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When Jeff Bezos decided not to become a physicist [video]

125 points by ZhuanXia 8y ago

callesgg 8y ago
What a great little story. I would definetly like to be better at telling stories like this. When I try to tell stories I always end up on irellevant tangents. That have almost nothing to do with the main point. Or I get stuck in some detail and forget what I was talking about.
- jjtheblunt 8y ago
  "stories" is the plural of "story". [ autocorrect does this sort of thing to me all the damned time. ]
- tdhz77 8y ago
  I agree, he really sells it when he says “Yasantha” starred at the problem. Every sentence is clear and concise. It moves the story without adding anything extra. My story would still be going on — I would have hit on all of the major food groups; DMCA, Freemium model, and Publishing rights.
  - burger_moon 8y ago
    The key to being a good story teller, is telling the same story over and over again, refining it and removing any fluff from the story. This is what separates great comedians from just ok comedians as well. They're telling a story that has been refined in front of an audience to land just right.
  - rdlecler1 8y ago
    He’s probably told this story 1000 times and so why you’re getting is the most refined version. I had a friend who was very very successful and he would continue to repeat a story until he nailed it and as a consequence he always came across as a genius. The genius was in the preparation.
criddell 8y ago
This is off topic, but are there any physicists working today that are the modern day version of a Feynman, Einstein, Dirac, Wheeler, Bethe, Bohr, etc...? I've been reading James Gleick's Genius and it was a question I had when reading about 23 year old Richard Feynman.
- kken 8y ago
  Most likely, you will only know when they have passed.
  - criddell 8y ago
    Why? All the people I listed were highly regarded for their contributions at the time.
- goldcd 8y ago
  Maybe what's important is that I have no idea how to rate Feynman as a physicist. I can rate him highly as a writer though.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- 0xcafecafe 8y ago
  Ed Witten? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Witten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Witten
  - cambalache 8y ago
    Well, Witten is Einstein/Bohr caliber. Feynman was not.
    - perl4ever 8y ago
      Why do you say that?
- Nadya 8y ago
m0zg 8y ago
Looks like that other guy is not a "great theoretical physicist" now either: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasantha-rajakarunanayake-aa23568/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasantha-rajakarunanayake-aa2356...
- theontheone 8y ago
  he made many contributions to other parts of science (wireless, communications), though, that I doubt bezos would be able to so the point still stands.
  - m0zg 8y ago
    I think you're short changing Bezos. From everything I heard, the dude is as sharp as a tack.
ZhuanXia 8y ago
Everyone is jealous of someone. It is amusing to compare Bezos's awe at Yasantha to that of many of his engineers towards him - or for that matter, my awe of anyone who can pass Amazon's recruitment process. See this except from a biography of Bezos: >... To the amazement and irritation of employees, Bezos’s criticisms are almost always on target. Bruce Jones, a former Amazon supply chain vice president, describes leading a five-engineer team figuring out ways to make the movement of workers in fulfillment centers more efficient. The group spent nine months on the task, then presented their work to Bezos. “We had beautiful documents, and everyone was really prepared,” Jones says. Bezos read the paper, said, “You’re all wrong,” stood up, and started writing on the whiteboard. >“He had no background in control theory, no background in operating systems,” Jones says. “He only had minimum experience in the distribution centers and never spent weeks and months out on the line.” But Bezos laid out his argument on the whiteboard, and “every stinking thing he put down was correct and true,” Jones says. “It would be easier to stomach if we could prove he was wrong, but we couldn’t. That was a typical interaction with Jeff. He had this unbelievable ability to be incredibly intelligent about things he had nothing to do with, and he was totally ruthless about communicating it.” Yasantha is an interesting fellow, with contributions in wireless networking, AI, chip design and various other fields. In this article Yasantha describes Bezos's legendary work ethic[1]. >Yasantha described how students once dared each other to complete a computer science assignment in a single line of coding. “Finally, I gave up and did this in 10 or so lines of code,” he added, “But I remember Jeff working through all night, in pursuit of the most compact solution, and turned in a two-line solution that was probably the shortest anyone could do…” >“It goes to prove that Jeff is tenacious, and will not give up like most of us would when presented with a challenge,” he said. >“He sets his goals and sticks to them. I think that’s a quality that has made him who he is,” Yasantha added. Think what it meant for someone such as him to give up on his dream to be a theoretical physicist. Despite his tenaciousness he was forced to conclude there were levels of abstraction he could not reach through hard work. [1] http://www.dailynews.lk/2018/09/22/local/163321/lankan-solved-math-problem-amazon-founder http://www.dailynews.lk/2018/09/22/local/163321/lankan-solve...
- goldcd 8y ago
  I don't want to stroke the Bezos ego more than necessary - but he's not dumb. Geniuses don't get rich by just being geniuses (think of Tesla holed up towards the end in a shitty hotel). What you need is a smart person who can recognize other people can be smarter - and they need help, that you can provide. I mean this without a trace of sarcasm - it's a bit of ego with a bit of humility (whilst ensuring you retain the stock) I've always plugged Bezos into the Edison mold.
goldcd 8y ago
We are going to pick on the size of that tie-knot right?
ken 8y ago
Also known as: http://wiki.c2.com/?FeynmanAlgorithm http://wiki.c2.com/?FeynmanAlgorithm In this case, Bezos saw firsthand how a brain teaser could be answered by "seen something similar once before" much more easily than "worked on it on a team for several hours". Isn't this exactly the sort of brain teaser that we hate seeing in tech interviews? This one was bad enough that Bezos left the field, yet Amazon (like every other software company) still asks these style of questions of its engineering candidates.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 8y ago
  Maybe Amazon still asks these style of questions because Bezos is looking to hire those that are brighter than he was.
- deanCommie 8y ago
  Nope, that's not how tech interview coding problems work at all. They're not brain teasers, they are real life problems that can worked through iteratively, with some hints and guidance from the interviewer. Source: Am one of those types of tech interviewers at one of those types of tech companies
  - flashgordon 8y ago
    Except that is not how it ends up. Candidates who get/take hints are largely de-ranked over those who "solved 3 questions flawlessly without any inputs within an hour" as are those candidates who bring in an approach that the interviewers did not have in their mind. Source: Am one of those types of tech interviewers at one of those types of tech companies and also part of the HC having reviewed thousands of interview feedback!
    - deanCommie 8y ago
      If you're doing only technical questions, you're doing it wrong. Spend half the time on behavioural questions, and half on tech, and suddenly you'll find it easier to justify hiring a well rounded engineer who needed a couple of hints over an unblinking automaton who can solve questions flawlessly yet would struggle with any real-life ambiguity.
GoodJokes 8y ago
He was bright enough to identify that exploting workers was still wildly profitable.
arisAlexis 8y ago
actually Bezos doesn't say what the titles says. I like factual titles
adventured 8y ago
Reminds me of the story that Paul Allen recounted about Bill Gates going off to Harvard rather pumped up about his abilities relating to math (Gates has said he considered wanting to teach math as a profession when he was in high school) and then realizing he wasn't good enough at it to keep up with the elite math students there. That to keep up with them you'd need to be among the best in the field and even if he was good, he wasn't math-genius level good.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
anonytrary 8y ago
It's better to fail fast than to waste 5 years getting a PhD you don't really need. I've had a lot of professors who started out pursuing theoretical physics in grad school, but quickly switched to experimental physics after realizing that they were simply not the right material for theory. I was always surprised to hear it, because I regarded those professors as very bright. It is very humbling.
wtmt 8y ago
Tangentially, I wonder how the world would be if Jeff Bezos had become a theoretical physicist and hadn't founded Amazon. Perhaps he could've done just good-good instead of good-bad (tilting more and more to the bad side). Would someone else then have founded an Amazon-like company? That seems highly unlikely since even now, nobody else seems close to it on the combination of technology, retail, reach, growth and influence.
lars-b2018 8y ago
Had Bezos continued in the theoretical physics direction, I am sure he would of been successful and productive in the field. He would of got the math. Great theoreticians have imaginations that are able to come up with ideas that have "fit". The mathematics help you get there, and help you understand the problem, but the imagination and creative thinking skills are crucial. Bezos has this ability - Amazon's success I think demonstrates this very well.
isostatic 8y ago
"The face book (which was an actual paper book at that time)" I love that line.

125 points by ZhuanXia 8y ago

What a great little story. I would definetly like to be better at telling stories like this. When I try to tell stories I always end up on irellevant tangents. That have almost nothing to do with the main point. Or I get stuck in some detail and forget what I was talking about.

jjtheblunt 8y ago
"stories" is the plural of "story". [ autocorrect does this sort of thing to me all the damned time. ]
tdhz77 8y ago
I agree, he really sells it when he says “Yasantha” starred at the problem. Every sentence is clear and concise. It moves the story without adding anything extra. My story would still be going on — I would have hit on all of the major food groups; DMCA, Freemium model, and Publishing rights.
- burger_moon 8y ago
  The key to being a good story teller, is telling the same story over and over again, refining it and removing any fluff from the story. This is what separates great comedians from just ok comedians as well. They're telling a story that has been refined in front of an audience to land just right.
- rdlecler1 8y ago
  He’s probably told this story 1000 times and so why you’re getting is the most refined version. I had a friend who was very very successful and he would continue to repeat a story until he nailed it and as a consequence he always came across as a genius. The genius was in the preparation.

criddell 8y ago

This is off topic, but are there any physicists working today that are the modern day version of a Feynman, Einstein, Dirac, Wheeler, Bethe, Bohr, etc...? I've been reading James Gleick's Genius and it was a question I had when reading about 23 year old Richard Feynman.

kken 8y ago
Most likely, you will only know when they have passed.
- criddell 8y ago
  Why? All the people I listed were highly regarded for their contributions at the time.
goldcd 8y ago
Maybe what's important is that I have no idea how to rate Feynman as a physicist. I can rate him highly as a writer though.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
0xcafecafe 8y ago
Ed Witten? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Witten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Witten
- cambalache 8y ago
  Well, Witten is Einstein/Bohr caliber. Feynman was not.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    Why do you say that?
Nadya 8y ago

m0zg 8y ago

Looks like that other guy is not a "great theoretical physicist" now either: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasantha-rajakarunanayake-aa23568/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasantha-rajakarunanayake-aa2356...

theontheone 8y ago
he made many contributions to other parts of science (wireless, communications), though, that I doubt bezos would be able to so the point still stands.
- m0zg 8y ago
  I think you're short changing Bezos. From everything I heard, the dude is as sharp as a tack.

ZhuanXia 8y ago

Everyone is jealous of someone. It is amusing to compare Bezos's awe at Yasantha to that of many of his engineers towards him - or for that matter, my awe of anyone who can pass Amazon's recruitment process. See this except from a biography of Bezos: >... To the amazement and irritation of employees, Bezos’s criticisms are almost always on target. Bruce Jones, a former Amazon supply chain vice president, describes leading a five-engineer team figuring out ways to make the movement of workers in fulfillment centers more efficient. The group spent nine months on the task, then presented their work to Bezos. “We had beautiful documents, and everyone was really prepared,” Jones says. Bezos read the paper, said, “You’re all wrong,” stood up, and started writing on the whiteboard. >“He had no background in control theory, no background in operating systems,” Jones says. “He only had minimum experience in the distribution centers and never spent weeks and months out on the line.” But Bezos laid out his argument on the whiteboard, and “every stinking thing he put down was correct and true,” Jones says. “It would be easier to stomach if we could prove he was wrong, but we couldn’t. That was a typical interaction with Jeff. He had this unbelievable ability to be incredibly intelligent about things he had nothing to do with, and he was totally ruthless about communicating it.” Yasantha is an interesting fellow, with contributions in wireless networking, AI, chip design and various other fields. In this article Yasantha describes Bezos's legendary work ethic[1]. >Yasantha described how students once dared each other to complete a computer science assignment in a single line of coding. “Finally, I gave up and did this in 10 or so lines of code,” he added, “But I remember Jeff working through all night, in pursuit of the most compact solution, and turned in a two-line solution that was probably the shortest anyone could do…” >“It goes to prove that Jeff is tenacious, and will not give up like most of us would when presented with a challenge,” he said. >“He sets his goals and sticks to them. I think that’s a quality that has made him who he is,” Yasantha added. Think what it meant for someone such as him to give up on his dream to be a theoretical physicist. Despite his tenaciousness he was forced to conclude there were levels of abstraction he could not reach through hard work. [1] http://www.dailynews.lk/2018/09/22/local/163321/lankan-solved-math-problem-amazon-founder http://www.dailynews.lk/2018/09/22/local/163321/lankan-solve...

goldcd 8y ago
I don't want to stroke the Bezos ego more than necessary - but he's not dumb. Geniuses don't get rich by just being geniuses (think of Tesla holed up towards the end in a shitty hotel). What you need is a smart person who can recognize other people can be smarter - and they need help, that you can provide. I mean this without a trace of sarcasm - it's a bit of ego with a bit of humility (whilst ensuring you retain the stock) I've always plugged Bezos into the Edison mold.

goldcd 8y ago

We are going to pick on the size of that tie-knot right?

ken 8y ago

Also known as: http://wiki.c2.com/?FeynmanAlgorithm http://wiki.c2.com/?FeynmanAlgorithm In this case, Bezos saw firsthand how a brain teaser could be answered by "seen something similar once before" much more easily than "worked on it on a team for several hours". Isn't this exactly the sort of brain teaser that we hate seeing in tech interviews? This one was bad enough that Bezos left the field, yet Amazon (like every other software company) still asks these style of questions of its engineering candidates.

bitxbitxbitcoin 8y ago
Maybe Amazon still asks these style of questions because Bezos is looking to hire those that are brighter than he was.
deanCommie 8y ago
Nope, that's not how tech interview coding problems work at all. They're not brain teasers, they are real life problems that can worked through iteratively, with some hints and guidance from the interviewer. Source: Am one of those types of tech interviewers at one of those types of tech companies
- flashgordon 8y ago
  Except that is not how it ends up. Candidates who get/take hints are largely de-ranked over those who "solved 3 questions flawlessly without any inputs within an hour" as are those candidates who bring in an approach that the interviewers did not have in their mind. Source: Am one of those types of tech interviewers at one of those types of tech companies and also part of the HC having reviewed thousands of interview feedback!
  - deanCommie 8y ago
    If you're doing only technical questions, you're doing it wrong. Spend half the time on behavioural questions, and half on tech, and suddenly you'll find it easier to justify hiring a well rounded engineer who needed a couple of hints over an unblinking automaton who can solve questions flawlessly yet would struggle with any real-life ambiguity.

GoodJokes 8y ago

He was bright enough to identify that exploting workers was still wildly profitable.

arisAlexis 8y ago

actually Bezos doesn't say what the titles says. I like factual titles

adventured 8y ago

Reminds me of the story that Paul Allen recounted about Bill Gates going off to Harvard rather pumped up about his abilities relating to math (Gates has said he considered wanting to teach math as a profession when he was in high school) and then realizing he wasn't good enough at it to keep up with the elite math students there. That to keep up with them you'd need to be among the best in the field and even if he was good, he wasn't math-genius level good.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

anonytrary 8y ago

It's better to fail fast than to waste 5 years getting a PhD you don't really need. I've had a lot of professors who started out pursuing theoretical physics in grad school, but quickly switched to experimental physics after realizing that they were simply not the right material for theory. I was always surprised to hear it, because I regarded those professors as very bright. It is very humbling.

wtmt 8y ago

Tangentially, I wonder how the world would be if Jeff Bezos had become a theoretical physicist and hadn't founded Amazon. Perhaps he could've done just good-good instead of good-bad (tilting more and more to the bad side). Would someone else then have founded an Amazon-like company? That seems highly unlikely since even now, nobody else seems close to it on the combination of technology, retail, reach, growth and influence.

lars-b2018 8y ago

Had Bezos continued in the theoretical physics direction, I am sure he would of been successful and productive in the field. He would of got the math. Great theoreticians have imaginations that are able to come up with ideas that have "fit". The mathematics help you get there, and help you understand the problem, but the imagination and creative thinking skills are crucial. Bezos has this ability - Amazon's success I think demonstrates this very well.

isostatic 8y ago

"The face book (which was an actual paper book at that time)" I love that line.