4 ms·

I don't think that's google's problem. Smart talented people are usually more concerned with things like pace of work, culture, freedom to do what they want to

I don't think that's google's problem. Smart talented people are usually more concerned with things like pace of work, culture, freedom to do what they want to do, impact, etc. Working in a large company is absolutely stifling. Google has all the top talent and was caught flat footed by smaller, nimbler organizations.

paxys 3y ago
Google Brain clearly had the culture over the last decade and a half that resulted in basically 100% of the AI breakthroughs we are seeing today, and all the top minds in the field had no problem working there. What changed in the span of a couple years? Only that the tech became production-ready and the rest of the world took notice, and these researchers and engineers decided that they no longer needed Google's money since there was so much available from everywhere else. This is what directly led to the founding of OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, Adept and probably hundreds of other small to mid sized AI startups. There isn't really anything in terms of cultural or organization changes that Google could have done to prevent this.
- Mechanical9 3y ago
  There have been significant changes in culture and (at least perceived) job stability in the past two years specifically. See the significant layoffs in early 2023 and the surprising and completely unnecessary layoffs that just happened a week ago. Transparency about decision-making is now basically non-existent. The literal only communication from the CEO was that there will be more layoffs. Travel budgets are also non-existent now. All in all, it's still a good job. But it is significantly worse that before, and the trajectory does not seem great.
- kajecounterhack 3y ago
  > There isn't really anything in terms of cultural or organization changes that Google could have done to prevent this. If you're familiar with the political infighting between Brain, Deepmind, and subteams within Brain, you'd know there was a lot of room for improvement. Also Google would benefit from being able to use and build off more open source stuff. Tensorflow losing to Torch for researchers was a pretty big blow imo. Macro cultural trends at Google didn't help either. Stuff like not incentivizing work with longer term payoffs, and too many layers of middle management. > Only that the tech became production-ready and the rest of the world took notice, and these researchers and engineers decided that they no longer needed Google's money since there was so much available from everyone else. All that said this is very true and probably unavoidable.
  - braza 3y ago
    > Tensorflow losing to Torch for researchers was a pretty big blow imo My perception at that time (autumn 2017) was that Tensorflow had the biggest unforced fumble in the modern history in artificial intelligence, not having the vision to make an API aiming the researchers. They made the almost impossible and took down Theano and Torch in less than 2 years and fueled with a lot of money from Google got the ecosystem for at least 2 years. I think they thought like “hey, we won’t the comercial ecosystem, so it’s over; academics and research will follow; even this inflexible and cranky API. If they complain, push Keras to them all”. What happened in reality was, at the time that Facebook made an absolutely wise decision to lift Torch and unite research and a better UX, it just twisted the situation that for me it’s just bonkers to imagine how Google let that happen?
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      > me it’s just bonkers to imagine how Google let that happen? By being blinded by all that sweet ad revenue, meaning everyone's yearly performance review turns out stellar no matter what they do, because so is the company's bottom line.
    - ringofchaos 3y ago
      Temsorflow 2 was their attempt to copy the pytorch experience which was more pythonic. They also lost the frontend framework mindshare with facebook with Angular vs React. As a developer i hardly use anything build by Google. On the other hand Microsoft and Facebook have more tools that developer generally like.
  - moandcompany 3y ago
    Additionally, there were (and still are) many factions and subteams across Brain, Google Research, and Deepmind that now make up today's "Google Deepmind"
- jorblumesea 3y ago
  Brain is more like a research lab, not a consumer products division. I think it's clear that Google had a lot of fundamental and brainpower, but no vision with how to use it other than pure research. I feel like openAI has made more significant impact touching users' lives than google brain ever did. Even if it's building on google's work.
rainyMammoth 3y ago
It's all of those things. To put it simply, Google is not that attractive anymore. They are the IBM of our generation.

paxys 3y ago

Google Brain clearly had the culture over the last decade and a half that resulted in basically 100% of the AI breakthroughs we are seeing today, and all the top minds in the field had no problem working there. What changed in the span of a couple years? Only that the tech became production-ready and the rest of the world took notice, and these researchers and engineers decided that they no longer needed Google's money since there was so much available from everywhere else. This is what directly led to the founding of OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, Adept and probably hundreds of other small to mid sized AI startups. There isn't really anything in terms of cultural or organization changes that Google could have done to prevent this.

Mechanical9 3y ago
There have been significant changes in culture and (at least perceived) job stability in the past two years specifically. See the significant layoffs in early 2023 and the surprising and completely unnecessary layoffs that just happened a week ago. Transparency about decision-making is now basically non-existent. The literal only communication from the CEO was that there will be more layoffs. Travel budgets are also non-existent now. All in all, it's still a good job. But it is significantly worse that before, and the trajectory does not seem great.
kajecounterhack 3y ago
> There isn't really anything in terms of cultural or organization changes that Google could have done to prevent this. If you're familiar with the political infighting between Brain, Deepmind, and subteams within Brain, you'd know there was a lot of room for improvement. Also Google would benefit from being able to use and build off more open source stuff. Tensorflow losing to Torch for researchers was a pretty big blow imo. Macro cultural trends at Google didn't help either. Stuff like not incentivizing work with longer term payoffs, and too many layers of middle management. > Only that the tech became production-ready and the rest of the world took notice, and these researchers and engineers decided that they no longer needed Google's money since there was so much available from everyone else. All that said this is very true and probably unavoidable.
- braza 3y ago
  > Tensorflow losing to Torch for researchers was a pretty big blow imo My perception at that time (autumn 2017) was that Tensorflow had the biggest unforced fumble in the modern history in artificial intelligence, not having the vision to make an API aiming the researchers. They made the almost impossible and took down Theano and Torch in less than 2 years and fueled with a lot of money from Google got the ecosystem for at least 2 years. I think they thought like “hey, we won’t the comercial ecosystem, so it’s over; academics and research will follow; even this inflexible and cranky API. If they complain, push Keras to them all”. What happened in reality was, at the time that Facebook made an absolutely wise decision to lift Torch and unite research and a better UX, it just twisted the situation that for me it’s just bonkers to imagine how Google let that happen?
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    > me it’s just bonkers to imagine how Google let that happen? By being blinded by all that sweet ad revenue, meaning everyone's yearly performance review turns out stellar no matter what they do, because so is the company's bottom line.
  - ringofchaos 3y ago
    Temsorflow 2 was their attempt to copy the pytorch experience which was more pythonic. They also lost the frontend framework mindshare with facebook with Angular vs React. As a developer i hardly use anything build by Google. On the other hand Microsoft and Facebook have more tools that developer generally like.
- moandcompany 3y ago
  Additionally, there were (and still are) many factions and subteams across Brain, Google Research, and Deepmind that now make up today's "Google Deepmind"
jorblumesea 3y ago
Brain is more like a research lab, not a consumer products division. I think it's clear that Google had a lot of fundamental and brainpower, but no vision with how to use it other than pure research. I feel like openAI has made more significant impact touching users' lives than google brain ever did. Even if it's building on google's work.

rainyMammoth 3y ago

It's all of those things. To put it simply, Google is not that attractive anymore. They are the IBM of our generation.