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Waymo Layoffs

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Re: Waymo Layoffs

#71

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

TradingPlaces wrote: post #50
rnk wrote: post #3

Is there a conclusion that the taxi service kind of works and just needs to fix a few minor issues around the edges fixed to work in limited city use in many cities, or is it so far away it's not even close?

It definitely works. I was in one just yesterday for over a half hour and it’s a pretty smooth thing, and in some ways better than a human driver (e.g., always yields to pedestrians entering a crosswalk, never exceeds speed limit,etc.) But both Waymo and Cruise lose money on every ride. All the sensors and on-board compute are expensive, and also the R&D, and the 3D maps. Both services rely on detailed 3D maps of the…

>All the sensors and on-board compute are expensive, and also the R&D, and the 3D maps. Both services rely on detailed 3D maps of the areas they service, and are geofenced to that.

I think we need to split this into fixed vs variable costs. It's hard for me to believe that the sensors+compute is more expensive than a human. Those sound like the variable costs. I'd be surprised if selling an additional ride causes e.g. Cruise to lose a bit of money, but I'd love to be corrected.

Re: Waymo Layoffs

#72

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

rr808 wrote: post #38
thinkerswell wrote: post #9

At this point how long before the fed starts to lower rates.

Why would they lower rates? We're back to normal times like the 80s and 90s.

My understanding is that lower rates are good for economic growth, except when they cause inflation. Is that wrong?

Re: Waymo Layoffs

#73

Post by dv_dt »

blamazon wrote: post #23
duxup wrote: post #5

I can’t imagine three layoffs in a year is great for morale. Is there a reason they chose this sort of trickling layoffs approach?

Who needs morale? Fear and uncertainty are effective motivators.

They unleash a lot of undesirable and uncontrollable behaviors in the organization. It’s incompetence and hubris to think otherwise.

Re: Waymo Layoffs

#75

Post by vinay_ys »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #43
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine convinced me this was the FB strategy to get people to resign instead of needing to fire them (a costly, legal.minefield). As a founder, the act of paralizying the company to effectively "bleed the fat off the bone" while cost effective, is insane. Because nothing gets done during those low morale months. I refused to believe this could be a valid strategy. Then I was countered with: this org is alre…

> A friend of mine convinced me this was the FB strategy to get people to resign instead of needing to fire them (a costly, legal.minefield). It's a major pet peeve of mine when people's conspiracy theories don't even make sense even if you accept the theory at face value: 1. If you want to fire people for performance or other reasons, it's true that a great time to do it is during layoffs - there doesn't need to be…

The personal traits required to find a job are different from that to perform well at a particular company & role. That's the sad truth. So, people voluntarily leaving won't be correlated with performance low or high. Also, people who were selected for layoff by management will also not be correlated to low performance well. In fact, in most layoffs, they are planned in closed rooms with only VP+ people who have little context of who does what work well or not, and with flawed performance calibration data. So, you will always be shocked to find that the people /you/ thought were high-performers were let go.

Re: Waymo Layoffs

#77

Post by echelon »

up2isomorphism wrote: post #76

Does it make money? No Does it make you drive your car safely while sleeping ? No Does learn to drive such a hard thing? No Then why do we need this kind of company? I don’t know.

> Then why do we need this kind of company? I don’t know.

Why bother doing anything at all with this attitude?

Let's freeze in place and wait until the sun dies out. I don't know.

To me, Waymo is exciting because it could unlock a next step function of capabilities, patterns, and economics. Everything we take for granted in transportation -- highways, traffic signals, parking, traffic itself -- we could potentially get to reevaluate a lot of previously-held assumptions. The second- and third-order effects could be wild.

Maybe it'll all go bust. It's worth a shot, though. The rewards, if they succeed, will be tremendous.

Re: Waymo Layoffs

#78

Post by EricDeb »

PopePompus wrote: post #66
mjr00 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And with all these restrictions on something as simple as intra-city transport, keep in mind the massive investment in autonomous vehicles 5-10 years ago was toward the ultimate goal of replacing humans in long-haul trucking and related logistics. Even if Waymo could place fully autonomous taxis into every city in America, that consolation prize wouldn't nearly make up for the shortfall of not taking over the logisti…

Why is long-haul a pipe dream now. It seems to me that long-haul is a simpler problem than city driving. Did some insurmountable problem pop up that I haven't heard about?

I have the same question

Re: Waymo Layoffs

#80

Post by swyx »

wigglewoggle wrote: post #74

Not enough numbers to trigger disclosure laws? Previous round was dozens? So we're talking 15 employees?

in TFA:

> Waymo employed around 2,500 employees at the start of the year, according to reports. More than 200 were axed in the two layoff rounds earlier this year, but the number of remaining Waymo staffers following this cut is unclear.

make reasonable assumptions for natural attrition

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