The company’s gone but the assets just got sold to other commercial real estate firms.
Uber was basically only ever software to help people use their own cars so a very small part of their valuation was physical stuff to upkeep, it was just deals and obligations they had.
Not sure how it shakes out for Anthropic and OpenAI. There’s a lot of physical capacity that needs to be built out and can depreciate. But there’s also a lot of network effects and dependencies being built in with enterprise users.
I don’t know how swappable the tooling is either. I think over the long term the UI, model training and documentation, and infrastructure are going to end up being run by different parties and I’m not sure which leg of that chain ends up in a position to skim most of the profit off. My guess is that Apple and Google end up raking in all the money since they control the OS and app stores while the rest of the stack gets driven down to being generic commodities. At least where mass market consumer adoption is concerned.
I guess I'm just not clued into your exotic definition of "survived" if continuing to function doesn't qualify. I tend to go by the dictionary definition.
Chapter 11 is not Chapter 7. Businesses survive chapter 11 bankruptcies all the time. For example, WeWork.
I think it's mixed. I have seen people with really good use cases and the opposite. It feels like the AWS/GCP situation all over again. Step 1: "this is amazing tech we need to leverage it immediately, use it as much as you can" Step 2: "oh shit this is getting expensive and I'm not sure of the ROI". We are approaching step 2
I'm the same way and I've found there's no real way around it. I've found it's actually a really useful way of thinking for complex projects and planning and prioritization, but bad for getting things done. The only things that work for me to manage this:
1. Relentlessly make distractions high friction. Block websites, go to the office if you get distracted at home, etc.
2. Use time-based daily planning instead of goal-based (stuff like pomodoro helps). If I put "create work plan for project Z" on my to-do list, it is ambiguous and I will put it off forever. If I just say "Spend 25 minutes on work plan for project Z, no pressure on outcome/output", I make tons of progress (and often can continue the task for a while)
>interesting. the meds help me in many ways, but often I still need that activation energy to kick things off
Similar problem here. ADHD meds have different thresholds for allievation of ADHD symptoms and for negative effects.
Usually the bigger the dose, the more symptoms allievated, but the higher the chance of side effects.
In my specific case, methylphenidate had too much side effects, but was the one that helped the most with focus/task prioritization/task recall.
Lisdextroamphetamine on the other hand has much less side effects (sweating, emotional detachment), but doesn't help that much with task recall and prioritization. But still helps with anxiety, emotional deregulation (being too emotional, too fast, over non issues and taking long to calm down) and general focus/working memory.
Funny that people talk here about looking at ADHD more like executive function disorder. Because I first came upon that idea in Thomas E. Browns video seminars. And he wrote a book on that in 2005 - Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults.
I actually used material from his book, Outside the Box: Rethinking ADD/ADHD in Children and Adults, to help get diagnosed. I already had one negative diagnosis behind me. And in that book Brown has a lot on clinical requirements for diagnosis) and how research data shows that it's wrong.
He also has books on high functioning ADHD+ASD, like Smart but Stuck and ADHD and Asperger Syndrome in Smart Kids and Adults: Twelve Stories of Struggle, Support, and Treatment. Tho the last two are more about using specific cases as examples of how you don't have to be "stupid" to have ADHD.
Because to quote the first diagnostician, "you sure do have a lot of ADHD symptoms, but I've never seen anybody with ADHD who has such high scores on the iq tests". Too bad that being good at guessing a pattern in a picture doesn't correspond to life success.
this seems a little hyperbolic without knowing details. they probably already cut around 5% every year for performance anyway (their performance reviews probably just came out). i could pretty easily see the rest of the reduction being unprofitable businesses like VR that they don't want to invest in anymore, it might not be due to AI at all
Given facebook/Zuckerberg’s history it’s tough to give them the benefit of the doubt. From day one it’s been ruthless, harmful ambitions and business practices. It is a bad company that does bad things.
They also burn capital at insane rates on projects nobody wants then fire everybody involved (see: the metaverse, the very reason they rebranded to that dumb name)
I can pretty much agree with everything you said in the first line
but for the second, I guess I don't consider that terrible? they make risky bets, pay people tons and tons of money to try them, then if it doesn't work out they shut down the projects and let the people go? that feels like every startup except the employees actually get compensated. if that's driving the extra layoffs, it's hard to feel too bad for people who have probably been paid millions already
who cares? I'm saying the people that take the jobs for the incredibly risky bets (and everyone knows what is risky) understand the tradeoff--if the bet doesn't work their job is at risk. In the meantime they get paid millions of dollars. That seems like a fair situation to me
You make fair points there. I think what bothers me is that they can be so irresponsible with money/their projects, but still somehow manage to make very high margins, and yet they continue to just lay off thousands at a time like this repeatedly. There doesn’t seem to be any logic to it other than typical “number go up” nonsense.
The fact is Facebook had serious red flags going up that the AI boom has papered over (for now?) as well. They don’t make a lot of sense to me.
I don’t know how to tie this all together to be honest. It’s a lot of feelings/emotional response. But frankly it just feels cruel how they treat their employees and our society, so it colors my perception of everything they do.
meta has laid off 34,800 people in just the large scale rounds we know about in the past 5 years.
they're growing at high teens % a year and have record profits and a centi-billionaire has complete control. whats going on there is gross, even compared to the finance world of yearly culling of the bottom few % its gross.
There are a few US companies that crossed beyond the carelessness of us work culture to flat out hostile and metas one of them.
there's quite a bit loaded in your term of "computer" that doesn't really work. if a watch or headphones can eventually be called a computer, then a software-based car running on a battery can certainly fit under that definition.
Right, but clearly the tech & regulatory environment was such that the use of a general purpose computer beyond the infotainment screens wasn’t going to add enough value.
If self-driving had worked, and a fully vertically integrated tech stack could have controlled your “mobile experience” end-to-end, maybe a different story.
“Siri, take me to pick up Grandma from her flight. Let me know when she lands and send her an iMessage when we’re five minutes away.”
I feel like your original comment was phrased as "Apple wouldn't build this", when in reality I think (we might mostly agree) is that they would build it ideally, but it might be too early or it might not be a good strategic business to be in.
Outside of the premium brand/build quality, I think Tesla was actually a successful proof of concept of what they could have done or could do. Computer/software-powered, battery-charged, integrated hardware/software, principled product tradeoffs, new retail model, advances in charging technology. Big parallels to the first iPhone. You even heard the same complaints from consumers when the first iphone came out ("I want my buttons/physical controls back", "The battery/range dies too quickly"). Apple may not want to be in the car business, but I think Tesla showed that cars could just be computers now
Indeed, Tesla is probably the bull case for an “Apple Car”. IIRC there were rumors a decade ago that Apple even considered buying Tesla rather than develop “Titan” entirely in-house.
But I think Tesla shows the limits of Apple’s approach in the car market: Imagine a Model S that is maybe 50% better across design, materials, features, UX. That’s still not a “leapfrog” product the way the iPhone was years ahead of the smartphone competition when it was launched. It couldn’t justify also being 50% more expensive.
it's any technical specialist in any field in my experience. my partner is a doctor (not a kind that needs great people skills) and I see the same problems. luckily I have worked with many many developers so it's quite easy to deal with
Lots of people are super sensitive to the “fishiness” of fish sauce. I can taste it with just a few drops in a large dish. I love it now, but it took a while to get used to
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