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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

#111

Post by pm90 »

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.)

I don’t think there are any left.

The cycle repeats itself though. The leas desirable Google becomes, the more talent is freed up into startups, some of which eventually will offer something similar.

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

#112

Post by jrockway »

lgleason wrote: post #17
sytelus wrote: post #13

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 :).

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.

I do always laugh a little about these things. "Safety is our top priority." It can't be, or you wouldn't be in the business of drilling mines or whatever. Safety is the second priority.

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

#113

Post by joshspankit »

qp11 wrote: post #72
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.)

Just use your resume to Move to location where ever they are hiring. Dont worry about "good employer" certifications. That stuff belongs to a bygone era thats never coming back. Large corps spanning hundreds of countries are managed primarily by finance arbitragers who use cross border differences in labor costs/interest rates/tax rates/govt regulations/freebies/tariffs etc to keep the lights on. As they get faster a…

I think you’re missing an entire category of businesses: ones who are making both a good product/service and a good income.

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

#114

Post by trashtester »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #19
ggm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> because AI can do it cheaper I'm interested to see how this works out in the mid-longer term to see where it tracks on the graph with "Cheaper" on one axis and "Better" on the other (where '0' is in the centre of the "Better" axis, not at the bottom/left).

Building an AI stack to perform some task can often be budgeted as capex even where it would be opex if humans did it.

Capex tasks can be considered to be either "Cheaper" (as they're investments, not expenses) or "Better", since they create long term value on top of the short term, depending on how you want to define your axes.

When doing this budgeting, moving items from opex to capex in this way is mostly based on belief structures, as it's too early to tell if the capex generates lasting value or not. Short term, though, it tends to be good for the stock price regardless.

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

#115

Post by pseudosavant »

sokoloff wrote: post #104
modeless wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, I just think these new projects based on LLMs should be considered a different category, AI agents or something. The traditional grammar-based voice assistant architecture used by Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa, Bixby, etc is an abject failure, and not for lack of trying.

If the Alexa/Echo-category of devices are meant to be some widely flexible and pervasively useful device from Star Trek, they're a failure. If they're meant to be a usable $30 kitchen timer and music player, they're pretty great.

They do succeed in that way many times a day every day in my house

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

#116

Post by jrockway »

nekitamo wrote: post #5

There were also large layoffs in Google’s ad sales org today, but I haven’t seen any news articles about it.

Sales seems like a truly miserable role. You have to sell whatever the company makes, which often times isn't what the customer wants. You mostly get paid by commission, so if someone just goes out and buys your product without talking to you, you don't get paid. Finally, it's treated by business as some sort of resource they can autoscale up and down as necessary. Need more money? Get more salespeople. Out of money? Fire all the salespeople.

I just find it so weird.

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

#117

Post by joshspankit »

EasyMark wrote: post #53
cvhashim04 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I’m continually surprised that this tactic still works. It’s been rinsed and repeated so many times that the inevitable damage (and effect on the company financials) is practically boring.

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

#118

Post by ycdxvjp »

chefandy wrote: post #107
qp11 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use your resume to Move to location where ever they are hiring. Dont worry about "good employer" certifications. That stuff belongs to a bygone era thats never coming back. Large corps spanning hundreds of countries are managed primarily by finance arbitragers who use cross border differences in labor costs/interest rates/tax rates/govt regulations/freebies/tariffs etc to keep the lights on. As they get faster a…

Picking up and moving to the “it” tech city assuming you’ll get hired sounds like a great solution… that is, if you don’t have family obligations, or, really… a family, long-term responsibilities of any kind, a chronic health condition, or lack money to support an expensive interstate/city/country move probably with an increased cost of living while unemployed… and all to assume that your employer is going to cast yo…

It's feasible. I have done it. Moved to Singapore and now in South Korea with family. I think experienced people have lot of interesting options. Many don't look.

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

#119

Post by joshspankit »

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 think that voice assistants could have been much more usable this whole time if they had avoided getting mired in pushing products/music and instead stayed focused on doing a few things well.

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

#120

Post by refulgentis »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #101
photonbeam wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Q: whats a realistic salary a SWE or SRE who is 10-15 years deep might expect? I do understand it’ll be lower, but the GS pay system isn’t that clear to outsiders

Made ~$85k/year at the DOE lab I mentioned as a sysadmin, was offered ~$175k/year for a US Digital Service role with ~15 years of infra/sysadmin/generalist experience. YMMV. Imho you’ll top out ~$190k-$200k. Not FAANG money, but also not homeless.

Honestly that's not too far off, Alphabet growth has been stalled since 2021 anyway.
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