CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving • Hacker News Board

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#151

Post by solutron » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 10:04 PM UTC

dqpb wrote: post #37

endisneigh wrote: post #6

That's sad. I must be the only one who thinks full self driving will not happen before year 2100. Is there an example of anything that's completely automated that's dangerous? I cannot think of a single thing. At best things are partially automated and need humans still. The thing is, if you have "partial" self driving, you might as well just drive yourself IMHO. The consequence of being wrong with a car is literally…

Waymo is full self driving, not partial

Waymo is little more than a Jurassic Park jeep ride. Only works on the tracks. Take a Waymo vehicle anywhere their engineering staff hasn't spent countless hours driving around back and forth with those ridiculous spinning lidar sensors and roof rack full of who-knows-what and see what's left of their 'self driving'.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#152

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 10:06 PM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #34

endisneigh wrote: post #6

That's sad. I must be the only one who thinks full self driving will not happen before year 2100. Is there an example of anything that's completely automated that's dangerous? I cannot think of a single thing. At best things are partially automated and need humans still. The thing is, if you have "partial" self driving, you might as well just drive yourself IMHO. The consequence of being wrong with a car is literally…

> Is there an example of anything that's completely automated that's dangerous? I think this is just the usual goal post moving, if a machine does it then we decide it wasn't really dangerous for a machine to do it. Garmin Autoland will take a plane which is otherwise working and is in the sky and put it back on the ground because the pilot has a problem (e.g. your plane nut husband finally has another stroke† while…

How is it the goalposts moving? Dangerous in the context of that question doesn't mean the solution is dangerous. Dangerous there means that a screwup would be dangerous. Or maybe where a 'simple' screwup would be dangerous for some subjective value of 'simple.'

Garmin autoland seems like a perfect example of something dangerous that's completely automated.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#153

Post by solutron » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 10:07 PM UTC

iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote: post #12

I'm curious about the co-CEO thing. That seems like it is universally something that doesn't work and is just what happens when nobody wants to make a tough decision. Is there any context on why it might be the right move here?

This is a huge red flag. Especially when Waymo's had no significant milestones and when the CEO is using language like 'spend time with friends and family'. That usually means they're being pushed out, or that he's made the realization it's not going to work out and is jumping ship.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#154

Post by solutron » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 10:08 PM UTC

bertil wrote: post #2

Am I the only one to read like an acknowledgement that Waymo didn’t achieve what it was supposed to do and he was asked to go for lack of performance?

That's exactly how I read it. It's a huge red flag.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#155

Post by solutron » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

Judgmentality wrote: post #5

bertil wrote: post #2

Am I the only one to read like an acknowledgement that Waymo didn’t achieve what it was supposed to do and he was asked to go for lack of performance?

I read it as a state of self-driving cars in general. The technology isn't developing as fast as people had hoped. Waymo is still in the lead, even if this guy failed to deliver (he announced Waymo would be a public service for 2018, and that obviously didn't happen).

Definitely google some Tesla FSD beta videos and watch them. Waymo doubled down on a technology set and data methodology that is not scalable. Tesla is going to win in this space 100%

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#156

Post by recuter » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 10:10 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #147

recuter wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am 32. I Could have written this 7 years ago. I no longer accept job offers at any salary in this industry. In fact, all my emails and communications are written in this style all the time with everyone - what shall I do now wise one? (serious question) You wanna start a band or whatever. Maybe we can start like an Elks club thing?

Are you the CEO or the non-executive employee? One of the reasons I put my email in my profile is that it brings me interesting questions. :-)

I'm gainfully unemployed and like Luke you can't make me go back!

I've job hopped looking for a place where people don't engage in the Kabuki but apparently all the worlds a stage. Maybe I'll make one of those lil ships in a bottle this year.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#157

Post by karljtaylor » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 10:13 PM UTC

iJohnDoe wrote: post #106

ChuckMcM wrote: post #102

Having read hundreds of these sorts of CEO leaving letters I'm a bit jaded and cynical. If you're interested in what I see when I read that message, I rewrote it[1] in more plain language. Google demands a lot of its "other bets" companies. Some might say it asks too much. Mostly it seems to me that they want a 'moonshot' company that has the original profitability of search advertising, full stop. And while it would…

Your rewrite was extremely well done. It’s too bad CEOs don’t write their PR like you have done. Like when they drive companies into the ground, lay everyone off, and then they exit with millions.

they do, it just usually gets re-written to hell in about 30 very anxious email rounds

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#158

Post by recuter » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 10:13 PM UTC

shuckles wrote: post #140

Lavery wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's surreal to see people minted with money for life and yet deliver so little value. That sort of arbitrage usually only happens on Wall Street. This must be a joke? The multi million-dollar exit with zero actual earnings is an almost uniquely tech phenomenon. There are Wall Street-ers that earned high pay for generating high earnings that many years later were found to be value-destructive, but at least at the ti…

The difference between “selling a growth story” and “selling current profits booked by incurring future liabilities” seems entirely like a semantic one. What’s the practical difference?

Sometimes the code monkeys actually code something.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#159

Post by solutron » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

dealforager wrote: post #131

ChuckMcM wrote: post #102

Having read hundreds of these sorts of CEO leaving letters I'm a bit jaded and cynical. If you're interested in what I see when I read that message, I rewrote it[1] in more plain language. Google demands a lot of its "other bets" companies. Some might say it asks too much. Mostly it seems to me that they want a 'moonshot' company that has the original profitability of search advertising, full stop. And while it would…

I understand the sentiment, but $20M/year really is a waste of time for a $200B/year business. I have a hard time thinking of a way it wouldn't be a loss given the added organizational complexity having those kinds of projects would bring. I thought the entire purpose of "other bets" was to pursue ideas that have the potential to become $XXB/year revenue streams. So of course they want 'moonshot' companies.

I give it less than 5 years before Google offloads or shutters Waymo entirely.

Re: CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving

#160

Post by baq » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 10:19 PM UTC

jfk13 wrote: post #107

endisneigh wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the subject of automation. Humanity is on track to have the computational power to perform whole brain emulation decades before 2100. Even if we don't solve the general AI problem through other pathways, we will solve it through this path. Ethical problems aside, once this is achieved, everything will be automatable at a human level of competence. Is this actually true? I haven't heard of this. You're saying we…

We have no idea what kind of "whole brain emulation" it would take to produce what we understand as intelligence, so all this seems highly speculative.

We know it only takes 20W of power for the real thing to work.

Let that sink in. We know it isn’t impossible to run a general intelligence computer on 20W because every single one of us is living proof that it is possible. There is no reason why something man made shouldn’t be able to do the same thing. How to do that is of course a different matter, but it isn’t speculative that it can be done, it’s a direct consequence of our own existence.