In recent months, many former interns and recent grads have found themselves among the thousands of people laid off at the major tech companies. That has prompted many soon-to-be grads like Xie, who once assumed they’d easily slide into employment at one of tech’s marquee names, to rethink the value of these companies, their own prospects, and in some cases, what they want from their careers. Meta spokesperson Andrea Beasley did not respond to WIRED’s questions about its internship program, instead pointing to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s blog post announcing layoffs, which said the company overexpanded during the pandemic.
