Wow... What is going on it tech? We are just 10 days in the new year and every day there has been surprise layoffs! Unity Twitch Several startups And now.. Google! This is at the same time when stocks are almost all time high :).
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Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant
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Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant
#42I don't use any feature of Google Assistant that wasn't present in the original Android voice search feature over a decade ago. And the few features I do use haven't improved in any way that I've noticed. In fact I feel like reliability has regressed. Google could have fired almost the whole team years ago and my user experience would not be different today. I consider voice assistants to be a failed experiment. It's…
I think your last paragraph contrasts and slightly contradicts itself but I agree with the failure part. If we consider a real-life PA performing tasks on our phone for us the question can be asked if it makes much sense or if it would be an interesting novelty.
Basic functionality has always been the key winner with this tech. Calling, setting reminders etc. nothing too complex.
Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Employees are a companies most valuable assets. All that a company has to do is to lay off a bunch of them and it realizes that value with a higher stock price :). Edit: in case anybody missed the nuance, this comment is meant as satire.
By that logic monetary value is a company’s most valuable asset. Edit: I understand it was satire.
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Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant
#44Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant
#45I don't use any feature of Google Assistant that wasn't present in the original Android voice search feature over a decade ago. And the few features I do use haven't improved in any way that I've noticed. In fact I feel like reliability has regressed. Google could have fired almost the whole team years ago and my user experience would not be different today. I consider voice assistants to be a failed experiment. It's…
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Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sometimes better than random layoffs because someone needed to juice the stock price. https://www.businessinsider.com/google-layoffs-cut-jobs-exce... (“A major Alphabet investor said the company should cut even more jobs and address 'excessive' pay in the wake of mass layoffs”) (Edit: retracted an unnecessarily snarky statement) (I admit Congress needs to get its shit together)
Hey both of these suck for everyone involved, I was just trying to point out that government work is not without its own issues. You may be right about government jobs being more stable, you're certainly less likely to just lose your job. They do tend to pay significantly less though from what I've seen. I'm from the UK so while we do have layoffs, like much of Europe we have relatively good employment protections. T…
Wasn’t a personal attack by any means, more like “pick your poison” with a bit too much snark (which I apologize for). Google is great until it suddenly isn’t, and working for Uncle Sam has its own challenges. Happy to hear you’re in a jurisdiction where you’re not exposed to the US labor experience, I’m just trying to throw life preservers out because I’m not sure how long the market is going to be this dysfunctional for (and this will be my third “once in a lifetime” economic crisis).
Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant
#47Wow... What is going on it tech? We are just 10 days in the new year and every day there has been surprise layoffs! Unity Twitch Several startups And now.. Google! This is at the same time when stocks are almost all time high :).
High interest rates. If Fed dropped them to 0 overnight, everyone on the list would have happily hired everyone back. But then the grocery prices would start growing faster than SPX.
The timing is surprising if this was the main motivation. Rates have been flat for nearly a half year and are projected to come down later in 2024 -- https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch...
Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant
#48Probably related: "Google reorganizing Pixel hardware: Fitbit’s James Park leaving, layoffs hit AR team"
https://9to5google.com/2024/01/10/google-reorganizing-hardwa...
Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant
#49Why lay-off instead of repurpose? Will we consider smartphones as "Personal Assistants" anytime soon? AI has advanced considerably in terms of what can be processed locally but the restructure seems a bit over the top considering it's still the same concept in a broader sense. It's like laying off a team of developers simply because you changed branding.
I seem to recall Google saying that they don't hire for a specific position; they hire good developers and then find the right position for them. This idea is directly countered by the act of firing developers in a specific position because that position is no longer viable.
Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant
#50Google's done company wide layoffs today in a fragmented way to make them look localized, but it's affecting the whole company, see here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947580
The link is dead and won't work for anyone without [showdead] enabled; for posterity here's the content:
Leads across Google are sending coordinated emails within their orgs announcing layoffs. They've all gone out in the last 2 hours or so.
They've fragmented the layoffs on purpose to make them seem more localized, but it's affecting the whole company.
Orgs that I've heard/I'm part of that have been impacted so far include Ads, Search, Assistant, Maps Android & Core.
I'm sure there are more, but I can't confirm.
I can't find WARN notices yet, so I assume they haven't been filed yet in any state.