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Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

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Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#111

Post by asadotzler »

renewiltord wrote: post #11
ceejayoz wrote: post #3

Because the AI works so well, or because it doesn't? > ”By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact,” Wang writes in a memo seen by Axios. That's kinda wild. I'm kinda shocked they put it in writing.

What's wild about this? They're saying that they're streamlining the org by reducing decision-makers so that everything isn't design-by-committee. Seems perfectly reasonable, and a common failure mode for large orgs. Anecdotally, this is a problem at Meta as described by my friends there.

Maybe they shouldn't have hired and put so many cooks in the kitchen. Treating workers like pawns is wild and you should not be normalizing the idea that it's OK for Big Tech to hire up thousands, find out they don't need them, and lay them off to be replaced by the next batch of thousands by the next leader trying to build an empire within the company. Treating this as SOP is a disservice to your industry and everyone working in it who isn't a fat cat.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#112

Post by Fanofilm »

I think this is because older AI doesn't get done what LLM AI does. Older AI = normal trained models, neural networks (without transformers), support vector machines, etc. For that reason, they are letting them go. They don't see revenue coming from that. They don't see new product lines (like AI Generative image/video). AI may have this every 5 years. A break through moves the technology into an entirely new area. Then older teams have to re-train, or have a harder time.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#113

Post by varjag »

malthaus wrote: post #110
dekhn wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seeing a lot of frustration at the leadership level about product velocity- and much of the frustration is pointed at internal gatekeepers who mainly seem to say no to product releases. My leadership is currently promoting "better to ask forgiveness", or put another way: "a bias towards action". There are definitely limits on this, but it's been helpful when dealing with various internal negotiations. I don't spe…

... until reality catches up with a software engineer's inability to see outside of the narrow engineering field of view, neglecting most things that the end-users will care about, millions if not billions are wasted and leadership sees that checks and balances for the engineering team might be warranted after all because while velocity was there, you now have an overengineered product nobody wants to pay for.

There's little evidence that this is a common problem.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#114

Post by jacquesm »

throwacct wrote: post #100
jacquesm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> adding erotica support to ChatGPT They really need that business model.

I mean, it's a path to "profitability", isn't it?

Charging me for stuff I am not using is why I will sooner rather than later leave google. It's ridiculous how they tack on this non-feature and then charge you as if you're using it.

For ChatGPT I have a lower bar because it is easier to avoid.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#115

Post by asadotzler »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #33

Meta stock is trading down today at the moment, slightly more than the S&P 500. Maybe they should have just announced the layoffs without specifying the division?

Layoffs are often how a company manages its stock price. Company gives guidance, is likely to miss, lays off a bunch, claims the savings, meets guidance, keeps stock looking good.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#116

Post by dekhn »

palmotea wrote: post #102
dekhn wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seeing a lot of frustration at the leadership level about product velocity- and much of the frustration is pointed at internal gatekeepers who mainly seem to say no to product releases. My leadership is currently promoting "better to ask forgiveness", or put another way: "a bias towards action". There are definitely limits on this, but it's been helpful when dealing with various internal negotiations. I don't spe…

> My leadership is currently promoting "better to ask forgiveness", or put another way: "a bias towards action". ... I don't spend as much time looking to "align with stakeholders"... Isn't that "move fast and break things" by another name?

it's more "move fast on a good foundation, rarely breaking things, and having a good team that can fix problems when they inevitably arise".

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#118

Post by dekhn »

hkt wrote: post #108
JTbane wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My leadership is currently promoting "better to ask forgiveness", or put another way: "a bias towards action" lol, that works well until a big issue occurs in production

Many companies will roll out to slices of production and monitor error rates. It is part of SRE and I would eat my hat if that wasn't the case here.

Yes, I was SRE at Google (Ads) for several years and that influences my work today. SRE was the first time I was on an ops team that actually was completely empowered to push back against intrusive external changes.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#119

Post by Aperocky »

JTbane wrote: post #96
dekhn wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seeing a lot of frustration at the leadership level about product velocity- and much of the frustration is pointed at internal gatekeepers who mainly seem to say no to product releases. My leadership is currently promoting "better to ask forgiveness", or put another way: "a bias towards action". There are definitely limits on this, but it's been helpful when dealing with various internal negotiations. I don't spe…

> My leadership is currently promoting "better to ask forgiveness", or put another way: "a bias towards action" lol, that works well until a big issue occurs in production

That assume big issue don't occur in production otherwise, with everything having gone through 5 layer of approvals.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#120

Post by nc »

Fanofilm wrote: post #112

I think this is because older AI doesn't get done what LLM AI does. Older AI = normal trained models, neural networks (without transformers), support vector machines, etc. For that reason, they are letting them go. They don't see revenue coming from that. They don't see new product lines (like AI Generative image/video). AI may have this every 5 years. A break through moves the technology into an entirely new area. T…

This seems like the most likely explanation. Legacy AI out in favour of LLM focused AI. Also perhaps some cleaning out of the old guard and middle management while they're at it.
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