You say "amazing that it took months to figure this out" as if the answer to the question is obvious.
But it's not. Some FAANGs are doing amazing things with unlimited tokens. Other companies have no clue what to do with tokens, they've just told their engineers to max them.
It really depends on how you're using the tokens. If you're just using them for Codex and Claude Code - yeah, tokenmaxxing is incredibly dumb.
Show me some fang that have made nice outwards facing products through a fully embraced AI workflow?
AI is an accelerator that engineers should know and have access to, but it's not something that should have mandated usage and quotas around. It's also absolutely dangerous for young engineers and the like - it fundamentally denies you of the "learning" aspect. I'm now seeing in interviews young graduates being given AI tasks to complete and they come back with a correct solution and no concept of how it is working.
You learn and reinforce learning by DOING and reading in depth. High level summaries don't teach anything and are the kinds of things only VPs care about. So, unless the intention in the future is for everyone to be a VP using AI to do the work, we need some middle ground here and some real thought around implementation of these tools or there's going to be a generational canyon gap of knowledge between being able to "say" and being able to "do".
In other words, people who are productive get more done when you scale up what they're already doing, and people who aren't productive will not magically become productive when you scale up what they're already doing. That's incredibly obvious, because we've seen how this plays out repeatedly in so many different ways (lines of code, commits, tickets closed, etc.), and it has nothing to do with tokens or even programming, but just how trying to manage people works.
> Some FAANGs are doing amazing things with unlimited tokens. Others have no clue what to do with tokens.
Unlimited tokens is different from “use AI a lot or we will fire you, and we are counting token consumption as usage”. Obviously the latter is stupid and yet it was done in many places.
I'm not convinced it actually was done in many places, although I understand why in a bad job market people don't trust that it isn't happening in secret. Every time I've heard of a token leaderboard or such it's come with a denial that the company is using it as an employee performance metric.
> it's come with a denial that the company is using it as an employee performance metric.
Surely the anonymous employee feedback polls are totally anonymous too. BigCorp loves you, is family, and would never harm you.
> Some FAANGs are doing amazing things with unlimited tokens.
Would love to know what things!
OP (solenoid0937) is an unfounded AI-hype peddler and an Anthropic shill (check their comment history), do not expect them to provide an actual example of their wild claims.
I checked their history and they seem alright ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Here, just a few examples over the last 9 days, in no particular order of exaggeration magnitude:
Unsubstantiated claims of 3x-10x productivity at allegedly a FAANG: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48174666
More claims of the same, still unsubstantiated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48173995
Even more claims of the same, still nothing of substance: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48173975
Outlandish claim of using 300$ in tokens in 1 hour at allegedly a FAANG: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48158438
Ostensibly great things with unlimited tokens at allegedly a FAANG: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48269185
Complaints about HN "not getting" AI: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48245673
An attempt to validate vibe-coding in production: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48243651
Whitewashing Claude degradation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48211638
More Claude degradation whitewashing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48245784
Whitewashing Anthropic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48199951
Promises of coming AI revolution: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48188104
All of this serves to hype up the LLM technology with absolutely outlandish claims, while also propping up Anthropic online.
This is so cool, I have my own fan on HN that cherry picks my comment history to call me a shill!
You could have easily disproved my claim by linking your comments with a more balanced or nuanced opinions on the matter, except you cannot, because there is only even more outlandish and wild stuff you say about AI and LLMs.
It‘s perfectly ok to share opinions that aren’t nuanced or balanced. You seem to have something strongly against that specific user, the fact that you felt the need to go through so much of their history, post a massive list of their „suspicious“ comments, and mention in multiple places how they are a shill is pretty concerning imho and doesn’t make you look good at all. Their activity looks fine, they seem to be enthusiastic and optimistic about the technology, but that’s pretty much it.
And now you’re asking them to somehow disprove they aren’t a shill? How would that even work. You seem unnecessarily antagonistic towards that user
It is not just me who finds solenoid0937 account suspicious: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48173975
I did not have to go through "so much of their history", this is just the last 9 days. There are considerably wilder claims from them earlier, when the account was solely focused on propping up LLM-hype and defending Anthropic.
We are living through a period of time with one of the potentially most disruptive technologies ever being developed. A lot (A LOT) of money is invested into it, a lot of livelihoods are and might be affected by it, and some people stand to gain A LOT from it. So there are significant interests to sway public opinion in favour of LLMs and AI, to hype it up to unreasonable extent, to muddle the waters of a reasonable discourse. Accounts such as solenoid0937 are unleashed on public forums to achieve that, and because of that we have to take everything they write with a huge grain of salt, or even ignore completely, as there is just no true information in their comments.
You yourself got baited by them by considering what they wrote seriously regarding "amazing things with unlimited tokens". Now the idea that "LLMs 1) are used in one of FAANGs massively and 2) are used to produce amazing things" is planted. Will you remember later that they did not actually provide any evidence of that? The account has been doing this trick multiple times over the last few weeks.
For me, as someone who is actually using LLMs in their work, a single balanced comment on the matter would have been more than enough to consider them not being a shill. Unfortunately, instead they have claimed recently that they went completely full-on with agentic coding (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48245721) skipping reviews and pushing to prod directly (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48243651) at a FAANG, no less. And they claimed it in such a manner that this is objectively the only proper way to do the work, and all other approaches are doomed. How is this anything else than peddling unfounded LLM-hype, I do not know.
The example above might seem like a singular episode, but they have been doing it over and over for the last year and a half, so this is now a pattern. No actual evidence for any of their claims is provided, so the only thing left is AI-hype, and pretty wild at that. So why would a reasonable person, with ostensibly enough money to retire (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48252297), ostensibly working at a FAANG, spend all their days spreading unfounded AI-hype in a degrading manner on HN and defending Anthropic? Given the vested financial interest in the technology, the most plausible answer here is that they are paid to do so.
Every time I've tried to engage you in debate you just call me a shill so there's no point. Love ya too though!
I have explicitly stated more than once, beforehand, what would have given you a benefit of doubt from my perspective. Even after reading all that you opted for answer evasion, rather than providing any substance, as you do with all the questions addressed to you. I do understand why you had to do it here though, because the claims regarding AI and LLM you have made before are even more outlandish than what has been posted over the last 10 days and similarly without a single shred of proof.
I find it so funny that claims like this are so outlandish to you that it makes you think I'm a shill:
> Unfortunately, instead they have claimed recently that they went completely full-on with agentic coding skipping reviews and pushing to prod directly at a FAANG, no less.
This is like the most normal thing in my org, lmao. The fact that this aggravates you so much, is proof to me that many people/industries are way behind the curve on agents. Still bullish!
> as someone who is actually using LLMs in their work,
You should consider that your way of using LLMs is not the only correct way, and may in fact be severely limited, unimaginative, and/or close-minded.
Nothing of substance yet again, more unfounded LLM-hype. As a reminder, this whole thread started by other people asking you to provide examples or proofs of your outlandish claims. Instead of doing that you ignore the questions or cover behind NDA (which is bullshit, because 1) no one is asking about the secret sauce, only the end result and 2) most of the work in FAANGs does not require signing NDA, and you would have known it if you actually worked at a FAANG).
Moreover, you refuse to even name the organization you allegedly work at. This is because people who actually work there will immediately call you out on your bullshit, so you have to stay intentionally vague there.
This is just yet another evidence of you being a shill.
lol. lmao, even. Everything is under an NDA unless otherwise stated. It's hilarious to me that you think it's fine for me to give away our competitive advantage on HN.
And give away my org, for what? So some HN loser can doxx me?
Anyways, there's no point. If you learn to use agents, you'll understand eventually. If you don't, well, that's a you problem.
Once again, no proofs of your claims, only more LLM-hype and personal attacks.
No, you are intentionally being obtuse, because people have already called you out on your lies. Saying "my team worked on <X>" is not under NDA in 90%+ cases, and no one is asking you for the implementation details for the <X>.
Name your company so others from it can confirm what you have claimed regarding AI and LLMs or deny it. Each FAANG being 10k+ (and in most cases 50-100k+) makes doxxing you unlikely, as others have done so on this forum without any problem.
He may not be a shill, he may just be terribly and enthusiastically wrong. Lots of HN posters are.
> But it's not. Some FAANGs are doing amazing things with unlimited tokens
Giving someone unlimited access to a resources is not the same as directing or incentivizing them to use it for the sake of using it which is what the parent comment criticized.
As for the other FAANGs, Meta and Google have (not good but still) frontier models of their own, so they are very different from a company paying API costs per token.
Where can I see those amazing things done by FAANGs?
Join one!
Anything more concrete?
You got baited by an LLM-hype peddler and Anthropic shill, do not expect anything of substance. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48272695