I wonder when/if we’ll see Gemini beating Fable and Astra. Last year I would have confidently bet Google will overtake the others just because they have the data, the hardware (TPUs) and a fat advertising money pipe and yet they are still behind. Anyone anonymous at Google want to hint when Gemini 4 will be out?
For coding models? I don't think Google is motivated to fight in that market. There's no incentive for them.
Ask yourself, how does Google -- a company that famously does everything -- benefit from SWEs outside of Google having access to powerful coding models? They would just be competition.
Famously, Google just eventually discards almost all businesses that don't have the same fire hose of revenue that ads does. Selling coding plans isn't something they are going to want to do.
Google is clearly motivated to make better search and information finding tools and stuff that will ultimately drive users through their existing search/ads/youtube ecosystem. That's really why they're in Android, that's why they do Chrome. Everything else with them is a sideshow.
Google is also full of beancounters obsessed with data centre quota and resourcing. Even massively profitable ads projects have to justify and fight for it. (Source: used to work there).
I can't think of anything less resource & revenue sensible than providing outside parties access to your TPUs for the purpose of letting them write stuff which could just end up competing with you.
Yes, maybe as part of their cloud business, selling token access could be useful money. But I doubt they'd tune it for coding.
rdtsc · · focus · HN ↗
cmrdporcupine · · focus · HN ↗
Ask yourself, how does Google -- a company that famously does everything -- benefit from SWEs outside of Google having access to powerful coding models? They would just be competition.
Famously, Google just eventually discards almost all businesses that don't have the same fire hose of revenue that ads does. Selling coding plans isn't something they are going to want to do.
Google is clearly motivated to make better search and information finding tools and stuff that will ultimately drive users through their existing search/ads/youtube ecosystem. That's really why they're in Android, that's why they do Chrome. Everything else with them is a sideshow.
Google is also full of beancounters obsessed with data centre quota and resourcing. Even massively profitable ads projects have to justify and fight for it. (Source: used to work there).
I can't think of anything less resource & revenue sensible than providing outside parties access to your TPUs for the purpose of letting them write stuff which could just end up competing with you.
Yes, maybe as part of their cloud business, selling token access could be useful money. But I doubt they'd tune it for coding.
brap · · focus · HN ↗