The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
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Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#2Such a weird decision given the results they indicate. Was there any rational thought behind the layoffs beyond giving the metaverse more dollars?
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#3I work in the field of Data Science and one upsetting reality has started to sink into my mind over the last year.
In a business there is top line and bottom line. There are a lot Statistics/ML/Data Science jobs that are about moving that bottom line. You build something to optimize something to reduce costs.
The value provided by the bottom line people is less visible than the value of top line people. The easiest way to move the move the bottom line is by just getting rid of people. So when the axe falls the bottom line people get cut and it's hard to understand why.
It's the same thing as people say about fires. When you put out a fire you are a hero. When you prevent the fire in the first place, everybody thinks it's business as usual and nobody understands why you are needed.
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#4[deleted]
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#5Such a weird decision given the results they indicate. Was there any rational thought behind the layoffs beyond giving the metaverse more dollars?
It wouldn't surprise me if someone glanced at the "Probabilistic Programming Team" name and said "I don't know what that is but I doubt we need it" and added them to the chopping block.
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#6This is sad. I find probablistic programming languages very interesting. This probably means that many of the most useful ideas are disappeared. Does anyone know any relevant papers that describe what they did?
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#7Such a weird decision given the results they indicate. Was there any rational thought behind the layoffs beyond giving the metaverse more dollars?
Yeah I overlapped with that team at FB, and they were freaking amazing. That being said, I suspect that it was a Thunderdome type situation where two teams enter, one team leaves. It doesn't end up reflecting the value delivered as much as the perceived value.
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#8Eric Lippert was my hero back when his blog was hosted on MSDN. Sad to see him go into retirement when he's at his prime. Hope he finds some new exciting project.
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#9Sorry to hear about the lay-off. I can't stress enough how influential Eric Lippert was on my early career. His work on C# and .NET, but more importantly his openness and engagement with the community played a big part in me continuing on the Microsoft stack.
Just jumping into any random month[1] in his blog archive from my formative years is incredible nostalgia for me. It's not the kind of high-concept "a monad is a monoid in the category of endofunctors" content that will make the front page of HN, but was a great pipeline of information for a junior .NET developer hungry to learn.
Re: The last three years of my work will be permanently abandoned
#10No post body was provided.