Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears • Hacker News Board

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#171

Post by ml-anon » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 1:35 PM UTC

abxyz wrote: post #82

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"abundance of talent" is not something I'd ascribe to Scale.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#172

Post by scrollop » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 1:36 PM UTC

Makes you think whether llama progress is not doing too well and/or perhaps we're entering a plateau for llm architecture development.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#173

Post by UncleMeat » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 1:37 PM UTC

stogot wrote: post #102

UncleMeat wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fla…

Buying competitors is not insane or a weird business practice. He was probably advised to do so by the competent people under him And what did he do to keep G+ from becoming a valid competitor? It killed itself. I signed up but there was no network effect and it kind of sucked. Google had a way of shutting down all their product attempts too

I am also not saying that zuck is a prescient genius who is more capable than other CEOs. I am just saying that it doesn't seem correct to me to say that he is "a textbook case of somebody who got lucky once."

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#174

Post by patapong » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 1:37 PM UTC

rs186 wrote: post #133

Esophagus4 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t tell if you’re being tongue in cheek or not, so I’ll respond as if you mean this. It’s easy to cherry pick a few bets that flopped for every mega tech company: Amazon has them, Google has them, remember Windows Phone? etc. I see the failures as a feature, not a bug - the guy is one of the only founder CEOs to have ever built a $2T company (trillion with a T). I imagine part of that is being willing to make bi…

Parent comment says "aggressively cutting unsuccessful bets" and Oculus is nothing like that. Oculus Quest are decent products, but a complete flop compared to their investment and Zuck's vision of the metaverse. Remember they even renamed the company? You could say they're on betting on the long run, but I just don't see that happening in 5 or even 10 years. As an owner of Quest 2 and 3, I'd love to be proven wrong…

The VR venture can also be seen as a huge investment in hard tech and competency around issues such as location tracking and display tech for creating AI-integrated smartglasses, which many believe is the next gen AI interface. Even if the current headsets or form factor do not pay off, I think having this knowledge coud be very valuable soon.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#175

Post by EternalFury » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 1:38 PM UTC

Is it just me or does it feel like billionaires of that ilk can never go broke no matter how bad their decisions are? The complete shift to the metaverse, the complete shift to LLMs and fat AI glasses, the bullheaded “let’s suck all talents out of the atmosphere” phase and now let’s freeze all hiring. In a handful of years.

And yet, billionaires will remain billionaires. As if there are no consequences for these guys.

Meanwhile I feel another bubble burst coming that will hang everyone else high and dry.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#176

Post by seydor » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 1:40 PM UTC

That's a man with conviction

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#177

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 1:40 PM UTC

TrackerFF wrote: post #53

I really do wonder if any of those rock star $100m++ hires managed to get a 9-figure sign-on bonus, or if the majority have year(s) long performance clauses. Imagine being paid generational wealth, and then the house of cards comes crashing down a couple of months later.

[deleted]

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#178

Post by butlike » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 1:41 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #10

Quality over quantity. Apparently its better to pay $100 million for 10 people than $1 million for 1000 people.

I'd rather pay $0 to n people if all they're going to do is make vibe-coded dogshit that spins it's wheels and loses context all the time.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#179

Post by righthand » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 1:42 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #85

>> 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?

Every time you ask it a question you need to cool it off by pouring a bottle of water on your head.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#180

Post by lionkor » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 1:42 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #85

>> 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?

It just won't happen.