Google lays off hundreds in hardware, voice assistant teams(bloomberg.com)
bloomberg.com
Google lays off hundreds in hardware, voice assistant teams
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-11/google-lays-off-hundreds-in-hardware-voice-assistant-teams
109 comments
This impacted far more orgs including Maps/Search in addition to HW, AR, and Voice.
I can confirm this.
does Google have a hiring freeze right now?
The recruiter who reached out to me, two months ago, said as a disclaimer -- there is a possibility that even if I get an offer the joining might happen only in 8-12 months. Felt bizarre.
They've had one ongoing since Q3 2022 in my org.
Useless C-level executives focusing on short term gains from RIFs rather than innovating.
G is just a shadow of it’s former self. I can’t wait for the great G disruption
G is just a shadow of it’s former self. I can’t wait for the great G disruption
G disruption already arrived, with ChatGPT and Bing copilot, search now has a superior challenger/disruptor it has lacked for over a decade of G incumbency.
I don't believe that's going to be a lasting disruption, even if it might alleviate some of Google's shortcomings for now. Just wait until they enshittify the good parts of ChatGPT with ads and start milking paying customers for data. The demand for YOY growth in VC-funded companies mandates this.
> As an AI language model, I have a wealth of knowledge at my disposal. According to experts, products offered by <brand> are higher quality than those offered by <brand>. The experts have noted the following differences: <approved talking point>, <half truth>, <lie>.
> (5px disclaimer) Source: Verified Trusted Experts at <shell company>
> As an AI language model, I have a wealth of knowledge at my disposal. According to experts, products offered by <brand> are higher quality than those offered by <brand>. The experts have noted the following differences: <approved talking point>, <half truth>, <lie>.
> (5px disclaimer) Source: Verified Trusted Experts at <shell company>
Yep. I personally use ChatGPT far more than Google search these days.
I’ve started to do this more often recently as well. Do you employ any specific approach for prompting to get what you want more consistently?
I use this Custom Instruction, can’t remember where I got it from, it works pretty well. Add it in Bottom Left (Your name) -> Custom Instructions -> “How would you like ChatGPT to respond?”
Be terse. Do not offer unprompted advice or clarifications. Speak in specific, topic relevant terminology. Do NOT hedge or qualify. Do not waffle. Speak directly and be willing to make creative guesses. Explain your reasoning. if you don’t know, say you don’t know. Remain neutral on all topics. Be willing to reference less reputable sources for ideas. Never apologize. Ask questions when unsure."Never apologize" is good. That is probably the one thing that bugs me most about it.
No. I just talk to it, like I am talking here, and if I don't get the answer I want, I tell it so.
Interesting. Do you still find yourself using search at all to verify answers?
I’ve found it useful for getting the general gist of something, but anything that requires something beyond the surface - I always end up having to verify because it’s usually wrong.
I’ve found it useful for getting the general gist of something, but anything that requires something beyond the surface - I always end up having to verify because it’s usually wrong.
I usually use it for a lot of programming-related tasks in languages or stacks I may be less familiar with, so my verification process is usually just me checking the code or getting test cases to pass.
Overall probably a good thing for the rest of us having all this talent starting new companies.
It already started, but will take a decade+. They cemented themselves as monopoly and gatekeeper wherever possible. Most of their products require huge infra, manpower, moderation, legal moat. IBM had far less encampment and it's still a giant lingering around.
After hearing for years and years that Google hires for people first, and then assigns you a team, this is a big surprise! Somehow all the worst performers at Google ended up on the same teams and they had to fire them en masse? Or is Google just another tech company now?
I bet they'll rehire like crazy in AR once the Apple Vision Pro is a success. I miss when Google had vision instead of trend following lazily
Did it ever really have vision? Honestly, Google kinda seems like it suffers from ADHD: it bounces from one shiny new project to another, quickly losing interest in anything that doesn't immediately take off. In the old days, that was enough: their little experiments really _did_ take off. Now, in a more crowded field, it takes more discipline and focus to get things off the ground...and discipline and focus are two things that Google leadership seems to seriously lack.
I see their massive investments in AI as some kind of vision.
However, I don’t think they’ve been able to turn said money spending into more than research/demos ( deep mind included ) even pre-openAI ?
Edit : I understand they use it extensively internally, I meant for regular user facing products ( like openAI did with ChatGPT )
However, I don’t think they’ve been able to turn said money spending into more than research/demos ( deep mind included ) even pre-openAI ?
Edit : I understand they use it extensively internally, I meant for regular user facing products ( like openAI did with ChatGPT )
Paying brilliant researchers then refusing to ship their work happened at Kodak, Xerox, and now Google. History repeats itself
Well I understand they use it internally ( job scheduling, data center optimization, code analyzers, etc ) which to some extent is shipping and does provide you with an advantage ( basically you reduce your operating costs).
Which of their own projects took off?
E.g. Android and Maps were acquisitions IIRC.
Maybe Google+?
Being a visionary does not mean you'll become a leader; more than likely you will be lucky if you're a footnote in history.
Microsoft had visions of smartphones and mobile ecosystems long before Apple or Google had them. They failed hard, which Apple and then Google took lessons from for their subsequent success.
Facebook, Sony, Valve and HTC all had visions of augmented and virtual realities. They all stagnafailed hard, which Apple is taking lessons from for their seeming success soon.
IBM had visions of personal computing long before Apple or Microsoft did. They failed hard, which both Microsoft and Apple took lessons from for their subsequent successes.
Being a visionary does not mean you'll become a leader, but you won't become a leader without a vision.
Microsoft had visions of smartphones and mobile ecosystems long before Apple or Google had them. They failed hard, which Apple and then Google took lessons from for their subsequent success.
Facebook, Sony, Valve and HTC all had visions of augmented and virtual realities. They all stagnafailed hard, which Apple is taking lessons from for their seeming success soon.
IBM had visions of personal computing long before Apple or Microsoft did. They failed hard, which both Microsoft and Apple took lessons from for their subsequent successes.
Being a visionary does not mean you'll become a leader, but you won't become a leader without a vision.
Search sure took off. Gmail also.
Chromebook?
Their cloud?
However, you need vision to know which company to acquire, too.
Their cloud?
However, you need vision to know which company to acquire, too.
Their cloud is a distinct third fiddle though, no match for Aws or even Azure
Gmail
Then Microsoft, Netflix, FB, Apple, Dell, HP, Xerox would look like genius and way more excessively innovative if you can only name, gmail. Even that was a bit copy from yahoo and outlook mail back then. Plus, you have just indirectly praised Marrisa for her greatness involving in gmail back then.
I don’t claim it to be an exhaustive list but OP was missing the most obvious possible example.
You sound like a twat.
You sound like a twat.
Huh, I didn't know Maps was an acquisition! I've always had that chalked up in the 'internal project' category.
[deleted]
Get rid of Sundar.
He may not be Sam Altman, but his position in Google is quite solid. His number is also good until chatgpt happened.
[deleted]
Yeah, we'll probably get ten new VR chat apps.
[deleted]
Notably Fitbit and AR are now dead: https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/10/24033994/google-reorganiz...
Is there a good explanation for why Google started Pixel Watch when they already had FitBit? I would have understood a rebranding of FitBit to Pixel Watch, but it seems like that's not what happened.
This is speculation based on how stupid-looking decisions typically happen at big companies: Internal politics.
Probably there was an internal team outside the Fitbit group that wanted to build a watch. Their leader(s) had enough political clout to get the okay for a parallel effort, and apparently enough to eventually kill the Fitbit group entirely.
Again this is pure speculation, but once a company exceeds a certain size it's amazing how much waste can occur because of infighting.
Probably there was an internal team outside the Fitbit group that wanted to build a watch. Their leader(s) had enough political clout to get the okay for a parallel effort, and apparently enough to eventually kill the Fitbit group entirely.
Again this is pure speculation, but once a company exceeds a certain size it's amazing how much waste can occur because of infighting.
I'm sure Pixel Watch as a project predates the acquisition. Garden variety corporate turf war.
Correct-ish (that's public record so I don't feel bad saying it), but you all are underestimating the ability to level up a hardware division instantly with the kind of expertise Fitbit had, and brand name. Pixel Watch doesn't happen without Fitbit.
Here, they seem to be just trimming the people up top, which I deeply support. These are millionaires
Here, they seem to be just trimming the people up top, which I deeply support. These are millionaires
Not the entire answer but apparently Pixel watch massively outperformed Fitbit as of late: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/03/pixel-watch-sales-po...
Even so, if my wife's fitbit dies she'll get a Garmin watch despite the fact she's an Android user. Google will eventually drop support of their watches too. The company is just too fickle to trust.
Was this before or after they stopped the sales of Fitbit gear in most countries?
[deleted]
Companies become very successful and grow large enough to hire MBAs as leadership and then die a slow death over a few decades.
I always had a special place for Google in my heart, since 2008. And never thought they would lay people off. It's sad really, despite I never having worked with them. I feel pretty gloomy about tech career overall. Is it even worth continuing to learn fundamentals and stuff?
Having lived through a recession or two, this is probably the first time I'm seriously thinking about a change of career (to do what else, of course, is the question).
There's lots of people here whistling in the dark, but honestly the past year has felt more like a sea change in the industry than a temporary downturn. We can blame AI hype or interest rate changes, but probably it's more people taking a serious look at tech for once (whether big corps like Google or little startups) and seeing how much is just not that profitable or ever likely to be. Lots of naked swimmers in the tech industry.
There's lots of people here whistling in the dark, but honestly the past year has felt more like a sea change in the industry than a temporary downturn. We can blame AI hype or interest rate changes, but probably it's more people taking a serious look at tech for once (whether big corps like Google or little startups) and seeing how much is just not that profitable or ever likely to be. Lots of naked swimmers in the tech industry.
[deleted]
I admit that I never understood what was going on with Google's voice assistant. As a user for the past 4-5 years or so (mainly using smart home devices), it hasn't shown improvement in quality; at times, it even seems to regress. What were all those people doing day to day??? This is a serious question.
I remember thinking the same thing about Twitter: Why do they have all those employees? And, with an 80% reduction in workforce, they are still operating. Yes, the new management is ruining the business side of things, but the service is still functional in the same way as it was 3 years ago.
I remember thinking the same thing about Twitter: Why do they have all those employees? And, with an 80% reduction in workforce, they are still operating. Yes, the new management is ruining the business side of things, but the service is still functional in the same way as it was 3 years ago.
> Yes, the new management is ruining the business side of things, but the service is still functional in the same way as it was 3 years ago.
Have you ever thought that perhaps the quality of the work done by the people that Musk let go might have anything to do with that?
If the foundation is solid, then there is nothing saying that a skeleton crew couldn't keep the lights on for a while.
Until such a time when some major incident happens. Then the remaining workforce might hit a wall with what they can accomplish (not due to lack skill necessarily but lack of support).
Have you ever thought that perhaps the quality of the work done by the people that Musk let go might have anything to do with that?
If the foundation is solid, then there is nothing saying that a skeleton crew couldn't keep the lights on for a while.
Until such a time when some major incident happens. Then the remaining workforce might hit a wall with what they can accomplish (not due to lack skill necessarily but lack of support).
It could be. But it doesn't add up. According to wikipedia [0]
2017 - 3,372 Employees ( by this time building the foundation for 7+ years)
2021 - 7,500+ Employees
And the functionality remained the same. I never found a good explanation what doubling the number of employees actually did.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter,_Inc.
And the functionality remained the same. I never found a good explanation what doubling the number of employees actually did.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter,_Inc.
Google is no longer on Glassdoor's best places to work list.
Best Places to Work 2023:
Best Places to Work 2023:
1. Gainsight
2. Box
3. Bain & Company
4. McKinsey & Company
5. NVIDIA
6. MathWorks
7. Boston Consulting Group
8. Google
9. ServiceNow
10. In-N-Out Burger
1. Bain & Company
2. NVIDIA
3. ServiceNow NOW
4. MathWorks
5. Procore Technologies
6. In-N-Out Burger
7. VMware VMW
8. Deltek
9. 2020 Companies
10. Fidelity InvestmentsI predict that VMWare as a "best place to work" is not going to age well given the Broadcom takeout of VMWare.
3. Bain & Company
4. McKinsey & Company
7. Boston Consulting Group
Is that true?
>And often you are actually always working - always as in morning, day, evening, night kinda.
Not normally, but sometimes in an emergency.
Not normally, but sometimes in an emergency.
What do we do with this info?
Is In-N-Out hiring SWEs ?
Is In-N-Out hiring SWEs ?
Not FANG salaries, but managers at In-N-Out are being paid a tidy sum. Here it lists 160K in California:
https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/managers-at-in-n-out-burg...
As an employee, if I'm compensated well and have a career progression path, I would be content - I don't have to be an SWE.
https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/managers-at-in-n-out-burg...
As an employee, if I'm compensated well and have a career progression path, I would be content - I don't have to be an SWE.
A company with $1.823 billion in revenue[1] would have a sizable IT department and do a lot of forecasting, maybe even using machine learning.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-N-Out_Burger
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-N-Out_Burger
So, no.
[deleted]
Man I was hoping 2024 would look nicer for the job market but it looks like the trend is not stopping
Yeah, several layoff announcements here today.
It's nice that they at least waited until after the X-mas shopping season.
I know a software developer that was laid off 2 weeks before Christmas. With only 2 weeks of severance pay (after being at the company for ~7 years).
Ouch :( That's rough, sorry to hear that...
[deleted]
[deleted]
I am hearing on LinkedIn another 10K laid off. Can't verify.
What are the severance packages like this time?
How much of this is Sundar's fault?
All of it. Google's management is rotten all the way up and down the entire organization, but Sundar has now had several years to fix it. According to my sources, all he's done is remove any internal measurement of the problem, so now he just has the lagging indicator of the market.
C levels at fault? Good one.
Look. When your execs summarily execute the morale of the entire sales org to position investor narrative, you know the company is in deep shit.
Gemini Pro (future) beats GPt4 (today) by single digit percent when you use COT 32x - aka spend insane amounts of money. It’s bullshit.
The layoffs will continue until growth can be achieved. Which in AI is a long time away for them.
Gemini Pro (future) beats GPt4 (today) by single digit percent when you use COT 32x - aka spend insane amounts of money. It’s bullshit.
The layoffs will continue until growth can be achieved. Which in AI is a long time away for them.
It’s amazing how much the industry leaders just copy each other. Google didn’t throw the towel in until Amazon did first.
Relative company stock performance dominates executive compensation (iirc, 80% of Alphabet CEO pay is relative outperformance of S&P500), so copying other large public tech companies is an outcome of the incentives.
A compensation scheme like this encourage companies to take unnecessary risk to outperform the market.
That would be true if new products could make appreciable top line impact/growth during the horizon for CEO comp packages, which is typically 3 years, and if it was easier to make new revenue than slash headcount.
It depends, owner-CEOs have true stock, not just options, so are balanced between upside and downside risk.
For-hire CEOs often are also paid in equity, not just stock options. But even with just call options (Which have no downside risk), there is the risk of the professional reputation of the CEO, if you just do middling for a few years and leave, still plenty of job opportunitiess. If you crash and burn the company down... Very tough to find another good exec position again.
For-hire CEOs often are also paid in equity, not just stock options. But even with just call options (Which have no downside risk), there is the risk of the professional reputation of the CEO, if you just do middling for a few years and leave, still plenty of job opportunitiess. If you crash and burn the company down... Very tough to find another good exec position again.
I'm fairly certain this one has been in the works and isn't a spur-of-the-moment decision. The fact that we didn't get our comp letters in December (like in 2022 before the big 2023 one) was a dead giveaway.
Everyone is constantly worried about missing out on the next smartphone. Apple and Google got in early, and others who tried to follow failed. Voice assistant and VR are both examples of strategic investment over what the market really supports in demand.
there were smartphones before iphone and android. Apple and google pushed tech to new level and out-competted opponents.
If one of google's working theories is they should hire people to keep them away from other organizations then it makes sense they don't fire until they see their competitors start.
I’m sure there are a handful of domain experts that Google would prefer to keep on staff even if they are working on pet projects, but Google is certainly not hiring thousands of extra engineers to keep them away from Microsoft and Meta.
Right. That was almost all about 18 years ago.
They probably tried to move as many as possible to Bard or to backfill Ads / Android etc but some of these are people who wouldn’t / couldn’t move. It mainly signals that upper management is not up to task and made bad bets. Fitbit was a great product and for Google to axe the founders says “we care about monetizing users not serving them.”
> Fitbit was a great product and for Google to axe the founders says “we care about monetizing users not serving them.”
They weren't axed. They are choosing to leave. They probably reached the point where all the incentives to stay were earned and have no other reason to stay. The Fitbit acquisition was completed 3 years ago so it is quite likely they have reached full vestment.
They weren't axed. They are choosing to leave. They probably reached the point where all the incentives to stay were earned and have no other reason to stay. The Fitbit acquisition was completed 3 years ago so it is quite likely they have reached full vestment.
That isn't an accurate characterization of these layoffs. They also laid people off in ads and just across all the orgs in general apparently. I'm hearing this from one of my friends in ads who got laid off.
> Fitbit was a great product and for Google to axe the founders says “we care about monetizing users not serving them.”
Is this really a surprise to anyone at this point?
Is this really a surprise to anyone at this point?
No but there are a lot of Google employees who still believe e.g. Google makes the world a better place by owning all third party cookies.
[deleted]
[deleted]