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Api.ai is joining Google

api.ai

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Re: Api.ai is joining Google

#141

Post by dmritard96 »

jshevek wrote: post #110
ben_jones wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the pendulum swings both ways. I'd bet money many a PHD could not delete a file properly.

From what I've seen, people with PhDs in CS are less competent as devs than devs without PhDs.

the assumption here is that people can only learn at adequately fast rates before earning their phd? aka, isnt the expectation that if you can earn a phd in at least a highly related industry you should be able to pick up just about anything. Are they going to know how to wrangle a huge dev ops stack into submission, or pump data through some realtime frame work to maximize throughput or setup paxos properly from day 0, fine. but neither does any other entry level engineer and these guys can either learn it or be placed on a different team within the company that does deeper research that would make use of their phd...

Re: Api.ai is joining Google

#142

Post by kchoudhu »

ben_jones wrote: post #93
aswanson wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilarious. We've reached a place where a doctorate in CS is an insufficient qualification to delete a fucking file.

IMO the pendulum swings both ways. I'd bet money many a PHD could not delete a file properly.

This is such a toxic attitude.

The industry complains about being unable to find enough programming talent, while dismissing entire swathes of highly trained, highly educated people for investing in themselves.

Re: Api.ai is joining Google

#143

Post by Veen »

Kiro wrote: post #139
Veen wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you so intent on telling everyone off for criticising what, at the very least, is a unimaginative, cliched, and clumsy way of describing a cash grab.

Because it's ridiculous and I'm tired of seeing that site in every acquisition thread.

I guess everyone else is tired of seeing the same old rhetoric every time a company sells — it's great news for the founders and maybe the employees, usually not so great news for the users.

There's a podcast called "The Distance"[0] that investigates businesses that have been serving their customers for decades. Those stories are "incredible journeys". Two years of development and marketing ending in an aqui-hire isn't an incredible journey, and it certainly isn't a long journey.

Selling to Google is an accomplishment. It's an interesting accomplishment, but the rhetoric of journeys and battles is tedious. These people have an idea, implement and market it well, work hard, and achieve a solid exit.

They haven't changed the world, done anything particularly praiseworthy, or struggled very hard compared to the "journeys" of millions of other people. They built a business based on a promise to their users, and then more or less said: "screw you guys, we're off to Google now. Thanks for the journey." Pompous SV bullshit.

[0]:https://thedistance.com/

Re: Api.ai is joining Google

#144

Post by ginger_beer_m »

_pius wrote: post #34
kchoudhu wrote: post #4

I'm assuming Google doesn't need any of the company's business, and that it is being acquired for its talent. So, my real question: how much, on average, does a founder get as part of one of these acquihires? And does s/he actually, y'know, have to do any work after getting paid?

I'm assuming Google doesn't need any of the company's business, and that it is being acquired for its talent. I wouldn't assume that. Developer-friendly natural language APIs will only become more important over the next few years.

My question is why would someone want to send their data to some api on the cloud rather than processing it locally himself using the numerous open source packages available to do this sort of thing?

Re: Api.ai is joining Google

#145

Post by ginger_beer_m »

amix wrote: post #31

Tried API.ai a few months ago and was very unimpressed with the results (things were slow, expensive and not very powerful. Rebuilding the models was also broken at times). I am unsure why Google are acquiring them, especially given that they have DeepMind and TensorFlow teams.

Can it do anything that can't be done locally using off-the-shelves packages like nltk etc?

Re: Api.ai is joining Google

#146

Post by Chronic9q »

tensor wrote: post #128
imron wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a happy customer What are your plans for transitioning off their service? The script for this sort of acqui-hire is pretty well known at this point.

That's true, though I suppose Waze is still working, and Nest was allowed to continue operating too.

n alive = 2

n dead = too many to count

Re: Api.ai is joining Google

#147

Post by yitchelle »

jshevek wrote: post #110
ben_jones wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the pendulum swings both ways. I'd bet money many a PHD could not delete a file properly.

From what I've seen, people with PhDs in CS are less competent as devs than devs without PhDs.

Horses for courses. If you to do R&D, go with PhDs, if you want D&D, go with devs.

Re: Api.ai is joining Google

#148

Post by developer2 »

kchoudhu wrote: post #21
jaxomlotus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unusual for an acquihire to have real agency in a big company. It's usually the middle management route - or worse - the limbo of having nothing real to do like the parody scenario in the Silicon Valley tv show.

Sounds kinda hellish, honestly.

I think that's the point. Sometimes the acquiring company is hoping you'll get bored or fed up and walk out before you can vest. Why would they keep you productive which only serves to sustain your incentive to earn a couple million, when they can instead pay only a salary and hope you give up before your years are up?

I hate the definition of "acquihiring", which seems to have been written by a PR firm. It's made out to sound like an altruistic process that magically overrides the business's normal strategy where all that matters is the bottom line and bowing to investors / board members. The reality is that when acquihired, you've entered a new company with its own culture, underhanded and ruthless politics, and ulterior motives.

There is very little truly irreplaceable talent worth paying millions for. What an acquihire is really saying is "We need your help to transition this product into our company's structure. We can't do this in only 2 weeks, so we'll say now that you will be with us for years. Secretly we hope you leave shortly after the difficult transition is completed, but before we have to pay you".

If any business out there acquihires to the spirit of the definition, thanks for being of a rare species.

Re: Api.ai is joining Google

#149

Post by michaelt »

ginger_beer_m wrote: post #144
_pius wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming Google doesn't need any of the company's business, and that it is being acquired for its talent. I wouldn't assume that. Developer-friendly natural language APIs will only become more important over the next few years.

My question is why would someone want to send their data to some api on the cloud rather than processing it locally himself using the numerous open source packages available to do this sort of thing?

For a lot of things, using a self-hosted open-source package is a good idea, absolutely.

However, for some applications there's a vendor with a neural network (or whatever) trained on a billion inputs, you see it perform better than the open source equivalent trained on a million inputs, and you don't have a billion inputs to improve the open source version with.

Re: Api.ai is joining Google

#150

Post by [deleted] »

phamilton wrote: post #138
shostack wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what of the ones that don't get brought on? Do they get anything for their equity typically? For key employees i can see them sticking around, but early hire support staff that may not be needed could still have considerable equity.

I was part of a fairly large acquisition by a big player. Support types got handcuffs of about $20k over 4 years. Engineers got anywhere from $150k/4 years to $600k/4 years. Some got even more. This was all independent of equity. Any vested equity was cashed out. Unvested equity converted to equivalent shares in the new company, with the same vesting schedule as before.

[deleted]
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