Live data from Hacker News

Waymo Layoffs

sfstandard.com

11–20 of 130 posts

Re: Waymo Layoffs

#11
post #4
post #3

Is there a conclusion that the taxi service kind of works and just needs to fix a few minor issues around the edges fixed to work in limited city use in many cities, or is it so far away it's not even close?

Honestly with Curb in NYC have been more than happy with taxis. Wish it would be adopted in more cities.

What's Curb relative to Uber/Lyft or legacy taxis?

Re: Waymo Layoffs

#12
post #3

Is there a conclusion that the taxi service kind of works and just needs to fix a few minor issues around the edges fixed to work in limited city use in many cities, or is it so far away it's not even close?

Impression I get is that the fundamentals work okay -- which is a huge accomplishment in and of itself -- but there are still enough edge cases that scaling up is hard, and opening up a new city takes substantial effort.

Videos that show up on the r/self drivingcars subredddit show increasing fluency/confidence in driving from Waymo. But there's always going to be socially weird situations in cities where the answer is to benignly break the law, and it's not clear how well SDC's will ever do with those.

Re: Waymo Layoffs

#13
To anyone following this space, this was inevitable. Also, What is going on at google these days, I don't see them having a competitive advantage in any industry after this decade..

Re: Waymo Layoffs

#14

At this point how long before the fed starts to lower rates.

Layoffs are not an unintended side effect or overshoot, they are part of the goal: slow down the economy. Inflation has been ticking back up for the last few months, so don't expect a cut anytime soon.

Re: Waymo Layoffs

#15
post #6
post #5

I can’t imagine three layoffs in a year is great for morale. Is there a reason they chose this sort of trickling layoffs approach?

Every time you all drive prices of stocks down, layoffs happen. Think twice before you drive the prices of a stock down again, you're part of the cause. Consider selling at a higher price than you bought the stock for. If you drive stock prices down three times a year, layoffs will happen three times a year. If you drive stock prices up, they'll go on a hiring spree. It's that simple.

[deleted]

Re: Waymo Layoffs

#16
post #5

I can’t imagine three layoffs in a year is great for morale. Is there a reason they chose this sort of trickling layoffs approach?

My CEO just announced this strategy. Layoffs are to begin...soonish? Maybe next week? Up to the end of 2024. Need to chop $$$X from the budget.

Which is to say, assuming you are not actively looking for the exit door, why even bother to do your job? At-will employment and all that, but it is an entirely different thing if the company has announced they have a fixed dollar expense target to hit.

Layoffs have always had a random component to them (I know brilliant people shown the door, yet worthless mouth-breathers who can dodge any bullet). Now we are told to potentially hang on for a year, knowing the axes could strike at anytime to make sure management hits their blood quota?

Needless to say, I expect productivity to be astounding for the foreseeable future.

Re: Waymo Layoffs

#17
post #6
post #5

I can’t imagine three layoffs in a year is great for morale. Is there a reason they chose this sort of trickling layoffs approach?

Every time you all drive prices of stocks down, layoffs happen. Think twice before you drive the prices of a stock down again, you're part of the cause. Consider selling at a higher price than you bought the stock for. If you drive stock prices down three times a year, layoffs will happen three times a year. If you drive stock prices up, they'll go on a hiring spree. It's that simple.

This simplistic, wrong (and juvenile) reasoning is the caricature of the tech bubble bursting again.

Re: Waymo Layoffs

#18
Just goes to show that even Google over-leveraged on hiring and is shutting down products left, right and center. The AI race to zero is not helping them at all as well as the anti-trust trial of the decade.

They will survive, but broken up.

So more layoffs to come, unfortunately from the correction of the zero interest rate phenomenon with decades long QE all coming to an end.

Re: Waymo Layoffs

#19

To anyone following this space, this was inevitable. Also, What is going on at google these days, I don't see them having a competitive advantage in any industry after this decade..

[deleted]
Post reply on HN