Things weren’t like this for a long time after it was already public. I used to work there more than 5 years after ipo and their office environment (especially in zurich) was really good
You're right, and I addressed this in another reply, but keeping a good company culture requires a very special leadership team, and it can't and won't last forever.
* Eventually ownership will disperse from the core group of initial owners to investors in general
* As a larger ownership moves towards investors, decisions are made that sacrifice the special sauce in order to increase returns.
* Appeasing general investors leads towards enshittification.
Sometimes a strong leader (Jobs, Cook) can keep the investor class as bay for a period. Sometimes leadership can be consolidated for long periods of time to delay the process (Walton, Zuck), but it feels inevitable after IPO.
Reality isn’t fractal. People leaving for a variety of motives, expansion of some offices, closing others… chip away at the edge of known truth.
Entropy forces new relative perspective. Humans need to do better about accepting figurative and literal death and chill. There quite literally is nowhere else to go except insane from repeating ourselves.
A rewrite of philosophical priority is a necessity for anyone under 50 and the species. That has to be taken sincerely and seriously because, well they kind of outnumber the ossified pensioner, and if they’re staring down forced obligation to choke on fire smoke for 60 years or dump gramps overboard, no one around to see it happen will be around long enough to insure it’s a footnote in any discussion of history.
Self proclaimed STEM minded secular people seem just fine ignoring evidence that does not fit the civic life narrative they’ve been spoon fed like it’s immutable truth. Seems to have latched itself onto whatever quirk of biology religion accidentally exploited; like a nihilism cause it’s all gods plan kind of woo.
“Hey look at me, mom! My life goal is making computers do what they were intentionally designed to do!”
That can be automated; any acceptable experience is a finite set of constraints. DOOM is pretty DOOMy. Same for Halo. Email clients. But hey we have figurative career ambitions, man; Google Fellow! Boom goes the dynamite.
Smaller models first; let’s make an AI to replace the CEO by assigning project management to vetted candidates via publicly audited randomizer. Term limits for geniuses who always seem to end up enjoying their own farts.
“I’m sorry general manager of capital intense AI infrastructure, you are tonight’s… weakest link! dropped into literal shark tank”
It’s been a long day. Sorry not sorry for the more unhinged off gassing.