3 ms·
My very naive opinion is that the best way to predict the big-picture actions of Google is a simple question: WWIitND - What Would IBM in the Nineties Do? In m
by bbor 4y ago
My very naive opinion is that the best way to predict the big-picture actions of Google is a simple question: WWIitND - What Would IBM in the Nineties Do?
In more direct terms, their sole, laser focus seems to be on maintaining short-term shareholder value, and I really don't trust the typical hedge fund manager to approve of any risky OSS moves for a project/tech that they're surely paying a LOT of attention to.
Giving away transformer tech made Google look like "where the smartest people on the planet work", giving away full LLM models now would (IMO) make them look like arrogant and not... well, cutthroat enough. At least this is my take in a world where financial bigwigs don't know or care about OSS at all; hopefully not the case forever!
- omeze 4y agoYes, this reminds me of the story of transistors at IBM, when they had to pick between MOSFETs vs BJTs. MOSFETs were theoretically more scalable and what Intel eventually commercialized to great success. IBM had a lot of the best electrical engineers at the time, but chose to focus on BJTs because they supported their core product, mainframes. MOSFETs could theoretically scale better but without a clear line of sight to a product line or enhancement, they chose not to aggressively pursue MOSFET r&d. It makes sense, even in retrospect, because IBM didnt want to be a chip manufacturer. Google doesn’t want to be an LLM manufacturer. But the benefits of having the industry center on your technical underpinnings are huge, s IBM found out eventually and as Google will, one way or the other. Meta understands this, at least