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After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

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Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#41

Post by throwaway984393 »

tvirosi wrote: post #5

His disagreeability is probably correlated with his track record of innovation and if we cancel every outlier like that our ability to reach new plateaus will lag decades behind than if we only allow nice people to play.

A correlation in the "cancelling" (aka termination for violation of company policy) of outliers does not mean we won't "reach new plateaus". You can fire 100 people, and there may be correlations ("they only fired people who like ice cream") but no causation ("only people who like ice cream reach new plateaus"). There is no evidence to suggest a causative link between douchebaggery and innovation in AI research.

On the other hand, if our ability to "reach new plateaus" relied solely on promoting people with personality issues, we have much bigger problems.

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#42

Post by shkkmo »

whoisjuan wrote: post #23

Don’t care about this guy, but why would they think that changes in the reporting hierarchy means a promotion? If my boss leaves then I would report to my skip in the interim and in many companies that’s forever. So just because there’s nobody between me and my skip I got promoted? That’s the most dumb rationale I have ever read. This guy was already the head of a prominent Alphabet division. If you move him around t…

So becoming a VP doesn't qualify as a promotion but going from VP to SVP does?

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#43

Post by jonathankoren »

xioren00 wrote: post #38
paulryanrogers wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this reaction sarcastic? As if to say "I'm not afraid of people who boast of crushing others"?

Are you saying you would be afraid of this person for that comment? Part of being an adult is learning to deal with adversity.

Part of being an adult is to give up behaving like — and excusing — a bully.

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#44

Post by nicoburns »

Tycho wrote: post #27

This guy appears to be a self-styled liberal activist operating in the business world. According to this fawning Business Insider piece (did his PR agent write it?), he has tried his hand at fixing climate change, inequality, health care, AI ethics, and so on. https://www.businessinsider.com/mustafa-suleyman-the-lefty-a... He dropped out of his degree at Oxford and then founded a telephone helpline for Muslim youths.…

Quite a lot of people drop out of Oxford because it's an intense high-pressure environment. It may not have been out of choice, even if he's portraying it that way

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#45

Post by zozbot234 »

Tycho wrote: post #27

This guy appears to be a self-styled liberal activist operating in the business world. According to this fawning Business Insider piece (did his PR agent write it?), he has tried his hand at fixing climate change, inequality, health care, AI ethics, and so on. https://www.businessinsider.com/mustafa-suleyman-the-lefty-a... He dropped out of his degree at Oxford and then founded a telephone helpline for Muslim youths.…

Interesting article, thanks for finding it. He's described as a successful and "well-rounded" leader who genuinely cares about the welfare of everyone on the planet, who had a falling out with others at Google due to his insistence on requiring an AI-ethics oversight board to be set up re: Google and DeepMind's AI efforts. That's certainly an intriguing perspective, and it seems to jive with claims by others that AI ethics and bias are not being given the attention they require, either at Google or elsewhere.

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#46

Post by ptero »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #36
temp8964 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is writing about Russia a personal thing? I think I will need more context to understand this.

It's personal because it's not work-related. He would demand people do random, pointless tasks for him to show dominance.

Demanding random, pointless tasks from subordinates is a bad sign, but the Russia example might not be one of those. If a boss needs information s/he can ask a subordinate to make a brief.

Sometimes the reasoning behind the important request is not clear to the subordinate and it might seem pointless. A good boss would generally explain, but failing to do it is still very very far from bullying (plus, some important info is gathered piecemeal on purpose to avoid leaking things early). I am not claiming those are applicable here, just that much more context is needed to understand the situation.

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#47

Post by dmix »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #36
temp8964 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is writing about Russia a personal thing? I think I will need more context to understand this.

It's personal because it's not work-related. He would demand people do random, pointless tasks for him to show dominance.

> He would demand people do random, pointless tasks for him to show dominance.

Is this just speculation or do you know more examples where he did this?

Given his background of bringing up his political activism during tech conferences he could have just been using it as background for his talks (which has included AI ethics). In that context I could see a connection to Russian politics.

Still likely personal but not "random tasks to show dominance".

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#48

Post by temp8964 »

catillac wrote: post #37
temp8964 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is writing about Russia a personal thing? I think I will need more context to understand this.

It sounds like it was a side task not related to the company or the company’s work, but rather the writing was at the whim of the person at issue. My framing is something like telling someone who reports to you to do your college homework.

Without full knowledge, I feel it’s difficult for an outsider to determine whether Russia is “work-related”.

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#49

Post by corty »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #30
corty wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that works in all directions. There are many kinds of people who cannot work together. I for one, despise the "lets all be friends and never say a bad word" crowd. They drive me mad and drive me to leave. I'd rather have a frank exchange of views with someone.

In the toxic positivity sense, "please don't be vulgar", or something else?

There are many variants. "Don't be vulgar", but also "don't criticize" or "invent something positive to say, only then can you criticize". "Be lavish in your (insencere) praise".

All this leads to a (despicable to me) culture of always-smiling emotional liars. If something I did is shit, say "it is shit". Make an unhappy face. Don't smile, praise my performance when cooking coffee and on the side mention that my last project "made some people somewhat happy".

But I'm not sure if that answered your question, I didn't fully understand it.

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#50

Post by Gibbon1 »

prepend wrote: post #4

This article leaves out why he was promoted. I assume he was promoted despite the discipline, not as a reward. The article doesn’t research whether he’s reformed or still a bully. Or whether the position is important or not. These are important details. Maybe the position is BS and doesn’t have much authority. Maybe he’s learned the error of his ways. Without useful information this article is lame as it seems to lin…

> The article doesn’t research whether he’s reformed or still a bully.

An adult man being a bully in a professional environment?

No one should care about him. Fire him and let him try and find a job somewhere else.

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