Tonight at my bar I consoled a couple of Microsoft managers who lost large… | James Whittaker | 262 comments

Tonight at my bar I consoled a couple of Microsoft managers who lost large swaths of their teams today to yet another round of layoffs. They were sad to their very cores and bartender therapy (seriously the best kind of therapy) ensued. 👉 Neither were told about the layoffs. Apparently, managers of those laid off are no longer informed in advance. Can you imagine having to take those calls? What the fuck could they say to their directs? "Sorry, didn't know. All the best and stuff" What a position to be put in. 👉 The stress at the company is insane. Morale is gone. Hunger games (their words, not mine) level shit. 👉 Every single person laid off was working directly on or with AI. It was in their job description. The whole "you aren't going to be replaced by AI, you're going to be replaced by someone who uses AI" has been exposed as the bullshit it is. Nothing will save you from a company that has lost its soul. My take? Microsoft knows that AI in its current form isn't working and costs more to build and sustain than it will ever make up in revenue. They can't admit that publicly. Instead, they are cutting expenses to prop up their numbers and the biggest expense is payroll. They placed a bet and lost and are making their employees pay the debt. My takeaway? Stop building LLMs. They cost too much and do too little. Instead invest in smaller, special purpose models that solve actual problems people have and are willing to pay for the solution. My prediction? Advantage Apple. Everyone thinks Apple is behind in AI. In fact, they are the only company who didn't knee-jerk when OpenAI burst on the scene with their never-ever-gonna-make-a-buck business model. Apple sat out the stupid, unprofitable phase. Watch them figure out AI-in-the-small and create a device so fucking clever that people will forget LLMs ever existed. | 262 comments on LinkedIn

Bluesky

No Plan B (feat. Kole) - Manafest

I drop in with my face to the wind, spin one eighty for the win. But I can't find my feet, it's like I lost the beat.