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Just realized Fei Fei Li is on the twitter board. What in the world could this person contribute? Is she some 0.1% socialite? How useless.

atty 5y ago
I assume you did no research on her before commenting - she’s a very successful computer scientist and spent (a little) time as a VP at Google Cloud. While I don’t know if her background makes her the most qualified to be on a board, she is most certainly not a socialite or completely useless.
- anonygler 5y ago
  She did fuck all at google cloud. Far as I can tell she has the credibility of a TED Talk speaker. Why is she trotted out all over the valley? She definitely seems to be more of a socialite than anything else.
  - themitigating 5y ago
    Does she seem more like a socialite because you don't like the Twitter board members?
kvathupo 5y ago
She's a world-class researcher in computer vision. If anyone should be on the board, it's an accomplished computer science researcher who has mentored many young people at Silicon Valley U. I find it quite curious that you single her out.
- dchftcs 5y ago
  Sounds like the person you're replying to worked in the vicinity of her business unit, and was bitter about her as a VP. It's a common situation someone with good external credentials get parachuted into a role that they're ultimately not fit for, drove initiatives that only wasted resources, and left behind a mess that others had to clean up. All while they're hailed as Jesus's second coming. I don't know how Fei Fei Li performed, and don't want to pass judgment on that matter. Just if that was indeed the case, I could understand the frustration. Companies would rather spend 10 million poaching someone useless and let them spend 100 million on something useless, than to invest the same in existing good engineers and scientists that continue to deliver. Even worse is to keep watching those people failing upwards. This is more commonly a stereotype for MBA executives, but is often also true for academics that get significant appointments outside a research institution without the experience of managing a business project.
  - kvathupo 5y ago
    Ah, I now see glimpses of that from their other comments. I also agree with your general sentiments of academic credentials/aptitude not translating to managerial competence; granted, this may or may not be the case for Fei Fei Li, as you mentioned.
srvmshr 5y ago
Fei Fei Li is a senior CS professor at Stanford. She has previously had immense contribution to computer vision field, though as someone in ML field, I would agree to a some extent that she is now more of a evangelist unlike Dr. J Malik or M. Jordan, her contemporaries. Her students have been pretty successful as well - Andrej Karpathy being one. Personally, I might sit on the fence on this one. Its maybe kind of alright to have someone having the research view of things. Lot of companies have such members in their board.
Splendor 5y ago
> What in the world could this person contribute? Easily more than you're contributing to this conversation.

atty 5y ago

I assume you did no research on her before commenting - she’s a very successful computer scientist and spent (a little) time as a VP at Google Cloud. While I don’t know if her background makes her the most qualified to be on a board, she is most certainly not a socialite or completely useless.

anonygler 5y ago
She did fuck all at google cloud. Far as I can tell she has the credibility of a TED Talk speaker. Why is she trotted out all over the valley? She definitely seems to be more of a socialite than anything else.
- themitigating 5y ago
  Does she seem more like a socialite because you don't like the Twitter board members?

kvathupo 5y ago

She's a world-class researcher in computer vision. If anyone should be on the board, it's an accomplished computer science researcher who has mentored many young people at Silicon Valley U. I find it quite curious that you single her out.

dchftcs 5y ago
Sounds like the person you're replying to worked in the vicinity of her business unit, and was bitter about her as a VP. It's a common situation someone with good external credentials get parachuted into a role that they're ultimately not fit for, drove initiatives that only wasted resources, and left behind a mess that others had to clean up. All while they're hailed as Jesus's second coming. I don't know how Fei Fei Li performed, and don't want to pass judgment on that matter. Just if that was indeed the case, I could understand the frustration. Companies would rather spend 10 million poaching someone useless and let them spend 100 million on something useless, than to invest the same in existing good engineers and scientists that continue to deliver. Even worse is to keep watching those people failing upwards. This is more commonly a stereotype for MBA executives, but is often also true for academics that get significant appointments outside a research institution without the experience of managing a business project.
- kvathupo 5y ago
  Ah, I now see glimpses of that from their other comments. I also agree with your general sentiments of academic credentials/aptitude not translating to managerial competence; granted, this may or may not be the case for Fei Fei Li, as you mentioned.

srvmshr 5y ago

Fei Fei Li is a senior CS professor at Stanford. She has previously had immense contribution to computer vision field, though as someone in ML field, I would agree to a some extent that she is now more of a evangelist unlike Dr. J Malik or M. Jordan, her contemporaries. Her students have been pretty successful as well - Andrej Karpathy being one. Personally, I might sit on the fence on this one. Its maybe kind of alright to have someone having the research view of things. Lot of companies have such members in their board.

Splendor 5y ago

> What in the world could this person contribute? Easily more than you're contributing to this conversation.