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Comment by refulgentis | Hacker News Reader

It's an odd feeling to have seen the rapid decline of QoL on the interior, know it was to drive margins back above 30% / $25B/quarter, leave because of it, then profit from it. Feels unethical. I guess that feeling is just having the dissonance of the nature of business in your face. Though I do hold that the decisions made to squeak out a couple extra % points will be crushing in the long run.

Even just today: reality is Google is 4th place to OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta in AI and its not really close.

Each individual step is arguable, but the cracks are there. And leadership is too MBA-y/trend-following to do anything about it. Ex. through August '22 the line was there was going to be a special pot of increased raises to combat all the talent leaving for Meta. Then once Mark started firing, all that went far away, promos were held, and there's ceremonial cullings weekly.

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> Even just today: reality is Google is 4th place to OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta in AI and its not really close.

Source?

I agree, from my perspective as an outside engineer, Google went from a place where it'd have been interesting to work at a few years ago, to not being in the Top 5. Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Apple, NVIDIA, etc are just more compelling stories at the moment. I don't even know what Google is doing at this point.

>Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Apple, NVIDIA

So OpenAI and Anthropic are decacorns that are paying far far more than any FAANG so it's hard to compare them. Meta, Apple, Nvidia, sure, I can understand the sentiment, even if I don't completely agree. You see a lot of people shuffling between Apple and Google so it's probably org/team dependent.

Meta pays the most of FAANGs so they certainly have a lot of talent.

Microsoft is not even close to being on the same level. I did multiple interview loops there and I can't say enough negative things about the company. Every other FAANG company pays more and values talent and intellect higher than microsoft does.

The only employee I met at Microsoft in my interview loops I was impressed by is now...at OpenAI.

How does anyone have Microsoft in their list of top employers is hard to understand. Is Microsoft a good company? Probably. Is it a good employer that cares about the employees and pays well? Nope. Not even with the stock price run up.

> So OpenAI and Anthropic are decacorns that are paying far far more than any FAANG so it's hard to compare them.

Is it actual money though? Specially with OpenAI's PPUs.

It sounds like there are liquidity events, so it's not like they have to wait years to cash out.

Google went to being a work/life balance company around 2017/2018. I remember talking with an ex-colleague about it at that time. (Ironically, back then I was off founding startups and he was working at Google, while now he's laid off and I'm back at Google.)

IMHO interesting CS work today is being done at OpenAI and Anthropic in the machine-learning space, the Ethereum Foundation and maybe Polygon or Cardano in the crypto space, and that's pretty much it. FANGs have not been hot in a decade. Google is where you go to have babies. Amazon is where you go to get a FANG on your resume. Apple is where you go to join a cult and enjoy a continually-rising stock price as a result. Meta is where you go if you want more money and are willing to be morally flexible to get it. Microsoft is...Microsoft, but they're getting pretty good at the continually rising stock price like Apple, so there's that. Netflix isn't even a FANG anymore, and NVidia doesn't treat their software engineers particularly well since hardware is their core competency.

This is a really good comment, so much in-knowledge that took me years to grok.

My tenure sounds like roughly your friends: I did a startup, sold, then 7 years at G from late 2016 on.

Curious if you have any similar wisdom about startup life / opportunities. I was a completely different person when I did the startup: 21 year old, econ dropout, waiter, taught myself to program to make an iPad app to replace the restaurant computer while living at my moms house in a dying Rust Belt town. Feels a lot different / a tightrope when I'm paying Boston rent and 36, sometimes I worry I'm being obviously stupid

> NVidia doesn't treat their software engineers particularly well since hardware is their core competency.

Care to explain?

Don't hold your breath for FAANGs crashing spectacularly soon.

I mean, it is possible, however IBM is still limping on and FAANGs are bigger even when adjusted for inflation than IBM was in the 1980s.

So even if they do start dying, realistically their corpses might even limp into the 22nd century.

There is some insane statistic about apple where they could cease selling of every product, bring revenue to $0, and still carry on with all other expenses for something like 75 years.

Is that via cash holdings or stock holdings? I know Alphabet has had some buyback activity, but I don't really track Apple's moves here.

I am glad to see Alphabet paying dividends now though, it feels like the sign of a company that knows insane stock price growth can't go on forever.

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