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Tokenmaxxing is dead, long live tokenmaxxing

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Re: Tokenmaxxing is dead, long live tokenmaxxing

#51

Post by apsurd »

SR2Z wrote: post #46
baconmania wrote: post #8

The implication that tokenmaxxing was an intentional and thoughtfully considered approach rather than blind hype-following by an overpaid manager class who are too far removed from value to understand the downsides of LLMs is hysterical beyond belief.

I really don't understand this take. If you're a carpentry shop that just bought power tools for the first time and you're worried that your employees are sticking with hand tools because that's what they know, then you look for sawdust. The goal isn't to have people work at converting wood into sawdust, the point is that if you wanna see if the tools are working you wanna see proof they're actually being used. I'm s…

> but suggesting that the people who run FAANG don't understand the dangers of bad metrics is... interesting

You're far too charitable. Understanding has nothing to do with it. Big companies are too far insulated from bad metrics. Middle managers get away with anything and everything because their decisions are too far removed from reality. And they're nowhere to be seen when the other shoe drops. And they'll just leave to a promotion elsewhere if they stay and results are bad.

Everything is far removed from reality in bigco. So you get a bunch of theater and house-playing with "data-driven" posters up on the wall. It's a show that everyone is aware of and seemingly we all still attend.

Re: Tokenmaxxing is dead, long live tokenmaxxing

#53

Post by trescenzi »

SR2Z wrote: post #46
baconmania wrote: post #8

The implication that tokenmaxxing was an intentional and thoughtfully considered approach rather than blind hype-following by an overpaid manager class who are too far removed from value to understand the downsides of LLMs is hysterical beyond belief.

I really don't understand this take. If you're a carpentry shop that just bought power tools for the first time and you're worried that your employees are sticking with hand tools because that's what they know, then you look for sawdust. The goal isn't to have people work at converting wood into sawdust, the point is that if you wanna see if the tools are working you wanna see proof they're actually being used. I'm s…

The level of trust in leadership is remarkable. There’s reasonable ways to have people try power tools. Have one team use power tools and another hand tools and see the outcome.

The mandate was literally “the more sawdust you create the more money you’ll make”. Nothing of value is learned by that mandate. Sure it’ll make people use power tools but it won’t cause anyone to learn how to use them to make furniture.

They might understand the danger of bad metric but that doesn’t mean they aren’t victims of them. If there was intentionality here it was lazy as hell at best.

Re: Tokenmaxxing is dead, long live tokenmaxxing

#54

Post by aurareturn »

qntmfred wrote: post #43
aurareturn wrote: post #2

Tokenmaxxing was just a way to force employees to start leveraging AI in a meaningful way. For companies that have measured performance based on token spend, they can now dial it back. Employees have learned to leverage AI for things they wouldn’t have prior. Now they know what’s possible and what’s not. No one is stupid enough to always measure performance based on token spend and have unlimited budget. It was alway…

might be the first time I've seen this reasonable and obviously correct interpretation of the last 6-12 months so directly and unapologetically stated. bravo

HN opinions are usually divided into individual contributor vs management battles. Usually the IC opinion is majority because most people here are likely ICs.

At the IC level, people don't sense the impending urgency for the overall business. They usually sense the urgency for themselves first. AI has completely changed the software industry in 6 months. We went from having AI write some code and copy/pasting to having AI write 99% of the code in 6 months. SaaS went from nice UX and CRUD code logic being a moat to these being nearly free.

Big software companies have to adapt to this new world or they will be outcompeted by smaller, newer, nimbler companies. That's what management is thinking. For ICs, they're usually thinking about their own jobs first.

Re: Tokenmaxxing is dead, long live tokenmaxxing

#56

Post by cyphar »

linsomniac wrote: post #4

>I’ve basically never heard a business leader say that they were going to set a bunch of money on fire because it made them feel good. Really? ~4 years ago our CEO hired a consultant to fly out several times to do team building exercises. We can't afford to do our 3-year server refresh cycle, but the consultant was no problem to pay. We just recently had branding consultants come in and also spent thousands of dollar…

I'm also taken aback with how naive folks are about companies, they really seem to have bought the whole "capitalism is efficient" maxim hook, line, and sinker.

I really struggle to imagine how anyone in a corporate environment has managed to never run into obvious examples of waste like you describe (overpaid consultants and mandatory budgets are classic examples). Office Space came out 27 years ago and has a plotline making fun of overpaid "efficiency consultants" whose only job is to tell management to fire people.

Re: Tokenmaxxing is dead, long live tokenmaxxing

#57

Post by metaltyphoon »

behnamoh wrote: post #9

Tokenmaxxing was never a thing to begin with. Just because a few companies did it doesn't mean it was a widespread phenomenon.

> Tokenmaxxing was never a thing to begin with.

Anecdote, I thought so too until the company I work just instated this where you have spend from 35-60K within 6 months. Insanity

Re: Tokenmaxxing is dead, long live tokenmaxxing

#59

Post by Aurornis »

aurareturn wrote: post #2

Tokenmaxxing was just a way to force employees to start leveraging AI in a meaningful way. For companies that have measured performance based on token spend, they can now dial it back. Employees have learned to leverage AI for things they wouldn’t have prior. Now they know what’s possible and what’s not. No one is stupid enough to always measure performance based on token spend and have unlimited budget. It was alway…

An interesting side effect of this spreading across social media is that even companies without token leaderboards were having problems with needless tokenmaxxing.

When everyone was reading about token leaderboards on all of their social media channels (include social news sites like Reddit and Hacker News) it created token anxiety even at companies that didn’t want a leaderboard. Programmers were afraid that their managers would be secretly ranking them based on token usage and they needed to pump up those numbers to avoid layoffs.

Once teams implemented token budgets in response it creates an ugly situation where a few people feel the need to use as many tokens as they can at the beginning of the budget window to stay ahead.

It’s really frustrating to have this phenomenon leak into a company that was never encouraging or looking for high token use.

Re: Tokenmaxxing is dead, long live tokenmaxxing

#60

Post by mh2266 »

SR2Z wrote: post #46
baconmania wrote: post #8

The implication that tokenmaxxing was an intentional and thoughtfully considered approach rather than blind hype-following by an overpaid manager class who are too far removed from value to understand the downsides of LLMs is hysterical beyond belief.

I really don't understand this take. If you're a carpentry shop that just bought power tools for the first time and you're worried that your employees are sticking with hand tools because that's what they know, then you look for sawdust. The goal isn't to have people work at converting wood into sawdust, the point is that if you wanna see if the tools are working you wanna see proof they're actually being used. I'm s…

> suggesting that the people who run FAANG don't understand the dangers of bad metrics is... interesting.

from my time in FAANG... that seems about correct. Probably the people at the absolute top don't want to just pointlessly burn tokens, but pass that down the chain and eventually the rumor mill turns that into "tokens are an input for your performance review" and people start running Wiggum loops to fix minor typos or linters or something—especially if you do it at a time when every company seems to be doing layoffs.

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