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TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

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Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#191

Post by wjnc »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #185
hellisothers wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less people with dependents (partners, kids)? Less people care or put thought into what happens after they die? Also anecdotally many/most peers I talk to about this say their company provides life insurance, I then point out the difference between this and actual term life insurance for when/if they change companies: “oh huh…”

This sounds like pure speculation, which is fine, and I appreciate your comment, but would also like to hear from the poster who made the original comment since he works in that industry.

Thanks Ted. In the Netherlands it’s a combination of a few market trends. 1. A trick insurers pulled in the 90s and consumers never forgave us for (lending money in the late 90s for leveraged stock investments with massive cost loading; still ongoing litigation). 2. Mortgage rules changing making a certain type of life insurance ineligible for interest deduction (you used to be able to pay 5% interest, get that interest as income tax deductible thus returning 50+% of that interest and still get 5% interest in your deposit!) and 3. the very low interest rates making products generally less interesting.

Most insurers here have closed their books, with only a few products open for sales. A few larger insurers and hedge funds are buying portfolios in order to hopefully gain benefits of scale. There’s basically two ways of making money: better investment returns usually via more risky investments and cost savings. Since many of these products stem from 70s-90s IT modernization and cost saving is a real activity.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#192

Post by nix9000 »

kube-system wrote: post #186
perlgeek wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about cloud?

GCP loses money. They just reported their best quarter for cloud earnings. Negative 931 million dollars in Q1 2022.

The numbers are trending in the right direction. From 2021Q1 to 2022Q1, revenue grew 43% (vs 34% at AWS and 46% at Azure), loss went down by 4%, and the loss to revenue ratio went from 24% to 16%.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#193

Post by nradov »

serial_dev wrote: post #184
cjblomqvist wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an alternative to "wasting" money to give a second gold vein. You can just do the cash cow thing and then die. That's a totally reasonable. If TomTom don't think they can use the money better than other investment alternatives (that their investors have), then they shouldn't. Of course, politics and personal interests. But sometimes it's just better to allocate resources to something where they're better uti…

When I was reading the comment, I thought the same: why don't companies just accept that they have one good project, focus on it 100%, stay good at it, and when the market dies, the company could die with it. There is no shame in milking one product for 20 years, providing a living to hundreds/thousands, then just scale back to maintenance and eventually close things down. It doesn't really happen in practice, becaus…

That is exactly the business model for some private equity firms (corporate raiders). They identify undervalued companies with strong revenue and significant assets where incompetent management is wasting resources and buy the company. Then they stop investing in growth, cut expenses to the bone, borrow against the assets, issue huge dividends to shareholders, and allow the company to gradually die. There's nothing really wrong with this approach and it probably helps increase overall economic growth through better capital allocation. But it can be a rough ride for employees caught in the process.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#194

Post by dmitriid »

pishpash wrote: post #179
kodah wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was traveling with some friends through Los Gatos on the way to Monterrey and Google had me sit in a residential neighborhood traffic jam for over 45 minutes when I could've turned left and gotten to my destination much quicker. I did end up turning left, but the takeaway that I had is that Google isn't always doing the "right" thing.

It became a 45 minute traffic jam because Google directed everyone there. Maybe.

Anecdotally, Waze is (or at least was) better. It would try and redirect traffic to avoid too much congestion. So it would send you over the highway and me over smaller roads in a roundabout way, if possible.

Mind you, I've never seen this properly confirmed :)

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#195

Post by coding123 »

amelius wrote: post #131
agloeregrets wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google bought their other Gold. Youtube, Android, Google Search on iOS, ChromeOS. All of it is a moat to protect the first.

If the gold vein is advertising, then there is no other gold vein for Google.

I would say it's the people visiting google that's the gold vein - advertising is the pick-axe. You don't make money with ads if no one visits. So in a sense making more and more products and reasons to visit is the gold vein.

Otherwise just saying advertising is a gold vein would mean people that put up a blank page with a single ad on it and no reason to visit would definitely not be a gold vein. So as others mentioned, its the Youtube and Gmails level products.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#196

Post by eezurr »

nradov wrote: post #193
serial_dev wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was reading the comment, I thought the same: why don't companies just accept that they have one good project, focus on it 100%, stay good at it, and when the market dies, the company could die with it. There is no shame in milking one product for 20 years, providing a living to hundreds/thousands, then just scale back to maintenance and eventually close things down. It doesn't really happen in practice, becaus…

That is exactly the business model for some private equity firms (corporate raiders). They identify undervalued companies with strong revenue and significant assets where incompetent management is wasting resources and buy the company. Then they stop investing in growth, cut expenses to the bone, borrow against the assets, issue huge dividends to shareholders, and allow the company to gradually die. There's nothing r…

No post body was provided.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#197

Post by djvdq »

groovybits wrote: post #95
alaricus wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Apple Maps is basically TomTom with a Apple logo slapped to it.

"The main provider of map data is TomTom, but data is also supplied by Automotive Navigation Data, Getchee, Hexagon AB, IGN, Increment P, Intermap Technologies, LeadDog, MDA Information Systems, OpenStreetMap, and Waze." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Maps#Features

I'm slightly surprised by Waze. I did not expect Google to support the competition

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#198

Post by ratww »

alaricus wrote: post #178
ratww wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the industry is definitely moving to that. Admiral, probably the most known ad-blocker-blocker already successfully circumvents PiHole and other DNS blocking by being served by the same domain. I also expect Google to double down on Chrome Manifest v3 limitations if ad-blocking keeps getting more popular. Or even using DNS-over-HTTPS as a default on Chrome if ISP blocking ever becomes a thing.

Do you have pointers on what Admiral is doing? I just remember they tried to get their domains removed from blocklists via DMCA.

For most customers, it seems they just went and bought about 2 thousand randomly-named domains and serve third-party scripts. However I've seen a couple places where Admiral was not blocked, because it was being served from a subdomain. I wish I had written down where it was to add to the EasyList or something. :(

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#199

Post by bradwood »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #90
scotty79 wrote: post #85

I used to work for TomTom maybe 10 years ago. I was there when Google started offering turn by turn navigation for free. Other issue was live traffic information. As you might imagine all this caused some concern among employees because that was, I think, the main source of revenue for the company. They were already doing some other stuff like fitness wearables but they didn't seem to be leaning into it. Main idea fo…

Interesting that going deeper integrated into cars was their game plan. I've never used our in-car GPS (other than playing with it once). If it was any good it has a ton of advantages over using Google, including display on the "speedometer" screen. Sadly, it's pants. It comically announces caution stationary traffic on the M25, generally after we've been stationary for 5 minutes. The navigation directions aren't as…

+1 for "pants". Very retro.

Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation

#200

Post by bradwood »

nradov wrote: post #187
kodah wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was traveling with some friends through Los Gatos on the way to Monterrey and Google had me sit in a residential neighborhood traffic jam for over 45 minutes when I could've turned left and gotten to my destination much quicker. I did end up turning left, but the takeaway that I had is that Google isn't always doing the "right" thing.

There is a particular problem in Los Gatos on summer weekends when everyone wants to escape the Bay Area and go to the beaches around Santa Cruz. Southbound Highway 17 comes to standstill due to idiot timid drivers who slow down going uphill and constantly brake around curves. Then the navigation apps route drivers onto residential streets to try and save a few minutes. It gets so bad that local residents are literal…

> ... constantly breaking around curves.

What a drag.

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