6 ms·

Sundar Pichai hints at more job cuts at Google

46 points by candiodari 4y ago

diabolique_2 4y ago
[dead]
ngngngng 4y ago
It struck me yesterday that the biggest thing keeping me using Google is no longer there. I'll regularly run into an issue while writing software that I'm "stuck" on, leading me to open dozens and dozens of tabs in a frustrated effort to get unstuck. In the past I would always come back to Google because these issues are much harder to find solutions for on any other search engine. But with GPT-4 it usually only takes me a couple minutes to find a solution. GPT-4 almost never just fixes it for me, but the format of back and forth is so much better than endlessly googling my errors messages. I think I'll switch all my devices off Google today and see how it goes.
- lopezst1 4y ago
  I felt the same way once I started using GPT-4. It can't do everything as well as Google, but so many things are answered with a similar level of accuracy and waaay better user experience. The problem for Google is that even if they can match it with Bard, they'll still be eating into their Google search profits significantly. I just don't see how they get out of this unscathed.
- vagab0nd 4y ago
  I did switch away from Google mostly, and I've been pretty happy. Here's a query I just did with GPT-4 that I wouldn't have imagined doing a few months ago: > Show me the top VR games with the teleportation movement option. > Re-generate the list, but filter on shooters. > Filter again on games available on HTC Vive. I didn't copy its answer here (it's pretty long), but it was very helpful. Definitely better than searching on Google and trying to click through random blog posts.
  - somedude895 4y ago
    I'd really like to see a graph of daily searches on Google YTD.
- b212 4y ago
  Wait, wasn’t Google “query site:stackoverflow.com” search engine long before GPT? Technically you could’ve dropped it years ago for SO internal search + docs. I don’t feel GPT being superior to those still.
- martindbp 4y ago
  I use plenty of Google services: gmail, docs, chrome, Android, YouTube, maps, photos etc. But the problem is that the one I'm most ready to drop is their main money maker, and I'm sure this is true for many others as well.
ftio 4y ago
Want to increase productivity and reduce your cost base? Make everyone come back into the office. You'll attrit a huge number of people naturally, and your people will be more productive when they're working together in the office. Then, reward hard work and good outcomes.
- filoleg 4y ago
  Sounds more like a guide on how to get your high-performers (who have way more outside employment options than your mediocre performers) to leave. Which is rather a strange approach to increasing productivity and output.
- throwbadubadu 4y ago
  Niiice try! (:
- rnk 4y ago
  There's no evidence that working in the office leads to better productivity. There were some reports during covid time that productivity was slightly up, but I think it's unclear. You should reward hard work and get outcomes regardless of where your workers are located.
reducesuffering 4y ago
I think Google will go down in history more as a bellwether for how good a workplace could be for employees (obviously pre ~2015 ish), rather than its products.
- dcchambers 4y ago
  I know it's en vogue to bash Google's products these days, but Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Drive are or were class-leading products. They might not be any more, but at one point they were among the best and definitely had huge impacts on the industry. Search as well, and although it has issues these days, no one else really does it better. You know they shipped a brilliant product when it was so ubiquitous that their name was literally turned into one of the most common verbs in modern language.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    Don't forget Google Maps. It's still class-leading, by a long stretch; nothing comes even close for navigating Tokyo.
    - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
      > It's still class-leading, by a long stretch City Mapper is nicer for all the cities I have tried. Google Maps UX is terrible if you want to use public transports.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - midoridensha 4y ago
        What exactly is the problem with Google Maps UX on public transports? It works amazingly well for me.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
throwaway5959 4y ago
Imagine running a company that's making billions of dollars a quarter and all you and your CFO can offer in terms of growing revenue/profits is laying people off and cutting back on paperclips. Must be nice to have that kind of job security.
- akomtu 4y ago
  In past life Sundar owned a cow farm, and was very good at it.
  - grugagag 4y ago
    I wouldn’t be surprised if Sundar is forced to step down, his tenure at Google wasn’t that great
    - whatever1 4y ago
      I try to remember what great product did Google release since he took over. I fail to find one. Except milking the YouTube and Google search/ads cows that now are increasingly unbearable. YouTube is worse than cable tv with ads every couple of minutes. Google search is polluted with seo optimized results. Ads are pushing plain scam companies without any due diligence. So yes he increased the revenues, by putting the system in overdrive, but failed to release the next big thing. And now that the cash cows are running out of steam I am not sure where Google is going.
- twelve40 4y ago
  Haha he might just be dropping random hints so that people stay on their toes. Pretty dumb, but then again so is the hire->months->fire cycle in the first place.
  - whateveracct 4y ago
    Negative manipulation tactics at scale
- _8j50 4y ago
pelagic_sky 4y ago
Feels like this article is stretching a bit here. But then again, a second round wouldn't surprise me. So I guess it's easy to speculate and throw up an article like this for clicks.
- asdfman123 4y ago
  Absolutely, it’s a stretch. The profit margins aren’t growing as quickly as they’d like, but that shouldn’t be news to anyone watching tech.
Postosuchus 4y ago
What an amazing example of sensationalism and rumor milling! Not a single thing was said about the possibility of a second round of layoffs but hey - the fact Pichai didn't flat out denied it must mean it is in the works!
smarmgoblin 4y ago
TFA doesn’t mention any hints about layoffs, but I suppose the timing is about right relative to an earnings call that it makes sense to predict it soon. Nobody will remember if they’re wrong. (Personally I think they’re right.) At this point it’s clear big tech is outsourcing these decisions to the same set of outside consultants with the short-term goal of stock price bumps (and long-term goal of driving engineer comp down of course).
mikhael28 4y ago
Sundar is not a leader, he is a manager. It's one thing to manage Google's insanely profitable business, and another to lead a (large, diverse) group of people through a corporate rebirth. He's no Satya.
theGnuMe 4y ago
I find the narratives fascinating. Earlier this year everyone was saying Google was right not releasing an AI chat bot because Sydney was so poor for Bing. Then GPT4 came out and everyone shifted to saying Google is late to the party. All of this happened in like the span of two weeks. You can see the comments here on HN as examples. What's interesting is that both of these statements can be true! Google has long had its moonshots and yet Open AI blew them out of the water. Amazing really. Even more crazy is that the LLM tech was invented at Google so they, in retrospect, "squandered" the early opportunity... Why did they? I would read that 'management' book. This really shows you the power of startups and the out of nowhere existential risk even giants face.

46 points by candiodari 4y ago

[dead]

It struck me yesterday that the biggest thing keeping me using Google is no longer there. I'll regularly run into an issue while writing software that I'm "stuck" on, leading me to open dozens and dozens of tabs in a frustrated effort to get unstuck. In the past I would always come back to Google because these issues are much harder to find solutions for on any other search engine. But with GPT-4 it usually only takes me a couple minutes to find a solution. GPT-4 almost never just fixes it for me, but the format of back and forth is so much better than endlessly googling my errors messages. I think I'll switch all my devices off Google today and see how it goes.

lopezst1 4y ago
I felt the same way once I started using GPT-4. It can't do everything as well as Google, but so many things are answered with a similar level of accuracy and waaay better user experience. The problem for Google is that even if they can match it with Bard, they'll still be eating into their Google search profits significantly. I just don't see how they get out of this unscathed.
vagab0nd 4y ago
I did switch away from Google mostly, and I've been pretty happy. Here's a query I just did with GPT-4 that I wouldn't have imagined doing a few months ago: > Show me the top VR games with the teleportation movement option. > Re-generate the list, but filter on shooters. > Filter again on games available on HTC Vive. I didn't copy its answer here (it's pretty long), but it was very helpful. Definitely better than searching on Google and trying to click through random blog posts.
- somedude895 4y ago
  I'd really like to see a graph of daily searches on Google YTD.
b212 4y ago
Wait, wasn’t Google “query site:stackoverflow.com” search engine long before GPT? Technically you could’ve dropped it years ago for SO internal search + docs. I don’t feel GPT being superior to those still.
martindbp 4y ago
I use plenty of Google services: gmail, docs, chrome, Android, YouTube, maps, photos etc. But the problem is that the one I'm most ready to drop is their main money maker, and I'm sure this is true for many others as well.

ftio 4y ago

Want to increase productivity and reduce your cost base? Make everyone come back into the office. You'll attrit a huge number of people naturally, and your people will be more productive when they're working together in the office. Then, reward hard work and good outcomes.

filoleg 4y ago
Sounds more like a guide on how to get your high-performers (who have way more outside employment options than your mediocre performers) to leave. Which is rather a strange approach to increasing productivity and output.
throwbadubadu 4y ago
Niiice try! (:
rnk 4y ago
There's no evidence that working in the office leads to better productivity. There were some reports during covid time that productivity was slightly up, but I think it's unclear. You should reward hard work and get outcomes regardless of where your workers are located.

reducesuffering 4y ago

I think Google will go down in history more as a bellwether for how good a workplace could be for employees (obviously pre ~2015 ish), rather than its products.

dcchambers 4y ago
I know it's en vogue to bash Google's products these days, but Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Drive are or were class-leading products. They might not be any more, but at one point they were among the best and definitely had huge impacts on the industry. Search as well, and although it has issues these days, no one else really does it better. You know they shipped a brilliant product when it was so ubiquitous that their name was literally turned into one of the most common verbs in modern language.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  Don't forget Google Maps. It's still class-leading, by a long stretch; nothing comes even close for navigating Tokyo.
  - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
    > It's still class-leading, by a long stretch City Mapper is nicer for all the cities I have tried. Google Maps UX is terrible if you want to use public transports.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      What exactly is the problem with Google Maps UX on public transports? It works amazingly well for me.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]

throwaway5959 4y ago

Imagine running a company that's making billions of dollars a quarter and all you and your CFO can offer in terms of growing revenue/profits is laying people off and cutting back on paperclips. Must be nice to have that kind of job security.

akomtu 4y ago
In past life Sundar owned a cow farm, and was very good at it.
- grugagag 4y ago
  I wouldn’t be surprised if Sundar is forced to step down, his tenure at Google wasn’t that great
  - whatever1 4y ago
    I try to remember what great product did Google release since he took over. I fail to find one. Except milking the YouTube and Google search/ads cows that now are increasingly unbearable. YouTube is worse than cable tv with ads every couple of minutes. Google search is polluted with seo optimized results. Ads are pushing plain scam companies without any due diligence. So yes he increased the revenues, by putting the system in overdrive, but failed to release the next big thing. And now that the cash cows are running out of steam I am not sure where Google is going.
twelve40 4y ago
Haha he might just be dropping random hints so that people stay on their toes. Pretty dumb, but then again so is the hire->months->fire cycle in the first place.
- whateveracct 4y ago
  Negative manipulation tactics at scale
_8j50 4y ago

pelagic_sky 4y ago

Feels like this article is stretching a bit here. But then again, a second round wouldn't surprise me. So I guess it's easy to speculate and throw up an article like this for clicks.

asdfman123 4y ago
Absolutely, it’s a stretch. The profit margins aren’t growing as quickly as they’d like, but that shouldn’t be news to anyone watching tech.

Postosuchus 4y ago

What an amazing example of sensationalism and rumor milling! Not a single thing was said about the possibility of a second round of layoffs but hey - the fact Pichai didn't flat out denied it must mean it is in the works!

smarmgoblin 4y ago

TFA doesn’t mention any hints about layoffs, but I suppose the timing is about right relative to an earnings call that it makes sense to predict it soon. Nobody will remember if they’re wrong. (Personally I think they’re right.) At this point it’s clear big tech is outsourcing these decisions to the same set of outside consultants with the short-term goal of stock price bumps (and long-term goal of driving engineer comp down of course).

mikhael28 4y ago

Sundar is not a leader, he is a manager. It's one thing to manage Google's insanely profitable business, and another to lead a (large, diverse) group of people through a corporate rebirth. He's no Satya.

theGnuMe 4y ago

I find the narratives fascinating. Earlier this year everyone was saying Google was right not releasing an AI chat bot because Sydney was so poor for Bing. Then GPT4 came out and everyone shifted to saying Google is late to the party. All of this happened in like the span of two weeks. You can see the comments here on HN as examples. What's interesting is that both of these statements can be true! Google has long had its moonshots and yet Open AI blew them out of the water. Amazing really. Even more crazy is that the LLM tech was invented at Google so they, in retrospect, "squandered" the early opportunity... Why did they? I would read that 'management' book. This really shows you the power of startups and the out of nowhere existential risk even giants face.