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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

#411

Post by keeda »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #396
keeda wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that they hoarded the technology for internal use instead of opening it up to the public, like OpenAI did with ChatGPT, thus kicking off the current AI revolution. As sibling comments indicate, reasons may range from internal politics to innovator's dilemma. But the upshot is, even though the underlying technology was invented at Google, its inventors had to leave and join other companies to turn…

So I started at Google in 2020 (after Sam closed our lab down in 2017 to focus on OpenAI), and if they were hoarding it, I at least had no clue about it. To be clear, my perspective is still limited.

Fair enough, maybe a better way to put it is: why was the current AI boom sparked by ChatGPT and not something from Google? It's clear in retrospect that Google had similar capabilities in LaMDA, the precursor to Gemini. As I recall it was even announced a couple years before ChatGPT but wasn't released (as Bard?) until after ChatGPT.

LaMDA is probably more famous for convincing a Google employee that it was sentient and getting him fired. When I heard that story I could not believe anybody could be deceived to that extent... until I saw ChatGPT. In hindsight, it was probably the first ever case of what is now called "AI psychosis". (Which may be a valid reason Google did not want to release it.)

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#412

Post by paleotrope »

kyleee wrote: post #406
kridsdale1 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A solution to that scaling problem is to have most of the n not actually doing anything. Sitting there and getting paid but adding no value or overhead.

This comes up from time to time; what’s the best way to crack into this niche of software engineering? My rates for doing nothing little and keeping up appearances are very competitive and I can do it for about 10-20% less than your typical big co coaster.

Work on your social skills. Practice your banter. Strategic interjections in meetings that temporarily defuse tension. Have interesting hobbies that you can talk about with other employees.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#413

Post by OhioMan2943 »

wkat4242 wrote: post #300
semiinfinitely wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wishful thinking

Tbh yes. I like AI but I'm getting a bit sick of the hype. All our top dogs want AI in everything no matter whether it actually benefits the product. They even know it's senseless but they need to show the shareholders that they are all-in on AI. It's really time for this bubble to collapse so we can go back to working on things that actually make sense rather than ticking boxes.

In optimising for AI it feels like we stopped optimising for everything else

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#414

Post by tharkun__ »

janalsncm wrote: post #319
noosphr wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big tech is suffering from the incumbents disease. What worked well for extracting profits from stable cash cows doesn't work in fields that are moving rapidly. Google et al. were at one point pinnacle technologies too, but this was 20 years ago. Everyone who knew how to work in that environment has moved on or moved up. Were I the CEO of a company like that I'd reduce headcount in the legacy orgs, transition them to…

Once you have a golden goose, the risk taking innovators who built the thing are replaced by risk averse managers who protect it. Not killing the golden goose becomes priority 1, 2, and 3. I think this is the steel man of “founder mode” conversation that people were obsessed with a year ago. People obsessed with “process” who are happy if nothing is accomplished because at least no policy was violated, ignoring the f…

This but also: not the managers in the teams that build/"protect" it.

But really, leadership above, echoing your parents.

I just went through this exercise. I had to estimate the entirety of 2026 based on nothing but a title and a very short conversation based on that for a huge suite of products. Of course none of these estimates make any sense in any way. But all of 2026 is gonna be decided on this. Sort of.

Now, if you just let us build shit as it comes up, by competent people - you know, the kind of things that I'd do if you just told me what was important and let me do shit (with both a team and various AI tooling we are allowed to use) then we'd be able to build way more than if you made us estimate and then later commit to it.

It's way different if you make me to commit to building feature X and I have zero idea if and how to make it possible and if you just tell me you need something that solves problem X and I get to figure it out as we go.

Case in point: In my "spare" time (some of which has been made possible by AI tooling) I've achieved more for our product in certain neglected areas than I ever would've achieved with years worth of accumulated arguing for team capacity. All in a few weeks.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#415

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

stefan_ wrote: post #23
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think it's wild? I've seen that dynamic before (i.e. too many cooks in the kitchen) and this seems like an honest assessment.

It's a meaningless nonsense tautology? Is that the level of leadership there? Maybe they should reduce it all to Wang, he can make all decisions with the impact and scope he is truly capable of.

> It's a meaningless nonsense tautology? Is that the level of leadership there?

I don't understand why everyone always likes to bitch about why their preferred wordsmithed version of a layoff announcement didn't make it in. Layoffs suck, no question, but the complaining that leadership didn't use the right words to do this generally shitty thing is pointless IMO. The words don't really matter much at that point anyway, only the actions (e.g. severance or real possibility of joining another team).

My read of the announcement is basically saying they over-hired and had too many people causing a net hit to forward progress. Yeah, that sucks, but I don't find anything shocking or particularly poorly handled there.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#416

Post by soraminazuki »

dekhn wrote: post #116
palmotea wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

That's the polar opposite of what "better to ask forgiveness," "bias towards action," or "I don't spend as much time looking to 'align with stakeholders'" mean. They, by definition, mean acting on your own agenda as quickly as possible before anyone else affected can voice their concerns. This is consistent with how Facebook has been behaving all along: from gathering images of female college students without consent to rate their appearance, to tricking teenagers into installing spyware VPNs to undermine competitors[1], and even promoting ragebait content that has contributed to societal destabilization, including exacerbating a massacre[2].

You can't label others as mere nuisance and simultaneously claim to respect them when faced with criticism.

[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/21/facebook-removes-onavo/

[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-...

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#417

Post by SoftTalker »

dekhn wrote: post #278
SoftTalker wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raises the question though, why is the lawyer talking to you in the first place, and not your manager?

Well, let's give a concrete example. I want to use an SaaS as part of my job. My manager knows this and supports it. In the process of me trying to sign up for the SaaS, I have to contact various groups in the company- the cost center folks to get an approval for spending the money to get the SaaS, the security folk to ensure we're not accidentally leaking IP to the outside world, the legal folks to make sure the con…

> I have to contact various groups in the company- the cost center folks to get an approval for spending the money to get the SaaS, the security folk to ensure we're not accidentally leaking IP to the outside world, the legal folks to make sure the contract negotiations go smoothly.

I guess I was assuming (maybe wrongly) that you are an engineer/developer of some sort. All of that work sounds like manager work to me. Why is an IC dealing with all of that bureaucratic stuff? Doesn't they all ultimately need your manager's approval anyway?

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#418

Post by tomnipotent »

varjag wrote: post #113
malthaus wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... 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.

Besides the graveyard of failed start-ups? There's plenty of evidence, just no strong conclusions.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#419

Post by tomnipotent »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #415
stefan_ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a meaningless nonsense tautology? Is that the level of leadership there? Maybe they should reduce it all to Wang, he can make all decisions with the impact and scope he is truly capable of.

> It's a meaningless nonsense tautology? Is that the level of leadership there? I don't understand why everyone always likes to bitch about why their preferred wordsmithed version of a layoff announcement didn't make it in. Layoffs suck, no question, but the complaining that leadership didn't use the right words to do this generally shitty thing is pointless IMO. The words don't really matter much at that point anywa…

There's a segment of people convinced that leadership must somehow be able to perfectly predict the future or they're incompetent losers, like running a business is somehow the easy part of capitalism.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#420

Post by dekhn »

nradov wrote: post #405
noosphr wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big tech is suffering from the incumbents disease. What worked well for extracting profits from stable cash cows doesn't work in fields that are moving rapidly. Google et al. were at one point pinnacle technologies too, but this was 20 years ago. Everyone who knew how to work in that environment has moved on or moved up. Were I the CEO of a company like that I'd reduce headcount in the legacy orgs, transition them to…

Setting up a separate insulated internal organization to pursue disruptive innovations is basically what Clayton Christensen recommended in "The Innovator's Dilemma" back in 1997. It's what IBM did to successfully develop the original PC. https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=46 Every tech industry executive has read that book and most large companies have at least tried to put it into practice. For example…

but X isn't really an insulated org... it has close ties with other parts of Google. It shares the corporate infra and it's not hard to get inside and poke around. it has to be, because it's intended to create new products that get commercialized through Google or other Alphabet companies.

A better example would be Calico, which faced significant struggles getting access to internal Google resources, while also being very secretive and closed off (the term used was typically an "all-in bet" or an "all-out bet", or something in between. Verily just underwent a decoupling from Google because Alphabet wants to sell it.

I think if you really want to survive cycles of the innovator's dilemma, you make external orgs that still share lines of communications back to the mothership, maintaining partial ownership, and occasionally acquiring these external startups.

I work in Pharma and there's a common pattern of acquiring external companies and drugs to stay relevant. I've definitely seen multiple external acquisitions "transform" the company that acquires them, if for no other reason than the startup employees have a lot more gumption and solved problems the big org was struggling with.

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