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Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#81

Post by UncleMeat »

steve1977 wrote: post #42
roxolotl wrote: post #2

Maybe this time investors will realize how incompetent these leaders are? How do you go from 250mil contracts to freezes in under a month?

IMHO Mark Zuckerberg is a textbook case of someone who got lucky once by basically being in the right place at the right time, but who attributes his success to his skill. There’s probably a proper term for this.

I think that meta is bad for the world and that zuck has made a lot of huge mistakes but calling him a one hit wonder doesn't sit right with me.

Facebook made the transition to mobile faster than other competitors and successfully kept G+ from becoming competition.

The instagram purchase felt insane at the time ($1b to share photos) but facebook was able to convert it into a moneymaking juggernaut in time for the flattened growth of their flagship application.

Zuck hired Sheryl Sandburg and successfully turned a website with a ton of users into an ad-revenue machine. Plenty of other companies struggled to convert large user bases into dollars.

This obviously wasn't all based on him. He had other people around him working on this stuff and it isn't right to attribute all company success to the CEO. The metaverse play was obviously a legendary bust. But "he just got lucky" feels more like Myspace Tom than Zuckerberg in my mind.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#82

Post by abxyz »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #18
roxolotl wrote: post #2

Maybe this time investors will realize how incompetent these leaders are? How do you go from 250mil contracts to freezes in under a month?

I really don't understand this massive flip flopping. Do I have this timeline correct? * January, announce massive $65B AI spend * June, buy Scale AI for ~$15B, massive AI hiring spree, reportedly paying millions per year for low-level AI devs * July, announce some of the biggest data centers ever that will cost billions and use all of Ohio's water (hyperbolic) * Aug, freeze, it's a bubble! Someone please tell me I'v…

The bubble narrative is coming from the outside. More likely is that the /acquisition/ of Scale has led to an abundance of talent that is being underutilised. If you give managers the option to hire, they will. Freezing hiring while reorganising is a sane strategy regardless of how well you are or are not doing.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#83

Post by rs186 »

arcticbull wrote: post #61
steve1977 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO Mark Zuckerberg is a textbook case of someone who got lucky once by basically being in the right place at the right time, but who attributes his success to his skill. There’s probably a proper term for this.

He's really not. Facebook is an extremely well run organization. There's a lot to dislike about working there, and there's a lot to dislike about what they do, but you cannot deny they have been unbelievably successful at it. He really is good at his job, and part of that has been making bold bets and aggressively cutting unsuccessful bets.

hmm... Oculus Quest something something.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#84

Post by tempusalaria »

breitling wrote: post #45
steve1977 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO Mark Zuckerberg is a textbook case of someone who got lucky once by basically being in the right place at the right time, but who attributes his success to his skill. There’s probably a proper term for this.

To be fair, buying Instagram so early + WhatsApp were great moves too.

WhatsApp is certainly worth less today than what they paid for it plus the extra funding it has required over time. Let alone producing anything close to ROI. Has lost them more money than the metaverse stuff.

Insta was a huge hit for sure but since then Meta Capital allocation has been a disaster including a lot of badly timed buybacks

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#85

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

>> Mr Zuckerberg has said he wants to develop a “personal superintelligence” that acts as a permanent superhuman assistant and lives in smart glasses.

Yann Le Cun has spoken about this, so much that I thought it was his idea.

In any case, how's that going to work? Is everyone going to start wearing glasses? What happens if someone doesn't want to wear glasses?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#86

Post by arcticbull »

thrown-0825 wrote: post #80
arcticbull wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's really not. Facebook is an extremely well run organization. There's a lot to dislike about working there, and there's a lot to dislike about what they do, but you cannot deny they have been unbelievably successful at it. He really is good at his job, and part of that has been making bold bets and aggressively cutting unsuccessful bets.

laughs in metaverse

Absolutely, not everything they do will succeed but that's okay too, right? At this point their core products are used by 1 in 2 humans on earth. They need to get people to have more kids to expand their user base. They're gonna throw shit at the wall and not everything will stick, and they'll ship stuff that's not quite done, but they do have to keep trying; I can't bring myself to call that "failure."

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#87

Post by thrown-0825 »

haute_cuisine wrote: post #43
pretzellogician wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that's missing is an analogue to the pets.com Superbowl ad!

They should put AI into a blockchain and have a proper ICO.

you laugh, but someone actually did that and raised like $300m.

https://0g.ai/blog/0g-ecosystem-receives-290m-in-financing-t...

its all bullshit obviously, grift really seems like the way to go these days.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#88

Post by aleph_minus_one »

steve1977 wrote: post #42
roxolotl wrote: post #2

Maybe this time investors will realize how incompetent these leaders are? How do you go from 250mil contracts to freezes in under a month?

IMHO Mark Zuckerberg is a textbook case of someone who got lucky once by basically being in the right place at the right time, but who attributes his success to his skill. There’s probably a proper term for this.

> IMHO Mark Zuckerberg is a textbook case of someone who got lucky once by basically being in the right place at the right time, but who attributes his success to his skill.

It is no secret that the person who turned Facebook into a money-printing machine is/was Sheryl Sandberg.

Thus, the evidence is clear that Mark Zuckerberg had the right idea at the right time (the question is whether this was because of his skills or because he got lucky), but turning his good idea(s) into a successful business was done by other people (lead by Sheryl Sandberg).

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#89

Post by billy99k »

thrown-0825 wrote: post #80
arcticbull wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's really not. Facebook is an extremely well run organization. There's a lot to dislike about working there, and there's a lot to dislike about what they do, but you cannot deny they have been unbelievably successful at it. He really is good at his job, and part of that has been making bold bets and aggressively cutting unsuccessful bets.

laughs in metaverse

You laugh, but the Oculus is amazing. I use it as part of my daily workouts.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#90

Post by cma »

kkoncevicius wrote: post #50
BoredPositron wrote: post #4

What I don't get is that they are gunning for the people that brought us the innovations we are working with right now. How often does it happen that someone really strikes gold a second time in research at such a high level? It's not a sport.

Even if they do not strike gold the second time, there can still be a multitude of reasons: 1. The innovators will know a lot about the details, limitations and potential improvements concerning the thing they invented. 2. Having a big name in your research team will attract other people to work with you. 3. I assume the people who discovered something still have a higher chance to discover something big compared to…

5. Having a lot of very publicly extremely highly paid people will make people assume anyone working on AI there is highly paid, if not quite as extreme. What most people who make a lot of money spend it on is wealth signalling, and now they can get a form of that without the company having to pay them as much.
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