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Google lays off its Python team

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Re: Google lays off its Python team

#101

Post by mihai_maruseac »

nytecode wrote: post #81
mihai_maruseac wrote: post #66

Google is an AI first company Google's future is strictly tied to its AI products All AI is written with Python. Google lays off all Python team. Segmentation fault

Python is only used for prototyping within google. All production ai code is run on c++

Yes, production code is C++, but the way the models are built is Python code, colab, save via Orbax/TF SavedModel, etc and then serve in C++. All (most, to hedge it) development is done via Python.

I don't directly develop the models, I played with some for fuzzing [1] and I'm working on security for them [2]. And, before joining GOSST, I was leading the OSS DevInfra team in TF. I still have the most number of commits made by a human [3] even after 2 days of leaving the team, though I see the next person only needs 4 more :)

[1]: https://security.googleblog.com/2023/08/ai-powered-fuzzing-b... [2]: https://security.googleblog.com/2023/10/increasing-transpare... [3]: https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/graphs/contributors

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#102

Post by fragmede »

zooq_ai wrote: post #79
mihai_maruseac wrote: post #66

Google is an AI first company Google's future is strictly tied to its AI products All AI is written with Python. Google lays off all Python team. Segmentation fault

What people / HN don't understand is does the work they do really a 10 person $5Million per year value to Google or can it be done by Two really smart Python Experts. The problem with Tech layoffs is not that they weren't doing important work, it is that there were large teams to do what essentially can be done by two-person teams.

That really doesn't jive with this description of how much they were doing. Let me guess, this mythical two person team could also build Twitter and Uber over a weekend?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40176338

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#103

Post by mihai_maruseac »

JSDevOps wrote: post #97
thatguysaguy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have worked on a team which trains foundation models

And no one’s used anything other than Python? The core of Tensorflow uses C++

Rather than repeat myself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40182940

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#105

Post by raydev »

zooq_ai wrote: post #79
mihai_maruseac wrote: post #66

Google is an AI first company Google's future is strictly tied to its AI products All AI is written with Python. Google lays off all Python team. Segmentation fault

What people / HN don't understand is does the work they do really a 10 person $5Million per year value to Google or can it be done by Two really smart Python Experts. The problem with Tech layoffs is not that they weren't doing important work, it is that there were large teams to do what essentially can be done by two-person teams.

> it is that there were large teams to do what essentially can be done by two-person teams.

You're mistaking their intent, they are actually okay with less work being done. It's a desire to simply hit the reset button and see how much money they can save, and how much they need to build up the team again. They know it harms productivity but maybe something cheaper will come out of it. They are gambling.

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#106

Post by mihai_maruseac »

mihai_maruseac wrote: post #66

Google is an AI first company Google's future is strictly tied to its AI products All AI is written with Python. Google lays off all Python team. Segmentation fault

Yes, I admit that this was a little bit reductionistic. I was aiming it to be mostly a joke about the situation, didn't expect it to garner so much response

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#107

Post by trenchgun »

mihai_maruseac wrote: post #66

Google is an AI first company Google's future is strictly tied to its AI products All AI is written with Python. Google lays off all Python team. Segmentation fault

Did you miss this? > ... and you're asked to onboard their replacements, people told to take those very same roles just in a different country who are not any happier about it.

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#108

Post by sour-taste »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #3

Outside of the ML groups, Google really doesn't like Python and there's very little of it in the codebase. This move isn't surprising in that light. Also, Google is IBM at this point, so I would expect a lot of IBM-like moves.

Former googler. It's very team dependent. My first team was 100% c++, I moved to a sub team that was 100% python. There's a lot of it around

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#109

Post by dekhn »

JSDevOps wrote: post #97
thatguysaguy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have worked on a team which trains foundation models

And no one’s used anything other than Python? The core of Tensorflow uses C++

Many parts of tensorflow required Python- at least when I worked there a few years ago, it was nearly impossible to compile XLA into a saved model and execute it from pure C++ code.

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#110

Post by [deleted] »

zooq_ai wrote: post #79
mihai_maruseac wrote: post #66

Google is an AI first company Google's future is strictly tied to its AI products All AI is written with Python. Google lays off all Python team. Segmentation fault

What people / HN don't understand is does the work they do really a 10 person $5Million per year value to Google or can it be done by Two really smart Python Experts. The problem with Tech layoffs is not that they weren't doing important work, it is that there were large teams to do what essentially can be done by two-person teams.

[deleted]
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