4 ms·

The truth is that the vast majority of FAANG engineers making high six figures are only good at deterministic work. They cant produce new things, and so meta an

The truth is that the vast majority of FAANG engineers making high six figures are only good at deterministic work. They cant produce new things, and so meta and google are struggling to compete when actual merit matters, and they cant just brute force the solutions. Inside these companies, the massive tech systems built, are actually generally terrible, but they pile on legions of engineers to fix the problems. This is the culture of META hurting them, they are paying "AI VPs" millions of dollars to go to status meetings to get dates for when these models will be done. Meanwhile, deepseek r1 has a flat hierarchy with engineers that actually understand low level computing Its making a mockery of big tech, and is why startups exist. Big company employees rise the ranks by building skill sets other than producing true economic value

kylebyte 1y ago
The problem is less that those high level engineers are only good at deterministic work and more that they're only rewarded for deterministic work. There is no system to pitch an idea as opening new frontiers - all ideas must be able to optimize some number that leadership has already been tricked into believing is important.
jjani 1y ago
> They cant produce new things, and so meta and google are struggling to compete when actual merit matters, and they cant just brute force the solutions. You haven't been keeping up. Less than 2 weeks ago, Google released a model that has crushed the competition, clearly being SotA while currently effectively free for personal use. Gemini 2.0 was already good, people just weren't paying attention. In fact 1.5 pro was already good, and ironically remains the #1 model at certain very specific tasks, despite being set for deprecation in September. Google just suffered from their completely botched initial launch way back when (remember Bard?), rushed before the product was anywhere near ready, making them look lile a bunch of clowns compared to e.g. OpenAI. That left a lasting impression on those who don't devote significant time to keeping up with newer releases.
- codingwagie 1y ago
  gemini 2.5 pro isnt good, and if you think it is, you arent using LLMs correctly. The model gets crushed by o1 pro and sonnet 3.7 thinking. Build a large contextual prompt ( > 50k tokens) with a ton of code, and see how bad it is. I cancelled my gemini subscription
  - lerchmo 1y ago
    https://aider.chat/docs/leaderboards/ https://aider.chat/docs/leaderboards/ your experience doesn't align with my experience or this benchmark. o1 pro is good but I would rather do 20 cycles on gemini 2.5 rather than wait for Pro to return.
  - jjani 1y ago
    I have, dozens of times, and it's generally better than 3.7. Especially with more context it's less forgetful. o1-pro is absurdly expensive and slow, good luck using that with tools. Virtually all benchmarks, including less gamed ones such as Aider's, show the same. WebLM still has 3.7 ahead, with Sonnet always having been particularly strong at web development, but even on there 2.5 Pro is miles in front of any OpenAI model. Gemini subscription? Surely if you're "using LLMs correctly" you'd have been using the APIs for everything anyway. Subscriptions are generally for non-techy consumers. In any case, just straight up saying "it isn't good" is absurd, even if you personally prefer others.
  - int_19h 1y ago
    I have just watched Sonnet 3.7 vs Gemini 2.5 solving the same task (fix a bug end-to-end) side by side, and Sonnet hallucinated far worse and repeatedly got stuck in dead-ends requiring manual rescue. OTOH Gemini understood the problem based on bug description and code from the get go, and required minimal guidance to come up with a decent solution and implement it.
SubiculumCode 1y ago
A whole lot of opinion there, not a whole lot of evidence.
- codingwagie 1y ago
  Evidence is a decade inside these companies, watching the circus
  - danjl 1y ago
    "I'm not bitter! No chip on my shoulder."
    - codingwagie 1y ago
      bitter about what? I'm a long time employee
      - brcmthrowaway 1y ago
        What company?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

kylebyte 1y ago

The problem is less that those high level engineers are only good at deterministic work and more that they're only rewarded for deterministic work. There is no system to pitch an idea as opening new frontiers - all ideas must be able to optimize some number that leadership has already been tricked into believing is important.

jjani 1y ago

> They cant produce new things, and so meta and google are struggling to compete when actual merit matters, and they cant just brute force the solutions. You haven't been keeping up. Less than 2 weeks ago, Google released a model that has crushed the competition, clearly being SotA while currently effectively free for personal use. Gemini 2.0 was already good, people just weren't paying attention. In fact 1.5 pro was already good, and ironically remains the #1 model at certain very specific tasks, despite being set for deprecation in September. Google just suffered from their completely botched initial launch way back when (remember Bard?), rushed before the product was anywhere near ready, making them look lile a bunch of clowns compared to e.g. OpenAI. That left a lasting impression on those who don't devote significant time to keeping up with newer releases.

codingwagie 1y ago
gemini 2.5 pro isnt good, and if you think it is, you arent using LLMs correctly. The model gets crushed by o1 pro and sonnet 3.7 thinking. Build a large contextual prompt ( > 50k tokens) with a ton of code, and see how bad it is. I cancelled my gemini subscription
- lerchmo 1y ago
  https://aider.chat/docs/leaderboards/ https://aider.chat/docs/leaderboards/ your experience doesn't align with my experience or this benchmark. o1 pro is good but I would rather do 20 cycles on gemini 2.5 rather than wait for Pro to return.
- jjani 1y ago
  I have, dozens of times, and it's generally better than 3.7. Especially with more context it's less forgetful. o1-pro is absurdly expensive and slow, good luck using that with tools. Virtually all benchmarks, including less gamed ones such as Aider's, show the same. WebLM still has 3.7 ahead, with Sonnet always having been particularly strong at web development, but even on there 2.5 Pro is miles in front of any OpenAI model. Gemini subscription? Surely if you're "using LLMs correctly" you'd have been using the APIs for everything anyway. Subscriptions are generally for non-techy consumers. In any case, just straight up saying "it isn't good" is absurd, even if you personally prefer others.
- int_19h 1y ago
  I have just watched Sonnet 3.7 vs Gemini 2.5 solving the same task (fix a bug end-to-end) side by side, and Sonnet hallucinated far worse and repeatedly got stuck in dead-ends requiring manual rescue. OTOH Gemini understood the problem based on bug description and code from the get go, and required minimal guidance to come up with a decent solution and implement it.

SubiculumCode 1y ago

A whole lot of opinion there, not a whole lot of evidence.

codingwagie 1y ago
Evidence is a decade inside these companies, watching the circus
- danjl 1y ago
  "I'm not bitter! No chip on my shoulder."
  - codingwagie 1y ago
    bitter about what? I'm a long time employee
    - brcmthrowaway 1y ago
      What company?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]