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> compensation packages that truly gifted AI researchers can make now I guess it depends on your definition of "truly gifted" but, working in this space, I've

> compensation packages that truly gifted AI researchers can make now I guess it depends on your definition of "truly gifted" but, working in this space, I've found that there is very little correlation between comp and quality of AI research. There's absolutely some brilliant people working for big names and making serious money, there's also plenty of really talented people working for smaller startups doing incredible work but getting paid less, academics making very little, and even the occasional "hobbyist" making nothing and churning out great work while hiding behind an anime girl avatar. OpenAI clearly has some talented people, but there's also a bunch of the typical "TC optimization" crowd in there these days. The fact that so many were willing to resign with sama if necessary appears largely because they were more concerned with losing their nice compensation packages than any of their obsession with doing top tier research.

a-dub 2y ago
"...even the occasional "hobbyist" making nothing and churning out great work while hiding behind an anime girl avatar." the people i often have the most respect for.
015a 2y ago
Definitely true of even normal software engineering; my experience has been the opposite of expectations, that TC-creep has infected the industry to an irreparable degree and the most talented people I've ever worked around or with are in boring, medium-sized enterprises in the midwest US or australia, you'll probably never hear of them, and every big tech company would absolutely love to hire them but just can't figure out the interview process to weed them apart from the TC grifters. TC is actually totally uncorrelated with the quality of talent you can hire, beyond some low number that pretty much any funded startup could pay. Businesses hate to hear this, because money is easy to turn the dial up on; but most have no idea how to turn the dial up on what really matters to high talent individuals. Fortunately, I doubt Ilya will have any problem with that.
- fromMars 2y ago
  I find this hard to believe having worked in multiple enterprises and in the FAANG world. In my anecdotal experience, I can only think of one or two examples of someone from the enterprise world who I would consider outstanding. The overall quality of engineers is much higher at the FAANG companies.
  - null0pointer 2y ago
    I have also worked in multiple different sized companies, including FAANG, and multiple countries. My assessment is that FAANGs tend to select for generally intelligent people who can learn quickly and adapt to new situations easily but who nowadays tend to be passionless and indifferent to anything but money and prestige. Personally I think passion is the differentiator here, rather than talent, when it comes to doing a good job. Passion means caring about your work and its impact beyond what it means for your own career advancement. It means caring about building the best possible products where “best” is defined as delivering the most value for your users rather than the most value for the company. The question is whether big tech is unable to select for passion or whether there are simply not enough passionate people to hire when operating at FAANG scale. Most likely it’s the latter. So I guess I agree with both you and the parent comment somewhat in that in general the bar is higher at FAANGs but at the same time I have multiple former colleagues from smaller companies who I consider to be excellent, passionate engineers but who cannot be lured to big tech by any amount of money or prestige (I’ve tried). While many passionless “arbitrary metric optimizers” happily join FAANGs and do whatever needs to be done to climb the ladder without a second thought.
    - fromMars 2y ago
      I sort of agree and disagree. I wouldn't agree with the idea that most FAANG engineers are not passionate by nature about their work. What I would say is that the bureaucracy and bullshit one has to deal with makes it hard to maintain that passion and that many end up as TC optimizers in the sense that they stay instead of working someplace better for less TC. That said, I am not sure how many would make different choices. Many who join a FAANG company don't have the slightest inkling of what it will be like and once they realize that they are tiny cog in a giant machine it's hard to leave the TC and perks behind.
kccqzy 2y ago
Two people I knew recently left Google to join OpenAI. They were solid L5 engineers on the verge of being promoted to L6, and their TC is now $900k. And they are not even doing AI research, just general backend infra. You don't need to be gifted, just good. And of course I can't really fault them for joining a company for the purpose of optimizing TC.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
  Google itself is now filled with TC optimizing folks, just one level lower than the ones at Open AI.
- iknownthing 2y ago
  Seems like you need to have been working at a place like Google too
- almostgotcaught 2y ago
  > their TC is now $900k. Everyone knows that openai TC is heavily weighted by ~~RSUs~~ options that themselves are heavily weighted by hopes and dreams.
  - HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
    Everything OpenAI does is about weights.
    - DaiPlusPlus 2y ago
      bro does their ceo even lift?
  - doktorhladnjak 2y ago
    When I looked into it and talked to some hiring managers, the big names were offering cash comp similar to total comp for big tech, with stock (sometimes complicated arrangements that were not options or RSUs) on top of that. I’m talking $400k cash for a senior engineer with equity on top.
auggierose 2y ago
TC optimization being tail call optimization?
- klyrs 2y ago
  You don't get to that level by thinking about code...
- lbotos 2y ago
  Could be sarcasm, but I'll engage in good faith: Total Compensation
- samatman 2y ago
  Nope, that's a misnomer, it's tail-call elimination. You can't call it an optimization if it's essential for proper functioning of the program. (they mean total compensation)
- cozzyd 2y ago
  Curie temperature
torginus 2y ago
Half the advancements around Stable Diffusion (Controlnet etc.) came from internet randoms wanting better anime waifus
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  advancements around parameter efficient fine tuning came from internet randoms because big cos don’t care about PEFT
  - Der_Einzige 2y ago
    ... Sort of? HF is sort of big now. Stanford is well funded and they did PyReft.
    - whimsicalism 2y ago
      HF is not very big, Stanford doesn’t have lots of compute. Neither of these are even remotely big labs like what I’m discussing
      - nmfisher 2y ago
        HF has raised more than $400m. If that doesn't qualify them as "big", I don't know what does.

a-dub 2y ago

"...even the occasional "hobbyist" making nothing and churning out great work while hiding behind an anime girl avatar." the people i often have the most respect for.

015a 2y ago

Definitely true of even normal software engineering; my experience has been the opposite of expectations, that TC-creep has infected the industry to an irreparable degree and the most talented people I've ever worked around or with are in boring, medium-sized enterprises in the midwest US or australia, you'll probably never hear of them, and every big tech company would absolutely love to hire them but just can't figure out the interview process to weed them apart from the TC grifters. TC is actually totally uncorrelated with the quality of talent you can hire, beyond some low number that pretty much any funded startup could pay. Businesses hate to hear this, because money is easy to turn the dial up on; but most have no idea how to turn the dial up on what really matters to high talent individuals. Fortunately, I doubt Ilya will have any problem with that.

fromMars 2y ago
I find this hard to believe having worked in multiple enterprises and in the FAANG world. In my anecdotal experience, I can only think of one or two examples of someone from the enterprise world who I would consider outstanding. The overall quality of engineers is much higher at the FAANG companies.
- null0pointer 2y ago
  I have also worked in multiple different sized companies, including FAANG, and multiple countries. My assessment is that FAANGs tend to select for generally intelligent people who can learn quickly and adapt to new situations easily but who nowadays tend to be passionless and indifferent to anything but money and prestige. Personally I think passion is the differentiator here, rather than talent, when it comes to doing a good job. Passion means caring about your work and its impact beyond what it means for your own career advancement. It means caring about building the best possible products where “best” is defined as delivering the most value for your users rather than the most value for the company. The question is whether big tech is unable to select for passion or whether there are simply not enough passionate people to hire when operating at FAANG scale. Most likely it’s the latter. So I guess I agree with both you and the parent comment somewhat in that in general the bar is higher at FAANGs but at the same time I have multiple former colleagues from smaller companies who I consider to be excellent, passionate engineers but who cannot be lured to big tech by any amount of money or prestige (I’ve tried). While many passionless “arbitrary metric optimizers” happily join FAANGs and do whatever needs to be done to climb the ladder without a second thought.
  - fromMars 2y ago
    I sort of agree and disagree. I wouldn't agree with the idea that most FAANG engineers are not passionate by nature about their work. What I would say is that the bureaucracy and bullshit one has to deal with makes it hard to maintain that passion and that many end up as TC optimizers in the sense that they stay instead of working someplace better for less TC. That said, I am not sure how many would make different choices. Many who join a FAANG company don't have the slightest inkling of what it will be like and once they realize that they are tiny cog in a giant machine it's hard to leave the TC and perks behind.

kccqzy 2y ago

Two people I knew recently left Google to join OpenAI. They were solid L5 engineers on the verge of being promoted to L6, and their TC is now $900k. And they are not even doing AI research, just general backend infra. You don't need to be gifted, just good. And of course I can't really fault them for joining a company for the purpose of optimizing TC.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
Google itself is now filled with TC optimizing folks, just one level lower than the ones at Open AI.
iknownthing 2y ago
Seems like you need to have been working at a place like Google too
almostgotcaught 2y ago
> their TC is now $900k. Everyone knows that openai TC is heavily weighted by ~~RSUs~~ options that themselves are heavily weighted by hopes and dreams.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
  Everything OpenAI does is about weights.
  - DaiPlusPlus 2y ago
    bro does their ceo even lift?
- doktorhladnjak 2y ago
  When I looked into it and talked to some hiring managers, the big names were offering cash comp similar to total comp for big tech, with stock (sometimes complicated arrangements that were not options or RSUs) on top of that. I’m talking $400k cash for a senior engineer with equity on top.

auggierose 2y ago

TC optimization being tail call optimization?

klyrs 2y ago
You don't get to that level by thinking about code...
lbotos 2y ago
Could be sarcasm, but I'll engage in good faith: Total Compensation
samatman 2y ago
Nope, that's a misnomer, it's tail-call elimination. You can't call it an optimization if it's essential for proper functioning of the program. (they mean total compensation)
cozzyd 2y ago
Curie temperature

torginus 2y ago

Half the advancements around Stable Diffusion (Controlnet etc.) came from internet randoms wanting better anime waifus

whimsicalism 2y ago
advancements around parameter efficient fine tuning came from internet randoms because big cos don’t care about PEFT
- Der_Einzige 2y ago
  ... Sort of? HF is sort of big now. Stanford is well funded and they did PyReft.
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    HF is not very big, Stanford doesn’t have lots of compute. Neither of these are even remotely big labs like what I’m discussing
    - nmfisher 2y ago
      HF has raised more than $400m. If that doesn't qualify them as "big", I don't know what does.