5 ms·

Overly rosy take on big tech. I’ll use Google as example. Their execs are in full panic right now over OpenGPT. What was last major innovation at Google.. chro

Overly rosy take on big tech. I’ll use Google as example. Their execs are in full panic right now over OpenGPT. What was last major innovation at Google.. chrome? 20% of company drives profits while 80% is a decorated R&D lab chock full of benefits, upset about cutbacks in their free oatmilk lattes, even though they’re not coming to office anyway. these guys will double their attrition targets if not have full blown layoffs. ads drives their profits, but search has been in decline for years now. google right now is a bloated bureaucratic whale that needs to hit the gym and get in shape. Step 1 is to get off the damn couch.

goldenchrome 4y ago
You underestimate the staying power of monopolies.
- birdymcbird 4y ago
  No, but i think you do have a point. Googles board and company execs had convinced themselves they’re an untouchable money printing machine. This year, they’ve been violently woken up.
  - goldenchrome 4y ago
    They have tens of thousands of top engineers, billions in the bank, half a dozen products used by over a billion people and their main product is ads for people who use the internet. Companies always face existential threats but as far as moats go, Google has one a mile wide. Their downfall will be slow and obvious and even after their decline in cultural relevance they’ll still churn out billions of dollars a year.
- fzzzy 4y ago
  Like AOL and MySpace?
  - goldenchrome 4y ago
    No, like Exxon and IBM.
dimator 4y ago
Why are they in a panic over ChatGpt? Don't they have similar research and tech around these AI systems?
- birdymcbird 4y ago
  80% of their revenue comes from ads, which is google search. Chatgpt and any other startup who invests in something like chatgpt can upend googles core business model. and no, google doesn’t have anything significant in this space. “Innovation” behind search was to slowly increase no. if paid ads in your results, driven by need to increase revenue and keep the rest of the 80% of biz afloat.
  - screye 4y ago
    > and no, google doesn’t have anything significant in this space LAMBDA and PaLM are literally the answer to Chat-GPT. Google is their closest competitor. I do agree that they will lose their moat, and soon Google search will just be another tool among many.
    - lossolo 4y ago
      And Google developed LaMDA model (superior to chatGPT) a lot of time before OpenAI, additionally without their research into transformers and publishing results, OpenAI would probably not even have ChatGPT now/yet.
- shubb 4y ago
  Something I find very curious - Google are doing the same kind of research and are in many ways futher along. They have thier own models like T5 that supposedly perform better. Are their exec unaware of their own strengths? For that matter, wasn't Google collecting masses of GIS data and doing intense self driving car research? Where is that product? Serious q - do google have so much money that they are doing tons of research and then just forgetting to make a product out of it?
  - csande17 4y ago
mjr00 4y ago
> What was last major innovation at Google.. chrome? 20% of company drives profits while 80% is a decorated R&D lab chock full of benefits, upset about cutbacks in their free oatmilk lattes, even though they’re not coming to office anyway. This has been a major part of the FAANG strategy: crush competition by giving people who might work for or become potential competitors an offer they can't refuse. 80% of the company ostensibly produces minimal value, but the real reason you're giving them huge compensation and oat milk lattes is to make sure they don't work for, or found, a Google competitor at some point in the future. This has led to a perpetual feedback loop: FAANG company gives their engineers big stock grants, which ensures no competition in their markets, which increases the value of their stock due to no competition, which allows them to hire more engineers with big stock grants, etc... We're suddenly entering an era where FAANG stocks aren't continually moving upward. This is largely unprecedented territory; these companies have never experienced an extended downturn since this became the industry hiring strategy. If the recession continues through 2023, I would not be surprised to see these companies abandon this strategy and only retain necessary talent. Would not be surprised to see 50%, even 75% staff cuts at Goog and Meta specifically.
- spamizbad 4y ago
  I wonder, once talent hoarding ends, if we’re going to see a bunch of new companies hit the scene in 5 years?
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y ago
    Depends on how well those laid off have saved.
FormerBandmate 4y ago
What is ChatGPT’s actual competitive advantage over search? It can’t tell you the second largest country in South America correctly, it’s an extremely cool demo but I can’t think of anything it could replace Google for. The underlying technology is extremely powerful, but it’s been powering Google for years
- alar44 4y ago
  First try: The second largest country in South America is Argentina. It has a land area of about 2.8 million square kilometers (1.1 million square miles). Argentina is located in the southern part of South America and is bordered by Chile to the west, Bolivia and Paraguay to the north, Brazil to the northeast, Uruguay and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south. The country has a diverse landscape, ranging from the Andes mountain range in the west to the Pampas grasslands in the center, and the subtropical rainforests in the northeast. The capital of Argentina is Buenos Aires, which is known for its rich cultural heritage, vibrant nightlife, and tango music and dance.
  - FormerBandmate 4y ago
    By population it’s Colombia, by land it’s Peru
    - CoreyFieldens 4y ago
      From google, the total area of South American countries: 1. Brazil: 3,287,957 sq miles 2. Argentina: 1,073,518 sq miles 3. Peru: 496,225 sq miles
    - alar44 4y ago
      Lol. The irony is delicious. Largest is size, populous is population. "On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." "
    - 4y ago
browningstreet 4y ago
How do you know Google execs are in full panic over OpenGPT?
- olliej 4y ago
  someone on the internet said they were :D (there was some article on HN the other day. Personally I suspect this is just standard over exaggeration by reporters dependent on page views)
shubhamkrm 4y ago
> What was last major innovation at Google.. chrome? 20% of company drives profits while 80% is a decorated R&D lab chock full of benefits, upset about cutbacks in their free oatmilk lattes, even though they're not coming to office anyway. Transformers were invented at Google, which is the underlying tech on which GPT is built. I would say that counts as innovation. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformer_(machine_learning_model) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformer_(machine_learnin...
- birdymcbird 4y ago
  This misses the point. Google has done interesting stuff. Ideas, research papers, R&D in AI, Glass, Stadia, leading in all kinds of niches… Google Docs with real time collab editing for example. I’m not arguing against that, and to respond on that thread is a straw man. But they can experiment all day and come up with all kinds of cool stuff but at end of day you need to monetize and make money. Not grow endless headcount, not build more and more empires of a professional managerial class who care little about actual value and more about their fiefdoms and promotions. To make money, Google depends entirely on X and unless they quickly course correct, they risk massive disruption to their biz. Google lost their way. The culture stagnated into one of corporate bureaucracy, red tape, and employees feeling persecuted because the contractor responsible for chocolate crepes on Thursday didn’t show up one week. They have to start getting in shape. There’s no way around it. Yeah they’ve entrenched themselves but unless they change it will be a slow painful decline. Focus on a few things and do them extremely well instead of 50 different things that ultimately go nowhere. And figure out how to get off the ads lifeline
  - inthepipe 4y ago
    [dead]
VirusNewbie 4y ago
After july, the vast majority of new reqs are going to GCP and Android, two places that aren’t ads that have pretty strong revenues. I think the G has finally decided to put more wood behind fewer arrows.
barbariangrunge 4y ago
> What was last major innovation at Google.. chrome? There’s alphago and alpha star etc. What about Waymo (splitting the company into pieces doesn’t make it a different company)? Since chrome they have made a lot of hardware too. Not to mention the dead attempts at innovation which didn’t pan out like stadia

goldenchrome 4y ago

You underestimate the staying power of monopolies.

birdymcbird 4y ago
No, but i think you do have a point. Googles board and company execs had convinced themselves they’re an untouchable money printing machine. This year, they’ve been violently woken up.
- goldenchrome 4y ago
  They have tens of thousands of top engineers, billions in the bank, half a dozen products used by over a billion people and their main product is ads for people who use the internet. Companies always face existential threats but as far as moats go, Google has one a mile wide. Their downfall will be slow and obvious and even after their decline in cultural relevance they’ll still churn out billions of dollars a year.
fzzzy 4y ago
Like AOL and MySpace?
- goldenchrome 4y ago
  No, like Exxon and IBM.

dimator 4y ago

Why are they in a panic over ChatGpt? Don't they have similar research and tech around these AI systems?

birdymcbird 4y ago
80% of their revenue comes from ads, which is google search. Chatgpt and any other startup who invests in something like chatgpt can upend googles core business model. and no, google doesn’t have anything significant in this space. “Innovation” behind search was to slowly increase no. if paid ads in your results, driven by need to increase revenue and keep the rest of the 80% of biz afloat.
- screye 4y ago
  > and no, google doesn’t have anything significant in this space LAMBDA and PaLM are literally the answer to Chat-GPT. Google is their closest competitor. I do agree that they will lose their moat, and soon Google search will just be another tool among many.
  - lossolo 4y ago
    And Google developed LaMDA model (superior to chatGPT) a lot of time before OpenAI, additionally without their research into transformers and publishing results, OpenAI would probably not even have ChatGPT now/yet.
shubb 4y ago
Something I find very curious - Google are doing the same kind of research and are in many ways futher along. They have thier own models like T5 that supposedly perform better. Are their exec unaware of their own strengths? For that matter, wasn't Google collecting masses of GIS data and doing intense self driving car research? Where is that product? Serious q - do google have so much money that they are doing tons of research and then just forgetting to make a product out of it?
- csande17 4y ago

mjr00 4y ago

> What was last major innovation at Google.. chrome? 20% of company drives profits while 80% is a decorated R&D lab chock full of benefits, upset about cutbacks in their free oatmilk lattes, even though they’re not coming to office anyway. This has been a major part of the FAANG strategy: crush competition by giving people who might work for or become potential competitors an offer they can't refuse. 80% of the company ostensibly produces minimal value, but the real reason you're giving them huge compensation and oat milk lattes is to make sure they don't work for, or found, a Google competitor at some point in the future. This has led to a perpetual feedback loop: FAANG company gives their engineers big stock grants, which ensures no competition in their markets, which increases the value of their stock due to no competition, which allows them to hire more engineers with big stock grants, etc... We're suddenly entering an era where FAANG stocks aren't continually moving upward. This is largely unprecedented territory; these companies have never experienced an extended downturn since this became the industry hiring strategy. If the recession continues through 2023, I would not be surprised to see these companies abandon this strategy and only retain necessary talent. Would not be surprised to see 50%, even 75% staff cuts at Goog and Meta specifically.

spamizbad 4y ago
I wonder, once talent hoarding ends, if we’re going to see a bunch of new companies hit the scene in 5 years?
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y ago
  Depends on how well those laid off have saved.

FormerBandmate 4y ago

What is ChatGPT’s actual competitive advantage over search? It can’t tell you the second largest country in South America correctly, it’s an extremely cool demo but I can’t think of anything it could replace Google for. The underlying technology is extremely powerful, but it’s been powering Google for years

alar44 4y ago
First try: The second largest country in South America is Argentina. It has a land area of about 2.8 million square kilometers (1.1 million square miles). Argentina is located in the southern part of South America and is bordered by Chile to the west, Bolivia and Paraguay to the north, Brazil to the northeast, Uruguay and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south. The country has a diverse landscape, ranging from the Andes mountain range in the west to the Pampas grasslands in the center, and the subtropical rainforests in the northeast. The capital of Argentina is Buenos Aires, which is known for its rich cultural heritage, vibrant nightlife, and tango music and dance.
- FormerBandmate 4y ago
  By population it’s Colombia, by land it’s Peru
  - CoreyFieldens 4y ago
    From google, the total area of South American countries: 1. Brazil: 3,287,957 sq miles 2. Argentina: 1,073,518 sq miles 3. Peru: 496,225 sq miles
  - alar44 4y ago
    Lol. The irony is delicious. Largest is size, populous is population. "On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." "
  - 4y ago

browningstreet 4y ago

How do you know Google execs are in full panic over OpenGPT?

olliej 4y ago
someone on the internet said they were :D (there was some article on HN the other day. Personally I suspect this is just standard over exaggeration by reporters dependent on page views)

shubhamkrm 4y ago

> What was last major innovation at Google.. chrome? 20% of company drives profits while 80% is a decorated R&D lab chock full of benefits, upset about cutbacks in their free oatmilk lattes, even though they're not coming to office anyway. Transformers were invented at Google, which is the underlying tech on which GPT is built. I would say that counts as innovation. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformer_(machine_learning_model) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformer_(machine_learnin...

birdymcbird 4y ago
This misses the point. Google has done interesting stuff. Ideas, research papers, R&D in AI, Glass, Stadia, leading in all kinds of niches… Google Docs with real time collab editing for example. I’m not arguing against that, and to respond on that thread is a straw man. But they can experiment all day and come up with all kinds of cool stuff but at end of day you need to monetize and make money. Not grow endless headcount, not build more and more empires of a professional managerial class who care little about actual value and more about their fiefdoms and promotions. To make money, Google depends entirely on X and unless they quickly course correct, they risk massive disruption to their biz. Google lost their way. The culture stagnated into one of corporate bureaucracy, red tape, and employees feeling persecuted because the contractor responsible for chocolate crepes on Thursday didn’t show up one week. They have to start getting in shape. There’s no way around it. Yeah they’ve entrenched themselves but unless they change it will be a slow painful decline. Focus on a few things and do them extremely well instead of 50 different things that ultimately go nowhere. And figure out how to get off the ads lifeline
- inthepipe 4y ago
  [dead]

VirusNewbie 4y ago

After july, the vast majority of new reqs are going to GCP and Android, two places that aren’t ads that have pretty strong revenues. I think the G has finally decided to put more wood behind fewer arrows.

barbariangrunge 4y ago

> What was last major innovation at Google.. chrome? There’s alphago and alpha star etc. What about Waymo (splitting the company into pieces doesn’t make it a different company)? Since chrome they have made a lot of hardware too. Not to mention the dead attempts at innovation which didn’t pan out like stadia