With a billion I could get a cloud of 10,000 servers with 16 GPU cards... mmm, lots of GPUs... Or 5000 employees and 5000 servers each with 8 GPUs.
$100K for one server? Those are darn good servers.
Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division
111–120 of 155 posts
Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft historically pays slightly better than Google and other valley companies. And, the cost of an employee is usually significantly higher than the salary alone. Something like 30%-60% higher, when factoring in benefits, cost of providing offices, stock options, etc. So, $200k is pretty conservative in many tech hubs, not just the valley, particularly when you're talking about people involved in research (who a…
Microsoft pays well, but this is the first time I've heard them paying better than google. When I was at MS, there were always complaints about losing potential hires to Google over much higher salaries.
And free food. Can't forget about the free food.
Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was an internet marketing manager on a podcast I listened to once that said the number of people using adblockers on the internet is essentially negligible, it's in the millions but a small percentage of all users ( edit: the Podcast was Talking Machines (about machine learning) http://www.thetalkingmachines.com/
I always wondered what would happen if say MS and Apple decided to just block ads by default on systems with their OSs.
IE has a built-in ad blocker for years.
Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division
#114To put this in perspective, 5000 people at $200k per year (which is conservative if you include benefits, etc.) is 1 billion dollars in comp per year. So OpenAI is spending a billion dollars over the next several years. Microsoft is spending a billion dollars per year. Google, etc. do the math. There's literally billions of dollars now being spent on moving deep learning forward. Pretty amazing when I think back to 2…
>(which is conservative if you include benefits, etc.) I've never been able to figure out how my employer says I cost them $280 per hour.
If you're working on a service organization, your rate is defined by:
Billable hour = salary cost + benefits + G&A + overhead
Where:
- Salary cost = gross salary / 1800 (or whatever # hours/yr your company uses)
- Benefits = proportional cost of vacation, 401K, etc
- G&A = General expenses and admin (office, equipment, free food, etc)
- Overhead = amount needed to cover everyone else who isn't billable (HR, Finance, IT, assistants, President, etc)
If you do the math, you'll see $200-300 is a standard rate in high cost markets (NYC, SFO) for someone with a six-digit figure. More junior positions are ~$150, while very senior roles (Partner, Director, etc) would be in the $300-500 range.
Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division
#115To put this in perspective, 5000 people at $200k per year (which is conservative if you include benefits, etc.) is 1 billion dollars in comp per year. So OpenAI is spending a billion dollars over the next several years. Microsoft is spending a billion dollars per year. Google, etc. do the math. There's literally billions of dollars now being spent on moving deep learning forward. Pretty amazing when I think back to 2…
>Pretty amazing when I think back to 2011 and there were machine learning conferences where literally no one I spoke to had heard of deep learning.
You'll and most people too be replaced with a machine and have no job, pretty amazing.
Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division
#116A friend of mine was an early investor in DeepMind. For like a year and a half, because that's how long it took Google to buy them out for somewhere around $400mm. At the time, I thought that sounded like an amazing exit (OK, it still sounds like an amazing exit), and wasn't clear how Google could get that value out in a reasonable timeframe. I was so, so, wrong. The amount of value hidden and public in that acquisit…
here is a blog post about how they are using ai in adwords: https://adwords.googleblog.com/2016/07/more-powerful-bid-aut...
Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft historically pays slightly better than Google and other valley companies. And, the cost of an employee is usually significantly higher than the salary alone. Something like 30%-60% higher, when factoring in benefits, cost of providing offices, stock options, etc. So, $200k is pretty conservative in many tech hubs, not just the valley, particularly when you're talking about people involved in research (who a…
Microsoft pays well, but this is the first time I've heard them paying better than google. When I was at MS, there were always complaints about losing potential hires to Google over much higher salaries.
Comparing MS salaries in Redmond to Google salaries in Mountain View is rather apples and oranges. Cost of living is different (esp. once you start shopping for houses), state taxes are drastically different etc.
Now, Google also has an office in Kirkland. That would be an interesting place to compare. But it's also not particularly large.
Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division
#118I wonder if they are successful, the next new AI division will have 0 people.
Why waste people? They're still resources, and a prudent AI could find some work for them, Mechanical Turk style.
Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division
#119What is the current fascination with AI? It seems to be talked about everywhere right now. Yet "AI" in a core sense has been around since the 70's...
In the past few years, both the hardware caught up to and new practical techniques have been developed for multilevel neural nets (deep learning). It turns out that these are very effective at many problems that were not as amenable to earlier techniques. The theory of neural nets has been around a long time, but there has been a recent increase in the practical applicability of them.
Re: Microsoft forms new 5,000-person AI division
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you elaborate on how that works? If the victims are their best people who are doing solid, profitable work, laying them off seems like it would create a state of uncertainty which, in this climate, might just cause people to jump ship because competitive jobs are just around the corner. Or was there some issue with the group where they had to sacrifice the good with the bad due to lack of overall profitability?
It's about internal power, even at the expense of the companies wellbeing. These layoffs were in the context of a larger set of layoffs that Satya undertook as his first big move at MS. Satya was getting across the board pushback from lots of different warring orgs at MS. He even had to bring the Big G out of retirement to help him out. So by taking out the top dogs he becomes the top dog. I don't even blame Satya fo…
good point that need's repeating many times
all these places with lots of people suck
a small team, in a nice place working on an interesting problem, it best
central control is always 'Godwin' like everytime
grooming elite people at big companys can be done, but its very rare, and its even more rare to see those people have a happy life,
much of what you see here on HN-YC is young people, who are always happy, like a puppy, the real deal is to view the elite post 40, and still working post 60, you simply don't see it much in high-tech, especially in california
I think the trend now that everything is cheap ( HW/SW ) is to be anywhere, and build a small team and do what you want, as long as you want,
all big company's all suck for much the same reason, the people who don't produce are made managers, then those who do produce get tired of stupid politics and being controlled by 'idiots', it's very rare for a producer to become a manager, as in time your brain will rot, managing people is not fun, it sucks bad,
I get real bored about all the BIG MONEY talk, I mean say $200k/year, that is peanuts, I remember back in the early 1980's, we used to make $50k/day, and then you could buy a house for $50k, now $200k, doesn't buy anything, except a high tax bracket.
In summary, people are being fed bile, keep it small, and work as a close team with like minded people, and run like hell from big corporations.