61–70 of 167 posts
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I refuse to believe that companies are allocating major ad spend to Facebook in 2025. Instagram, yes.
Why do companies allocate ad spend on regular TV channels in 2025? There is still a big cohort of people (45-70) totally hooked on Facebook.
Is Wang even able to achieve superintelligence? Is anyone? I'm unable to make sense of Wang's compensation package. What actual, practical skills does he bring to the table? Is this all a stunt to drive Meta's stock value?
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Meta doesn’t really have a social media business, they have an ad business that’s driven by a massive dumping operation in social media.
That framing is silly. “NBC doesn’t have a television business, they have an ad business”. “Google doesn’t have a search business, they have an ad business.” “Amazon doesn’t have a retail business, they have an ad business.” It doesn’t provide any value to reframe it this way, unless you think it’s some big secret that ads are the main source of revenue for these businesses.
They do broadcast TV, the purpose of which is to display ads. That does make sense.
> “Google doesn’t have a search business, they have an ad business.”
When Google started out, in the "don't be evil", simple home page days, they were a search company. It is hardly true any more, ads are now the centre of their business.
> “Amazon doesn’t have a retail business, they have an ad business.”
Well, duh! Quite obvious these days. That is where they get the lion's share of the revenue, outside AWS.
I am impressed, you hit the nail on the head!
Mr Z. pays engineers well, that's what counts in my book, I like Mr. Z.
So FAIR has been effectively disbanded, LeCun is moving out, Wang is doing 996 and teams are hiring to fire to insulate people who need to vest their stock. How long until the company accumulates enough stress to rupture completely?
Meta should replace Mr Z with a bit sane person. At this point, he is like a mad emperor.
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From what I heard, Eric Lippert was one of the layoff victims. I find it unlikely that he was actually a poor performer, since he's an industry legend.
"[My probabilistic languages] team in particular was at the point where we were regularly putting models into production that on net reduced costs by millions of dollars a year over the cost of the work. ... We foolishly thought that we would naturally be protected from any layoffs, being a team that reduced costs of any team we partnered with. ... The whole Probability division was laid off as a cost-cutting measure…
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same is true in many startups
True enough, but do you think the usual level of disparity is so vast that it ends up on the front page of international press outlets? I'm thinking the $100m pay offers etc
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What is the difference between the two? What kind of social media business is there other than selling ads?
I know we're so defeated as consumers that we can hardly imagine it, but you could just...charge for the customers' access to social media network. Kinda like every other service that charges money. It would have the side effect of making the whole business less ghoulish and manipulative, since the operators wouldn't be incentivized to maximize eyeball hours. It's impossible to imagine this because government regulat…
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Why do companies allocate ad spend on regular TV channels in 2025? There is still a big cohort of people (45-70) totally hooked on Facebook.
It’s such a wasteland. I really think FB is fudging those Facebook user metrics. I might login once or twice a year and realize even marketplace is junk these days.