Alien Chess
Image by ChatGPTI recently came across a great post called “The Resilience of Alien Chess”.
The author compares working in a fast-changing place like Meta to playing chess where, at any moment, a little alien might show up and swap your board with a new one. Suddenly, the pieces are in different positions, or you have to play the opposite color. You play on this new board for a while and start to improve, but then the alien comes back and changes it all again.
This perfectly describes my experience at Meta so far: priorities change, people come and leave, re-orgs, layoffs…
The post was written by one of our VPs who has been at Meta for 18 years. He says that no matter how good you are, even if you can plan many moves ahead, you can’t outplay Meta at this game.
In a fast-paced environment you can’t predict or prevent changes. Instead, you should:
- Accept the changes, because the alien is part of the game.
- Keep your eyes open to spot changes early.
- Learn to quickly adapt to the new environment.
These alien visits, however, are what give us the chance to grow professionally. And that’s exactly what makes working at Meta so exciting.