First, I think goals and expectations are different. That said, it’s possible to have intended to always be setting ambitious goals but look back and see that maybe you were unintentionally coasting. Fixing that problem isn’t nefarious.
I think reading into this any deeper is just succumbing to a leakers goal of finding sound bites which sound bad to get people all excited and angry.
You can word dance around it all you want - his intent is clear: working at meta is going to be harder tomorrow than it was yesterday, with the intent that some people will quit over it.
How you feel about that depends on if you see yourself as more similar to an owner of meta, or as a worker at meta.
I’ve seen the pain low performers cause others around them as an IC and having the company try and fix that problem seems very reasonable. But who knows, for all we know this could just be rhetoric to inspire some initiative.
Assuming people that don’t support your strong gut reaction to this leak view themselves as “an owner of meta” is strange—my views here are very much colored by my experience as an IC at a similar company where I thought I’d be happier, as a worker, if we could do a better job at both managing low performers and firing leakers.
Why do you care, as a worker, about leakers and low performers? I understand being frustrated if people you work with are obstructionist, poor communicators, or have bad attitudes - but in my experience most of those people would be classified by the company as HIGH performers. The “low performers” are, in my experience, the most fun to work with.
“Part of my hope by raising expectations and having more aggressive goals…”