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Ah the old I don't want to do my job and accept that there "was nothing I could do" which is middle management bullshit. It is fine if you think that, but acce

Ah the old I don't want to do my job and accept that there "was nothing I could do" which is middle management bullshit. It is fine if you think that, but accept that you are the weak one here. If you want to err on the side of keeping your job it's fine, but don't pretend you didn't make a trade off. You do not have to accept anti social behavior but a good manager would have handled this and it would never have reached this point, public or otherwise. This whole episode is failure of management top to bottom.

nickff 6y ago
Respectfully, we don't have enough information to judge whether she was net-positive to the team who was acting reasonably. That's a complex calculation, and I don't know whether management triumphed or failed. It does seem like she judged the situation incorrectly, as she is now complaining, not gloating.
- tempest_ 6y ago
  That is sorta my entire point. The fact that this has over-flowed into the public sphere is a failure. If they handled the situation correctly it should have been sorted internally. Whether the person in question spilled the beans at all is proof of that. Managing people is a skill, and being good at computer science does not make you a good manager. They should know that complaining to social media is an option that someone might take and they should consider that when dealing with these issues. The fact that we are here discussing anything at all proves the above, It isnt 1995, if someone feels slighted for whatever reason, expect it show up on Twitter, true or not. You don't want to be chasing the narrative with a potentially one sided google doc. No one is giving the mega corp the benefit of the doubt in 2020 which means it is bad PR either way.
  - nickff 6y ago
    You asserted: "a good manager would have handled this and it would never have reached this point, public or otherwise. This whole episode is failure of management top to bottom." My point is that I do not know whether this situation could have been handled better. We don't know enough to judge whether this could have been sorted out neatly. You seem to think that a clean resolution was possible, and you might be right, or you might be wrong.
    - tempest_ 6y ago
      Fair, but I don't think we need to know what happened to asses what is happening now. I consider that this being discussed in a public sphere a failure regardless of situation as it looks bad on the company no matter what. If a person feels their only way out is to appeal to the mob then I think the people doing the management have made a misstep. If that person has a history of appealing to the mob then it is still a misstep as that should have been considered when dealing with the issue. Perhaps they did the calculus and this is the best result, but looking in, it doesn't feel like it.
    - bb88 6y ago
      > My point is that I do not know whether this situation could have been handled better. Let's follow the timeline and discover a root cause: 1. Anonymous feedback being given through HR about a research paper in AI Ethics to be published in an academic forum. 2. Manager schedules a meeting where: “it has been decided that you need to retract this paper by next week..." without context and without a chance to confront others. 3. She puts an ultimatum to her boss that she can't continue to work there with conditions like that limit her freedom to speak and research. Google decides to accept her resignation. This suggests that: A. People can just go to HR with criticisms of a research paper apparently with the intent to sabotage authors, and HR is apparently fine with being used like this. Or possibly a manager convinced HR that OKR's trump AI Ethics. B. They wanted her to say certain things in an academic forum -- which didn't appear to be IP/Trade Secret related, but for some other reason, which they refused to disclose. This is in an environment of ethics where papers might become guidelines for legislation. C. They're not interested in fixing the issues she brought up, because they allowed #1 and #2 to happen above. It looks like the root cause was A above. Everything after that cascaded from there. Should HR be involved in "fixing" a paper in AI ethics? Probably not. Just like you wouldn't take your car to HR to get it repaired. They simply don't have the knowledge to do so. Then Jeff Dean probably has $20 to $30 million wrapped up in Google, so he's going to take their side on the matter publically, unfortunately. Privately he may have been cussing out HR because of forcing him into the situation. We don't know.
potatowedges 6y ago
Judging from Timnit's Twitter account it would have blown up anyways no matter what. Have you seen her previous tweets? She seems to enjoy the drama.

nickff 6y ago

Respectfully, we don't have enough information to judge whether she was net-positive to the team who was acting reasonably. That's a complex calculation, and I don't know whether management triumphed or failed. It does seem like she judged the situation incorrectly, as she is now complaining, not gloating.

tempest_ 6y ago
That is sorta my entire point. The fact that this has over-flowed into the public sphere is a failure. If they handled the situation correctly it should have been sorted internally. Whether the person in question spilled the beans at all is proof of that. Managing people is a skill, and being good at computer science does not make you a good manager. They should know that complaining to social media is an option that someone might take and they should consider that when dealing with these issues. The fact that we are here discussing anything at all proves the above, It isnt 1995, if someone feels slighted for whatever reason, expect it show up on Twitter, true or not. You don't want to be chasing the narrative with a potentially one sided google doc. No one is giving the mega corp the benefit of the doubt in 2020 which means it is bad PR either way.
- nickff 6y ago
  You asserted: "a good manager would have handled this and it would never have reached this point, public or otherwise. This whole episode is failure of management top to bottom." My point is that I do not know whether this situation could have been handled better. We don't know enough to judge whether this could have been sorted out neatly. You seem to think that a clean resolution was possible, and you might be right, or you might be wrong.
  - tempest_ 6y ago
    Fair, but I don't think we need to know what happened to asses what is happening now. I consider that this being discussed in a public sphere a failure regardless of situation as it looks bad on the company no matter what. If a person feels their only way out is to appeal to the mob then I think the people doing the management have made a misstep. If that person has a history of appealing to the mob then it is still a misstep as that should have been considered when dealing with the issue. Perhaps they did the calculus and this is the best result, but looking in, it doesn't feel like it.
  - bb88 6y ago
    > My point is that I do not know whether this situation could have been handled better. Let's follow the timeline and discover a root cause: 1. Anonymous feedback being given through HR about a research paper in AI Ethics to be published in an academic forum. 2. Manager schedules a meeting where: “it has been decided that you need to retract this paper by next week..." without context and without a chance to confront others. 3. She puts an ultimatum to her boss that she can't continue to work there with conditions like that limit her freedom to speak and research. Google decides to accept her resignation. This suggests that: A. People can just go to HR with criticisms of a research paper apparently with the intent to sabotage authors, and HR is apparently fine with being used like this. Or possibly a manager convinced HR that OKR's trump AI Ethics. B. They wanted her to say certain things in an academic forum -- which didn't appear to be IP/Trade Secret related, but for some other reason, which they refused to disclose. This is in an environment of ethics where papers might become guidelines for legislation. C. They're not interested in fixing the issues she brought up, because they allowed #1 and #2 to happen above. It looks like the root cause was A above. Everything after that cascaded from there. Should HR be involved in "fixing" a paper in AI ethics? Probably not. Just like you wouldn't take your car to HR to get it repaired. They simply don't have the knowledge to do so. Then Jeff Dean probably has $20 to $30 million wrapped up in Google, so he's going to take their side on the matter publically, unfortunately. Privately he may have been cussing out HR because of forcing him into the situation. We don't know.

potatowedges 6y ago

Judging from Timnit's Twitter account it would have blown up anyways no matter what. Have you seen her previous tweets? She seems to enjoy the drama.