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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

#161

Post by tommiegannert »

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.

Level 1: "we need to reduce costs; everyone work on that"

Level 2: "we've been told to cut costs, and staff is the lowest hanging fruit; which products should we kill?"

Level 3: "hey, I need to reduce the number of products, and staff is the lowest hanging fruit; which teams should we reduce?"

Level 4: "since I can't ask if anyone is actually doing anything without raising suspicion, we'll just pick the largest cost sinks, and cull a bit; here's a list"

I doubt anyone really cared which products got reduced. In an org with 100k employees, it's just numbers all the way down to level 5-6 somewhere.

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

#162

Post by ChatGTP »

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…

Sounds like a defeatist comment.

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

#163

Post by ChatGTP »

danjac wrote: post #160
ChatGTP wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment won’t age well.

I would be happy to be proven wrong.

Do you have any idea how much software there is in the world? What would you think it's just going to stop being produced and maintained tomorrow?

Do you have any idea what the societal costs of such a change would be?

Even if it was due to "AI", hundreds of thousands of AI augmented developers are going to be off launching new startups writing more and more software, hacking stuff, it's not just going to end tomorrow because there is value in software and software solutions.

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

#164

Post by ddcc7 »

netdebugg wrote: post #130
Shank wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you file something through FA, the advice in the community lately has been to re-file the bug against every beta of the OS and every new version of the OS until it's resolved. If you have any new information at all, re-file the bug with the new version. Apple's bug triage team doesn't route things that are old/ancient/sitting in the system forever. Your bugs probably haven't reached the team yet.

Thank you. I'll try that with one of the bugs and see if it gets any attention and then do it for others.

Post the FB numbers and perhaps some helpful readers may be able to take a look?

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

#165

Post by bananapub »

wonder if there will be any actual consequences for senior management this time?

I'd be absolutely fascinated to see the analysis of how they decided that eliminating the (almost) sacrosanct rule of "oh don't worry about your project, if it gets canned you can just chill out for a bit and find another team" was worthwhile.

how valuable did they think instilling fear in the company was?

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

#166

Post by bananapub »

danpalmer wrote: post #15
PessimalDecimal wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have done that before. But they have also laid off 12,000 employees without doing that as well. Do we know which today's announcement resembles?

From what I saw in the UK, the Jan 2023 layoffs (the 12k) had a lot of people redeployed. Of the 3 people I knew personally impacted by it, 2 were redeployed elsewhere in the business (1 eng, 1 HR). I know it happened extensively in at least one other country too.

incorrect, almost everyone (>>90%) in the UK that was made redundant left the company.

there were a very small number of exceptions and the process was made deliberately hard/impossible.

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

#167

Post by SenHeng »

danjac wrote: post #147
ycdxvjp wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And suppose you have a spouse with a career that isn't so mobile? Language barriers? Work visas? Elderly parents? Tons of reasons people can't just up and migrate at the drop of a hat.

Millions of people leave their spouses, kids and parents to move to another country for work. Most don't even work anywhere adjacent to tech. We call them migrants. If you're ambitious/hungry enough, you'll do whatever it takes.

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

#168

Post by bananapub »

trashtester wrote: post #96
danpalmer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I saw in the UK, the Jan 2023 layoffs (the 12k) had a lot of people redeployed. Of the 3 people I knew personally impacted by it, 2 were redeployed elsewhere in the business (1 eng, 1 HR). I know it happened extensively in at least one other country too.

A company that plans ahead a little can also relocate top talent BEFORE the layoff rounds start, and even relocate people they want to get rid of TO the part of the or where layoffs are coming. I'm sure some orgs stealthily start planning this months if not years ahead of such events, especially if they identify that they have unproductive people on board that are difficult to fire the regular way (like European empl…

this is a very weird claim. big tech companies regularly fire employees in Europe for low performance, they have entire elaborate machinery for it.

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

#169

Post by danjac »

ChatGTP wrote: post #163
danjac wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be happy to be proven wrong.

Do you have any idea how much software there is in the world? What would you think it's just going to stop being produced and maintained tomorrow? Do you have any idea what the societal costs of such a change would be? Even if it was due to "AI", hundreds of thousands of AI augmented developers are going to be off launching new startups writing more and more software, hacking stuff, it's not just going to end tomorro…

Yep, like I said, whistling in the dark.

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

#170

Post by danjac »

SenHeng wrote: post #167
danjac wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And suppose you have a spouse with a career that isn't so mobile? Language barriers? Work visas? Elderly parents? Tons of reasons people can't just up and migrate at the drop of a hat.

Millions of people leave their spouses, kids and parents to move to another country for work. Most don't even work anywhere adjacent to tech. We call them migrants. If you're ambitious/hungry enough, you'll do whatever it takes.

They do so out of desperation. If that's the future of the tech industry, I would prefer to leave the industry.
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