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Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

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Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#281

When Sundar doesn't react fast enough: Google's gone. They no longer have the ship-fast mentality of an upstart. Perfect is the enemy of the good. The ethics lords have taken over Google Brain. Google needs a war-time CEO. When Sundar reacts fast enough: Google's gone. The product was rushed. It is no where close to perfect. Could it be Google's been bluffing about its AI. What a knee-jerk reaction. Google needs a wa…

One CEO (and company) has joy. The other one does not.

I know which one I'd rather join.

Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#282

When Sundar doesn't react fast enough: Google's gone. They no longer have the ship-fast mentality of an upstart. Perfect is the enemy of the good. The ethics lords have taken over Google Brain. Google needs a war-time CEO. When Sundar reacts fast enough: Google's gone. The product was rushed. It is no where close to perfect. Could it be Google's been bluffing about its AI. What a knee-jerk reaction. Google needs a wa…

> When Sundar reacts fast enough

Their response wasn't fast enough. They should have been experimenting with this stuff in public for years now, but they've kept it under cover.

This was a deflated promise from Google. They swore up and down they could blow Chat GPT out of the water. They just didn't release it for.... Reasons.

Now we see the answer. Chat GPT marches forward with name recognition and lots of trial and error. Google's future rests on an untested platform.

Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#283
post #9

Here's the weird thing though, as discussed yesterday [1], the Microsoft demo was totally broken as well. In the end, everyone is looking for a big platform shift (next MOBILE!!!) and hype getting ahead of reality. When we look back in 3 months we will wonder why we thought LLM/GPT type queries will replace search in all forms. https://dkb.blog/p/bing-ai-cant-be-trusted

Nope. I am somewhat in disbelief about the level people here downgrade the recent Bing upgrade. The chatbot feature is a such a time saver for jobs where you need to write tons of abstract surface-level content. Just yesterday, I tried compiling a monthly teachers working plan for some local school in Ukrainian language. What it spawned in a minute was at least a day of typing work for a human. This is especially use…

Agreed. The level of naysaying on Bing + GPT (along with ChatGPT) is absurd.

Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#284
post #9

Here's the weird thing though, as discussed yesterday [1], the Microsoft demo was totally broken as well. In the end, everyone is looking for a big platform shift (next MOBILE!!!) and hype getting ahead of reality. When we look back in 3 months we will wonder why we thought LLM/GPT type queries will replace search in all forms. https://dkb.blog/p/bing-ai-cant-be-trusted

Nothing weird about it. It's called first mover's advantage. Wanna make electric cars, you have to beat Tesla. No matter how nice your car is. If your range is worse. Booo. If your self driving is equivalent or worse, Boo. Whatever Tesla has done, you must be better at. You need better design, cheaper price, better range, better reliability else no one would notice you.

Tesla wasn't a first mover. Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt were both on the market roughtly 2 years before Model S.

Also, you don't really need to beat Tesla if you just want to make (and sell) electric cars. Tesla doesn't fill every niche and is nowhere near enough in terms of volume to satisfy the EV demand.

(If you want to be a bigger electric car company than Tesla then you have to beat Tesla, yeah -- that's a tautology, not an interesting observation tho).

Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullshit to you but full time work for plenty...

Well, they think they will be paid 10 times more now that they can produce bullshit 10x faster ... in reality, they will be fired.

> Well, they think they will be paid 10 times more now that they can produce bullshit 10x faster … in reality, they will be fired.

…and replaced by b.s. chatbot wranglers, who will be paid much more, and who will produce more total output, and who will be selected preferentially from among the people that best understand the work the chatbots are doing…so, yeah, in lots of cases, the people that were writing bullshit will end up wrangling chatbots, in jobs that bring in more money for their employer, and probably at higher pay (though, by historical trends of automation, a lower share of the generated value) who write bullshit.

This is even more clearly the case for people who have writing bullshit as an incidental part of their job rather than a core part, since the incidental part will consume less time, increasing productivity, without eliminating need for the core job. So its not even a “lose one job but move to the replacement job” situation, its just a “be more valuable in existing job”.

Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#286
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft can botch their search without tanking the company. Google cannot.

Sure, but the narrative seems to be Microsoft has somehow cracked the puzzle and will leave Google behind which is not the case currently.

They don't have to, they only have to be relative equals. It's possible chat GPT is a "dreadnaught moment"

Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like Ben Horowitz's peacetime CEO/wartime CEO, which even uses google as an example - https://a16z.com/2011/04/14/peacetime-ceo-wartime-ceo

> Peacetime CEO spends time defining the culture. Wartime CEO lets the war define the culture. Beautifully put. I knew there was some reason why I'm so irresistibly drawn to books about warfare. Patton in WW II was the quintessential wartime general. Even though it WAS a war, his style was too much for Eisenhower. Until the Battle of the Bulge.

You touched on something else I wanted to mention - that there is nothing wrong with a peacetime general as long as you're not at war. Your point about Patton is spot on, he needs a war or his style is too much.

I see this in startups. The people/leadership you need to go from 0->1 are often not the same people to go from 1->N.

To bring this back around to Google. People are talking about the CEO, but does Google have the rank and file ready to go to war?

Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#288

When Sundar doesn't react fast enough: Google's gone. They no longer have the ship-fast mentality of an upstart. Perfect is the enemy of the good. The ethics lords have taken over Google Brain. Google needs a war-time CEO. When Sundar reacts fast enough: Google's gone. The product was rushed. It is no where close to perfect. Could it be Google's been bluffing about its AI. What a knee-jerk reaction. Google needs a wa…

Ok, yes, people said both of these things, but `Sundar doesn't react fast enough` is the correct take. That's the side Google's institutions heavily skew it towards. In fact, the "it's no where close to perfect" take is exactly those institutions in action pushing against Google shipping quickly.

Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#289
post #163

Will anyone remember how Bard was released in 5 years, if it delivers on its promises? I doubt it, so the hand wringing over a stumble this early seems overblown.

Even though Windows 98 was an overall long-term success, the blue screen that popped up during their live demo left a memorable impression, and arguably led to a significantly slower adoption.

Wikipedia that describes this as such [0]:

> ...when presentation assistant Chris Capossela plugged a USB scanner in, the operating system crashed, displaying a Blue Screen of Death. Bill Gates remarked after derisive applause and cheering from the audience, "That must be why we're not shipping Windows 98 yet." Video footage of this event became a popular Internet phenomenon.

In a subsequent paragraph about the sales Wikipedia says:

>In the first year of its release, Windows 98 ... had a market share of 17.2 percent, compared to Windows 95's 57.4 percent

And it's definitely not just me who still remembers this. There's for example an article from the Register reviewing it 20 years after [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_98?wprov=sfla1

[1] https://www.theregister.com/2018/04/20/windows_98_comdex_bso...

Re: Google employees criticize CEO for “dumpster fire” response to ChatGPT

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Peacetime CEO spends time defining the culture. Wartime CEO lets the war define the culture. Beautifully put. I knew there was some reason why I'm so irresistibly drawn to books about warfare. Patton in WW II was the quintessential wartime general. Even though it WAS a war, his style was too much for Eisenhower. Until the Battle of the Bulge.

You touched on something else I wanted to mention - that there is nothing wrong with a peacetime general as long as you're not at war. Your point about Patton is spot on, he needs a war or his style is too much. I see this in startups. The people/leadership you need to go from 0->1 are often not the same people to go from 1->N. To bring this back around to Google. People are talking about the CEO, but does Google hav…

having been out for 5 1/2 years, I can't say for sure. But even in 2017, there were a large number of "born on third base and think they hit a triple" people.
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