5 ms·

GM is not equipped to build software, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is that GM lacks the basic self awareness to recognize their own limitations. The schaden

by valine 3y ago

GM is not equipped to build software, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is that GM lacks the basic self awareness to recognize their own limitations. The schadenfreude is strong with this one.

bluedino 3y ago
It's sort of funny, I know of two "software engineers" that work at GM (on what exactly, I don't know, but it's embedded). One I worked with at a previous job. He went to a prestigious US military academy for computer science, he worked in our marketing department, and at some point I turned the keys over to our Wordpress site to him. He fucked in up in so many ways and he did so many ass-backwards things... The next guy was an electrical engineer at a previous job, he once had me help him with a GUI for a Python application to flash firmware to a device we made. It was some of the worst production code I had ever seen, it crashed often, had little error checking, I'm not sure how it even worked.
- khzw8yyy 3y ago
  My classmate back from Uni is a pretty high up manager working on GM infotainment (as is his dad). He (the classmate) failed and had to retake CS101 three times.
  - NotSammyHagar 3y ago
    That is embarrassing but it doesn't necessarily mean anything. What matters is did they end up a competent software engineer.
    - epistasis 3y ago
      The proof is in the quality of the product they work on, apparently...
    - wffurr 3y ago
      “Pretty high up manager” implies competent careerist, not software engineer. Especially at a company like GM.
    - justrealist 3y ago
      I understand that all heuristics are imperfect but P(good engineer | failed cs 101 multiple times) is so close to 0 it is a rounding error.
osigurdson 3y ago
A lot of companies have a kind of organizational disrespect for coding. I don’t think is is possible to build great software while wishing it didn’t exist.
- technofiend 3y ago
  It's never caught on, but I have jokingly dubbed this management myopia. It's not a perfect analogy but there are seriously people who just assume anything they don't understand must be easy and are unable to see the truth.
  - osigurdson 3y ago
    I think this is sometimes referred to the Dunning–Kruger effect.
paul7986 3y ago
Well they did invest and buy Cruise so they aren't good at vetting technology either.
smt88 3y ago
This new infotainment system was developed by Google. Even with AA or CarPlay, a (usually buggy) manufacturer-built system is running underneath. But generally I agree that GM is absolutely insane and toredoing their company.
panick21_ 3y ago
> GM is not equipped to build software, and that’s okay. No it isn't, the idea that you can be a car company of the future without being able to develop software is crazy. The trend we see from Tesla and China is the exact opposite direction. It goes much deeper just the entertainment system.
arghnoname 3y ago
They hired some Apple people in the past year, so well after it was probably clear internally that this was going badly. Even if the new employees do everything right, I would assume that it will be difficult to graft a software culture into GM's culture. If they legitimately think it is imperative and have buy in and real support from the very top, it's possible, but if they think it's something to tack on it will never work.

by valine 3y ago

GM is not equipped to build software, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is that GM lacks the basic self awareness to recognize their own limitations. The schadenfreude is strong with this one.

bluedino 3y ago

It's sort of funny, I know of two "software engineers" that work at GM (on what exactly, I don't know, but it's embedded). One I worked with at a previous job. He went to a prestigious US military academy for computer science, he worked in our marketing department, and at some point I turned the keys over to our Wordpress site to him. He fucked in up in so many ways and he did so many ass-backwards things... The next guy was an electrical engineer at a previous job, he once had me help him with a GUI for a Python application to flash firmware to a device we made. It was some of the worst production code I had ever seen, it crashed often, had little error checking, I'm not sure how it even worked.

khzw8yyy 3y ago
My classmate back from Uni is a pretty high up manager working on GM infotainment (as is his dad). He (the classmate) failed and had to retake CS101 three times.
- NotSammyHagar 3y ago
  That is embarrassing but it doesn't necessarily mean anything. What matters is did they end up a competent software engineer.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    The proof is in the quality of the product they work on, apparently...
  - wffurr 3y ago
    “Pretty high up manager” implies competent careerist, not software engineer. Especially at a company like GM.
  - justrealist 3y ago
    I understand that all heuristics are imperfect but P(good engineer | failed cs 101 multiple times) is so close to 0 it is a rounding error.

osigurdson 3y ago

A lot of companies have a kind of organizational disrespect for coding. I don’t think is is possible to build great software while wishing it didn’t exist.

technofiend 3y ago
It's never caught on, but I have jokingly dubbed this management myopia. It's not a perfect analogy but there are seriously people who just assume anything they don't understand must be easy and are unable to see the truth.
- osigurdson 3y ago
  I think this is sometimes referred to the Dunning–Kruger effect.

paul7986 3y ago

Well they did invest and buy Cruise so they aren't good at vetting technology either.

smt88 3y ago

This new infotainment system was developed by Google. Even with AA or CarPlay, a (usually buggy) manufacturer-built system is running underneath. But generally I agree that GM is absolutely insane and toredoing their company.

panick21_ 3y ago

> GM is not equipped to build software, and that’s okay. No it isn't, the idea that you can be a car company of the future without being able to develop software is crazy. The trend we see from Tesla and China is the exact opposite direction. It goes much deeper just the entertainment system.

arghnoname 3y ago

They hired some Apple people in the past year, so well after it was probably clear internally that this was going badly. Even if the new employees do everything right, I would assume that it will be difficult to graft a software culture into GM's culture. If they legitimately think it is imperative and have buy in and real support from the very top, it's possible, but if they think it's something to tack on it will never work.