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Seems like he has been changing companies quite a bit recently. Is this typical for the VP level? Does anyone know how his tenure at Google was viewed by others

Seems like he has been changing companies quite a bit recently. Is this typical for the VP level? Does anyone know how his tenure at Google was viewed by others?

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
Well, his time at Tesla was basically (publicly, IIRC) determined to be a bad fit between him and the company, so can't really fault him there. So since his long tenure at Apple he had a misstep at Tesla and a shortish, but certainly reasonable, length at Google. Would definitely not call that job hopping.
- pier25 7y ago
  > determined to be a bad fit between him and the company How so? Edit: Jesus it was a legitimate question, why the downvotes?
  - coldnose 7y ago
    https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/877341760812232704 https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/877341760812232704
    - turdnagel 7y ago
      That doesn’t really answer the question. “Not a good fit” is a bit of a euphemism in the industry - it typically is a polite way of saying “I didn’t get along with the CEO/CTO/leadership because X, Y, and Z” - and that’s what GP (and myself) are looking for. I doubt we’ll get an answer anytime soon - he’s a classy guy and probably still under NDA with Tesla.
      - 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
        It doesn’t really matter - he’s no longer there and I’m sure much happier because of it. There are a lot of irrational things management can come up with. Sometimes the manager in particular is a sociopath or narcissist. Or maybe you unknowingly offended them in some way. At that point there’s no reason to stay, regardless of the reason.
      - chrislattner 7y ago
        With the benefit of hindsight, I'm really happy both that I joined Tesla and also that I left it. I have no regrets at all. I learned a lot while I was there, but Elon and I had different opinions about some things. It was clear that he wasn't going to bend or change, and those points were important to me. I have some principles that are extremely important to me, and if they aren't aligning, then it is best to acknowledge that and do something about it, than deny it and be frustrated or unhappy. E is a force of nature -- for better and worse :-). I'm glad we have someone like him in the world, but that doesn't mean I want to be directly involved.
        pgodzin 7y ago
        Any lessons on sticking to principles and how to make sure they align going into a project/role? I imagine it's hard to so preemptively rather than when push comes to shove.
  - jaimex2 7y ago
    He's a talented computer language architect but really had no place leading a machine learning heavy team, huge waste of everyone's time and money. This was a Tesla hiring mistake. You get an expert in a field, you can't just shove a guy whos good at one thing and expect him to excel in another. Andrej Karpathy basically threw everything out once he replaced Latner.
    - Joky 7y ago
      You seem to have the impression that a machine learning model is all you need to drive the car: this isn't true. There is a lot of real-time system programming and overall architecture. > Andrej Karpathy basically threw everything out once he replaced Latner. What are you basing this on? I don't believe there is any truth to this. First Chris was not replaced by Andrej but by Jim Keller and then Stuart Bowers. Andrej is amazing in his field and has done impressive things at Tesla, but he is managing the ML part of the org, which was a relatively small portion of the Autopilot Software group overall.
  - runjake 7y ago
    Lattner initially elaborated on his departure from Tesla on his website but later removed many of the details. IIRC, he and Elon had some disagreements on software things.
    - hinkley 7y ago
      "Never write software for a hardware company."
    - focus2020 7y ago
      Is there link to archive of the original post ?
      - runjake 7y ago
        It looks like Chris understandably removed that version of Resume.html from web.archive.org. Do a DuckDuckGo search for "lattner elon musk" and you'll find the info you are looking for. There was significant media coverage at the time.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
cowsandmilk 7y ago
2.5 years is short now? Pretty sure that’s longer than Google’s median tenure.
- MiroF 7y ago
  For that level, I would consider it short - no?
- azhenley 7y ago
  He was also at Tesla for something like 6 months, I think.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  For startups no, for classical jobs, at least here in Europe, yeah.
  - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
    Depends what skills you have and how hot your market is. I know some people in big metro areas like London or Bucharest switching every year without problem as their skills are in high demand.
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      In German speaking countries that kind of job hoping isn't well seen, at all. Anyone switching after an year means they barely made it after the six months probation time, so many employers will think twice about hiring them, unless they are in pressure to hire someone.
      - barrkel 7y ago
        I look at it the other way around. They're probably talented enough to make it past probation, so their leaving was them deciding to leave, rather than not making it. That is, any investment you make in them, giving them slack to get up to speed in a codebase, you'll lose because they don't stick around.
bpyne 7y ago
His credentials put him in high demand. Due to this, he has the luxury of changing jobs in order to find his fit. Jumping can dampen the demand at some point, but it hasn't for now. I wouldn't read anything else into it.
guidoism 7y ago
I interpreted him going to Google as a place to learn a few new things while figuring out what to do next. He’s done some big stuff in the past. But even people like him need time to figure out what to tackle next.
omarhaneef 7y ago
Perhaps they were looking for at least 10 years of Swift experience and were disappointed to learn he only had 7.
- drhackenstein 7y ago
  It’s funny because it’s true
chongli 7y ago
He seems like the kind of developer that needs a real challenge to work on. When things shift into maintenance mode, he gets bored. That’s my take anyway. He’s a brilliant programmer. I’m glad to hear that he’s working on something really interesting.
- mehhh 7y ago
  I would avoid binning people into builders or maintainers, there are many more issues that could prompt one to leave Tesla and Google, eg: Work environment or ethical issues.
therealnews 7y ago
Anyone who has been following his projects knows that 2.5 years is too little a time for the problems he set out to solve and the projects he was leading (esp. with TensorFlow, MLIR, TF runtime, TPUs). So this is really a very early, abrupt and surprising exit, and several people both inside/outside know that he ran into political issues/struggles with high-level folks. Fortunately, one of the projects (MLIR) is already part of LLVM and will remain unaffected, but looks like S4TF may just die out irrespective of what's being said. Otherwise, we may not hear much on the details given his "seemingly" reasonable length stint at Google.

Seems like he has been changing companies quite a bit recently. Is this typical for the VP level? Does anyone know how his tenure at Google was viewed by others?

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago

Well, his time at Tesla was basically (publicly, IIRC) determined to be a bad fit between him and the company, so can't really fault him there. So since his long tenure at Apple he had a misstep at Tesla and a shortish, but certainly reasonable, length at Google. Would definitely not call that job hopping.

pier25 7y ago
> determined to be a bad fit between him and the company How so? Edit: Jesus it was a legitimate question, why the downvotes?
- coldnose 7y ago
  https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/877341760812232704 https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/877341760812232704
  - turdnagel 7y ago
    That doesn’t really answer the question. “Not a good fit” is a bit of a euphemism in the industry - it typically is a polite way of saying “I didn’t get along with the CEO/CTO/leadership because X, Y, and Z” - and that’s what GP (and myself) are looking for. I doubt we’ll get an answer anytime soon - he’s a classy guy and probably still under NDA with Tesla.
    - 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
      It doesn’t really matter - he’s no longer there and I’m sure much happier because of it. There are a lot of irrational things management can come up with. Sometimes the manager in particular is a sociopath or narcissist. Or maybe you unknowingly offended them in some way. At that point there’s no reason to stay, regardless of the reason.
    - chrislattner 7y ago
      With the benefit of hindsight, I'm really happy both that I joined Tesla and also that I left it. I have no regrets at all. I learned a lot while I was there, but Elon and I had different opinions about some things. It was clear that he wasn't going to bend or change, and those points were important to me. I have some principles that are extremely important to me, and if they aren't aligning, then it is best to acknowledge that and do something about it, than deny it and be frustrated or unhappy. E is a force of nature -- for better and worse :-). I'm glad we have someone like him in the world, but that doesn't mean I want to be directly involved.
      - pgodzin 7y ago
        Any lessons on sticking to principles and how to make sure they align going into a project/role? I imagine it's hard to so preemptively rather than when push comes to shove.
- jaimex2 7y ago
  He's a talented computer language architect but really had no place leading a machine learning heavy team, huge waste of everyone's time and money. This was a Tesla hiring mistake. You get an expert in a field, you can't just shove a guy whos good at one thing and expect him to excel in another. Andrej Karpathy basically threw everything out once he replaced Latner.
  - Joky 7y ago
    You seem to have the impression that a machine learning model is all you need to drive the car: this isn't true. There is a lot of real-time system programming and overall architecture. > Andrej Karpathy basically threw everything out once he replaced Latner. What are you basing this on? I don't believe there is any truth to this. First Chris was not replaced by Andrej but by Jim Keller and then Stuart Bowers. Andrej is amazing in his field and has done impressive things at Tesla, but he is managing the ML part of the org, which was a relatively small portion of the Autopilot Software group overall.
- runjake 7y ago
  Lattner initially elaborated on his departure from Tesla on his website but later removed many of the details. IIRC, he and Elon had some disagreements on software things.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    "Never write software for a hardware company."
  - focus2020 7y ago
    Is there link to archive of the original post ?
    - runjake 7y ago
      It looks like Chris understandably removed that version of Resume.html from web.archive.org. Do a DuckDuckGo search for "lattner elon musk" and you'll find the info you are looking for. There was significant media coverage at the time.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

cowsandmilk 7y ago

2.5 years is short now? Pretty sure that’s longer than Google’s median tenure.

MiroF 7y ago
For that level, I would consider it short - no?
azhenley 7y ago
He was also at Tesla for something like 6 months, I think.
pjmlp 7y ago
For startups no, for classical jobs, at least here in Europe, yeah.
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  Depends what skills you have and how hot your market is. I know some people in big metro areas like London or Bucharest switching every year without problem as their skills are in high demand.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    In German speaking countries that kind of job hoping isn't well seen, at all. Anyone switching after an year means they barely made it after the six months probation time, so many employers will think twice about hiring them, unless they are in pressure to hire someone.
    - barrkel 7y ago
      I look at it the other way around. They're probably talented enough to make it past probation, so their leaving was them deciding to leave, rather than not making it. That is, any investment you make in them, giving them slack to get up to speed in a codebase, you'll lose because they don't stick around.

bpyne 7y ago

His credentials put him in high demand. Due to this, he has the luxury of changing jobs in order to find his fit. Jumping can dampen the demand at some point, but it hasn't for now. I wouldn't read anything else into it.

guidoism 7y ago

I interpreted him going to Google as a place to learn a few new things while figuring out what to do next. He’s done some big stuff in the past. But even people like him need time to figure out what to tackle next.

omarhaneef 7y ago

Perhaps they were looking for at least 10 years of Swift experience and were disappointed to learn he only had 7.

drhackenstein 7y ago
It’s funny because it’s true

chongli 7y ago

He seems like the kind of developer that needs a real challenge to work on. When things shift into maintenance mode, he gets bored. That’s my take anyway. He’s a brilliant programmer. I’m glad to hear that he’s working on something really interesting.

mehhh 7y ago
I would avoid binning people into builders or maintainers, there are many more issues that could prompt one to leave Tesla and Google, eg: Work environment or ethical issues.

therealnews 7y ago

Anyone who has been following his projects knows that 2.5 years is too little a time for the problems he set out to solve and the projects he was leading (esp. with TensorFlow, MLIR, TF runtime, TPUs). So this is really a very early, abrupt and surprising exit, and several people both inside/outside know that he ran into political issues/struggles with high-level folks. Fortunately, one of the projects (MLIR) is already part of LLVM and will remain unaffected, but looks like S4TF may just die out irrespective of what's being said. Otherwise, we may not hear much on the details given his "seemingly" reasonable length stint at Google.