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Meta staff have hit back at their bosses over plans for a company-wide AI hackathon in July, arguing they are too stretched to step away from their day jobs.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the exercise on Friday, suggesting it could help build unity among employees and inspire fresh AI innovations.
But frustrated staff voiced their concerns with the hackathon, including high workloads and low morale, arguing that Meta no longer has the workplace culture where employees feel excited to participate.
Meta staff slam hackathon plans
The “large” AI hackathon will run from July 14 to July 16.
Ime Archibong, Vice President of Product Management at Meta, emphasized it would focus “exclusively on AI Innovation.”
Hackathons have long been a popular way for businesses to give staff a structured opportunity for collaborative problem-solving and ideation.
Many employers, including Canva and Thomson Reuters, are running hackathons specifically focused on AI, freeing staff from daily responsibilities to learn new skills, brainstorm ideas, and come up with new applications of the technology that tackle frustrating business challenges.
Delivering Consistent HR Services for Deskless Workers
But Meta workers were left unhappy with the proposed hackathon, arguing that changes to the business in recent years have over-stretched staff, damaged the tech giant’s culture, and broken trust in management.
Internal messages seen and shared by WIRED revealed the backlash facing Meta bosses.
“I’m literally preoccupied with keeping the lights on for my team,” one employee said. “I have no incentive to participate, let alone have the time to do so.”
Another worker wrote: “I honestly don’t have the time to focus on this, and I’m expected to be 100% devoted” to the job. “I’ve participated in previous hackathons but this no longer feels like an option alongside pod sprints in my corner of the company.”
A third individual said they “don’t believe there is sufficient feeling of safety to spend time on hackathon innovations.” The same worker reflected that there has been “a disappointing change in culture” at Meta.
Culture concerns & workforce unrest
It is far from the first hackathon Meta has conducted, with the exercise a key part of the software company’s approach to innovation and shared learning.
However, it comes after Meta announced plans to axe 8,000 jobs in April – roughly 10% of its entire workforce. Meanwhile, the company is continuing to hike its spending on AI, which will reach around $135billion this year alone.
There also remains ongoing dissatisfaction over the rollout of a monitoring tool that captures data on employee actions to train Meta’s artificial intelligence systems.
That backdrop has left staff feeling less than thrilled at the prospect of stepping away from their daily work for the innovation exercise.
Another employee wrote a similar comment responding to Archibong, drawing hundreds of supportive reactions from fellow staff.
“I’m not sure that this company supports a hackathon culture anymore,” it read. “People are being asked to cover more work with less support while their colleagues get laid off, while also trying to avoid the risk of causing SEV1s [serious technical errors] with incautious AI use.”
There were some concerns that taking part in a hackathon wouldn’t contribute toward performance reviews, although Meta has not verified whether this is the case.
Zuckerberg’s memo included other company initiatives meant to boost morale and draw staff together, including plans to scale back hot desking and increased budgets for team off-sites.
Canva’s hackathon success
While Meta bosses must curb employee unrest ahead of next month’s hackathon, other employers are enjoying more success.
Design software giant Canva ran its second AI Discovery Week in May, giving staff time away from their daily work to pick up new AI-related skills, culminating in a two-day hackathon.
Over 5,300 employees attended 64 sessions across workshops, deep dives, and showcases, logging a total of 25,940 total hours of learning across the week – while the hackathon sparked 361 new “ideas” to be fed back into the business.
Faye Longhurst, Regional People Lead EMEA for Canva, told HR Grapevine that the approach meant staff could spend time on “real business challenges” and “areas that are going to have the most value for the organisation.”
She highlighted how successful the initiative was in the first Discovery Week, which took place in July 2025. “There are a lot of things that came out of the hackathon last year that are now live in our products, and I think that's a real measure of success,” Longhurst remarked.
The HR leader shared her tips for other businesses looking to run this kind of initiative – including advice that may have proved useful for Meta bosses, considering the pushback from disgruntled staff who believe the plans are wide of the mark.
“The first thing is to ask your team what they need, because that will then inform what your programme looks like,” Longhurst advised.
