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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

#151

Post by mcmoor »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #90
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?

I had an interesting thought: what if hiring were like bringing a child into your family. No, no layoffs ever. It's the equivalent of disowning your own child. If the company begins to sink, so be it, the whole family goes down together (or flee as they see fit). It would make a company hesitant to hire — they would have to think very long term making a decision like that. Perhaps companies would train (re-train) the…

I've heard that's exactly what already happens in Japan, with consequences others already mentioned, like https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReassignedToAnta... or extreme seniority culture.

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

#152

Post by Rebelgecko »

danpalmer wrote: post #27
toomuchtodo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal government. No equity, but stability. Best place to take shelter during economic uncertainty or bearish conditions imho. Rode out the 2008 GFC at a DOE lab. https://www.usajobs.gov/

And you get bonus days off any time congress needs to raise the debt ceiling!

That varies quite a bit. I remember feeling bad for my coworkers who worked on "critical" projects in exchange for IOUs while I got free vacation (although I was also getting paid in IOUs for a little while)

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

#153

Post by Rebelgecko »

ehsankia wrote: post #56
RHSeeger wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think the previous layoffs took perf/grad stack rankings into account

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

#154

Post by sokoloff »

modeless wrote: post #146
sokoloff wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK. I believe you. They accidentally created something else that was very useful but different from what they set out to do. Is that a story of failure or of success? Starbucks launched to sell beans and espresso machines. YouTube launched as a video dating site. Are they also failures?

I guess where we disagree is "very useful". If Google Assistant stopped working tomorrow I would hardly care at all. There are a couple of scenarios where it's slightly more convenient than using my phone (assuming I don't encounter one of its many failure modes) and that's about it. I'm sure the hands free aspect is important for certain people in certain situations but I think the vast majority of people just don't…

Amazon alone has sold over half-a-billion Alexa-enabled units (around 10 of them to me).

I think people see more than $30 of value in them, at least as their revealed preferences suggest.

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

#155

Post by aspectmin »

ramraj07 wrote: post #76
aspectmin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would counter that voice assistants are not a failed experiment. I would suggest that Amazon and Google’s execution of said experiments have failed. I am extremely excited about the potential of projects like the Rabbit R1 and Humane.

Not sure if any comment that holds Humane in high regard can be taken seriously though.

It’s interesting. I had not heard the latest. Their initial videos looked promising.

I ordered a rabbit r1. I can see it’s missing some key functionality (Bluetooth for headphones so everyone doesn’t have to hear?) But… I think it’s an example of a first, promising, step to the era of real voice assistants/agents.

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

#156

Post by modeless »

sokoloff wrote: post #154
modeless wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess where we disagree is "very useful". If Google Assistant stopped working tomorrow I would hardly care at all. There are a couple of scenarios where it's slightly more convenient than using my phone (assuming I don't encounter one of its many failure modes) and that's about it. I'm sure the hands free aspect is important for certain people in certain situations but I think the vast majority of people just don't…

Amazon alone has sold over half-a-billion Alexa-enabled units (around 10 of them to me). I think people see more than $30 of value in them, at least as their revealed preferences suggest.

Those sales were subsidized in expectation of future profitability that will never come (at least not without a ground-up redesign of the product around LLM-based AI agents or some other paradigm). Economically Alexa is a "colossal failure": https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/amazon-alexa-is-a-co...

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

#157

Post by mcmoor »

jrockway wrote: post #116
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?…

It's also the role that have the most direct employee compensation per generated company profit that you can get without betting any money as investment. It certainly appeals to someone who thinks they can bootstrap themselves instantly to the top.

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

#158

Post by hulitu »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #137
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 pretty strongly disagree. First, from an accuracy perspective, Google Assistant has gotten much better. It almost never misunderstands me, even when I'm mumbling and I'm surprised it can understand me. I do agree that the set of actions I use Google assistant for is pretty static and are the same ones everyone else uses it for: What's the weather? Set my alarm? What's the first item on my calendar? Play XYZ on Spot…

> I do agree that the set of actions I use Google assistant for is pretty static and are the same ones everyone else uses it for: What's the weather? Set my alarm? What's the first item on my calendar? Play XYZ on Spotify... But I don't see this at all as a "failed experiment"

So since 10 years, all it can do is play some music and tell the weather, all of this only online, so it is not a failed experiment. /s

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

#159

Post by ChatGTP »

danjac wrote: post #150
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 :).

It's the end of an industry as we knew it. There will be demand for developers in some very specific sectors and specialities, and some legacy code support for a while, but likely most of us will be out of work within the next few years. Some people are claiming "things will pick up again Real Soon Now, you'll see" but they are whistling in the dark.

This comment won’t age well.

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

#160

Post by danjac »

ChatGTP wrote: post #159
danjac wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the end of an industry as we knew it. There will be demand for developers in some very specific sectors and specialities, and some legacy code support for a while, but likely most of us will be out of work within the next few years. Some people are claiming "things will pick up again Real Soon Now, you'll see" but they are whistling in the dark.

This comment won’t age well.

I would be happy to be proven wrong.
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