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Machine Learning Research at Apple

machinelearning.apple.com

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Re: Machine Learning Research at Apple

#31

Post by unitedScialMdia »

redredrobot wrote: post #7
FlyingLawnmower wrote: post #5

Hats off to people like Carlos Guestrin & John Giannandrea, who seem to have pushed a cultural shift through Apple. I didn't think I'd see a site like this a few years ago, based on Apple's historic reputation of strongly discouraging employees from publishing research.

Not to take away from the people who worked hard to shift the culture (which is always hard at a large company), but I saw the same shift happen at Amazon and it came down to a simple fact - it's very hard to recruit and keep the best talent if you don't publish. You don't build ML reputation and the best researchers often don't want to work somewhere where they can't add papers to their resume.

I can't imagine too many nerds that would willingly work for Apple.

I've turned down military contractor work despite it paying better than my current job.

Being able to contribute to society goes a long way.

Re: Machine Learning Research at Apple

#32

Post by cheez »

DrNuke wrote: post #10
redredrobot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to take away from the people who worked hard to shift the culture (which is always hard at a large company), but I saw the same shift happen at Amazon and it came down to a simple fact - it's very hard to recruit and keep the best talent if you don't publish. You don't build ML reputation and the best researchers often don't want to work somewhere where they can't add papers to their resume.

Not sure about this: a lot of interesting work is just hidden because of NDAs, commercial IP, military, etc. You will never see anything made public until necessary and just the minimum amount required.

Concur. There is amazing work being done behind gobs of money and NDAs. Some people are motivated by money and accomplishment rather than citation rings.

Re: Machine Learning Research at Apple

#33

Post by gergi »

unitedScialMdia wrote: post #31
redredrobot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to take away from the people who worked hard to shift the culture (which is always hard at a large company), but I saw the same shift happen at Amazon and it came down to a simple fact - it's very hard to recruit and keep the best talent if you don't publish. You don't build ML reputation and the best researchers often don't want to work somewhere where they can't add papers to their resume.

I can't imagine too many nerds that would willingly work for Apple. I've turned down military contractor work despite it paying better than my current job. Being able to contribute to society goes a long way.

This post makes no sense to me. As one of the so-called FANGs, the data suggests Apple is one of the most desirable jobs out there.

Re: Machine Learning Research at Apple

#34

Post by afwaller »

gergi wrote: post #33
unitedScialMdia wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine too many nerds that would willingly work for Apple. I've turned down military contractor work despite it paying better than my current job. Being able to contribute to society goes a long way.

This post makes no sense to me. As one of the so-called FANGs, the data suggests Apple is one of the most desirable jobs out there.

Apple is in FAANG. For some reason (likely related to 2015-17 era SWE compensation) FANG just includes Netflix (with amazon facebook and google) and not Apple.

Re: Machine Learning Research at Apple

#36

Post by dlivingston »

an_opabinia wrote: post #19
bubblethink wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use NDA talk as a marker of seniority of the person I'm talking to. If the person says they can't discuss this and that due to NDA, they are usually junior people. When you talk to senior people, they know what they can and cannot talk about, and will walk the line carefully, but never ever bring up NDA in any conversation.

Yeah but there are also senior people whose heads are so far up their butts. Definitely a situation at Apple that gets cargo-culted elsewhere. The line they walk is in the service of their own egos. Senior people are rarely in possession of the sort of detailed knowledge that is actual valuable IP to steal - that's like, in the documents and code. They want to get chauffeured in a Bentley. [1] They want everyone to h…

An aside, and an unnecessary one, but after reading your [1] reference, I cannot say how happy I am that Thiel was able to shut down Gawker. That reference read like a cheap supermarket tabloid, and the internet is better for Gawker having been destroyed.

Re: Machine Learning Research at Apple

#37

Post by saagarjha »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #28

Discussed 3 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14804018

Different content. Back then it was a handful of cherry-picked publications expanded into articles, now it seems like the page is an overt advertisement of Apple’s Machine Learning efforts.

Re: Machine Learning Research at Apple

#38

Post by saagarjha »

afwaller wrote: post #34
gergi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post makes no sense to me. As one of the so-called FANGs, the data suggests Apple is one of the most desirable jobs out there.

Apple is in FAANG. For some reason (likely related to 2015-17 era SWE compensation) FANG just includes Netflix (with amazon facebook and google) and not Apple.

I mean the actual companies that go into these acronyms are generally arbitrary but AFAIK it was Facebook-Apple-Netflix-Google as companies with rapid growth/decent profitability during that period.

Re: Machine Learning Research at Apple

#39

Post by Ntrails »

bubblethink wrote: post #16
an_opabinia wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of maturing as an engineer is realizing that if you’re not talking about something under NDA that’s actually cool, someone else on your team is, and it just makes you worse off. The rabbit hole goes deeper. Sometimes you’re hired to recruit your friends where you’ll necessarily have to break the NDA to get them excited. A lot of people look back on R&D work where they did not thrive and quit. I think a big…

I use NDA talk as a marker of seniority of the person I'm talking to. If the person says they can't discuss this and that due to NDA, they are usually junior people. When you talk to senior people, they know what they can and cannot talk about, and will walk the line carefully, but never ever bring up NDA in any conversation.

I know exactly what is reasonable to say in a business context. Comfortable walking that line - it is for business purposes and I'm never concerned by my own ability to make judgement calls.

But when talking to a recruiter? Ehhhhh. I am pretty sure I would break the precise terms... so I guess the real question is how vindictive is the holder of the NDA :)

Re: Machine Learning Research at Apple

#40

Post by Angostura »

bubblethink wrote: post #16
an_opabinia wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of maturing as an engineer is realizing that if you’re not talking about something under NDA that’s actually cool, someone else on your team is, and it just makes you worse off. The rabbit hole goes deeper. Sometimes you’re hired to recruit your friends where you’ll necessarily have to break the NDA to get them excited. A lot of people look back on R&D work where they did not thrive and quit. I think a big…

I use NDA talk as a marker of seniority of the person I'm talking to. If the person says they can't discuss this and that due to NDA, they are usually junior people. When you talk to senior people, they know what they can and cannot talk about, and will walk the line carefully, but never ever bring up NDA in any conversation.

I use NDA talk when I don't particularly trust the person I'm talking to and can't work out what their angle is.
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