[4WIW]

People are focusing on verbage and precision, but are missing the point.

Having a well-maintained Python tooling is essential for _any_ company who does AI. While smaller companies can get away with open source solutions, for bigger companies it is unavoidable to have teams dedicated to maintaining and supporting Python tooling.

This announcement is troubling, and may indicate one of the two: 1) Google is in dire situation, and there is no more fat to cut, so they are starting to cut muscle. 2) Google management is clueless and cannot discriminate between fat and muscle.

[slumpt_]

I suspect it’s 2. Local organizational optimizations to garner promotions for middle-managers and without regard for systemic impact.

[Vegenoid]

Well, it seems like it isn't 1, as everything indicates that Google is doing better financially than ever: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/04/25/google-soa...