14 ms·
Jeff Dean takes over as Google’s AI chief
- perfmode 9y agoJeff Dean is arguably one of the top 3 most productive and influential industry programmers of all time.
- aje403 9y agoHe certainly has the reputation. Are there any stories of people who've worked with him in person floating around (sans Chuck Norris jokes)? Would be curious to read. Have seen stories of Carmack and guys like that have cemented the legend.
- emtel 9y agoA former co-worker of mine was Jeff Dean's "mentor" at (I think) mysimon.com, where Jeff worked before google. He said that when Jeff started, he showed him how to check out code, and then basically just listened to Jeff typing furiously for about 6 weeks. Then, he gave a presentation to the eng team that was basically like "Ok I sped up the system by 20x, here's how." Then he quit and went to google.
- kolpa 9y agoJeff Dean was at MySimon for 6 months: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/jeff-dean-2#section-jobs https://www.crunchbase.com/person/jeff-dean-2#section-jobs Looks as though he got curious about the startup world after DEC, and MySimon had nothing to suit his ambitions.
- emtel 9y agoAh, ok, 6 months then.
- enitihas 9y agoJust curious, who do you think are the other two?
- kirillseva 9y agoI'd definitely put John Carmack on the list, probably as #1. And I think antirez should be somewhere up there as well
- tejasmanohar 9y agoWhile antirez is a great programmer, I think his accomplishments are far from that of Dean or Carmack. There are many notable folks in his playing field.
- kirillseva 9y agoI disagree. For example, homebrew isn't the best package manager. But its vast reach is a feat of its own. Same with redis. Is it the best DB ever? Probably not. But it is definitely used quite a bit in the industry and a lot of people get acquainted with nosql databases and k/v stores through redis. Engineering accomplishments without proper marketing, education and adoption are quite useless, for better or for worse
- hknd 9y agoSanjay Ghemawat is another one.
- enitihas 9y agoGhemawat should definitely be one. I sometimes wonder why Dean is teated on a wholly different level than Ghemawat. If you look at their works, almost all of them involve both. Probably someone with more knowledge can shed some light here.
- ebikelaw 9y agoI think I've heard "Jeff and Sanjay" as often as or more often than I've heard them regarded separately. Who invented protobuf? Jeff and Sanjay. Etc.
- bhaavan 9y agoIn a leadership role, it will be difficult for him to contribute technically IMO. I wish he remained a programmer, and continued using his abilities to solve greater things.
- antisocial 9y agoI am sure all the people he will be leading are passionate, he may not have to deal with the run of the mill org issues. Being promoted gives him more influence/power to implement his vision.
- antisocial 9y agoBTW, he is Jeff Dean, he can be the AI chief and hands on technical at the same time :) May be they promoted him because he was bored at work.
- aje403 9y agoNa, it makes perfect sense, especially if the person isn't socially retarded or unfit for management. They're able to contribute meaningfully to broad architectural designs to have a larger impact then hacking away at a single project, which also imparts their thought process to a larger group of developers who may end up in his shoes one day. Ideally someone in his shoes can recognize top talent and ideas as well, and clear organization barriers away for individuals and groups to achieve large things as well. Besides, people with his ability and experience should know everything that is going on to influence what the company chooses to do with its money and time over a political bonehead.
- dpflan 9y agoHave you read Coders at Work [1]? There are 15 computer scientists interviewed (listed below). Perhaps it's time for another edition with Dean, Carmack, and others. Coders at Work Interviewee List: - Jamie Zawinski - Brad Fitzpatrick - Douglas Crockford - Brendan Eich - Joshua Bloch - Joe Armstrong - Simon Peyton Jones - Peter Norvig - Guy Steele - Dan Ingalls - L Peter Deutsch - Ken Thompson - Fran Allen - Bernie Cosell - Donald Knuth [1] http://codersatwork.com/ http://codersatwork.com/
- mundanevoice 9y agoBrad is amazing. He has contributed so much back to the OSS and written excellent code. A true hero, also the youngest of the lot in the book.
- jasonwatkinspdx 9y agoI've pretty immense respect for Brad. He's very patient and empathetic in how he interacts with people on email lists, etc.
- mundanevoice 9y agoI would consider myself a success if I have even half of this empathy and patience. :)
- auvi 9y agointeresting to note that Jamie Zawinski, Peter Norvig, Guy Steele and L Peter Deutsch are all lispers
- tsm 9y agoSo is Peter Seibel, the interviewer…
- vram22 9y agoAnd Zawinski [1] achieved what he did with only a high school "degree" (in terms of formal education), according to what Norvig said here: http://norvig.com/21-days.html http://norvig.com/21-days.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski
- sah2ed 9y agoWould Dave Cutler make your list ;)? https://news.microsoft.com/features/the-engineers-engineer-computer-industry-luminaries-salute-dave-cutlers-five-decade-long-quest-for-quality/ https://news.microsoft.com/features/the-engineers-engineer-c...
- gaius 9y agoSuch a shame then that that talent is focused on making people click ads
- pebers 9y agoLike Bigtable, MapReduce and Tensorflow haven't had any impact outside advertising...
- jacquesm 9y agoThat's true, but if not for advertising they wouldn't exist. Advertising is like pornography: lots of technology finds its first application or even invention in either.
- antisocial 9y agoThey open source all their excellent work. Rent seeking cable providers are trying to take advantage of the net neutrality repeal to make people click ads.
- jonknee 9y agoIt could be worse, a couple generations ago the best minds were used to find new ways to kill people.
- notdonspaulding 9y agoThat seems like an uncharitable reading of history. Even if technically correct, this interpretation of the effects of nuclear weaponry on the number of humans killed in war seems wildly off-base. https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace In the short-term anyway (by which I mean 1945 to the present day), the advent of nuclear weaponry seems to have decreased the number of humans killed. And that was certainly the most reasonable rationale for the use of nuclear warheads to end WW2.
- jonknee 9y agoYou're discounting the non-zero chance that nuclear weapons will end the world as we know it. You can't say that about clicking ads.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- wpasc 9y agoJeff Dean writes directly in binary and provides the source code as documentation for other developers.
- VikingCoder 9y agohttps://www.quora.com/What-are-all-the-Jeff-Dean-facts https://www.quora.com/What-are-all-the-Jeff-Dean-facts My favorite: Compilers don't warn Jeff Dean. Jeff Dean warns compilers.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Consultant32452 9y agoLOL, Jeff Dean's pin number is the last 4 digits of pi.
- notoriousjpg 9y ago> Cricket matches used to take 5 days, until Jeff optimized them. Unfortunately some matches still take 5 days. Test matches!
- joseraul 9y agoRumors say he writes code in zcat to go faster.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- pm90 9y agoSeeing the comments, I can't but imagine what kind of personality is needed to not be affected by that kind of reputation and recognition. Like everyone expects everything you do or say to be really smart. I guess its kind of like being a celebrity; but instead of looking or acting good you have to be smart all the time. Edit: Also, how is Peter Norvig not Google's AI chief???
- svantana 9y agoNorvig's title is "Director of Research", presumably this is a different position than "AI Chief". Source: http://www.norvig.com/ http://www.norvig.com/
- dekhn 9y agoAnd to be clear, he is a Director of Research, not the Director of Research. There is more than one.
- srtjstjsj 9y agoWhy would he be?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jedberg 9y ago> I can't but imagine what kind of personality is needed to not be affected by that kind of reputation and recognition. The reason many Harvard grads keep the fact that they went to Harvard to themselves is because they have a similar expectation -- that everything they say will be brilliant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q51ld-scMI8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q51ld-scMI8
- mehrdadn 9y agoOuch :-)
- debt 9y ago
- ebikelaw 9y agoFor what it's worth, there is no "AI" division at Google. That term just doesn't enjoy any currency inside the company.
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 9y agoJust Acceletered Science, Brain, ... ;)
- JeremyBanks 9y agoThose are AI divisions. Parent was questioning the existence of an "AI division".
- kozikow 9y agoBrain, DeepMind and MI are mostly researchy. I know some people working on applied deep learning that got shuffled multiple times between PAs in the last year - it seems to be the solution for this exact problem.
- riku_iki 9y agoWhat is MI?..
- justbuchanan 9y agoMachine Intelligence
- sgt101 9y agoA contradiction in terms, or an oxymoron?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kozikow 9y agoMI - machine intelligence. Actually, it sounds like the article actually means MI when it says AI. John Giannandrea mentioned in the article used to be a head of "search & MI". So it makes sense that Jeff Dean would become a head of MI.
- onetimemanytime 9y agooff topic: how much do you think a guy like Jeff Dean is worth? 18-19 years at Google, pre-IPO and a super-programmer. Keeping in mind that Google paid Anthony Levandowski $120 Mil and Uber way more than that (technically Uber bought his company and maybe a hard drive :)) More than $500 Mil?
- lisper 9y agoJeff is priceless.
- dmix 9y agoLevandowski got $120M through acquisition, not salary as an engineer, did he not? Anyway, there was an old article about top salaries at Google that speculated Jeff making $3M/yr [1]. Jeff also angel invested in Teleport, which got acquired [2]. And his wife and him also have a philanthropy foundation that recently donated $1M to MIT [3] (to promote diversity). Any more recent employee stock options he gained and past IPO returns could obviously vary significantly depending on percentages, length of time, etc. But I'd be surprised if it was as high as $500M... [1] https://www.itworld.com/article/2693353/man-or-myth-the-3-million-google-engineer.html https://www.itworld.com/article/2693353/man-or-myth-the-3-mi... [2] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/teleport-2 https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/teleport-2 [3] https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2016/8/10/one-of-googles-top-programmers-has-made-stem-diversity-a-phi.html https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2016/8/10/one-of-goo...
- puzzle 9y agoJeff was between employee 20 and 30, IIRC, so it's hard to imagine him not having made many millions with the stock. On the other hand, he's the guy who kept his Volvo for well over a decade.
- onetimemanytime 9y agoWe're all guessing, but his net-worth probably didn't come from his salary. He joined Google 1-3 years after Google was founded so we have to assume that he got a lot of stock options, especially given his talent. When Google IPO-ed in 2004 it had a market cap of $23 Billion. Today is 30 times that much. Of course he might have sold shares, but then he might have gotten super bonuses for a lot of his projects. Maybe he asked to leave and Sergey and Larry gave him a new title and lot of money. Sometime a small tweak makes a Google-sized company billions or tens of billions. They are generous with a tiny % of the sum. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/03/waymos-uber-lawsuit-reveals-anthony-levandowskis-120m-pay.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/03/waymos-uber-lawsuit-reveals-... "Embattled engineer Anthony Levandowski collected $120 million from Google, despite involvement with at least one start-up that would ultimately compete with the company, according to new legal filings. "
- known 9y agoI prefer a Hollywood Director as my AI Chief
- dmix 9y agoFYI Jeff Dean gave a lecture at YC on AI last summer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcStlHGpjN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcStlHGpjN8
- swah 9y agoI'd love to see a long coding stream from Jeff or another senior Googler, that demoed all the tools they use and the infrastructure they have available to develop and test new code...
- bmbelgod 9y agoNot exactly a coding stream, but a good overview of the tools he uses regularly https://usesthis.com/interviews/jeff.dean/ https://usesthis.com/interviews/jeff.dean/
- bitrazor123 9y agoGoogle's AI has come long way and is maturing in right direction. As they say success has many fathers, so welcome onboard
- efitz 9y agoI read this and thought - that's going to be a big culture shift, Jeffrey Dean Morgan taking over Google's AI: https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/walking-dead-jeffrey-dean-morgan-negan-season-7.jpg?w=1000&h=563&crop=1 https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/walking-dead-...
- dpflan 9y agoI think an affinity for "brains" still holds here. ;) [as long as my zombie allusion holds...]
- jamestimmins 9y agoI'm curious what this means practically. What will he be doing all day? Is it still research or code writing, or at this level is he focused on managing people and projects at a high level? If the latter, what does that even mean?
- filereaper 9y agoSo many chiefs. Jeff Dean is the AI Chief, and Fei Fei Li is the Chief Scientist of AI/ML Not sure what the distinction is, but good for both of them.
- slivym 9y agoPresumably there are some googlers around here that can explain the difference in detail,but Fei Fei Li is R&D in Google Cloud whereas Jeff Dean is taking the organisational role as head of AI. So much more of the organisation will be involved - some product development, marketing, operations etc. as well a R&D.
- nojvek 9y agoThe list of mostly dudes seen as programmers worth worship makes me sad. Most great software is usually written implicitly or explicitly as a team. Here’s a name for a start. Jessie Frazelle. Very influencial in the Kubernetes project. I’d love to see a list of “industry changing” female programmers. Mostly because it’s 2018 and we need to change the perceptions that “great software can only be written by men”
- ironfootnz 9y agoI believe was worthy. Jeff Dean deserves it.