4 ms·

> What he did and the way it got acknowledged can net him millions of dollars in the future income. I think people over estimate how valuable reputation is. It

> What he did and the way it got acknowledged can net him millions of dollars in the future income. I think people over estimate how valuable reputation is. It can open doors but that is all. Being the guy who reduced loading times in GTA may get some VC interest but that doesn't automatically equate to making any money. It may get you a job and get you paid a few thousand more than usual. But honestly, I've never seen one of these famous devs make lots of money. They'll get offered CTO roles but that's been the max.

michaelcampbell 6y ago
Indeed, look at the bevy of Twitter posts from authors of a given tech/stack/framework being turned down by companies to work with said tech because of "lack of experience".
- xiphias2 6y ago
  The guy who decreased GTA loading time by 70% understands the difference between O(n^2), O(n*log(n)) and O(n). That's exactly what a big company is looking for, not a successful product. The other person was much better match for a small company / startup.
  - michaelcampbell 6y ago
    > The guy who decreased GTA loading time by 70% understands the difference between O(n^2), O(n*log(n)) and O(n). That's exactly what a big company is looking for, not a successful product. I haven't been at any that have cared (none of my past jobs' have been FAANG, but several have been in the over 10k employees size.) *SOME* potential colleagues care, and a VERY FEW managers care that you know that, but I have found that to be the exception.
    - xiphias2 6y ago
      I was working on the Google Ads backend, and we had a strict 20ms timeout. The managers didn't care about the algorithms themselves, but my change had a 0.1ms impact on latency in the experiment arm, for launching that you need director level exception approval. My tech lead actually helped me by saying that the trick is that instead of trying to speed up my own code base (which was really hard), it's easier to find something to improve outside my change to balance for the 0.1ms impact inside the same experiment.
  - sva_ 6y ago
    I'm very sure that the GTA devs understand the difference between O(n^2), O(n), etc. They just didn't catch this particular way in which the compiler/standard library changed the complexity time dramatically. The reason for why they didn't catch it is up for debate, but it's surely not because they don't understand basic "Big O" concepts. edit: actually, nevermind. I realize you're probably referring to the hashmap lookup part, rather than the strlen() part?
    - xiphias2 6y ago
      I was writing about the person who couldn't ,,invert'' a binary tree. It's totally fine, he can be a great programmer, even a great CEO, he's just probably not the best fit to Google SWE role.
    - dogma1138 6y ago
      Most likely because the bottleneck for loading was somewhere else when they tested it originally quite likely the slow HDD of the consoles of the time. GTA V came out 8 years ago, it had to run on the base PS4/Xbox One not to mention the PS3 and 360 these were the systems it was first validated on. It also had much much less content at the time. As the game released on PC and the amount of content grew the loading times didn’t regress but they also didn’t improve. So when your benchmark is a console that loads a game in 5-10 minutes no one probably spent any time investigating what the bounds on a modern PC with PCIe storage should be.
- csunbird 6y ago
  Reminds me of Max Howell, creator of homebrew, when he applied to Google. His tweet: Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but you can’t invert a binary tree on a whiteboard so fuck off. https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en
  - camjohnson26 6y ago
    He later walked that Tweet back and said he shouldn’t have sent it. Seems like he has a very strong skill set in building projects, but Google needs more focused skill sets for lower level developers, so just wasn’t a good fit. https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google-rejecting-Max-Howell-the-author-of-Homebrew-for-not-being-able-to-invert-a-binary-tree?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google-rejectin...
  - sva_ 6y ago
    The example of the OP also reminded me of Max Howell, but the only other similar story was the one of the guy who was prompted to implement fizzbuzz, and attempted to do so in Tensorflow[0]. In the latter case, I can totally understand that he might've been turned down with such a cocky (though funny) attitude, if the anecdote is true. Are there other notable cases of people who got turned down in spite of - or because of - their extensive knowledge in a case like this? [0] https://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/ https://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
colonwqbang 6y ago
Maybe not millions of dollars, but I can see a successful consultancy specialising in optimisation of games. > Does your game take forever to start? Your lazy devs say there's nothing to be done about it? Just give us a call! As seen on hackernews.
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  How many times can one person perform a miracle?
  - colonwqbang 6y ago
    It's not a miracle, this programmer was just smart enough to see something that nobody at Rockstar had seen. Or nobody in the engineering org cared to look. These could both be good reasons for somebody higher up to hire a "star consultant", no?
    - that_guy_iain 6y ago
      > It's not a miracle, this programmer was just smart enough to see something that nobody at Rockstar had seen. Or nobody in the engineering org cared to look. Or more likely, no one had time to look. I keep see people acting like not fixing something is because the devs don't care. More often than not it's because we're being told to do something else instead.
      - colonwqbang 6y ago
        Sure, I'm not saying the Rockstar devs are stupid. I was addressing the idea that it was some kind miracle that happened here, rather than just competent engineering. "I don't have time to do it myself" is probably a very common reason why consultants are hired.
    - smnrchrds 6y ago
      Do you honestly believe that the person can look around any code base and find significant speed increases? Do you think he can significantly increase the speed of Firefox, or Excel, or SQLite? Maybe he is the solution to Mozilla's woes—just hire him for a month, he will increase Firefox's speed by 70%, and everyone flocks from Chrome to Firefox for the increased speed. At least, until next month that Google hires him and he increases the speed of Chrome and everyone flocks back. With such a valuable resource, it is unethical to monopolize—there should be a waitlist so every company can use his genius. By the decade's end, every piece of software will be running more than twice as fast. Or maybe this was a case of a rare low-hanging fruit lying around for someone to find. Maybe the entire software industry is not one giant low hanging fruit waiting for the right genius to emerge and pick.
slightwinder 6y ago
And reputation can even backfire, when people start to have to high exceptions about your results.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
cloverich 6y ago
> It can open doors but that is all. Opening closed doors is frequently THE thing that changes a persons circumstances. Anyone who's been ghosted by an application process can attest to that. You can (interview) prepare all you want, but if you can't get in front of someone it won't matter.

michaelcampbell 6y ago

Indeed, look at the bevy of Twitter posts from authors of a given tech/stack/framework being turned down by companies to work with said tech because of "lack of experience".

xiphias2 6y ago
The guy who decreased GTA loading time by 70% understands the difference between O(n^2), O(n*log(n)) and O(n). That's exactly what a big company is looking for, not a successful product. The other person was much better match for a small company / startup.
- michaelcampbell 6y ago
  > The guy who decreased GTA loading time by 70% understands the difference between O(n^2), O(n*log(n)) and O(n). That's exactly what a big company is looking for, not a successful product. I haven't been at any that have cared (none of my past jobs' have been FAANG, but several have been in the over 10k employees size.) *SOME* potential colleagues care, and a VERY FEW managers care that you know that, but I have found that to be the exception.
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    I was working on the Google Ads backend, and we had a strict 20ms timeout. The managers didn't care about the algorithms themselves, but my change had a 0.1ms impact on latency in the experiment arm, for launching that you need director level exception approval. My tech lead actually helped me by saying that the trick is that instead of trying to speed up my own code base (which was really hard), it's easier to find something to improve outside my change to balance for the 0.1ms impact inside the same experiment.
- sva_ 6y ago
  I'm very sure that the GTA devs understand the difference between O(n^2), O(n), etc. They just didn't catch this particular way in which the compiler/standard library changed the complexity time dramatically. The reason for why they didn't catch it is up for debate, but it's surely not because they don't understand basic "Big O" concepts. edit: actually, nevermind. I realize you're probably referring to the hashmap lookup part, rather than the strlen() part?
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    I was writing about the person who couldn't ,,invert'' a binary tree. It's totally fine, he can be a great programmer, even a great CEO, he's just probably not the best fit to Google SWE role.
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    Most likely because the bottleneck for loading was somewhere else when they tested it originally quite likely the slow HDD of the consoles of the time. GTA V came out 8 years ago, it had to run on the base PS4/Xbox One not to mention the PS3 and 360 these were the systems it was first validated on. It also had much much less content at the time. As the game released on PC and the amount of content grew the loading times didn’t regress but they also didn’t improve. So when your benchmark is a console that loads a game in 5-10 minutes no one probably spent any time investigating what the bounds on a modern PC with PCIe storage should be.
csunbird 6y ago
Reminds me of Max Howell, creator of homebrew, when he applied to Google. His tweet: Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but you can’t invert a binary tree on a whiteboard so fuck off. https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en
- camjohnson26 6y ago
  He later walked that Tweet back and said he shouldn’t have sent it. Seems like he has a very strong skill set in building projects, but Google needs more focused skill sets for lower level developers, so just wasn’t a good fit. https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google-rejecting-Max-Howell-the-author-of-Homebrew-for-not-being-able-to-invert-a-binary-tree?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google-rejectin...
- sva_ 6y ago
  The example of the OP also reminded me of Max Howell, but the only other similar story was the one of the guy who was prompted to implement fizzbuzz, and attempted to do so in Tensorflow[0]. In the latter case, I can totally understand that he might've been turned down with such a cocky (though funny) attitude, if the anecdote is true. Are there other notable cases of people who got turned down in spite of - or because of - their extensive knowledge in a case like this? [0] https://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/ https://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/

colonwqbang 6y ago

Maybe not millions of dollars, but I can see a successful consultancy specialising in optimisation of games. > Does your game take forever to start? Your lazy devs say there's nothing to be done about it? Just give us a call! As seen on hackernews.

smnrchrds 6y ago
How many times can one person perform a miracle?
- colonwqbang 6y ago
  It's not a miracle, this programmer was just smart enough to see something that nobody at Rockstar had seen. Or nobody in the engineering org cared to look. These could both be good reasons for somebody higher up to hire a "star consultant", no?
  - that_guy_iain 6y ago
    > It's not a miracle, this programmer was just smart enough to see something that nobody at Rockstar had seen. Or nobody in the engineering org cared to look. Or more likely, no one had time to look. I keep see people acting like not fixing something is because the devs don't care. More often than not it's because we're being told to do something else instead.
    - colonwqbang 6y ago
      Sure, I'm not saying the Rockstar devs are stupid. I was addressing the idea that it was some kind miracle that happened here, rather than just competent engineering. "I don't have time to do it myself" is probably a very common reason why consultants are hired.
  - smnrchrds 6y ago
    Do you honestly believe that the person can look around any code base and find significant speed increases? Do you think he can significantly increase the speed of Firefox, or Excel, or SQLite? Maybe he is the solution to Mozilla's woes—just hire him for a month, he will increase Firefox's speed by 70%, and everyone flocks from Chrome to Firefox for the increased speed. At least, until next month that Google hires him and he increases the speed of Chrome and everyone flocks back. With such a valuable resource, it is unethical to monopolize—there should be a waitlist so every company can use his genius. By the decade's end, every piece of software will be running more than twice as fast. Or maybe this was a case of a rare low-hanging fruit lying around for someone to find. Maybe the entire software industry is not one giant low hanging fruit waiting for the right genius to emerge and pick.

slightwinder 6y ago

And reputation can even backfire, when people start to have to high exceptions about your results.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

cloverich 6y ago

> It can open doors but that is all. Opening closed doors is frequently THE thing that changes a persons circumstances. Anyone who's been ghosted by an application process can attest to that. You can (interview) prepare all you want, but if you can't get in front of someone it won't matter.