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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

#81

Post by babesh »

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…

Did I get promoted when I got that new title?

- If I make more money, it is a promotion. If I didn't, it is a demotion.

- If the number of reports increases, it is a promotion. If it decreases, it is a demotion.

- If I have more areas reporting to me, it is a promotion. If I have fewer areas, then it is a demotion.

- If I have greenfield projects under my direction, it is a promotion. If I have maintenance projects, it is a demotion.

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

#82

Post by whoisjuan »

shkkmo wrote: post #42
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?

Going from VP to SVP is most certainly a promotion... In this particular case, this guys was probably an L10 before his leave and is probably still an L10. In companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc; an official promotion is changing levels, not titles.

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

#83

Post by chronic2703 »

arkitaip wrote: post #2

> Google’s reported willingness to put up with Suleyman's behavior stands in stark contrast to its swift termination of Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell, former co-leads of its AI ethics team who produced research that challenged the company’s direction on large language models. Suleyman is a sociopath who makes Google money - that's why he was promoted and rewarded for his sociopathy.

> who makes Google money

I’m sure you invest your personal portfolio in companies that make less money (lower return) when higher return alternatives are available?

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

#84

Post by chrisseaton »

marcinzm wrote: post #31
sillysaurusx wrote: post #16

I see a lot of people saying this seems not a big deal, or that his leadership deserved promotion. It’s because this is a second order article. The original, most substantive source that I could find is quite thorough: https://archive.is/wqdkF > "He would ask us to do personal things for him," one of these people said. "He said, 'I need you to write a briefing for me on Russian history and politics.' [...] We had abs…

>We had absolutely no work in Russia. Wouldn't the point of such a high level briefing be because they're tying to get work in Russia but don't already have any? It's rather common for employees to not know the details of the strategic plans of the executives until the execution starts.

Were these peopled hired for responsibilities including historical briefings?

No?

So why are they being asked to do them?

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

#85

Post by Barrin92 »

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.

>His disagreeability is probably correlated with his track record of innovation

No, it's probably correlated with a lack of accountability for his behavior. What is his track record of innovation? He has no technical background, dropped out of college and apparently does not know how to manage people.

He worked as a political aide, a consultant, is somehow very close to Demis Hassabis (who is an actual innovator), which I assume got him his position. Looking at his bio his only innovation is how to network yourself up the ladder

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

#86

Post by matheusmoreira »

Ftuuky wrote: post #17

> "Employees said Suleyman encouraged them to use private chat groups on Signal and Telegram for work conversations, some of which were set up to automatically delete messages after a set period. Employees were also on occasion asked to delete messages from their phones, a former employee said. They were also told to notify the group once they had done so. > "Mustafa was super paranoid about Google spying on him, so…

Sounds like a reasonable guy. I wouldn't want Google spying on me either. It's amazing that he made everyone use Signal.

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

#87

Post by TeMPOraL »

Traster wrote: post #64
gundmc wrote: post #8

I feel like this story is overblown. He was clearly a bad manager. From what I can gather, he was placed on leave after an investigation and then moved to a policy position where he does not manage anyone. Calling it a promotion is pure spin.

At my old company it was a bit of a joke, you would repeatedly see shit managers become "architect"s. Management were too cowardly to get rid of bad managers, so they were forced to promote them to get them out of their role. So managers who were shit technically constantly ended up with senior technical titles - and everyone knew why.

Were they bad architects though?

It's easy to paint bad managers as bad workers (or even bad people) - but sometimes, they're just bad at managing. In such cases, it's better to shift them into roles they're more suited for than to fire them and hire new people for those roles - existing employees already know the company's procedures and products. Plus, it'll likely be cheaper salary-wise - in our industry, new employees have a much better negotiating position than existing ones.

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

#88

Post by oytis »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #16

I see a lot of people saying this seems not a big deal, or that his leadership deserved promotion. It’s because this is a second order article. The original, most substantive source that I could find is quite thorough: https://archive.is/wqdkF > "He would ask us to do personal things for him," one of these people said. "He said, 'I need you to write a briefing for me on Russian history and politics.' [...] We had abs…

It's a total mystery to me why do people feel the urge to defend him. I kind of understand this in the case of technically brilliant but socially awkward people, but this guy seems to have done nothing but management in his life. And if this is how he's doing management then I don't understand why he's tolerated at all.

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

#89

Post by [deleted] »

dalbasal wrote: post #77
sillysaurusx wrote: post #16

I see a lot of people saying this seems not a big deal, or that his leadership deserved promotion. It’s because this is a second order article. The original, most substantive source that I could find is quite thorough: https://archive.is/wqdkF > "He would ask us to do personal things for him," one of these people said. "He said, 'I need you to write a briefing for me on Russian history and politics.' [...] We had abs…

>> Behavior patterns were not productive. I agree with you on success often being in spite of, or regardless of negative traits. That said, there are quite a lot of arseholes at the top... or maybe being at the top allows arseholes to indulge. Jobs, by most accounts, was a real arsehole. Musk, by some reports, at least at time. Gates too, had a reputation for nastiness. Lots of professors are known for bullying and m…

[deleted]

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

#90

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #16

I see a lot of people saying this seems not a big deal, or that his leadership deserved promotion. It’s because this is a second order article. The original, most substantive source that I could find is quite thorough: https://archive.is/wqdkF > "He would ask us to do personal things for him," one of these people said. "He said, 'I need you to write a briefing for me on Russian history and politics.' [...] We had abs…

The guy is certainly a terrible leader if these accusations are true. But if worst things he did are giving dumb assignments and being mean to people he's planning to fire, I'm pretty comfortable saying that's not a big deal in the scheme of things. I'm not excusing the behavior, I'd never work for someone who acted like this, but I don't know why it's important news either.
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