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Google Layoffs: Sundar Pichai announces major job cuts in these top roles over years amid threat from OpenAI
ET OnlineLast Updated: Dec 21, 2024, 01:08:00 PM IST
Synopsis
Google has announced major job cuts in managerial roles, CEO Sundar Pichai said in an all-hands meeting on Wednesday. Google's CEO said it had cut managers, directors, and VPs by 10% as part of its efficiency drive. The company has been boosting efficiency by reducing layers and reorganizing teams. The move comes amid threats from OpenAI and other AI rivals.
Tech giant Google had cut the number of top management roles by 10 percent as part of a long-running campaign to increase efficiency by double that number. The information was shared by Google CEO Sundar Pichai to the company's employees in an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, reports Business Insider.
The changes were made by the Google over the past couple of years to simplify the company and be more efficient, two people said on the condition of anonymity. A Google spokesperson told the Business Insider that some employees whose positions had been cut would be "transitioned to individual contributor roles", while some others were "role eliminations".
In Wednesday's all-hands meeting, Pichai also clarified the meaning of the word "Googleyness," telling staff that it needed updating for a modern Google. Goohleyness is an amorphic term that has meant many things over the years, but is commonly understood as expressing what Google looks for in potential hires.
Google cut manager, VP roles by 10% in its efficiency push
Sundar Pichai said this had included a 10% reduction in managers, directors, and vice presidents, one source told Business Insider. A Google spokesperson said that some of the roles in that 10% figure were transitioned to individual contributor roles and that some were role eliminations.The tech giant has been on an efficiency drive for more than two years. In September 2022, Sundar he wanted Google to be 20% more efficient, and the following January, the company had a historic round of layoffs that saw 12,000 roles eliminated.
This news follows rapid developments in the AI, or Artificial Intelligence, world and at high-flying rivals like OpenAI, which has released products that industry experts have said can threaten Google Search, its online search business that accoun
ted for over 57 per cent of its revenue last year.
Google's AI features
The efficiency push has coincided with AI rivals such as OpenAI unleashing new products that threaten Google's search business. Google responded by introducing generative AI features in its products such as a new AI video generator beating OpenAI's in early testing and a new set of Gemini models, including a "reasoning" model that shows its thought process.ALSO READ: Sundar Pichai's 'three-word criteria' may help you get a job at Google
Pichai said the new model would herald "a new agentic era" with AI models designed to understand and make decisions about the world.
The release sent shares in Google soaring by more than four per cent on Wall Street, a day after the stock already gained 3.5 percent after the release of a breakthrough quantum chip.
Layoffs at Google
The layoffs are also the fourth this year alone, including eliminating "a few hundred" positions from its global advertisements team in January and a 100 more jobs across its cloud unit in June.Alphabet Inc.-owned Google launched its efficiency drive in September 2022.
By January of the next year, the company had eliminated over 12,000 roles, or 6.4 per cent of its global workforce. In an open letter to employees then, Pichai took "full responsibility for the decisions that led us here", but said the company had to fuel preceding periods of dramatic growth".
The eliminations, he said then, followed a "rigorous" and company-wide efficiency audit that included reviewing product areas, functions, levels, and regions across Alphabet.
He also admitted the company could have handled the layoffs better. "This is difficult for any company to go through. At Google, we really haven't had a moment quite like that in 25 years... (but) it became clear that if we didn't act, it would have become worse..."
Google Layoffs: Sundar Pichai announces major job cuts in these top roles over years amid threat from OpenAI
Google has announced major job cuts in managerial roles, CEO Sundar Pichai said in an all-hands meeting on Wednesday. Google's CEO said it had cut managers, directors, and VPs by 10% as part of its efficiency drive. The company has been boosting efficiency by reducing layers and reorganizing...
Indos
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Why does OpenAI need so much money?
OpenAI’s accelerating expenses are the main reason the corporate structure of the company, which began as a non-profit research lab, could soon change.PHOTO: NYTIMES
PUBLISHED Dec 18, 2024, 10:45 AM
SAN FRANCISCO – In early 2023, OpenAI raised US$10 billion (S$13.5 billion). Just 18 months later, the company had burned through most of that money. So it raised US$6.6 billion more and arranged to borrow an additional US$4 billion.
But in another 18 months or so from now, OpenAI will need another cash infusion because the San Francisco start-up is spending more than US$5.4 billion a year. And by 2029, OpenAI expects to spend US$37.5 billion a year.
OpenAI’s accelerating expenses are the main reason the corporate structure of the company, which began as a non-profit research lab, could soon change.
OpenAI must raise billions of additional dollars in the years to come, and its executives believe it will be more attractive to investors as a for-profit company.
In many ways, artificial intelligence (AI) has inverted how computer technology used to be created. For decades, Silicon Valley engineers designed new technologies one small step at a time.
As they built social media apps like Facebook or shopping sites like Amazon, they wrote line after line of computer code. With each new line, they carefully defined what the app would do.
But when companies build AI systems, they go big first: They feed these systems enormous amounts of data. The more data companies feed into these systems, the more powerful they become.
Just as a student learns more by reading more books, an AI system can improve its skills by ingesting larger pools of data. Chatbots like ChatGPT learn their skills by ingesting practically all the English language text on the internet.
That requires larger and larger amounts of computing power from giant data centres. Inside those data centres are computers packed with thousands of specialised computer chips called graphics processing units, or GPUs, which can cost more than US$30,000 apiece.
The cost is pushed higher because the chips, data centres and electricity needed to do this digital work are in short supply.
Mr Sean Holzknecht, co-founder of Colovore, a data centre operator whose facilities are adopting specialised chips used to build AI, said this new kind of computing facility costs 10 to 20 times what a traditional data centre does.
These chips spend months running the mathematical calculations that allow ChatGPT to pinpoint patterns in all that data.
The price tag for each “training run” can climb into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
“Imagine needing to read the internet over and over and over,” said Mr David Katz, a partner at Radical Ventures, a venture capital firm that has invested in AI start-ups.
“This is the most computationally intensive task the world has ever seen.”
Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and others are now working to expand the global pool of data centres needed to build their technologies.
They plan to spend hundreds of billions to increase the number of computer chips manufactured each year, install them in facilities across the world and secure the electricity needed to run them.
Those costs are particularly onerous when companies like OpenAI, Google and Anthropic offer chats to consumers at no charge.
Some of them are charging consumers around US$20 a month to use their most powerful technologies – and even that may not recoup the cost of delivery.
(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems. The two companies have denied the suit’s claims).
Since building the initial version of ChatGPT, OpenAI has steadily improved its chatbot, feeding it increasingly large amounts of data, including images and sounds as well as text.
The company recently unveiled a version of ChatGPT that “reasons” through maths, science and computer programming problems.
It built this technology using a technique called reinforcement learning.
Through this process, the system learns additional behaviour over months of trial and error.
Trying to solve various maths problems, for instance, it can learn which methods lead to the right answer and which do not.
When people use this system, it “thinks” before responding.
When someone asks it a question, it explores many possibilities before delivering an answer.
OpenAI sees this technology, called OpenAI o1, as the future of its business. And it requires even more computing power.
That is why the company expects that its computing costs will grow sevenfold by 2029 as it chases the dream of artificial general intelligence – a machine that can do as much as the human brain, or more.
“If you are trying to chase science fiction,” said Mr Nick Frosst, a former Google researcher and co-founder of Cohere, a start-up that builds similar technology, “the costs will keep (going up).” NYTIMES
Why does OpenAI need so much money?
By 2029, OpenAI expects to spend US$37.5 billion a year. Read more at straitstimes.com.
Indos
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- #156
Business Tech News: The Most Popular AI Tools Of 2024
Gene MarksContributor
I write about tech that impacts my small business - and yours.
Dec 22, 2024,
07:00am EST
Business Tech News #1 - The most popular AI tools of 2024 (and what that even means).
David Gewirtz of ZDNet reported on the most popular AI tools for 2024. Highlighting data that was gathered in August, the most utilized AI tools by market share are the following: ChatGPT (54.96 percent); publishing tool Canva (14.92 percent); translation platform DeepL (5.38 percent); Google Gemini (4.75 percent); and Character.AI (3.90 percent). Gewirtz noted that measuring the popularity for each is challenging as some tools are standalone while others are embedded in products. Metrics from platforms like Semrush and Similarweb were used to estimate traffic volume. Claude, Perplexity AI, and Microsoft Copilot were also on the list. (Source: ZDNet)
Business Tech News #3 – LegalZoom and 1-800Accountant join forces to deliver full-service tax and bookkeeping solutions for small business owners.
LegalZoom and 1-800Accountant have entered into a multi-year strategic partnership to offer full-service tax and bookkeeping solutions for small business owners. According to the press release, LegalZoom customers will have access to year-round, expert-led bookkeeping and tax services provided by 1-800Accountant. A recent survey revealed that tax management, liability protection, and legitimacy are key motivations for small business owners, making advisory services critically important. This collaboration aims to enhance LegalZoom's ecosystem of products, partnerships, and services that support small business owners' legal, compliance, and business management needs. The new product offering is expected to launch in January 2025. (Source: GlobeNewswire)
Business Tech News: The Most Popular AI Tools Of 2024
Also: web platform Wix has new chat tools, legalzoom partners with 1-800-Accountant, an HR expert talks about 2025 and Microsoft says to expect "big changes"
www.forbes.com
Present-day computers are still not capable of thinking, learning, and innovating like humans. However, such advanced computers will emerge in the future and transform the world.Business Tech News: The Most Popular AI Tools Of 2024
Gene Marks
Contributor
I write about tech that impacts my small business - and yours.
Dec 22, 2024,
07:00am EST
Business Tech News #1 - The most popular AI tools of 2024 (and what that even means).
David Gewirtz of ZDNet reported on the most popular AI tools for 2024. Highlighting data that was gathered in August, the most utilized AI tools by market share are the following: ChatGPT (54.96 percent); publishing tool Canva (14.92 percent); translation platform DeepL (5.38 percent); Google Gemini (4.75 percent); and Character.AI (3.90 percent). Gewirtz noted that measuring the popularity for each is challenging as some tools are standalone while others are embedded in products. Metrics from platforms like Semrush and Similarweb were used to estimate traffic volume. Claude, Perplexity AI, and Microsoft Copilot were also on the list. (Source: ZDNet)
Business Tech News #3 – LegalZoom and 1-800Accountant join forces to deliver full-service tax and bookkeeping solutions for small business owners.
LegalZoom and 1-800Accountant have entered into a multi-year strategic partnership to offer full-service tax and bookkeeping solutions for small business owners. According to the press release, LegalZoom customers will have access to year-round, expert-led bookkeeping and tax services provided by 1-800Accountant. A recent survey revealed that tax management, liability protection, and legitimacy are key motivations for small business owners, making advisory services critically important. This collaboration aims to enhance LegalZoom's ecosystem of products, partnerships, and services that support small business owners' legal, compliance, and business management needs. The new product offering is expected to launch in January 2025. (Source: GlobeNewswire)
Business Tech News: The Most Popular AI Tools Of 2024
Also: web platform Wix has new chat tools, legalzoom partners with 1-800-Accountant, an HR expert talks about 2025 and Microsoft says to expect "big changes"
Indos
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- #162
Which human ?
It is now people with critical thinking capability that in my opinion can get huge benefit from AI model like Chat GPT
This why education should focus on critical thinking and strategic thinking in the era of AI
The transformation in my opinion is already on going, the nations that have already invested huge money for education and internet infrastructure will likely benefit from this AI era
AI should be used as tools and it depends on the human capability, motivation, and the necessary infrastructure like electricity , internet connection plus some economic capability like ability to buy computer and adequate time to actually use it effectively and efficiently
If Tiktok can be very popular and reaching even common people in the villages, so why not Chat GPT among huge crowd there ? Now with Meta AI has already been accessible to WhatsApp, so even with just handphone people can use AI just like they use Tiktok
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Indos
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- #163
Take example of person who live in villages, if he has some idle land there he can ask Chat GPT to show him best farming method or best method to raise chickens for example. Farmer can ask steps to be exporter and steps to reach that goal. Knowledge barrier that previously hurdles many people to advance their life is now lifted. This is just simple possible transformation that can happen in the context of village type of business and villages life.
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