What they did? Yet another interface wrapper to Stanford Core NLP for over hyped chat bots?
Api.ai is joining Google
71–80 of 159 posts
Re: Api.ai is joining Google
#72I wonder how engineers at Google feel about all this. I guess they feel they should be joining these startups instead of slogging at Google. They can just easily retire/do their own thing if they are part of these acquihires.
Working at a startup "for the money" is like playing the lottery, you may hit it big, but a lot of startups just crash and burn. In the meantime you're making a lot less than someone working at a large company. You could take the $50K/yr pay difference and buy lottery tickets with that.
You are right but it's not like the startup is not paying you anything. So it's not exactly the same odds of a lottery. Most startups pay from 100-125k and Google is not that far off from that range.
Re: Api.ai is joining Google
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
from what I've seen at Google specifically, when hiring for team talent, acquihires are typically performed in a binary fashion -- they take everybody who wants to go, without going through the regular screening process. n = 1
After reading your comment multiple times, I have no idea what you said.
I believe anaskar is saying that, for the one instance they've seen, Google either takes on the entire team or no one, and they don't do the normal Google interview.
Re: Api.ai is joining Google
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aren't Google acquihire offers conditional on passing the usual Google employee screening process? I ask this not to be negative, but out of serious curiosity. Say your employer is bought by Google - are you axed because you slept poorly and couldn't prove Fermat's Last Theorem on the whiteboard in 15 minutes?
from what I've seen at Google specifically, when hiring for team talent, acquihires are typically performed in a binary fashion -- they take everybody who wants to go, without going through the regular screening process. n = 1
Speaking from personal experience, that's not always true.
When the company I worked for was acquired for team talent, they interviewed all but a handful of the engineers. Around half were given full time offers. Another group were given fixed-term offers and the remaining engineers didn't make it in.
I was given a fixed-term offer. Several months and many interviews later, I made it in as a full time employee. I was never outright rejected, but due to circumstances involving my contract and project work, I probably took around 9-12 Google interviews over that time.
They aren't fun. But in the end, I'd say it was worth it.
Re: Api.ai is joining Google
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
from what I've seen at Google specifically, when hiring for team talent, acquihires are typically performed in a binary fashion -- they take everybody who wants to go, without going through the regular screening process. n = 1
After reading your comment multiple times, I have no idea what you said.
I read it as they take the employees, if they want to join, without any additional screenings/interviews. I assume n=1 means that's OP's sample size.
Re: Api.ai is joining Google
#76I'm assuming Google doesn't need any of the company's business, and that it is being acquired for its talent. So, my real question: how much, on average, does a founder get as part of one of these acquihires? And does s/he actually, y'know, have to do any work after getting paid?
Aren't Google acquihire offers conditional on passing the usual Google employee screening process? I ask this not to be negative, but out of serious curiosity. Say your employer is bought by Google - are you axed because you slept poorly and couldn't prove Fermat's Last Theorem on the whiteboard in 15 minutes?
One of my former colleagues failed to pass his interview after his company was acquihired by Google. He had designed and contributed a decent portion of the core of the product. One of his projects for the company had about 50 stars on github.
n=1
Re: Api.ai is joining Google
#77Google acquired APIgee and now API.AI. Why Google is so interested in API's now?
Re: Api.ai is joining Google
#78Congratulations to the api.ai team. Unrelated to the acquisition directly, but fantastic logo placement. I can't be the only person that looks for their color-changing sign every time I drive down the 101. Awesome advertising / growth hack. :)
Where in 101?
Re: Api.ai is joining Google
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Working at a startup "for the money" is like playing the lottery, you may hit it big, but a lot of startups just crash and burn. In the meantime you're making a lot less than someone working at a large company. You could take the $50K/yr pay difference and buy lottery tickets with that.
You are right but it's not like the startup is not paying you anything. So it's not exactly the same odds of a lottery. Most startups pay from 100-125k and Google is not that far off from that range.
The gap in base-pay+bonus is usually like 20-30%, plus there's the fact that you're getting stock you can actually sell on top of that.
Re: Api.ai is joining Google
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you mean discovery as in me figuring out which bots would I like to install from a "bots store"? If so, I think Apple's approach in iMessage widgets is fantastic: If you send third-party content to a person that doesn't have the plugin installed, they'll also get a link to install it. So it boosts word-of-mouth.
I could have been clearer because you're right that it's ambiguous. My sense of discovery was meant in the UI sort of respect. When a feature is hidden from the user, that feature might as well not exist. Bots (and command lines, for that matter) are awful unless you know exactly what they're capable of. There is an extrinsic knowledge you need. That is, you can't expect a bot to know whatever you throw at it but you…
Ah, I agree. Bots need to understand language (within their domain) very broadly to be able and overcome that.