Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 296 posts

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#41

Post by [deleted] »

chris11 wrote: post #34
supernova87a wrote: post #9

Funny, as they were just a few weeks ago (even during the lockdown) certain recruiters were saying they were aggressively hiring -- and are still listed as hiring for example here: https://layoffs.fyi/tracker/ Seems like suddenly they got worried about how long they can maintain the burn rate. Doesn't help that driving and commuting fell off the map.

Full self-driving is a long way off, but GM can use Cruise to develop new active safety systems for their current cars. I don't think GM is doing as well there as Toyota or Honda, let alone Tesla.

[deleted]

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#42

Post by TeMPOraL »

thoraway1010 wrote: post #17
runawaybottle wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of stuff I always advise people in long term careers to be privy of. First to go always means least cared about. Nothing wrong with it, but always know your place in a company. Don’t ever be lulled into rhetoric such as ‘doubling down on engineering’. ‘We care about code quality’ - code quality sucks at the company, ‘we care about work life balance’ - there is none at the company, ‘we value innovatio…

Somewhat true. My favorite: "We adhere to the highest ethical principles" - as they give you a 500 page ethics doc that no one reads or follows. But I've actually found it's a good / reliable tell. You just stay away from companies like this that can't talk straight and you end up a LOT happier. I don't mean they need to be nice - but just clear relatively honest normal English language communication. ie, "we're cutt…

> My favorite: "We adhere to the highest ethical principles" - as they give you a 500 page ethics doc that no one reads or follows.

That's just a translation error. "To adhere" means "to stick"; while the formalized version sounds like they stick to high ethical princilples, what they meant is they stick it to them.

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#43

Post by toomuchtodo »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #22
aphextron wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Doubling down = 2x the engineering staff. This is as they lay off in their lidar team. Self driving will be solved with computer vision. Lidar is an unnecessary technology even for full level 5 autonomy. Most self driving companies have come to this conclusion by now.

Any data to back this up besides Musk saying his approach's the best?

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/05/07/elon-musk-calls-lidar-a...

https://youtu.be/fNgEG5rCav4

> Anthony Levandowski, former Google/Waymo engineer, now backtracks on lidar and says, ”Elon is right.”

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#44

Post by paxys »

greendave wrote: post #27

> Before the layoffs, Cruise had 1,800 full-time employees. Their hiring rate has been remarkable. Less than 3 years ago (6/2017) they had 200 employees. Just over a year ago (3/2019), they had ~1000.

Wow that is ridiculous. There is absolutely no way to have those numbers without a major compromise in the quality of hires.

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#45

Post by tree3 »

FreedomToCreate wrote: post #26

Just a note, but this is a perfect time for companies to lay off low performers without getting a lot of flak. This is usually the case when you see companies lay off people while continuing to hire as well.

True, but GM and other auto makers aren't selling cars right now. They are impacted severely

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#47

Post by saalweachter »

kevindeasis wrote: post #38
xoxoy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GM is not hiring. The auto industry is being hit hard right now. And Cruise is notorious for being a toxic mess as is.

On other forums it seems like it splits into two group. One group says that it depends on the team and that they love their current team. And the other group is how working for Cruise is the worst decision they've made in their life. My curiosity is with, how does a company totally change their culture and do a complete 180%? From having workers completely hating their current company to completely not seeing themsel…

I'm not sure this makes Cruise particularly unique.

There are a lot of FAANG and ex-FAANG employees on this board, and you can find lots of people who love their job and feel like they are well-treated, compensated and respected and doing a meaningful impactful job, and there are plenty who felt ignored, underpaid and disrespected while working as a cog in an machine designed to sell ads.

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#48

Post by csdreamer7 »

kevindeasis wrote: post #38
xoxoy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GM is not hiring. The auto industry is being hit hard right now. And Cruise is notorious for being a toxic mess as is.

On other forums it seems like it splits into two group. One group says that it depends on the team and that they love their current team. And the other group is how working for Cruise is the worst decision they've made in their life. My curiosity is with, how does a company totally change their culture and do a complete 180%? From having workers completely hating their current company to completely not seeing themsel…

I would recommend reading the Open Organization by Jim Whitehurst to get example of how process affects employee motivation.

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#49

Post by 8note »

thoraway1010 wrote: post #14
cactus2093 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never hear the phrase "doubling down" used to mean "doubling", except maybe in the original usage in gambling. But colloquially it just means "increasing focus on". In that use there is no inherent contradiction in downsizing + attempting to increasing focus. In fact that seems to be what almost all companies who downsize are attempting to do. Edit: In fact come to think of it, even in blackjack when you double dow…

doubling down is not about increasing focus. It is about increasing risk by making a BIGGER (not smaller) bet on something. This is in the original meaning in gambling (you are convinced you are right and so double your bet) and elsewhere. Only in PR land is a cash flow pullback and risk reduction step such as a headcount reduction called a doubling down. It goes to show how pernicious these types of intentional misw…

Missing information: are they downsizing elsewhere as well, and the lidar folks are being downsized by less?

Re: GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of staff

#50

Post by runawaybottle »

majormajor wrote: post #7
tschwimmer wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first amendment protects this type of speech.

One should question what interests we're protecting by allowing lying in various contexts vs having just a blanket "say whatever you want" default privilege.

I don’t know if anyone is consciously protecting their right to lie, but we are via inaction allowing them to construct the language of lying.

If I made a programming language that got rid a basic object maps for example, I’d eliminate the scenarios where one would use a lookup map.

These people construct their own language, and so long as we speak their language, we can’t really speak against them. The words don’t exist by design.

Post reply on HN