creatives that have been with the franchise since the original game to discuss their core design approach of The Sims, whats kept players obsessed, and why fewer of these little characters are peeing themselves these days. [Image: EA] A funhouse mirror of the world The Sims may have a quiet premisecreate a character and their home, choose a profession, and socialize with neighborsbut nothing about the presentation from there is literal. Through every bit of its art, design, and animation, the world balances the mundane with the zany. That not only brings an element of fun to The Sims; it expands whats plausible at any moment. We definitely talk more about being relatable than realistic, which means that we do lean more dramatic in our acting and our animation, says Lyndsay Pearson, VP of franchise creative for The Sims. Thats partially because of the way you play the game: You’re far away [from characters], you need to be able to read it. But also because that supports the world and the stories we’re trying to enable. Each gesture of these little characters is exaggerated, as if theyre actors on a stage being read from the audience, even though youre just sitting at your computer. That ensures that the mundane feels interesting. [Image: EA] When you’re cooking, or going to sleep, or making up the bed, or doing these life actions, a lot of your players actually want to experience them in this extremely whimsical and playful fashion. Nobody wants to see that in a replica of actual real life the exact same way, says Nawwaf Barakat, senior animation director for The Sims. So it needs to be telling its own story every single time. It needs to look interesting the 1,000th time you’ve actually seen it. The tone of those moments isnt merely legible or entertaining; they also highlight the farce, expanding whats possible in the world. We’ve described it as a fun house mirror to the world, where it looks familiar enough that you can relate to it and feel like, Oh, if I if I take out the trash, I understand the chain of events and the rules of this universe, but it’s all skewed so that when a giant monster pops out of the trash, I’m not surprised. [The design] explains that these things can coexist. [Image: EA] Implying so the player can infer While players enjoy rich, multigenerational stories in The Simscomplete with love, backstabbing, and sudden plot twistsin fact, the design team admits that most of this narrative takes place in your head. The Sims is really a game of interpretation, says Barakat. It’s amazing how much our players will actually fill the stories in themselves. A key idea behind fiction, born from The University of Iowas Writers Workshop, is that the wrier should imply so the reader can infer. The Sims is designed to do this across a characters relationships. The Sims speak in Simlish (gibberish that sounds almost like English). You can broach a topic, like brag about promotion, but responses from characters are always in either Simlish or word clouds filled with simplistic, emoji-like images. [Image: EA] Many players try to tell multi-generational stories in the game, and recently, The Sims released an expansion all about death and family legacy. The challenge was about creating an opportunity for these stories without determining the plot ahead of time. We added enough conversation dialog choices or enough icons in the thought balloons to get them to think about the character or think about a gravestone, that you could make that story kind of happen, says Pearson. So, we have to carve out those spaces, particularly to leave room for that interpretation to say, Oh, this could be them all mourning at a wake,’ but it could also be, ‘They’re all fighting at a wake.’ [Image: EA] These techniques almost sound silly to deconstruct, but theyre also at the core of how iconography and symbology works across culture. There are points where interpretations are shared, and points where they diverge. Everything in between is the fun of criticism IRLand where the opportunity for differing interpretations around narrative exist in The Sims. You see comments online sometimes about how deep our game is, how we thought of everything, says Barakat. And we’re like, Wow, we didn’t really think about that! It was our players building that story based off of all the elements we provided. [Image: EA] By avoiding labels, not only is The Sims less prescriptive, it is also more inclusive. (You wont find Republicans and Democrats in The Sims, for instance.) Since the earliest days of the game, relationships spanned gender boundaries without specific labels around status. Today, The Sims 4 does allow players to very deeply specify a characters gender and sexual identity (and even if they lactate), but still, the way this background plays out in actual game logic can be fluid and, again, unlabeled. Sims may fight, but they dont judge. [Image: EA] Is polyamory just the absence of jealousy? Because functionally, that’s kind of what it is. If you decide what gets jealous of what, the player then can infer a lot of different types of relationships of that, says Pearson. And we don’t have to label all of them. We don’t have to provide specific definitions and restrictions. We sort of just have to open up space, which is a really interesting design challenge . . . we say, ‘What’s the lowest common denominator that would unlock a lot of these things?’ [Image: EA] Building forgivable failure (like, why Sims still pee themselves) You cannot win The Sims 4. But you cannot lose either. The way that the franchise has handled the topic of failure has evolved over time, climbing Maslovs hierarchy of needs to be less about survival than everything else in life. When you go back and play The Sims 1, it is very hard to keep your Sims alive. They caught fire all the time. It was a very dangerous world in The Sims 1, the plate spinning was really hard, says Pearson. So, when we moved into The Sims 2, we wanted to introduce a different level of pushback, a little bit higher up the sort of chain of needs. Sims began failing at the meta layers of life, like being too lonely. [Image: EA] But by The Sims 3 and 4, everything got a little bit easier about life. Your Sims don’t fail so much as they just aren’t thriving, and that you can do so much more when you’re working with them, nurturing them, and pushing them along the way, says Pearson. Screenshot Micromanaging has been tuned down in interest of choose-your-own-adventure story charting. If you aren’t spending every moment feeding yourself so you don’t starve, or showering so you don’t stink, you can spend more time, say, turning an entire town into vampires. But notably, you still need to tend to your Sim. You even need to make sure that they use the bathroom now and again, or else, yes, after 25 years, they will still pee themselves. This micromanagement isnt just gamification to keep the player active, but core to the emotional draw of The Sims. There’s a certain amount of pushback that the game still needs for you to believe that these are little people that need you, and that could be a mode of failure, like having an accident or starving. We try to make those entertaining as well: things like being hit by a meteor because you were stargazing for too long, says Pearson. Because at the end of the day, that is a reminder that there is a little bit of humanity in them that you need to pay attention to, and that you can’t just treat them like some ants and it’s fine if they die. You want to care about them. And perhaps thats the real appeal of The Sims after two and a half decades. In a world where we constantly dehumanize one another, reflexively hating people as avatars on social media, The Sims offers another waywhere even a few polygons and lines of code can be worthy of our care.
Category:
E-Commerce
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