51–60 of 164 posts
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threads?
also just another clear ripoff. they copy, they acquire, but they cannot seem to innovate.
The basic issue is none of it seems to be making any money when it ends up in products and services.
Main reason there seems to be that their walled garden approach is tolerated at best. They just aren't very good at it outside of a feed.
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Google's projected AI capex spend is $170-180 billion for this year. It's unreasonable to think AI would not be a reason for companies to consider layoffs.
There are two ways to interpret your comment: 1. Google is getting so much productivity out of their AI that they need fewer people. 2. Google is spending so much on AI they can’t afford to keep the people they need.
Unemployed people, what are you doing?
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Surprised it took this long. I feel bad for the employees, but I can’t remember the last success they had. Metaverse, VR, throwing absurd money at AI and for what?
Their last success was acquiring Instagram in 2012. Every new effort since then has been hemorrhaging money. They get away with it because they have two limitless money faucets in Facebook and Instagram, but their product strategy as a whole has been a disaster.
The framing of this makes it seem like this is a sharp change in trend, but this long-running layoff tracker shows no evidence of this. 2020 and 2023 both had serious layoff spikes, but the 2023 spike trailed off to an asymptote that we're still hovering around. https://layoffs.fyi/
If you go into the larger field, the trend since 2021 is overall concerning, particularly if you factor in Trump's desire to just stop reporting: https://www.macrotrends.net/3208/us-layoffs-and-discharges
AFAICT, the general populace is anxious about AI. So, the news knows they can get clicks with “You are right to be afraid. AI bad.” Meanwhile, CEOs know they can get stock boosts by saying “We are so AI we don’t need expenses. Infinite ROI!”
Put together we’re getting a ton of scary reporting on what looks like a quite normal business cycle (at least as far as layoffs go). And, everyone being afraid to hire is the only thing actually making it self-fulfilling.
Cutting layers of bureaucracy not replacing with AI
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Google's projected AI capex spend is $170-180 billion for this year. It's unreasonable to think AI would not be a reason for companies to consider layoffs.
There are two ways to interpret your comment: 1. Google is getting so much productivity out of their AI that they need fewer people. 2. Google is spending so much on AI they can’t afford to keep the people they need.
3. Google is spending so much on AI that they can't afford to keep paying people, but they are ok with this because they are convinced the AI investment will replace the people at an eventual cost savings.
Unemployed people, what are you doing?
Crazy thing is, I delivered optimizations that saved 1m USD over the last 12 months, with another optimization in-flight that would save another 1m USD. I thought that was enough to protect me from layoffs/PIPs - I guess no one was counting.
AI is just an excuse for layoffs which IMO CEOs are trying to use to recover share prices from the SaaS-pocalypse. Looks like layoffs aren't hitting the same for stock prices as they once were.
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In a zero interest rate environment, literally any return on investment justifies spending. If interest rates are 3.8%, the company needs at least a 3.8% return every year on your yearly compensation to justify your job.
Not if they are compensated during the year. Grocery stores have slim margins, but if you make 10k after selling 1M worth of stock buy turn over that stock 12 times a year that’s ~12% annual ROI not 1%.