Google staffers praise engineers for I/O, and poke fun at execs AI use

Google employees have been paying close attention to the company’s annual developer conference this week and the overwhelmingly positive response on Wall Street.

Many staffers favored the company’s engineers over executives when it came to praising the stock’s 4.3% post-I/O performance, According to an internal conversation watched by CNBC.

On Google’s internal site Memegen, the event’s most popular memes displayed side-by-side images of their parent company of the alphabet Stock price. The slide, which garnered thousands of “yes” votes, read “Executives cut costs and buybacks” on the left, above a chart of falling stock prices. On the right side, a chart was displayed with the stock price rising under the word “Eng”.[ineers] getting things done. ”

Many employees echoed this sentiment in the comments section, praising their colleagues for their efforts to get the product ready for prime time as part of a company-wide effort to compete in AI.

The incident prompted employees to accuse CEO Sundar Pichai of receiving more than $200 million in equity awards in 2022 as the company cut jobs and cut costs. I woke up right after. He also criticized the company for approving a $70 billion share buyback.

Alphabet’s stock surged to its highest level since August after Google announced Wednesday a new general-purpose large-scale language model (LLM) called PaLM 2 and a slew of advancements in AI technology that powers Bard and search this week. rose 11%. , some of which was previously reported by CNBC.

Google has been under pressure to show off its generative AI technology since the public release of Open AI’s ChatGPT late last year. OpenAI backer microsoft has incorporated GPT-powered technology into its Bing search engine and other products, raising concerns that the days of Google’s dominance in its core search market may be over.

The company’s stock fell 7% after an event in February when Google touted its AI chatbot Bard. Google employees responded by describing Pichai’s announcement as “hurried” and “failed.”

Since then, Google has worked quickly to bring consumer AI services to market.

After I/O, employees were excited about some of Bard’s updates, especially programmer-friendly features such as a “dark mode” that makes Bard appear dark instead of bright, a popular option for engineers. When the dark mode was announced, applause erupted from the venue.

One meme, which received hundreds of likes, said, “What I learned from I/O,” with the text “Google can still impress me.” He continued, “You did a great job for those who worked so hard,” adding, “As someone who expected to make a nasty meme all along, I was pleasantly surprised.”

In another meme, employees praised VP of Engineering Dave Burke for his Android 14 presentation and on-stage reliability. This is a departure from the standard corporate talks that are common at these types of events.

Employees also teased the frequent use of the acronym AI during Wednesday’s two-hour keynote. One of his very popular memes featured a cartoon character containing the text ‘His GOOG stock price will rise at I/O 2023’ followed by ‘Just keep saying AI and it will move Continued” text followed.

Another meme said, “Let’s sprinkle some AI/ML on it,” showing a large pile of powder with the text “Google I/O 2023.”

Other employees chose cultural references. His one of the memes created was a play on the song “Old MacDonald” with the alternate words “Sundar Picha-AI said he said AIAII/O”. Another picture featured an image of “That ’70s Show” character Kitty Forman reluctantly pouring alcohol along with the text, “If someone says AI during I/O, shoot him.” .

A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.

After losing nearly 40% of its value in 2022, Alphabet stock is up 33% this year.

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