CRUISE is a joke. These guys can't find their own ass with 4 hands and a flashlight.
So much internal overlap and fragmentation that I would not be shocked they are hiring and firing at the same time - perhaps even the same people
GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
21–30 of 296 posts
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#22"doubling down on our engineering work and engineering talent,” Cruise spokesperson Milin Mehta told Reuters. Do these folks even try to hide their lies? Doubling down = 2x the engineering staff. This is as they lay off in their lidar team. Can companies be sued for these types of basically false claims or are we just stuck commenting on what lies they seem come up with. Can you imagine if your day to day life involv…
>Doubling down = 2x the engineering staff. This is as they lay off in their lidar team. Self driving will be solved with computer vision. Lidar is an unnecessary technology even for full level 5 autonomy. Most self driving companies have come to this conclusion by now.
Any data to back this up besides Musk saying his approach's the best?
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#23"doubling down on our engineering work and engineering talent,” Cruise spokesperson Milin Mehta told Reuters. Do these folks even try to hide their lies? Doubling down = 2x the engineering staff. This is as they lay off in their lidar team. Can companies be sued for these types of basically false claims or are we just stuck commenting on what lies they seem come up with. Can you imagine if your day to day life involv…
They mean they're increasing the workload of the remaining engineers, not that they're doing something to benefit or other wise honor them.
yep - the idea that they are doubling down on their engineering talent (2x headcount or 2x salaries or 2x resources) or whatever big bet they claim to be making seems like it might be a lie.
The PR guy (Milin Mehta) used to work at Kraken Digital Asset Exchange. They are known for suing to identify ten reviewers on Glassdoor, claiming they are former employees in breach of their severance contract.
Why work at companies like this?
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#24CRUISE is a joke. These guys can't find their own ass with 4 hands and a flashlight. So much internal overlap and fragmentation that I would not be shocked they are hiring and firing at the same time - perhaps even the same people
My impression was cruise was sort of the established players efforts to throw GOBS of money at a space they were worried about. Ie, a place that measures progress in part based on just expense.
Ie, waymo's tech is interesting but we have cruise so we are OK. Or tesla's tech looks interesting, but we have cruise.
I'd love to know what the kit they use for self driving costs. It looks monumentally expensive when you see one of their cars driving around.
I'm interested in MobileEye's next version of tech - wish they'd be pushing harder or did the Intel borg swallow them? They seemed to have a practical and pretty reasonably priced approach.
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the kind of stuff I always advise people in long term careers to be privy of. First to go always means least cared about. Nothing wrong with it, but always know your place in a company. Don’t ever be lulled into rhetoric such as ‘doubling down on engineering’. ‘We care about code quality’ - code quality sucks at the company, ‘we care about work life balance’ - there is none at the company, ‘we value innovatio…
Somewhat true. My favorite: "We adhere to the highest ethical principles" - as they give you a 500 page ethics doc that no one reads or follows. But I've actually found it's a good / reliable tell. You just stay away from companies like this that can't talk straight and you end up a LOT happier. I don't mean they need to be nice - but just clear relatively honest normal English language communication. ie, "we're cutt…
The new-speak of hypocrisy is utterly cemented in corporate and pseudo corporate businesses.
Sadly, a requisite skillet now days is having to navigate all the bullshit.
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#26Just a note, but this is a perfect time for companies to lay off low performers without getting a lot of flak. This is usually the case when you see companies lay off people while continuing to hire as well.
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#27> Before the layoffs, Cruise had 1,800 full-time employees.
Their hiring rate has been remarkable. Less than 3 years ago (6/2017) they had 200 employees. Just over a year ago (3/2019), they had ~1000.
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the kind of stuff I always advise people in long term careers to be privy of. First to go always means least cared about. Nothing wrong with it, but always know your place in a company. Don’t ever be lulled into rhetoric such as ‘doubling down on engineering’. ‘We care about code quality’ - code quality sucks at the company, ‘we care about work life balance’ - there is none at the company, ‘we value innovatio…
Somewhat true. My favorite: "We adhere to the highest ethical principles" - as they give you a 500 page ethics doc that no one reads or follows. But I've actually found it's a good / reliable tell. You just stay away from companies like this that can't talk straight and you end up a LOT happier. I don't mean they need to be nice - but just clear relatively honest normal English language communication. ie, "we're cutt…
I'm interviewing with a company that's taken a month so far with 8 different calls and still 3 phone calls to go. I keep doing it because they have never been less than honest with me. Everytime I ask a hard question, like what's the burn rate or how's the code base, they tell me the good and bad stuff, and how they're trying to fix it or if they don't even have time to fix it.
When I wasn't sure I wanted to continue, the hiring manager called me for 45 minutes to discuss why, and convinced me that I should continue without making any promises and without lying about the fact that my concerns were real and that it wasn't garaunteed that my concerns would be fixed, but I felt better because he told me about how they're trying to fix them. Contrast that with my last company which blew smoke up my ass for the whole interview process and later I found it was a very badly run company on top of badly designed tech and bad financial modeling and that anything to fix it was impossible because of the politics.
Further, I've been talking to the interviewers like they're real people rather than some god sent down to flummox me with dumb programming exercises and show off how cool they are.
I'll never do another interview the "old way" again, I like being treated as a human in a two way process rather than a one way information extraction exercise.
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#29CRUISE is a joke. These guys can't find their own ass with 4 hands and a flashlight. So much internal overlap and fragmentation that I would not be shocked they are hiring and firing at the same time - perhaps even the same people
My impression was cruise was sort of the established players efforts to throw GOBS of money at a space they were worried about. Ie, a place that measures progress in part based on just expense. Ie, waymo's tech is interesting but we have cruise so we are OK. Or tesla's tech looks interesting, but we have cruise. I'd love to know what the kit they use for self driving costs. It looks monumentally expensive when you se…
Waymo and Tesla have been designing a lot of their own hardware and I believe Cruise has been doing the same. Nvidia and Intel have been successful with getting start-ups into their ecosystem and attracted OEMS who want hardware for ADAS, but for FSD, you have to get the costs remarkably down, and that will need custom hardware without a middle man to pay. I doubt cruise is using anyones kit.
Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Somewhat true. My favorite: "We adhere to the highest ethical principles" - as they give you a 500 page ethics doc that no one reads or follows. But I've actually found it's a good / reliable tell. You just stay away from companies like this that can't talk straight and you end up a LOT happier. I don't mean they need to be nice - but just clear relatively honest normal English language communication. ie, "we're cutt…
The new-speak of hypocrisy is utterly cemented in corporate and pseudo corporate businesses. Sadly, a requisite skillet now days is having to navigate all the bullshit.
It can be funny though to take them seriously.
When I was less responsible (younger) I would do that sometimes.
Someone does a BS bunch of lines, stand up and thank them from the staff for committing to the additional resources for staff.
Follow-up with third parties unironically echoing the message with outcomes the business does not want (ie, please send in your proposals as we are doubling down on our engineering).
I make too much money to do anything like this (and have more control anyways) plus if you are more senior you are expected to understand the game.