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This guy appears to be a self-styled liberal activist operating in the business world. According to this fawning Business Insider piece (did his PR agent write

by Tycho 5y ago

This guy appears to be a self-styled liberal activist operating in the business world. According to this fawning Business Insider piece (did his PR agent write it?), he has tried his hand at fixing climate change, inequality, health care, AI ethics, and so on. https://www.businessinsider.com/mustafa-suleyman-the-lefty-activist-ensuring-google-deepmind-benefits-all-of-humanity-2017-12?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/mustafa-suleyman-the-lefty-a... He dropped out of his degree at Oxford and then founded a telephone helpline for Muslim youths. Then got a job with Ken Livingstone, the politician. This early history seems strange to me. Who drops out of Oxford unless it’s to start a business? You’d almost think he was an intelligence asset of something.

nicoburns 5y ago
Quite a lot of people drop out of Oxford because it's an intense high-pressure environment. It may not have been out of choice, even if he's portraying it that way
- password321 5y ago
  This comment managed to blow my mind. Are we really trying to say the cofounder of DEEPMIND is too stupid / incompetent to have graduated from Oxford and came up with a charity as a front for it?
  - qeternity 5y ago
    He was a childhood friend of Demis. The cofounder title seems to be less profound here.
    - password321 5y ago
      Ok so the new theory is that there is nepotism present at DeepMind thanks to Demis Hassabis.
      - qeternity 5y ago
        That’s not at all what I suggested. It seems like you just want an argument. Let me explain again slower: you implied that him being cofounder conferred some level of competence to him. I’m saying that he’s not really a cofounder in the traditional sense of the word, and so maybe that title doesn’t carry as much weight here.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - bluepizza 5y ago
    Not really about being stupid or incompetent, but about managing workload, subjects, pressure. A lot of people don't deal very well with this, especially young students. He was not the cofounder of Deepmind while he was a student. That happened afterwards.
  - didibus 5y ago
    That's absolutely possible, I don't know why people think entrepreneurship requires a high level of intellect, it doesn't really. Not to say this guy is stupid, I just don't see why you'd associate founding a company with intellect?
- pyuser583 5y ago
  Only 1.3 percent of students drop out of Oxford, versus 7.4 percent for the UK. https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/full-version-facts-and-figures https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/full-version-fa... Not at all like America where only 1/3 graduate.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    In elite schools [edit: that are as elite as] Oxford, the drop out rate would be close to Oxford's. The US numbers are pretty skewed by the massive drop out rate in 2-year community colleges, which both admit huge numbers of people and have very high dropout rates. Also, a huge percentage of dropouts are in the first year, when people are deciding that college may not work for them or be the right fit.
    - pyuser583 5y ago
      > In elite schools like Oxford, the drop out rate would be close to Oxford's Typo? Lots of US 4 year colleges have terrible graduation rates. It’s not just community colleges. The UK also doesn’t have a culture of “drop out and start your own company.”
      - ipaddr 5y ago
        Harvard has 98% and that would be the high bar. 93-95 for MIT.
      - HWR_14 5y ago
        Fixed the typo, if by that you were referring to the construction "elite schools like Oxford" to mean "elite schools that are as elite as Oxford". And yes, it's not just community colleges. But those are the worst part.
      - adrianmonk 5y ago
        I don't think that's a typo. Instead, I think when they write "like", they mean "similar to" (not "such as").
    - 5y ago
- johnboi 5y ago
  This comment managed to blow my mind. Are we really trying to say the cofounder of DEEPMIND is too stupid / incompetent to have graduated from Oxford and came up with a charity as a front for it?
zozbot234 5y ago
Interesting article, thanks for finding it. He's described as a successful and "well-rounded" leader who genuinely cares about the welfare of everyone on the planet, who had a falling out with others at Google due to his insistence on requiring an AI-ethics oversight board to be set up re: Google and DeepMind's AI efforts. That's certainly an intriguing perspective, and it seems to jive with claims by others that AI ethics and bias are not being given the attention they require, either at Google or elsewhere.
Shindi 5y ago
> Who drops out of Oxford unless it’s to start a business? You’d almost think he was an intelligence asset of something. I think you've been smoking too much weed my friend.
- Tycho 5y ago
  If I was the British intelligence services, this is exactly what I’d do. Recruit bright, middle class students from Oxford, fast track their career through the NGO sector (where results don’t matter), build up their public profile with press coverage, then deploy them to the private sector and hope that they will end up inside one of the multinationals that are more powerful and influential than most countries. I mean I’m just idly musing here but something definitely seems off about his bio.
  - bowmessage 5y ago
    Why make them drop out? Just have them graduate as normal?
    - Tycho 5y ago
      More beholden to your programme. With a degree from Oxford, world is your oyster. Earlier also means younger and easier to mould.
      - renewiltord 5y ago
        So these kids are bright but don’t realize that if they got the degree, the world would be their oyster. Smart enough to be spies, dumb enough to actually be spies.
        Tycho 5y ago
        They need to choose: graduation + great career prospects, or guaranteed career but loss of alternative prospects. It’s not a case of the students being smart or dumb, it’s a case of the agencies realising that making the offer post-graduation gives them less leverage. Hypothetically.

by Tycho 5y ago

nicoburns 5y ago

Quite a lot of people drop out of Oxford because it's an intense high-pressure environment. It may not have been out of choice, even if he's portraying it that way

password321 5y ago
This comment managed to blow my mind. Are we really trying to say the cofounder of DEEPMIND is too stupid / incompetent to have graduated from Oxford and came up with a charity as a front for it?
- qeternity 5y ago
  He was a childhood friend of Demis. The cofounder title seems to be less profound here.
  - password321 5y ago
    Ok so the new theory is that there is nepotism present at DeepMind thanks to Demis Hassabis.
    - qeternity 5y ago
      That’s not at all what I suggested. It seems like you just want an argument. Let me explain again slower: you implied that him being cofounder conferred some level of competence to him. I’m saying that he’s not really a cofounder in the traditional sense of the word, and so maybe that title doesn’t carry as much weight here.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- bluepizza 5y ago
  Not really about being stupid or incompetent, but about managing workload, subjects, pressure. A lot of people don't deal very well with this, especially young students. He was not the cofounder of Deepmind while he was a student. That happened afterwards.
- didibus 5y ago
  That's absolutely possible, I don't know why people think entrepreneurship requires a high level of intellect, it doesn't really. Not to say this guy is stupid, I just don't see why you'd associate founding a company with intellect?
pyuser583 5y ago
Only 1.3 percent of students drop out of Oxford, versus 7.4 percent for the UK. https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/full-version-facts-and-figures https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/full-version-fa... Not at all like America where only 1/3 graduate.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  In elite schools [edit: that are as elite as] Oxford, the drop out rate would be close to Oxford's. The US numbers are pretty skewed by the massive drop out rate in 2-year community colleges, which both admit huge numbers of people and have very high dropout rates. Also, a huge percentage of dropouts are in the first year, when people are deciding that college may not work for them or be the right fit.
  - pyuser583 5y ago
    > In elite schools like Oxford, the drop out rate would be close to Oxford's Typo? Lots of US 4 year colleges have terrible graduation rates. It’s not just community colleges. The UK also doesn’t have a culture of “drop out and start your own company.”
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      Harvard has 98% and that would be the high bar. 93-95 for MIT.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      Fixed the typo, if by that you were referring to the construction "elite schools like Oxford" to mean "elite schools that are as elite as Oxford". And yes, it's not just community colleges. But those are the worst part.
    - adrianmonk 5y ago
      I don't think that's a typo. Instead, I think when they write "like", they mean "similar to" (not "such as").
  - 5y ago
johnboi 5y ago
This comment managed to blow my mind. Are we really trying to say the cofounder of DEEPMIND is too stupid / incompetent to have graduated from Oxford and came up with a charity as a front for it?

zozbot234 5y ago

Interesting article, thanks for finding it. He's described as a successful and "well-rounded" leader who genuinely cares about the welfare of everyone on the planet, who had a falling out with others at Google due to his insistence on requiring an AI-ethics oversight board to be set up re: Google and DeepMind's AI efforts. That's certainly an intriguing perspective, and it seems to jive with claims by others that AI ethics and bias are not being given the attention they require, either at Google or elsewhere.

Shindi 5y ago

> Who drops out of Oxford unless it’s to start a business? You’d almost think he was an intelligence asset of something. I think you've been smoking too much weed my friend.

Tycho 5y ago
If I was the British intelligence services, this is exactly what I’d do. Recruit bright, middle class students from Oxford, fast track their career through the NGO sector (where results don’t matter), build up their public profile with press coverage, then deploy them to the private sector and hope that they will end up inside one of the multinationals that are more powerful and influential than most countries. I mean I’m just idly musing here but something definitely seems off about his bio.
- bowmessage 5y ago
  Why make them drop out? Just have them graduate as normal?
  - Tycho 5y ago
    More beholden to your programme. With a degree from Oxford, world is your oyster. Earlier also means younger and easier to mould.
    - renewiltord 5y ago
      So these kids are bright but don’t realize that if they got the degree, the world would be their oyster. Smart enough to be spies, dumb enough to actually be spies.
      - Tycho 5y ago
        They need to choose: graduation + great career prospects, or guaranteed career but loss of alternative prospects. It’s not a case of the students being smart or dumb, it’s a case of the agencies realising that making the offer post-graduation gives them less leverage. Hypothetically.