3 ms·

https://archive.is/fM36L https://archive.is/fM36L Lisa Gelobter, whose work helped shape the modern web, was also on the launch team at Hulu. Ms. Gelobter was

https://archive.is/fM36L https://archive.is/fM36L Lisa Gelobter, whose work helped shape the modern web, was also on the launch team at Hulu. Ms. Gelobter was the director of program management at Macromedia where she helped develop Shockwave into a web plug-in that allowed for video games and animation on the web, turning still images into moving GIFs — animated images known as a graphics interchange format. Notably absent on resume and in the news article is proficiency in AI or machine learning, so I am curious to see how she plans to weave that into the portfolio of work and help transform NYC.

rich_sasha 9mo ago
I so totally read this as "Hooli" on first reading.
NoImmatureAdHom 9mo ago
Hilarious
SilverElfin 9mo ago
Macromedia was a great company
CalRobert 9mo ago
Gell Mann amnesia hitting hard on this one.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
bob001 9mo ago
The job is 99% program management and 1% tech. It’s the government. Anyone focused on tech will burn out in 2 weeks and quit loudly via twitter. You know, like DOGE.
- ch4s3 9mo ago
  Every tech person I know who tried to work in NYC government burned out rather quickly. The government is so sclerotic and shackled to laws meant to break up the Tammany Hall machine that its impossible to do anything good or fast.
  - steveBK123 9mo ago
    A lot of stuff gets bid out, and the procurement process is overly burdensome... Which results in a limited number of qualified bidders collecting rents, and then subbing out the work to subs who then sub it out further.. such that its all done offshore for peanuts while we pay real money to some schmuck who ticked the right boxes in order to collect said rents.
    - ch4s3 9mo ago
      Briefly in the mid 2010s the NYC Department of City Planning tried to build some stuff in house and hired some good people, but the old ghouls in the city ruined it by obstruction and everyone left by the end of 2017. City government in most US cities is so fucked, it's really wild. Another guy I know who graduated from NYU Wagner as a planner got hired by the city to do some mapping work but his boss miscoded his job in a way that precluded him from ever being promoted, so he quit. As of 2023 at least there were people working in city planning who didn't have computers and refused to use them, professional staff.
  - indoordin0saur 9mo ago
    Sort of off-topic but fun fact: Tammany Hall is now a dogfood and kitty litter store! Source: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Petco/@40.7364792,-73.989044,20z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x89c259a212f7bdad:0xaf44b237dcb0c4c5!8m2!3d40.7363801!4d-73.9888543!16s%2Fg%2F1tdng52x!5m1!1e4?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDIwOC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/Petco/@40.7364792,-73.9890...
    - GauntletWizard 9mo ago
      That's their post breakup HQ - they moved in there in 1929. The Boss Tweed days were in 190 Nassau Street and 141 East 14th Street (demolished) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall#Headquarters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall#Headquarters 190 Nassau Street - https://maps.app.goo.gl/3zjkd2mC6PwAYVB26?g_st=ac https://maps.app.goo.gl/3zjkd2mC6PwAYVB26?g_st=ac
- idop 9mo ago
  If anything, the job is 99% awarding contracts and 1% monthly progress meetings.
jordanb 9mo ago
This made me laugh but then I remembered I'm on HN and you're probably serious.
- averysmallbird 9mo ago
  The response to GP is a credit to HN though too.
CharlieDigital 9mo ago
CTO is typically an executive position, not an IC position. The CTO at my $500m, YC, series-C startup is not the most technical member of the staff, does not have the broadest technical knowledge, is not the most experienced, nor is he the best in any single technical field in our team. You misunderstand the role of the CTO in most orgs. His job is to guide technical strategy based on where business is headed. Manage staffing levels, general technical org operations, manage people, be the final arbiter on some org-level technical decisions based on business strategy alignment.
- hobs 9mo ago
  It really depends on the size, it can span from the lead programmer to the lead architect to the lead technical manager to the strategic technical partner and/or technical visionary for the company.
  - CharlieDigital 9mo ago
    Sure, but we're talking about NYC here, not a 3 person startup.
- andsoitis 9mo ago
  > You misunderstand the role of the CTO in most orgs. His job is to guide technical strategy based on where business is headed. A great CTO not only guides the technical strategy based on business direction BUT ALSO shapes the business strategy informed by technology direction.
  - reverius42 9mo ago
    And someone with experience in jobs like Director of Program Management should definitely be able to do that. "technology direction" is not the sole domain of people who write code.
Finnucane 9mo ago
>Notably absent on resume and in the news article is proficiency in AI or machine learning, You say that like it's a bad thing.
- JPKab 9mo ago
  Yeah, we wouldn't want someone who understands the most revolutionary technology in 100 years to be the technical advisor to the mayor of the largest city in the United States or anything. That would be silly.
  - triceratops 9mo ago
    Why do you assume she doesn't understand it? From her Wikipedia article: "Gelobter enrolled in Brown University in 1987, eventually graduating in 2011 with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with a concentration in artificial intelligence and machine learning."
  - Finnucane 9mo ago
    >the most revolutionary technology in 100 years That remains to be seen. And the job is to make city services work better for residents. It is far from clear that current Ai tech will make that happen.
jihadjihad 9mo ago
There's still time to add the /s
fillskills 9mo ago
Unnecessarily being voted down. Post is adding some information. Doesnt violate any HN rules. cc @dang
- giraffe_lady 9mo ago
  HN doesn't have rules it has guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I don't know what the difference is intended to be but the guidelines also don't have anything to say about voting on comments except not to complain about it. The comment sucked so I downvoted it. Yours too.
  - andsoitis 9mo ago
    > The comment sucked A great CTO not only guides the technical strategy based on business direction BUT ALSO shapes the business strategy informed by technology direction. We know that AI has to form part of that story and so you want a CTO who can steer clarity and vision, without resorting to keyword soup and hype. To be clear, I have no signal where this CTO is likely to fall on that spectrum, so I’m very much looking forward to the difference she will make.
Larrikin 9mo ago
Good? Seems like she was there when Hulu was great and when Macromedia was great.
triceratops 9mo ago
Why do you think she doesn't have an high-level knowledge of AI? Like what's a NN, a transformer, how they're trained? Anyone can pick that up over a weekend. She doesn't need to have experience training models or designing new architectures for this job. EDIT - someone posted a link to her Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Gelobter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Gelobter), which states: "Gelobter enrolled in Brown University in 1987, eventually graduating in 2011 with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with a concentration in artificial intelligence and machine learning."
- andsoitis 9mo ago
  I’m not thinking granular low-level knowledge, but rather a strategic point of view to shape the tech strategy and organizational goals of NYC. We know that AI has to form part of that story and so you want a CTO who can steer clarity and vision, without resorting to keyword soup and hype. To be clear, I have no signal where this CTO is likely to fall on that spectrum, so I’m very much looking forward to the difference she will make.

rich_sasha 9mo ago

I so totally read this as "Hooli" on first reading.

NoImmatureAdHom 9mo ago

Hilarious

SilverElfin 9mo ago

Macromedia was a great company

CalRobert 9mo ago

Gell Mann amnesia hitting hard on this one.

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

bob001 9mo ago

The job is 99% program management and 1% tech. It’s the government. Anyone focused on tech will burn out in 2 weeks and quit loudly via twitter. You know, like DOGE.

ch4s3 9mo ago
Every tech person I know who tried to work in NYC government burned out rather quickly. The government is so sclerotic and shackled to laws meant to break up the Tammany Hall machine that its impossible to do anything good or fast.
- steveBK123 9mo ago
  A lot of stuff gets bid out, and the procurement process is overly burdensome... Which results in a limited number of qualified bidders collecting rents, and then subbing out the work to subs who then sub it out further.. such that its all done offshore for peanuts while we pay real money to some schmuck who ticked the right boxes in order to collect said rents.
  - ch4s3 9mo ago
    Briefly in the mid 2010s the NYC Department of City Planning tried to build some stuff in house and hired some good people, but the old ghouls in the city ruined it by obstruction and everyone left by the end of 2017. City government in most US cities is so fucked, it's really wild. Another guy I know who graduated from NYU Wagner as a planner got hired by the city to do some mapping work but his boss miscoded his job in a way that precluded him from ever being promoted, so he quit. As of 2023 at least there were people working in city planning who didn't have computers and refused to use them, professional staff.
- indoordin0saur 9mo ago
  Sort of off-topic but fun fact: Tammany Hall is now a dogfood and kitty litter store! Source: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Petco/@40.7364792,-73.989044,20z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x89c259a212f7bdad:0xaf44b237dcb0c4c5!8m2!3d40.7363801!4d-73.9888543!16s%2Fg%2F1tdng52x!5m1!1e4?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDIwOC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/Petco/@40.7364792,-73.9890...
  - GauntletWizard 9mo ago
    That's their post breakup HQ - they moved in there in 1929. The Boss Tweed days were in 190 Nassau Street and 141 East 14th Street (demolished) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall#Headquarters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall#Headquarters 190 Nassau Street - https://maps.app.goo.gl/3zjkd2mC6PwAYVB26?g_st=ac https://maps.app.goo.gl/3zjkd2mC6PwAYVB26?g_st=ac
idop 9mo ago
If anything, the job is 99% awarding contracts and 1% monthly progress meetings.

jordanb 9mo ago

This made me laugh but then I remembered I'm on HN and you're probably serious.

averysmallbird 9mo ago
The response to GP is a credit to HN though too.

CharlieDigital 9mo ago

CTO is typically an executive position, not an IC position. The CTO at my $500m, YC, series-C startup is not the most technical member of the staff, does not have the broadest technical knowledge, is not the most experienced, nor is he the best in any single technical field in our team. You misunderstand the role of the CTO in most orgs. His job is to guide technical strategy based on where business is headed. Manage staffing levels, general technical org operations, manage people, be the final arbiter on some org-level technical decisions based on business strategy alignment.

hobs 9mo ago
It really depends on the size, it can span from the lead programmer to the lead architect to the lead technical manager to the strategic technical partner and/or technical visionary for the company.
- CharlieDigital 9mo ago
  Sure, but we're talking about NYC here, not a 3 person startup.
andsoitis 9mo ago
> You misunderstand the role of the CTO in most orgs. His job is to guide technical strategy based on where business is headed. A great CTO not only guides the technical strategy based on business direction BUT ALSO shapes the business strategy informed by technology direction.
- reverius42 9mo ago
  And someone with experience in jobs like Director of Program Management should definitely be able to do that. "technology direction" is not the sole domain of people who write code.

Finnucane 9mo ago

>Notably absent on resume and in the news article is proficiency in AI or machine learning, You say that like it's a bad thing.

JPKab 9mo ago
Yeah, we wouldn't want someone who understands the most revolutionary technology in 100 years to be the technical advisor to the mayor of the largest city in the United States or anything. That would be silly.
- triceratops 9mo ago
  Why do you assume she doesn't understand it? From her Wikipedia article: "Gelobter enrolled in Brown University in 1987, eventually graduating in 2011 with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with a concentration in artificial intelligence and machine learning."
- Finnucane 9mo ago
  >the most revolutionary technology in 100 years That remains to be seen. And the job is to make city services work better for residents. It is far from clear that current Ai tech will make that happen.

jihadjihad 9mo ago

There's still time to add the /s

fillskills 9mo ago

Unnecessarily being voted down. Post is adding some information. Doesnt violate any HN rules. cc @dang

giraffe_lady 9mo ago
HN doesn't have rules it has guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I don't know what the difference is intended to be but the guidelines also don't have anything to say about voting on comments except not to complain about it. The comment sucked so I downvoted it. Yours too.
- andsoitis 9mo ago
  > The comment sucked A great CTO not only guides the technical strategy based on business direction BUT ALSO shapes the business strategy informed by technology direction. We know that AI has to form part of that story and so you want a CTO who can steer clarity and vision, without resorting to keyword soup and hype. To be clear, I have no signal where this CTO is likely to fall on that spectrum, so I’m very much looking forward to the difference she will make.

Larrikin 9mo ago

Good? Seems like she was there when Hulu was great and when Macromedia was great.

triceratops 9mo ago

Why do you think she doesn't have an high-level knowledge of AI? Like what's a NN, a transformer, how they're trained? Anyone can pick that up over a weekend. She doesn't need to have experience training models or designing new architectures for this job. EDIT - someone posted a link to her Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Gelobter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Gelobter), which states: "Gelobter enrolled in Brown University in 1987, eventually graduating in 2011 with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with a concentration in artificial intelligence and machine learning."

andsoitis 9mo ago
I’m not thinking granular low-level knowledge, but rather a strategic point of view to shape the tech strategy and organizational goals of NYC. We know that AI has to form part of that story and so you want a CTO who can steer clarity and vision, without resorting to keyword soup and hype. To be clear, I have no signal where this CTO is likely to fall on that spectrum, so I’m very much looking forward to the difference she will make.