PanamaTimes

Sunday, Oct 25, 2026

Ex-Facebook engineer posts YouTube videos mocking the culture and joking about how he was fired

Patrick Shyu, a former tech lead at Google, has posted a series of videos making fun of Facebook, where he worked as a software engineer until last month. Shyu criticizes the company’s culture, calling it a “popularity contest,” where ideas and projects are driven by likes and comments rather than logic. Shyu’s YouTube channel has more than 500,000 subscribers and he says in a video that he makes more money from it than he made at Google or Facebook.

A former Facebook software engineer named Patrick Shyu took to his YouTube channel this week to post a video called “Day in the Life of a Facebook Software Engineer.”

It’s not about any ordinary day, but rather the day Facebook fired him just over a month ago. In the clip, he pretends to walk into a meeting with a human resources representative, who fires him, in part because she didn’t like his YouTube channel. Shyu then proceeds to make fun of Facebook and criticize its culture, calling it a “popularity contest,” where ideas and projects are driven by likes and comments instead of logic.

“Imagine receiving multiple notifications every day where people are just telling me what they’ve accomplished, how great they are,” Shyu said in the video.

Shyu, whose “TechLead” YouTube channel has over 500,000 subscribers, has been routinely poking Facebook, publishing six videos about getting fired since the day he says he was dismissed, Aug. 26. On that day, he posted a video titled “I got fired from Facebook (for having a YouTube channel),” which he shot from his car after apparently leaving the office. He also tweeted out the announcement with a link to the video.

“I know that everybody is shocked,” he said. “And at a dire time like this, I feel like what we really need to do is just take a pause, and thank our sponsor.” He then launches into an advertisement.

Shyu joined Facebook in May 2018 and previously spent almost four years at Google, according to his LinkedIn profile. While at Google, he worked in the office in San Bruno, California, where YouTube is based.

Many of his videos give insights into the life of software developers. They typically get between a few hundred thousand and over 1 million views. In a Sept. 9 video titled, “How much I make on 1,000,000 YouTube views (after getting fired from Facebook),” he says that he’s probably making well over $500,000 on the site.

“It’s funny that I’m generating more on YouTube than what I made as a tech lead at Google or as a staff software engineer at Facebook,” he said.

In the latest video this week, Shyu said Facebook employees have to constantly boast about their mundane accomplishments on Workplace, the company’s internal social network, in order to get ahead.

“It’s kind of this game for people to get as many likes and comments on their posts,” he said. “If you’re into popularity contests, if you thrive in that type of environment then you’ll probably do really well.”

Facebook’s culture was described as “cult-like” by former employees who spoke with CNBC in January for a report about the company’s performance review system.

Shyu and Facebook did not respond to requests for comment.

Newsletter

Related Articles

PanamaTimes
0:00
0:00
Close
Advertising trick: Pepsi’s Harrier Jet Commercial Led to a $700,000 Court Fight
Why 2027 Could Be a Strong Year for Stocks—and Why the Forecast Is Fragile
Trump’s Top General Seeks an Exit Strategy From Iran War, Report Says
Brock Lesnar Retires From Wrestling, Closing a Career of Rare Athletic Range and Lasting Controversy
Trump-Era Policy Shifts Test the Boundaries of U.S. Institutions
Weight-Loss Drug Boom Tests the Limits of Prescription Advertising Rules
Breaking With the Past: One of the World’s Smallest Countries Changes Its Name
AI Is Remaking the US Economy, From GDP Growth to iPhone Prices
Cuba’s Grid Fails Again as Fuel Crisis Deepens
Nazca Lines Flight Crash Kills Thirteen as Peru Suspends Aerodiana
OpenAI Faces Demands for Full Disclosure After Models Breach Hugging Face
FIFA’s Private-Investment Plan for World Cup Rights Draws European Revolt
Why Americans Queue for $15 Ice Cream and a $100 Caviar Pint
OpenAI Sued After ChatGPT Allegedly Discouraged Emergency Care Before Near-Fatal Embolism
Miliband Sets Climate and International Law at Centre of UK Diplomacy
Trump Readies New Tariffs as Temporary Global Levy Nears Expiry
Morgan Stanley Builds a Wall Street Lead in AI Infrastructure Finance
High Prices Push Coffee Drinkers Toward Whole Beans and Home Brewing
Spain Defeats Argentina in Extra Time to Win Second World Cup
Venezuela’s Earthquake Devastation Turns U.S. Investment Opportunity Into a Thirty-Seven Billion Dollar Reconstruction Challenge
Ukrainian Drones Strike Wildberries Warehouses Deep Inside Russia
The Ledger Will Not Trust on Faith
Trump Administration Pressures Banks to Restrict Financial Access for Undocumented Immigrants
The Ten World Cup Finals That Defined Football History
Smartphones Are Getting More Expensive, Sales Are Collapsing, and Even Apple Admits: "Prices Will Rise"
The AI Race Enters Its Infrastructure Era
Colombia Influencer Dies After Cosmetic Procedure at Unlicensed Bogota Salon
A Quiet Bastille Day: France Grapples with World Cup Heartbreak and Leftover Fireworks
Spain in Ecstasy: "We Feel Unbeatable, We Taught the Whole World a Lesson"
On the Island That Did Not Yield to Trump, There Is No Electricity, and 10 Million Live in Darkness
World Cup Visitors Turn American Big-Box Stores Into Souvenir Stops
Anthropic Reengineers Agentic Architecture to Shift Autonomous Workplace Automation to the Cloud
Global Crisis Alert: Escalating Middle East Tensions and UK Political Upheaval
Japanese Technology Firm Fujitsu Launches Advanced Artificial Intelligence Tool for Corporate Disclosures
South Africa Officially Launches Nationwide Campaign for Highly Contested Local Government Elections
United Kingdom Commits Additional Funding for Unexploded Ordnance Clearance in Laos
Singapore Announces Stringent New Greenhouse Gas Regulations for Commercial Cooling Systems
Cambodia and Thailand Hold High-Level Border Security Talks at United Nations Headquarters
Myanmar Military Government and China Sign Major Agreement to Upgrade Media and Cultural Cooperation
Knife Attack at Swiss Train Station Leaves Three Injured in Suspected Act of Domestic Terrorism
Transnational Extortion Gang Threatens Canadian Police With Army of One Thousand Armed Operatives
Australia Imposes Forty-Two-Day Quarantine on Cruise Ship Passengers Following Deadly Hantavirus Outbreak
International Monetary Fund Unlocks Seven Hundred Million United States Dollars for Sri Lanka Following Economic Reforms
Australia Launches Record One Point Four Billion Dollar Lawsuit Against Chemical Giant 3M Over Contamination
China and Canada Foreign Ministers Meet in Ottawa in Effort to Stabilize Strained Diplomatic Ties
Indonesia Demands Urgent United Nations Security Council Reform Amid Escalating Global Conflicts
Extreme Weather Patterns Trigger Severe Drought in Madagascar and Destructive Flooding in East Africa
Indian State of Karnataka Faces Political Upheaval as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah Abruptly Resigns
Philippines and Japan Reaffirm Defense Ties as Crucial for Indo-Pacific Regional Stability
Norway Joins French Nuclear Deterrence Initiative in Major Shift for European Security Architecture
×