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I had a friend who worked there. A very smart Ivy League-educated math PhD. He was very critical of the work culture at Wolfram Research. Apparently in his expe

I had a friend who worked there. A very smart Ivy League-educated math PhD. He was very critical of the work culture at Wolfram Research. Apparently in his experience Stephen Wolfram treated people badly.

aleph_minus_one 3y ago
> Apparently in his experience Stephen Wolfram treated people badly. Are you able/allowed to provide more details?
- namirez 3y ago
  I’m a bit apprehensive since I don’t know SW personally, but what my friend described sounded like a borderline abusive behavior. Basically he treated people like they were stupid and shouted at them when they made mistakes.
  - nomilk 3y ago
    I think it’s a shared trait among the ultra successful (think: bezos, jobs, musk, wolfram), that they unrelentingly pursue good ideas. In that relentless pursuit, people will inevitably have their (bad) ideas shot down. Wolfram becomes audibly irritated at bad ideas, but mostly only when they should have been better, more complete, better explained (in their interest of time, for example) etc. I think most of those who work with him know that he pursues truth, not what will make people feel good in that moment/meeting. I’ve worked around people who are the opposite and try to morph reality so that whatever flimsy idea is suggested is somehow considered ‘correct’, and it results in long term frustration and inefficacy.
    - martinky24 3y ago
      > bezos, jobs, musk, wolfram One of those things is not like the other lol
      - nomilk 3y ago
        Jobs, because he didn’t do it himself? The commonality is they all brought $1b+ ideas to market; they didn’t just have good ideas, but did the hard work necessary to execute on them.
        martinky24 3y ago
        In what world is anything Wolfram has created a $1b+ idea?
        perrygeo 3y ago
        Mathematica has half-billion+ in annual revenue and has been a mainstay of engineering work for decades. So ... this world?
        martinky24 3y ago
        Alright, I'm gonna need a source cited on that one lmao. Absolutely no way.
        perrygeo 3y ago
        Well it's an employee-owned company. Your data is as good as mine. You assert that Wolfram's work is worth less than $1billion. You're quite emphatic about that fact. Let's just do some back-of-the-napkin math to assess if your premise has any validity. Mathematica has been around for over 40 years. It has 1600+ employees. Tell me, how could a private company make payroll for 1600 top earners without hundreds of millions in revenue? They had no outside funding that we know of. Obviously this company has made $1 billion dollars in its lifetime. Many times over I'd guess.
        lodovic 3y ago
        Existence doesn't guarantee profitability - they may have investors with a lot of patience and deep pockets. After 40 years, they should indeed turn a nice profit, but I'm not sure if it brings in billions. Many people see their product as educational software.
    - hughesjj 3y ago
      > that they unrelentingly pursue good ideas. They also unrelentingly pursue bad ones. 3D fire phone interface, boring company + everything with Twitter, trying to fight cancer with a fruitarian diet ....

aleph_minus_one 3y ago

> Apparently in his experience Stephen Wolfram treated people badly. Are you able/allowed to provide more details?

namirez 3y ago
I’m a bit apprehensive since I don’t know SW personally, but what my friend described sounded like a borderline abusive behavior. Basically he treated people like they were stupid and shouted at them when they made mistakes.
- nomilk 3y ago
  I think it’s a shared trait among the ultra successful (think: bezos, jobs, musk, wolfram), that they unrelentingly pursue good ideas. In that relentless pursuit, people will inevitably have their (bad) ideas shot down. Wolfram becomes audibly irritated at bad ideas, but mostly only when they should have been better, more complete, better explained (in their interest of time, for example) etc. I think most of those who work with him know that he pursues truth, not what will make people feel good in that moment/meeting. I’ve worked around people who are the opposite and try to morph reality so that whatever flimsy idea is suggested is somehow considered ‘correct’, and it results in long term frustration and inefficacy.
  - martinky24 3y ago
    > bezos, jobs, musk, wolfram One of those things is not like the other lol
    - nomilk 3y ago
      Jobs, because he didn’t do it himself? The commonality is they all brought $1b+ ideas to market; they didn’t just have good ideas, but did the hard work necessary to execute on them.
      - martinky24 3y ago
        In what world is anything Wolfram has created a $1b+ idea?
        perrygeo 3y ago
        Mathematica has half-billion+ in annual revenue and has been a mainstay of engineering work for decades. So ... this world?
        martinky24 3y ago
        Alright, I'm gonna need a source cited on that one lmao. Absolutely no way.
        perrygeo 3y ago
        Well it's an employee-owned company. Your data is as good as mine. You assert that Wolfram's work is worth less than $1billion. You're quite emphatic about that fact. Let's just do some back-of-the-napkin math to assess if your premise has any validity. Mathematica has been around for over 40 years. It has 1600+ employees. Tell me, how could a private company make payroll for 1600 top earners without hundreds of millions in revenue? They had no outside funding that we know of. Obviously this company has made $1 billion dollars in its lifetime. Many times over I'd guess.
        lodovic 3y ago
        Existence doesn't guarantee profitability - they may have investors with a lot of patience and deep pockets. After 40 years, they should indeed turn a nice profit, but I'm not sure if it brings in billions. Many people see their product as educational software.
  - hughesjj 3y ago
    > that they unrelentingly pursue good ideas. They also unrelentingly pursue bad ones. 3D fire phone interface, boring company + everything with Twitter, trying to fight cancer with a fruitarian diet ....