After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by beerandt » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 1:39 AM UTC

afarrell wrote: post #260

bradlys wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't think there's that much alignment in organizations in the sense you're speaking of. While it's nice to think that these places are acting in best interests of blahblahblah - I think selfish interests hold true more often than not and accountability is basically nigh impossible in our world. We have so many people who have been abusing people in so much worse of ways than "write me a report on Russia" a…

> The public doesn’t care how a company is managed - they care about the share price going up so they make their money. Thats like saying you don’t care about the fridge temperature of a restaurant, you care how quickly they get you your chicken Kiev. > I don’t think there is much alignment… Considering the fact that deepmind spends a significant amount on AI safety, a misalignment between their leadership and human…

>a misalignment between their leadership and human values seems pretty concerning

I mean this is what it boils down to. Does your self assessment of your value align with your bosses assessment, and if not, then who's wrong?

I've been guilty of assigning tasks to employees just to keep their hands off of another area of a project.

At that point in time, their best value to me was being busy with something else.

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

#282

Post by krapp » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 1:45 AM UTC

s7atic wrote: post #246

krapp wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're the one claiming the story is exaggerated, dramatized, sensationalist and now character assassination. This isn't a court of law, there is no "burden of proof." And if there were, you're clearly not willing to carry it yourself.

> This isn't a court of law, there is no "burden of proof." That's exactly the problem with news publications like this; they are extrajudicial. They throw away the right to due process. And make no mistake: The consequences for the accused are very tangible. There are also important second order effects from legitimizing this rhetoric. A democracy cannot exist without a rule of law. When we violate those basic legal…

>And make no mistake: The consequences for the accused are very tangible.

A promotion and a raise? The horror.

> democracy cannot exist without a rule of law. When we violate those basic legal principles, we risk destabilizing our society at large.

It's weird, Hacker News is usually extreme in its defense of absolute freedom of speech and the press, especially the freedom of the press to report negatively on people in positions of power. But when someone writes an article on a Google employee that they don't like, it's "destabilizing our society at large" and violates "basic legal principles."

Where did all the Friends of Voltaire go, I wonder? Where was all of this sympathy and assumption of good faith for Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell? Why does HN only ever go to the mat for sociopaths, bigots and assholes?

>In some jurisdictions, defamation is illegal irrespective of the claims' veracity in order to ensure the right to due process and avoid non-sactioned punishments.

What defamation?

What punishment? He got a promotion. He was punished with money and power and being in line for CEO.

> cannot help but feel legalization in other countries, including the US and UK, have not yet caught up with the forces enabled by today's social media climate.

Are you trying to make this "cancel culture" now? This has nothing to do with "today's social media climate." There was no Twitter mob calling for Mustafa Suleyman's head, there were internal complaints made by employees.

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

#283

Post by MisterBastahrd » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 1:47 AM UTC

jay_kyburz wrote: post #175

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you don't. Not when you literally have business units IN that country.

Yeah but, red tape. When you ask a business unit to do it, it becomes a whole big thing. When you ask somebody on your team to do it, it might not be as good, but it gets done.

Or, again, you ask the company about it because if they have business units in said country then that's probably a bridge they've already crossed ten dozen times.

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

#284

Post by bsder » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 1:51 AM UTC

meowface wrote: post #207

omarhaneef wrote: post #106

Here is an observation, make of it what you will: These are the environments I’ve been in where it has been very common for people to scream at each other, both loudly and often: - banking - venture - consulting These are the environments where I have not seen this behavior: - academia - tech - an operating company I’ll tell you what makes it tolerable and normal versus abusive: if a subordinate is “allowed” to yell…

Maybe I'm just sheltered, but I've never worked at a company where I've been screamed at or have heard anyone screaming at anyone. (I have heard stories, but the stories circulated because everyone recognized how atypical, absurd, and unprofessional the behavior was.) Surely this is the norm, and screaming is the outlier?

> Surely this is the norm, and screaming is the outlier?

Screaming was seen as a "negotiating tactic" for quite a lot of the 1970's and 1980's in American "business". I suspect there was more screaming when you worked for one company for life because you had to defend your company position more jealously. Now, you leave and get a raise.

I would also argue that it is more of a tactic outside of tech. Businesses that like to pride themselves on being "high-stress environments" probably have more of it.

In addition, different parts of the world have different ideas as to what conflict in the "superior/subordinate" relationship looks like. Some expect extreme deference; others expect you to squawk.

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

#285

Post by marcinzm » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #283

jay_kyburz wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but, red tape. When you ask a business unit to do it, it becomes a whole big thing. When you ask somebody on your team to do it, it might not be as good, but it gets done.

Or, again, you ask the company about it because if they have business units in said country then that's probably a bridge they've already crossed ten dozen times.

That depends on how much internal politics there is. In some companies asking will make the other department concerned that you're going to compete with them for the market and they will then attempt to shut you down preemptively. Thus secrecy and keeping things internal to the the department since your greatest competitors are internal and not external.

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

#286

Post by belorn » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 2:07 AM UTC

oytis wrote: post #88

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.

I suspect that the discussion would look very differently if the article had not named the person but rather discussed general abusive behavior of managers in faang. Now people feel like they have to take a side, with the mob or against the mob, and that makes people uncomfortable.

This might be the origin to libel laws. One might think they exist exclusively to protect those accused unfairly, but it might be to also protect society in general from feeling uncertainty about people being attacked.

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

#287

Post by talentedcoin » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 2:10 AM UTC

beerandt wrote: post #273

Volundr wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once or twice a year ? Maybe once or twice a career if a family member has just died or something I could excuse it. But multiple times a year is a pattern. I've somehow gone 10 years without screaming at an employee, and it's not something I'd tolerate from any of my managers. Definitely not from an executive. The higher your rise the more responsibility you have to model proper behavior. If you can't handle the str…

If yelling/lecturing/screaming at an employee gets the point across and prevents them from being fired, is it justified? Assuming calmly and firmly hasn't worked. Most of us are probably fortunate enough to have mature and cooperative coworkers, but that isn't always the case. Honest question.

Unfortunately, if asking nicely (or even firmly) several times does not work and you have to scream at someone, they will never get it anyways, and it’s better for everyone else’s morale if that person is fired.

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

#288

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 2:23 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #282

s7atic wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This isn't a court of law, there is no "burden of proof." That's exactly the problem with news publications like this; they are extrajudicial. They throw away the right to due process. And make no mistake: The consequences for the accused are very tangible. There are also important second order effects from legitimizing this rhetoric. A democracy cannot exist without a rule of law. When we violate those basic legal…

>And make no mistake: The consequences for the accused are very tangible. A promotion and a raise? The horror. > democracy cannot exist without a rule of law. When we violate those basic legal principles, we risk destabilizing our society at large. It's weird, Hacker News is usually extreme in its defense of absolute freedom of speech and the press, especially the freedom of the press to report negatively on people i…

The underlying idea I think you're missing is that personnel disputes just shouldn't be litigated through the media. There's no reliable information that can be gained and no productive discussion that can be had; the only possible outcome is to feed our confirmation biases and provide a platform to get mad.

For example, you mention:

> Where did all the Friends of Voltaire go, I wonder? Where was all of this sympathy and assumption of good faith for Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell? Why does HN only ever go to the mat for sociopaths, bigots and assholes?

But lots of people went to the mat for Gebru and Mitchell! And many more were willing to provide an assumption of good faith without necessarily taking their side. You're condemning people who argue against you here, not because of anything they said, but because of your assumptions about what position they might have taken in a different controversy about different people. The article has tricked you into getting angry at phantoms and guesswork.

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

#289

Post by shadowgovt » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 2:34 AM UTC

AlbertCory wrote: post #204

shadowgovt wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is generally loathe to fire unless they absolutely have to, so this explanation tracks.

What's your evidence for that statement? I worked there 11 1/2 years, and by the way was not fired. However, I saw many people fired. There were probably many more placed on a Performance Improvement Plan who subsequently quit rather than get fired.

My evidence is all the coworkers I saw who didn't get fired.

To clarify: I mean in the rank and file software engineering. If you make legal's job hard or give the company a public black eye, that can be a short path to dismissal.

(It's a big company, so I wouldn't be surprised if, perhaps, it also varies from department to department. I have no idea if the YouTube piece and the ads piece have the same policies).

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

#290

Post by caddemon » Sun, Aug 08, 2021, 2:38 AM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #272

caddemon wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also a lot of AI researchers today though. I'm not sure about higher level positions, but for current grad students and postdocs DeepMind is still a very sought after place to work.

Yes but you want the good ones.

I mean it remains sought after in top programs. The field is oversaturated from top to bottom, I don't think they will have any issues attracting talent. Particularly not from this story - every academic department probably has at least one top professor worse than this guy.