11 ms·
Becoming a Professor
- untilHellbanned 10y agoWhat kind of talent earned this guy this job. Seems like cronyism from what I can tell from Wikipedia.
- pcl 10y agoWhen I was at the Media Lab <mumble> years ago, his group was perceived internally as one of the top groups, and everyone I knew who worked in his group had great things to say about him.
- afaketomhanks 10y agopcl, out of curiosity, what group was that? I was under the impression he didn't have his own particular group. Just that he oversaw other groups. Could be wrong though...
- pcl 10y agoI only ever worked down in the basement, and visited via the corporate sponsorship avenues, so I'm just repeating what I've heard. Have never worked with him directly.
- untilHellbanned 10y ago> just repeating what I've heard. My point exactly. What has he done?
- teh 10y agoSome brief googling shows this: https://joi.ito.com/coi.html https://joi.ito.com/coi.html So at minimum he's a great networker who can help his students get good placements. He's also been involved heavily in creative commons and helped secure funding to keep it going. He might rub you the wrong way but I'd give the probably not-stupid MIT people the benefit of the doubt that they chose him because they think he adds value to the institution, not because of some fluffy feely thing.
- edocecrous 10y ago> he's a great networker who can help his students get good placements ...and bring in $$$.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- untog 10y agoHow about judging someone based on what they've done, rather than making idle speculation from their Wikipedia page? Sometimes the cynicism in this place is depressing.
- vex 10y agoReally? Because I feel like the comment sections here are usually people being positive and agreeing with each other, while dissenting opinions are silenced.
- argonaut 10y agoThe truth of the matter is that there are certain topics that heavily follow the HN hivemind, and there are certain topics that are highly polarized and endlessly debated. Hivemind example: remote work is good and companies that refuse to do it are stupid. Endlessly debated example: college degrees are useless.
- untilHellbanned 10y agoI asked what has he done. Considering how high profile this job is, a Wikipedia page in 2016 should make this obvious. In his case, it's decidedly not clear so I asked the question.
- dang 10y agoYes, if you rephrase what you said in a way that takes out the nasty bits, it becomes less objectionable. When commenting on HN, though, that's what you should do in the first place.
- dang 10y agoPersonal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't do it. Instead, please post civilly and substantively, or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
- untilHellbanned 10y agoWhile I'm too old to care about your knee-jerk threat, I think you better be careful about policing HN like this. It is really off-putting and IMHO creates more of an existential threat to HN than my very reasonable inquiry. There is nothing personal about my question. As I see it, this guy has questionable credentials to get such a prestigious job, so I ask what has he done. It looks he owned a bar, made some investments, his dad was high up in a quasi-impressive tech company. Again, very vague credentials which say he has money but no particular skill.
- Gatsky 10y agoWell it's possible that he is a talentless fool that got his position through family connections. It's probably more likely that he is genuinely top of the game, but just doesn't spend much time building his public profile. That's a good and all too rare thing.
- untilHellbanned 10y agoBeing at the top of any game nowadays gives publicity. My 12 y.o. nephew's hockey league in North Carolina of all states has its own website, so not buying this argument.
- edw519 10y agoWow, untilHellbanned, I was actually on your side in this strange thread. Until you mentioned your 12 y.o. nephew. You may have just set a new Hacker News record, moving up Paul Graham's Disagreement Hierarchy from DH0. (Name Calling) all the way up to DH4. (Counterargument) in just 2 replies! http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- PhoenixWright 10y agoWow for an institution like MIT to offer a professorship to someone so clearly uncrdentialed sends a horrible signal to faculty and students. I will not talk about this persons lack of credentials because apparently that's a personal attack but I will say that academia and professorsship has everything to do with the philosophy of a subject not just its practice. I would never hire a surgeon who never went to medical school or a rocket scientist who didn't have a phD. Maybe they've achieved knowledge outside of academia, if that's the case that's where they should practice there skills, but to now have them share that unique and disorganized philosophy with students trying to learn structurally is unfair to the hard work and sacrifice those students have made to be able to get to MIT in the first place. They've earned the right to be taught and mentored by someone who has taken the same path they have and put in the time and admirable effort to study their subject academically. Our prestigious universities like MIT are institutions that are aspirational to so many. Those who have taken the long and arduous path from student to researcher and then professors deserve the fruits of there labor. This is a slap in the face to so many people who have dedicated their lives to the advancement of knowledge.
- edocecrous 10y agoThere's a word for this, and it's the word MIT used: "Professor of the Practice". You wouldn't a huge portion of the university's faculty to be untrained in research or teaching -- that would be like running a software company where everyone has great ideas but no one knows how to lay down LOCs. But one person here or there who has something significant to bring to the table can be good for the institution. > but to now have them share that unique and disorganized philosophy with students trying to learn structurally is unfair to the hard work and sacrifice those students have made to be able to get to MIT in the first place. The author is not directly involved in leading a research group or in teaching. He's a director -- a vision/leadership role. And if he ever were to take up either teaching or advising research, he'd probably receive support and guidance from people who do have Ph.D.'s and have learned the long way around how to research/teach. Again, that model obviously doesn't work well if you have a huge number of people like this, but one here or there can be a positive thing.
- obmelvin 10y ago
- Isamu 10y agoHis media lab bio: Joichi "Joi" Ito has been recognized for his work as an activist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and advocate of emergent democracy, privacy, and Internet freedom. As director of the MIT Media Lab, he is currently exploring how radical new approaches to science and technology can transform society in substantial and positive ways. Soon after coming to MIT, Ito introduced mindfulness meditation training to the Media Lab. Together with The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi, founding director of The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT, Ito is promoting the contribution that awareness and focus can bring to the creativity process. Ito has served as both board chair and CEO of Creative Commons, and sits on the boards of Sony Corporation, Knight Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and The New York Times Company. In Japan, he is executive researcher of KEIO SFC, and he was a founder of Digital Garage, and helped establish and later became CEO of the country’s first commercial Internet service provider. He was an early investor in numerous companies, including Flickr, Six Apart, Last.fm, littleBits, Formlabs, Kickstarter, and Twitter. Ito’s honors include TIME magazine’s "Cyber-Elite” listing in 1997 (at age 31) and selection as one of the "Global Leaders for Tomorrow" by the World Economic Forum (2001). In 2008, BusinessWeek named him one of the "25 Most Influential People on the Web." In 2011, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oxford Internet Institute. In 2013, he received an honorary D.Litt from The New School in New York City, and in 2015 an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Tufts University. In 2014, he was inducted into the SXSW Interactive Hall of Fame; also In 2014, he was one of the recipients of the Golden Plate award from the Academy of Achievement.
- doall 10y agoFrom the NYT article in 2011: “The choice is radical, but brilliant,” said Larry Smarr, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, a University of California laboratory that pursues a similar research agenda to the Media Laboratory. “He can position the lab at the edge of change and propel it for a decade.” Mr. Ito’s appointment comes at a time when the Media Lab, as well as other information technology research centers, have struggled to reclaim the financing levels that were characteristic of the era of the dot-com boom. Although the lab gets the bulk of its $35 million annual budget from corporate and government sponsors, that amount has declined measurably as a percentage of the overall budget during the last decade, Dr. Negroponte said. “Funding got tight in 2002 and even tighter in the last economic downturn,” he said. That has made fund-raising the highest priority for the new director, he said. However, he added that Mr. Ito’s particular leadership qualities made him stand out among the 250 candidates who were considered for the position. “Joi is very good at enabling others,” he said. “I’ve never met a 44-year-old who is able to enable others in this way. Most people who are at that age are into themselves and their career.” L. Rafael Reif, the provost of M.I.T., called Mr. Ito “the right person to lead the Media Lab today,” describing him as “an innovative thinker who understands the tremendous potential of technology and, in particular, the Internet, to influence education, business, and society in general.” Mr. Ito’s colleagues minimize the fact that he is without academic credentials. “He has credibility in an academic context,” said Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School who co-founded Creative Commons. Mr. Ito is currently chairman. “We’ve been collaborators, and I’ve stolen many ideas from him and turned them into my own.” The Media Lab will benefit from a director who has Mr. Ito’s global connections, said John Seely Brown, former director of Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center. “What they really need right now is to have a two-way connection to the outside world. Who more to do that than Joi?” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/26/science/26lab.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/26/science/26lab.html