4 ms·

Note this isn't representative of the tech industry in general. When I worked for Google I visited NIH, sat on study groups, and helped advise program managers

by dekhn 2y ago

Note this isn't representative of the tech industry in general. When I worked for Google I visited NIH, sat on study groups, and helped advise program managers how to move more compute to the cloud. Like many other techies in SV I have a PhD in a quantitative science and understand how NIH works. My efforts were entirely designed to help update the establishment, not tear it down, and that's true for the wide swath of my coworkers I encountered. The folks who are doing this are a subset of the tech community, who do not represent the larger community.

Miraste 2y ago
Unfortunately, that subset is the tech community leadership.
- bix6 2y ago
  Not leadership, just the loudest.
jcgrillo 2y ago
> Note this isn't representative of the tech industry in general. I'm not convinced. In the past half decade or so this industry has veered hard toward outright fraud and grift. I see this trend all over--adtech, cryptocoins, "AI", security... These days I assume technologists are frauds until they prove otherwise. It's a blunt instrument, but it often works well.
stonogo 2y ago
I'm sorry, but your defense for the "not all techies" argument is that you flew to NIH and told them how to stop investing in their own infrastructure and funnel tax dollars to private hosting rentals instead? I cannot wrap my head around this as a defense of anything. Seems like the current crew is just cutting out the middleman.
- jcgrillo 2y ago
  Half the computers at twice the price!
- dekhn 2y ago
  Yeah it's a more involved discussion than we could really have in a form like this but I truly believe that the cloud is a better solution than self-investment and infrastructure when it comes to universities. I spent plenty of time working with closet clusters and grad students is admins when I was at the University and I just don't think it's a good investment of time or money. When I advise the NIH to do was to do a large bulk group buy on behalf of many thousands of scientists that use the scale of the NIH to negotiate in extremely large concession. My experience with Amazon is that you can basically get them down about 50% just by asking. I work for a well-funded company now and we use the cloud and we have on-prem infrastructure. The on-prem infrastructure is extremely hard to change sometimes just asking for a GPU will take 6 months or more. Storage is always highly limited and slow. Let the cloud hyperscalers do what they're good at and focus on doing the science
Centigonal 2y ago
There is a real schism in the SV elite community between the "tech right" and Google. You could argue that OpenAI was founded by Sam Altman and Elon Musk to deny Google exclusive access to the GenAI. "Been thinking a lot about whether it's possible to stop humanity from developing AI. I think the answer is almost definitely not. If it's going to happen anyway, it seems like it would be good for someone other than Google to do it first." - Altman to Musk, immediately before proposing what became OpenAI ( https://www.techemails.com/p/elon-musk-and-openai https://www.techemails.com/p/elon-musk-and-openai ) "OpenAI is on a path of certain failure relative to Google. There obviously needs to be immediate and dramatic action or everyone except for Google will be consigned to irrelevance." - Musk to Altman, later ( https://www.techemails.com/p/elon-musk-openai-path-of-certain-failure https://www.techemails.com/p/elon-musk-openai-path-of-certai... )
- sidibe 2y ago
  Google has always been the company that looms over whatever next-gen hyped things the VC crowd can invest in (or whatever field Elon can pretend to be far ahead in). I even think it being perceived as so liberal has moved these people to the right instead of "libertarian" as they used to claim so they can hit it politically

by dekhn 2y ago

Miraste 2y ago

Unfortunately, that subset is the tech community leadership.

bix6 2y ago
Not leadership, just the loudest.

jcgrillo 2y ago

> Note this isn't representative of the tech industry in general. I'm not convinced. In the past half decade or so this industry has veered hard toward outright fraud and grift. I see this trend all over--adtech, cryptocoins, "AI", security... These days I assume technologists are frauds until they prove otherwise. It's a blunt instrument, but it often works well.

stonogo 2y ago

I'm sorry, but your defense for the "not all techies" argument is that you flew to NIH and told them how to stop investing in their own infrastructure and funnel tax dollars to private hosting rentals instead? I cannot wrap my head around this as a defense of anything. Seems like the current crew is just cutting out the middleman.

jcgrillo 2y ago
Half the computers at twice the price!
dekhn 2y ago
Yeah it's a more involved discussion than we could really have in a form like this but I truly believe that the cloud is a better solution than self-investment and infrastructure when it comes to universities. I spent plenty of time working with closet clusters and grad students is admins when I was at the University and I just don't think it's a good investment of time or money. When I advise the NIH to do was to do a large bulk group buy on behalf of many thousands of scientists that use the scale of the NIH to negotiate in extremely large concession. My experience with Amazon is that you can basically get them down about 50% just by asking. I work for a well-funded company now and we use the cloud and we have on-prem infrastructure. The on-prem infrastructure is extremely hard to change sometimes just asking for a GPU will take 6 months or more. Storage is always highly limited and slow. Let the cloud hyperscalers do what they're good at and focus on doing the science

Centigonal 2y ago

There is a real schism in the SV elite community between the "tech right" and Google. You could argue that OpenAI was founded by Sam Altman and Elon Musk to deny Google exclusive access to the GenAI. "Been thinking a lot about whether it's possible to stop humanity from developing AI. I think the answer is almost definitely not. If it's going to happen anyway, it seems like it would be good for someone other than Google to do it first." - Altman to Musk, immediately before proposing what became OpenAI ( https://www.techemails.com/p/elon-musk-and-openai https://www.techemails.com/p/elon-musk-and-openai ) "OpenAI is on a path of certain failure relative to Google. There obviously needs to be immediate and dramatic action or everyone except for Google will be consigned to irrelevance." - Musk to Altman, later ( https://www.techemails.com/p/elon-musk-openai-path-of-certain-failure https://www.techemails.com/p/elon-musk-openai-path-of-certai... )

sidibe 2y ago
Google has always been the company that looms over whatever next-gen hyped things the VC crowd can invest in (or whatever field Elon can pretend to be far ahead in). I even think it being perceived as so liberal has moved these people to the right instead of "libertarian" as they used to claim so they can hit it politically