While the latest round of layoffs at Meta have left thousands heartbroken, at least one impacted employee says she is happy to have been let go. Asha Raval, a Product Designer at Meta, was among the 8,000 people impacted by job cuts at the Mark Zuckerberg-owned company.
In a video shared on Instagram, San Francisco-based Asha Raval claimed that being laid off brought her joy instead of despair. Her LinkedIn profile reveals that she had worked at Meta for a little over four years.
‘I feel so happy’: Laid-off Meta employee
“I got laid off from Meta. And honestly, I feel so happy,” said Asha, adding that she finally felt “free” after years of working in the tech industry. “I feel free, like I can finally breathe again”.
“Before tech, before corporate titles, before Silicon Valley… I was always an artist first,” explained the Indian-origin former employee. “A maximalist fashionista. An entrepreneur. A creator.”
Asha’s Instagram account is testament to this fact. With over 1.2 lakh followers, she has built an audience that appreciates her maximalist style and over-the-top fashion sense.
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Exceeding expectations
Asha said that despite “exceeding expectations” in all of her performance reviews over the last four years, she felt increasingly disconnected from the life she was living. And despite her stellar performance reviews, she was included in the layoffs.
“No amount of stock grants, performance reviews, or corporate prestige can fix the feeling of your soul slowly dying inside a life that no longer fits you,” she wrote.
The former Meta employee said she always identified more as an artist and entrepreneur than a corporate worker, and added that she no longer wanted to spend her life “making slides and sitting in meetings” while her “real dreams sat on the sidelines.”
She said that she would now focus full-time on , fashion and content creation. She is now working as a founding creator at Fynd, a fashion AI startup that she says aligns more closely with her interests in creativity, technology, and fashion.
Layoffs at Meta
Facebook-parent Meta has begun a major round of layoffs affecting around 8,000 employees globally, or roughly 10% of its workforce, as the company restructures around artificial intelligence and automation. Internal memos accessed by Reuters showed that another 7,000 employees are being shifted into new AI-focused initiatives, while several managerial roles are also being eliminated as part of a broader effort to create “flatter” and faster-moving teams.
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The layoffs come as Meta sharply increases spending on AI infrastructure and products. In an email sent to affected employees, Meta said impacted workers would enter a “non-working notice period” during which they would continue receiving salary and benefits until their termination date despite losing access to internal systems.
The email also addressed concerns of H-1B visa holders, acknowledging that the situation was “especially difficult” for employees dependent on company-sponsored work authorisation and directing them to immigration guidance and legal support through Meta’s Alumni Portal.
