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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

#11

Post by renewiltord »

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.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#12

Post by dpe82 »

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.

One of the eternal struggles of BigCo is there are structural incentives to make organizations big and slow. This is basically a bureaucratic law of nature.

It's often possible to get promoted by leading "large efforts" where large is defined more or less by headcount. So if a hot new org has unlimited HC budget all the incentives push managers to complicate things as much as possible to create justification for more heads. Good for savvy mangers, bad for the company and overall effort. My impression is this is what happened at Meta's AI org, and VR/AR before that.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#13

Post by AndrewKemendo »

This is actually really interesting because I’ve never actually seen anything coming out of Lecun‘s group that made it into production

that does not mean that nothing did, but this indicates to me that FAIR work never actually made it out of the lab and basically everything that Lecun has been working on has been shelved

That makes sense to me as he and most of the AI divas have focused on their “Governor of AI” roles instead of innovating in production

I’ll be interested to see how this shakes out for who is leading AI at Meta going forward

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#14

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

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.

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.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#15

Post by Lionga »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #8
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.

I just assume they over hired. Too much hype for AI. Everyone wants to build the framework people use for AI nobody wants to build the actual tools that make AI useful.

Maybe because there are just very few really useful AI tools that can be made?

Few tools are ok with sometimes right, sometimes wrong output.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#16

Post by bob1029 »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #8
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.

I just assume they over hired. Too much hype for AI. Everyone wants to build the framework people use for AI nobody wants to build the actual tools that make AI useful.

Integrating LLMs with the actual business is not a fun time. There are many cases where it simply doesn't make sense. It's hard to blame the average developer for not enduring the hard things when nobody involved seems truly concerned with the value proposition of any of this.

This issue can be extended to many areas in technology. There is a shocking lack of effective leadership when it comes to application of technology to the business. The latest wave of tech has made it easier than ever to trick non-technical leaders into believing that everything is going well. There are so many rugs you can hide things under these days.

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#18

Post by RyanOD »

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.

As AI improves, possibly it begins replacing roles on the AI team?

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#19

Post by alex1138 »

You can think of Metabook like a chemical spill

If you're not swimming in their river, or you weren't responsible for their spill, who cares?

But it spreads into other rivers and suddenly you have a mess

In this analogy the chemical spill - for those who don't have Meta accounts, or sorry, guess you do, we've made one for you, so sorry - is valuation

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7211388

Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division

#20

Post by ivape »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #8
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.

I just assume they over hired. Too much hype for AI. Everyone wants to build the framework people use for AI nobody wants to build the actual tools that make AI useful.

There is a real question of if a more productive developer with AI is actually what the market wants right now. It may actually want something else entirely, and that is people that can innovate with AI. Just about everyone can be "better" with AI, so I'm not sure if this is actually an advantage (the baselines just got lifted for all).
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