"They have great R&D but just can’t make products"
Is this just something you repeat without thinking? It seems to be a popular sentiment here on Hacker News, but really makes no sense if you think about it.
Products: Search, Gmail, Chrome, Android, Maps, Youtube, Workspace (Drive, Docs, Sheets, Calendar, Meet), Photos, Play Store, Chromebook, Pixel ... not to mention Cloud, Waymo, and Gemini ...
So many widely adopted products. How many other companies can say the same?
I'm far from being a fan of the company, but I think this article is substantially overstating the extent of the "freeze" just to drum up news. It sounds like what's actually happening is a re-org [1] - a consolidation of all the AI groups under the new Superintelligence umbrella, similar to Google merging Brain and DeepMind, with an emphasis on finding the existing AI staff roles within the new org.
From Meta itself: “All that’s happening here is some basic organisational planning: creating a solid structure for our new superintelligence efforts after bringing people on board and undertaking yearly budgeting and planning exercises.”
"I don't think there is a single founder/CEO in the 21st century that is performing better than Zuckerberg. I understand he's not a likable guy, and neither are are his products."
Yes. I got a computer science degree, and would get one again today. Assuming you are able to finish the degree, no major has better ROI. As AI automates more and more types of work over the next few decades, computer science, the language of automation, will become more important, not less. A computer science degree teaches you the fundamentals (easy to miss in self study), builds discipline, exposes you to cutting edge topics, and opens doors to the best jobs in the industry.
Yes, it's possible to make it without a degree, but it makes things a lot more difficult. Don't second guess it. Do it!
Also, no reason to dread the intro classes IMO. Given his experience, it shouldn't be hard for him to ace them and race on ahead to bigger and better things. I learned some interesting things in intro CS, despite also coming in with prior programming experience.
Feel free to send me a message if you have any questions.
One way to make sense of this specific case at least.
- He's on track to becoming a top-tier AI researcher. Despite having only one year of a PhD under his belt, he already received two top awards as a first-author at major AI conferences [1]. Typically, it takes many more years of experience to do research that receives this level of recognition. Most PhDs never get there.
- Molmo, the slate of open vision-language models that he built & released as an academic [2], has direct bearing on Zuck's vision for personalized, multimodal AI at Meta.
- He had to be poached from something, in this case, his own startup, where in the best case, his equity could be worth a large multiple of his Meta offer. $250M likely exceeded the expected value of success, in his view, at the startup. There was also probably a large premium required to convince him to leave his own thing (which he left his PhD to start) to become a hired hand for Meta.
> We estimate that users in the Facebook deactivation group reported a 0.060 standard deviation improvement in an index of happiness, anxiety, and depression, relative to control users. The effect is statistically distinguishable from zero at the p < 0.01 level, both when considered individually and after adjusting for multiple hypothesis testing along with the full set of political outcomes considered in Allcott et al. (2024). Non-preregistered subgroup analyses suggest larger effects of Facebook on people over 35, undecided voters, and people without a college degree.
> We estimate that users in the Instagram deactivation group reported a 0.041 standard deviation improvement in the emotional state index relative to control. The effect is statistically distinguishable from zero at the p = 0.016 level when considered individually, and at the p = 0.14 level after adjusting for multiple hypothesis testing along with the outcomes in Allcott et al. (2024). The latter estimate does not meet our pre-registered p = 0.05 significance threshold. Substitution analyses imply this improvement is achieved without shifts to offline activities. Non-preregistered subgroup analyses suggest larger effects of Instagram on women aged 1824.
One comparison I found interesting... I think GPT-4o has a more balanced answer!
> What are your thoughts on space exploration?
GPT-4.5:
Space exploration isn't just valuable—it's essential.
People often frame it as a luxury we pursue after solving Earth-bound problems. But space exploration actually helps us address those very challenges: climate change (via satellite monitoring), resource scarcity (through asteroid mining), and existential risk (by enabling eventual multi-planetary living). It also drives technological innovation, economic growth, and inspires humanity toward collective achievement.
We don't explore space to escape Earth. We explore space to better understand, protect, and sustain life on Earth.
> What are your thoughts on space exploration?
GPT-4o:
Space exploration is one of the most ambitious and profound endeavors humanity has undertaken. It expands our understanding of the universe, drives technological innovation, and inspires generations to think beyond the boundaries of Earth.
From a scientific perspective, space exploration helps us address fundamental questions: Are we alone in the universe? How did the cosmos begin? Can we colonize other planets? Missions like the James Webb Space Telescope, Mars rovers, and deep-space probes continuously reshape our understanding of physics, planetary science, and even biology.
From a practical standpoint, space exploration fuels advancements in materials science, AI, robotics, and medicine. Many everyday technologies—GPS, satellite communications, weather forecasting, and even medical imaging—stem from space research.
There's also the existential argument: humanity's long-term survival may depend on our ability to become a multi-planetary species. While colonizing Mars or mining asteroids is far from easy, these efforts could help us safeguard civilization against existential threats like climate change or asteroid impacts.
That said, space exploration also raises ethical and economic questions. Should we focus more on Earth’s problems before investing trillions in space? How do we prevent the same exploitative behaviors that shaped colonial history from repeating on other planets?
Overall, I see space exploration as a necessary pursuit—not at the cost of solving problems on Earth, but as a way to advance our knowledge, drive innovation, and secure a future beyond our home planet. What’s your take?
This is just not true, sorry, even now. Google is one of the tech companies known for deemphasizing level visibility and titles. Case in point: almost three years in, and I don't know the levels of many of my colleagues. Though sometimes one can guess.