Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

semafor.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 265 posts

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#51

Post by johnnyanmac »

modeless wrote: post #21

I 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 mean, without those rudimentary building blocks they wouldn't have a lot of data and talent ready to investigate LLM's (and ofc, lots of polish on the NLP framework. Not as flashy, but very important for the UX). I don't see it as a failed experiment so much as a raw prototype if we believe LLM's can realize the true potential. Heck, for all we know, we were actually just training the model for this past decade.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#53

Post by EasyMark »

cvhashim04 wrote: post #39
razodactyl wrote: post #37

Why 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.

> Why lay-off instead of repurpose? Appease investors probably

Generally to boost numbers for the quarter, it takes a while for the damage to propagate through the system after a mass firing (in terms of new code/features/products) but the profits increase instantly, appeasing investors who think only in terms of weeks and quarters.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#54

Post by resolutebat »

razodactyl wrote: post #37

Why 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 have no context on what's happening in this particular case, but Google usually indeed does not layoff straight up: teams get "defragged" and the people working on them have some time to try to find new roles.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#55

Post by emmanueloga_ »

anifru wrote: post #36
Ivoirians wrote: post #9

Doesn't Google do that thing where if your team becomes redundant, they don't lay you off, they give you some time to find another team if you choose to transfer?

Are you referring to the 60 days (from WARN act) to find another team before getting removed from the company? If so, yes, but imagine the difficulty of finding another team to take you while the company is actively shedding roles.

No, Google did not give people that chance last Jan. Even if it had been on the table, imagine 12,000 ppl looking for an internal move at once.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#56

Post by ehsankia »

RHSeeger wrote: post #49
razodactyl wrote: post #37

Why 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.

Right, that doesn't quite make sense. The previous layoff was all across the board and likely trimming lower rated engineers across the whole company. Wiping a specific team, with potentially top tier talent, makes no sense.

Are we sure this is actually general engineers? The headline only says "working on". It could be people doing very specific work, like prompt validation, QA, etc.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#57

Post by tdb7893 »

wilg wrote: post #38
neilv wrote: post #22

So what's a good employer now, now that Google has been losing the reputation for treating employees well? (Multiple rounds of laying off people isn't treating only those people poorly, but also increasing stress for the people who remain, knowing they can suddenly be laid off as well.)

In your opinion what is the proper way to do a layoff? Or if any layoff is a problem, how do you prevent companies from hiring too quickly or whatever?

They are making over a billion a week in profits (and still growing). Layoffs can be justified but it's a bit of a head scratcher to be doing them when the company seems to be doing generally well

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#59

Post by astrange »

ggm wrote: post #3
fxtentacle wrote: post #2

Google lays off 0.05% in a restructuring. Is that really "the scoop" and newsworthy?

I think it is, because it suggests that a development arc either has maxed out, or is now subject to a different dynamic. Apple has a team of at most 12 people working on TCP/IP and IPv6. It's arguably one of the most important parts of the software stack. But, it's late stage mature code. Netflix had 4-6 people working on TCP flow control. Google had a small team, based in Japan, doing IPv6 for android. If a team ha…

This underrates contributing size a little because there's a lot more who occasionally contribute in the layers above or below - like if you're working on cellular modem performance you also care about TCP behavior, or someone working on video streaming is going to want to tune networking themselves.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#60

Post by [deleted] »

tdb7893 wrote: post #57
wilg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your opinion what is the proper way to do a layoff? Or if any layoff is a problem, how do you prevent companies from hiring too quickly or whatever?

They are making over a billion a week in profits (and still growing). Layoffs can be justified but it's a bit of a head scratcher to be doing them when the company seems to be doing generally well

[deleted]
Post reply on HN