Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of a companywide AI hackathon next month has drawn sharp criticism from employees, who say recent mass layoffs have left them too stretched to participate.
Zuckerberg shared the plan with Meta’s roughly 70,000 employees on Friday, June 13, 2026, framing the event as a way to build camaraderie amid widespread internal unrest. Vice President of Product Management Ime Archibong later confirmed the hackathon would run from July 14 to July 16 and focus “exclusively on AI Innovation.”
The announcement quickly drew angry responses and sarcastic memes in internal forums. “I’m literally preoccupied with keeping the lights on for my team,” one employee wrote. “I have no incentive to participate, let alone have the time to do so.” Another comment — that “this company supports a hackathon culture anymore” is no longer certain — collected more than 200 reactions from colleagues.
A core grievance was workload. Meta laid off 8,000 employees last month, and according to two sources who spoke with WIRED, this is the first companywide hackathon since those cuts. Employees said remaining staff are being asked to absorb additional responsibilities with fewer colleagues. One worker noted that hackathon participation would not count toward performance evaluations, further dampening any incentive to take part.
“Every org I know has super aggressive goals, with efficiency gains expected and significantly less staffing,” one employee replied to a software engineering veteran who encouraged participation. “There’s less time for focusing on other axis.”
The hackathon was one of several measures Zuckerberg outlined on Friday to address employee discontent. He also said budgets for team offsites would increase and that hot desking — requiring part-time office workers to share desks — would be eliminated in some offices. Meta declined to comment on the internal backlash.
Source: WIRED