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Meta Spends $14B to Hire a Single Guy

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Re: Meta Spends $14B to Hire a Single Guy

#2
I guess OpenAI got a good deal at 6.5b for Jony Ive.

>Supposedly, Llama 4 did perform well on benchmarks, but the user experience was so bad that people have accused Meta of cooking the books.

This is one of those things that I've noticed. I don't understand the benchmarks, and my usage certainly isn't going to be wide ranging as benchmarks, but I hear "OMG this AI and benchmarks" and then I go use it and it's not any different for me ... or I get the usual wrong answers to things I've gotten wrong answers to before, and I shrug.

Re: Meta Spends $14B to Hire a Single Guy

#3
post #2

I guess OpenAI got a good deal at 6.5b for Jony Ive. >Supposedly, Llama 4 did perform well on benchmarks, but the user experience was so bad that people have accused Meta of cooking the books. This is one of those things that I've noticed. I don't understand the benchmarks, and my usage certainly isn't going to be wide ranging as benchmarks, but I hear "OMG this AI and benchmarks" and then I go use it and it's not an…

I think there's basically the benchmarks, and then "the benchmarks". The former is, like, actual stuff you can quantify and game. And the latter is the public response. The former is a leading indicator but it's not always accurate, and the latter is what actually matters. I knew Gemini 2.5 was better than Claude 3.7 based on the Reddit reaction lol

Re: Meta Spends $14B to Hire a Single Guy

#4
The last two paragraphs sure contorted my face into an…interesting expression.

I’m confused at how Zuck has proven himself to be a particularly dynamic and capable CEO compared to peers. Facebook hasn’t had new product success outside of acquisitions in at least a decade. The fact that a newcomer like TikTok came and ate Instagram’s lunch is downright embarrassing. Meta Quest is a cash-bleeding joke of a side quest that Zuck thought justified changing the name of the company.

The kind of customer trustworthiness gap between Meta and competitors like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon is astounding, and I would consider it a major failure by Meta’s management that was entirely preventable. [1]

Microsoft runs their own social network (LinkedIn) and Google reads all your email and searches and they are somehow trusted more than twice as much as Meta. This trust gap actively prevents Meta from launching new products in areas that require trustworthiness.

Personally I don’t think Meta is spending $14B to hire a single guy, they’re spending $14B in hopes of having a stake in some other company that can make a successful new product - because by now they know that they can’t have success on their own.

[1] https://allaboutcookies.org/big-tech-trust

Re: Meta Spends $14B to Hire a Single Guy

#5
post #2

I guess OpenAI got a good deal at 6.5b for Jony Ive. >Supposedly, Llama 4 did perform well on benchmarks, but the user experience was so bad that people have accused Meta of cooking the books. This is one of those things that I've noticed. I don't understand the benchmarks, and my usage certainly isn't going to be wide ranging as benchmarks, but I hear "OMG this AI and benchmarks" and then I go use it and it's not an…

In retrospect it’s quite amazing how Jony Ive managed to make a superstar career out of almost directory copying Dieter Rams all the time.

I can’t imagine what kind of value he could bring to OpenAI.

The dude ruined Apple laptops for 5 years, he really should be an industry castaway.

Re: Meta Spends $14B to Hire a Single Guy

#7
post #3
post #2

I guess OpenAI got a good deal at 6.5b for Jony Ive. >Supposedly, Llama 4 did perform well on benchmarks, but the user experience was so bad that people have accused Meta of cooking the books. This is one of those things that I've noticed. I don't understand the benchmarks, and my usage certainly isn't going to be wide ranging as benchmarks, but I hear "OMG this AI and benchmarks" and then I go use it and it's not an…

I think there's basically the benchmarks, and then "the benchmarks". The former is, like, actual stuff you can quantify and game. And the latter is the public response. The former is a leading indicator but it's not always accurate, and the latter is what actually matters. I knew Gemini 2.5 was better than Claude 3.7 based on the Reddit reaction lol

[deleted]

Re: Meta Spends $14B to Hire a Single Guy

#8
post #5
post #2

I guess OpenAI got a good deal at 6.5b for Jony Ive. >Supposedly, Llama 4 did perform well on benchmarks, but the user experience was so bad that people have accused Meta of cooking the books. This is one of those things that I've noticed. I don't understand the benchmarks, and my usage certainly isn't going to be wide ranging as benchmarks, but I hear "OMG this AI and benchmarks" and then I go use it and it's not an…

In retrospect it’s quite amazing how Jony Ive managed to make a superstar career out of almost directory copying Dieter Rams all the time. I can’t imagine what kind of value he could bring to OpenAI. The dude ruined Apple laptops for 5 years, he really should be an industry castaway.

Not just hardware, he ruined UI design as well. Everything iOS 7+ (which hasleaked into macOS) is basically his doing, or at least had to be approved by him. Trading Scott Forstall for Johnny Ive was probably the the biggest blunder that Cook made, which put Apple on its current trajectory in terms of software & ui decline.

Re: Meta Spends $14B to Hire a Single Guy

#9
post #4

The last two paragraphs sure contorted my face into an…interesting expression. I’m confused at how Zuck has proven himself to be a particularly dynamic and capable CEO compared to peers. Facebook hasn’t had new product success outside of acquisitions in at least a decade. The fact that a newcomer like TikTok came and ate Instagram’s lunch is downright embarrassing. Meta Quest is a cash-bleeding joke of a side quest t…

Facebook hasn’t had new product success outside of acquisitions in at least a decade.

You don't need a 'new trick' when the main business is so frigging profitable and scalable. There is this myth that companies need to keep innovating. At a certain point, when the competition is so weak, you don't.

Tobacco stocks have been among the best investment over the past century even though the product never changed. Or Walmart--it's the same type of store, but scaled huge.

The fact that a newcomer like TikTok came and ate Instagram’s lunch is downright embarrassing.

Not really. Instagram is more popular than ever and much more profitable. It's not all or nothing .Both sites can coexist and thrive, like Pepsi and Coca-Cola.

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