pardoned_turkey

8 ms·

31.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
Focusing on the user is easy when you have little to lose. When you have a trillion-dollar business and 200,000 employees you're responsible for, a large part of your focus is not destroying that. And quite often, it's not easy to
32.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
As the other commenter mentioned, silos are not inherently bad. Indeed, in a large company, they're necessary to avoid dysfunction. You want stable groups of competent people who share priorities and lore, who own well-defined parts
33.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
Layoffs at Google didn't happen because they had to happen. They happened because the leadership was concerned that in the good years, the company accumulated way too much dead weight - pointless projects, underperforming employees tha
34.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
I think it goes back to org structure ossification, but also keep in mind that in a sufficiently large company, every department is a thorn in someone else's backside. A world where the people you dislike regularly get the boot is also
35.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
Ian's post is pretty incisive, although I've read so many of these over the past 15 years or so. And the prescription is always to go back in time. I don't really think that's possible. When you're a newcomer, a dis
36.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
It's probably a reflection of the fact that most engineers who joined OpenAI did so with the hope of becoming rich and working at what might end up being one of the most influential tech companies in the world. They probably figured th
37.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
I'm not sure that's accurate. Most companies use "AI safety" as a shorthand for "brand safety", i.e., making sure that your LLM can't be trolled into praising Hitler or denying climate change. Basically, d
38.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
They dropped it right after ChatGPT came out. For a full year, they were luring top talent with promises of exorbitant equity, sold integrations left and right, played a role in writing the EO that makes it difficult for newcomers to compet
39.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
I frankly find the idea that we must shield adolescents from any form of work... just pretty bizarre. There are some dangerous jobs out there, and I can perhaps accept the argument that most 15 year olds don't have the agency to sign u
40.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
I don't think it's about understanding. Lawyers are pretty smart. But there's no upside to you as a corporate lawyer if you advocate for taking risks. Even if you think you're on solid legal footing, you're going to
41.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
You're cherry-picking plastics here. The same can be said about just about any technology developed in the past 200 years, so what makes plastics special? We laugh at people who talk about the "precautionary principle" for va
42.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
Interviewing takes time and effort, so it's best to focus your energy on promising leads. A strong endorsement from a person who worked with a candidate is a very promising signal. Without getting into the possible whys, "this str
43.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
It matters why you're making the referral. I've seen far too many referrals made just because a stranger or a social acquittance pinged an employee on LinkedIn. And the employee's thinking is "why not". After all, t
44.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
Sure, but I don't think it's about companies like Google doing their buddies a favor. It's more about not wanting to fight complex and uncertain legal battles with companies that have large and well-funded legal departments.
45.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
The vast majority of trains in the US are diesel-powered, although they're about 4x more efficient than trucks. It's tempting to imagine they could all run on electricity, but it's probably hard, as many routes go through hun
46.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
Wikipedia is... nuanced. Keep in mind that the entity doing the fundraising is the Wikimedia Foundation. They pay the hosting costs, but return nothing to the actual Wikipedians (editors, admins.) Instead, what's left is used to pay th
47.
by pardoned_turkey 3y ago
The conversation here focuses on a distinction between "hard" real-time applications, where you probably don't want a general-purpose OS like Linux no matter what; and "soft" real-time applications like videoconfere