13 ms·
This is the Google version of winning the lottery. Right place, right skills, right time.
by teej 6y ago
This is the Google version of winning the lottery. Right place, right skills, right time.
- ponker 6y agoNo, you cannot compare becoming the world's best self-driving engineer to winning the lottery. This is like becoming Lebron James, it's tremendous talent combined with tremendous commitment.
- bduerst 6y agoThat's survivor bias though, isn't it? Hard to see the world's best self-driving engineers when they're not getting caught stealing trade secrets and forced to reveal compensation.
- ponker 6y agoNot really, I can say that for example Karpathy is at the same general level as Levandowski and he hasn't been caught stealing trade secrets.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kyawzazaw 6y agoI don't think that's true. Because they were already being compensated very highly.
- disillusioned 6y agoThought this was going to go a different direction for a moment...
- maccard 6y agoWell they wouldn't be the world's best self driving engineers in that case would they?
- monadic2 6y agoWell, it's a lot more like tripping and falling on your face than being Lebron James in this case.
- pcwalton 6y agoAt this point the right sports comparison isn't LeBron James; it's Lance Armstrong.
- user5994461 6y agoSounds about right. Lance could basically sit down in the rocket and take the fame, while thousands of other people did the work to make the rocket and have it go to the moon and back.
- JohnBooty 6y agoAre we confusing Lance Armstrong and Neil Armstrong?
- user5994461 6y agoYes, my bad ^^
- JohnBooty 6y ago=)
- _ph_ 6y agoRight, Lance Armstrong was the great musician :)
- mensetmanusman 6y agoHahahaha, yes, I was like ‘wtf, lance armstrong? are coders doping?
- JohnBooty 6y agoAbsolutely we are doping! Adderall, modafinil.... caffeine...
- rorykoehler 6y agoIt's not that he's the best self-driving engineer (though no doubt he is excellent). It's that he is the best self-driving engineer who is also a shrewd political operator.
- baryphonic 6y agoNot shrewd enough, apparently. Or maybe he just got giant hubris and thought he could fool all of the people all of the time.
- dkarl 6y agoHe was the best self-driving engineer at a time when that was worth $120 million to Google. Is the world's best hydrogen fuel cell engineer getting $120 million bonuses? How about the world's best metallurgist? Historical linguist? You have to be the world's best in a field that could unlock dominance in an enormous potential market that is being actively contested and that one of the world's richest corporations thinks might be won in the next decade.
- dx034 6y agoA valid point. Especially as self driving is nowhere close to bringing in revenue for any of the companies involved. Other than engineers working with batteries or metals which lead to actual billion dollar revenues.
- pythonaut_16 6y agoYou might say what's unusual with Levandowski is that he made so much money while working for someone else; and while not actually achieving any additional revenue. If a battery or metals (or self-driving) engineer comes up with a material break through and starts a company they could easily eclipse Levandowski's earnings.
- nathanvanfleet 6y agoI think they gave the credit to him about having the skills. But it's the truth that luck is a huge factor. The same goes for Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. They had enormous skill and talent but if they so much as had slightly different childhoods or friends or geographic locations it would have been someone else. 1. Bill Gates had computer access 2. Steve Jobs met Woz
- jimnotgym 6y agoYes, imagine they were born 50 years earlier, or indeed now!
- ehsankia 6y agoNo one is saying that talent and commitment weren't involved, but anyone who thinks there's not also a lot of luck involved is kidding themselves. Any number of fantastic and hard working engineers, not being at the right place at the right time could end up nowhere. Of course, commitment can increase your odds grealy, but it doesn't magically make them 100%.
- alexbanks 6y agoLebron James was the exact definition of right place, right skills, right time. Lots of players have "tremendous talent" and "tremendous commitment." Lebron wouldn't be what he is today without a tremendous amount of luck. Would his career have worked out if Carmelo was drafted to Cleveland and Lebron went to the Nuggets? What about if Lebron needed to do a year in college now? How would that have impacted his trajectory? Nobody is doubting Levandowki is an extremely talented engineer, but literally every person that achieves that level of success also took a considerable amount of luck to get there. Right place, right time, right skills is everything.
- ponker 6y agoSure, but there is an ocean between the fraction of Lebron James' success that is luck (which is substantial, as you point out, call it 25%) and that of a lottery winner (which is effectively 100%)
- alexbanks 6y agoYou're arguing against a point no one made. I never said said Lebron was all luck. I said that the luck was Lebron having his genetics and mindset combined with the year he was born, the circumstances with which he was drafted and the coaching and teammates he got.
- solidasparagus 6y agoI don't think this is a great example. LeBron James has once in a generation physical gifts. It is not true that lots of players have the physical talent that LeBron has. With those gifts, he is going to go pro in a major sport and probably be a standout in most situations. I think his success is pretty independent of luck and time.
- ako 6y agoHaving once in a generation physical gifts is a huge amount of luck. Most people have to cope with mediocre physical gifts that no amount of training will fix.
- Tomis02 6y ago> world's best self-driving engineer Citation needed. I don't see many self-driving cars around, did you mean "world's most self-promoting engineer in self-driving cars"?
- tester34 6y ago>I don't see many self-driving cars around It doesn't mean that he's not the best, does it?
- Tomis02 6y agoThat's why I was asking for a citation, I want to know by what criteria he was deemed to be the god of self-driving cars.
- tester34 6y agoMy take on that but by no means I'm knowledgeable in those topics: As far as I've heard Waymo was considered to be #1[0] when it comes to self-driving cars, thus it's probably someone of Waymoers So if he was actually doing a lot of work there (basing on experience and how important for Google he was) then I think it's fair to consider him as a pretendent to be industry leader [0] - Basing on Googling "most advanced autonomous cars"
- watwut 6y agoBeyond that, the exact moment when this guy stop those trade secrets was unlikely to be the first time he did something unethical. He was likely manipulative, lying, either to harm competition etc etc etc long before which made him good at climbing corporate ladder and negotiating. He just got too brazen with those trade secrets. Which is exactly how people get high rewards, until it breaks.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- throwaway_4179 6y agoThis point cannot be emphasized strongly enough. Having known him personally, he does not have the same kinds of qualms as most of us here.
- Nightshaxx 6y agoBut compared to the lottery, the skills needed to exploit the right place and the right time are not trivial to learn.
- heavenlyblue 6y agoThere’s enough people in the world to make the chance become the primary driving factor in that. You could post factually justify their place, but that’s easy in hindsight. If you think your statement is true - could you please provide a research into which skills would be needed to exploit the right place at the right time that actually proves that’s not some mystical abberation of self-help books?