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Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

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Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#221

Post by munchler »

hintymad wrote: post #212

A theory is that VP+s love their teams to be in office. Their values are in talking to people all day long, and in-person meetings amplify the perceived values. Therefore, they do mandate returning-to-office policy. This also explains why companies argue how important in-person meetings are for productivity yet engineers are saying the opposite.

It’s simpler than that. Insecure managers feel anxious when their employees have the freedom to set their own work conditions and hours. It’s about controlling how and when work is done.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#222

Post by ensan »

buzzert wrote: post #146

I can’t help but notice the timing of this. ML is starting to fizzle out as a “savior” of the industry after lofty promises were never fulfilled. Goodfellow was hired right at the peak of ML hype, so I have to assume his salary/total compensation was extraordinarily high, so he was very expensive to keep around. Apple would’ve made an exemption for exceptional talent. They didn’t make the exception for him.

"ML is starting to fizzle out as a “savior” of the industry after lofty promises were never fulfilled."

What? Siri, text completion, all the health- and activity-tracking features of Apple Watch, computational photography, Photos app, Face ID, and many, many more depend on machine learning. And let's not forget the Neural Engine in M1.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#223

Post by csande17 »

mmmpop wrote: post #205
csande17 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say, for sake of argument, that I'm the World's Greatest Widget Engineer. I'm worth more than the average employee at my company, so I can get stuff I want by negotiating individually with my employer. On the other hand, if a union imposes some broad agreement on the company under threat of strikes, I can't convince my company to break that agreement on my own because I'm not more valuable than the entire rest of the…

That makes you management buddy, so saddle up and don't forget your helmet.

If you can become an enemy of the union simply by being good at your individual-contributor job, maybe that's why unions haven't really taken off in software engineering.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#224

Post by hogrider »

ineedasername wrote: post #70

I'm trying to hire for a position right now and it has dragged on for months for two reasons: 1) WFH is now limited to 1 day per week, and a 3 month probationary period where new hires don't even get that. 2) Salary. It's still a job seeker's market and my workplace is not keeping pace. It's spec'ed for 3 years of experience but salary is about the median for a new graduate w/o professional experience. I'm happy to t…

I hope you tell who you eventually hire it's a shitty salary because it sounds they would only take the job if they don't know what they're worth.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#226

Post by softwaredoug »

Whether you favor in office or remote, you have to admit our cost structures have fundamentally reoriented the last 2 years.

Think of the commuting costs, living near/far from the office, the different types of day care options, etc etc that have shifted in the last two years. Imagine being told you’re going to get a 10% cut in pay due to the need to go in the office? That’s what RTO probably feels like to peoples pocket books.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#227

Post by carapace »

gwern wrote: post #166
jackblemming wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GANs were just low hanging fruit that Schmidhuber already found. By most accounts Ian Goodfellow is kind of an asshole, and there was some drama about him a few times over the years. I don’t know the man, that’s just what I’ve heard.

If Schmidhuber had really found everything he says he found, the Singularity would've happened decades ago.

You know, if it were anyone else I would probably ignore this comment, but you seem to do your homework, to put it mildly. Are you saying he's, uh, misrepresenting himself?

(I like Schmidhuber but I'm not knowledgeable enough to really evaluate his work or claims.)

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#228

Post by ethbr0 »

oceanghost wrote: post #147
analog31 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, "group synergy" was given as the reason for cramming people into the open plan offices that everybody was glad to get away from.

Do you ever notice the guys pushing the group synergy, generally have big offices?

Average office size : average cube size

An underrated ratio for measuring corporate inequality.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#229

Post by ethbr0 »

discordance wrote: post #215
whatever1 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why ML people have to be forced in the office ?

He’s a director and is most likely supposed to be an example. “If the director isn’t coming in then why should I?”

Per his phrasing, part of the reason he's quitting is to be an example.

> "I believe strongly that more flexibility would have been the best policy for my team," Goodfellow said in the email.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#230

Post by giraffe_lady »

saddist0 wrote: post #61

I don't get the fuss about such posts. At the end of the day, it boils down to your personal choices. You love to remote work, find a job with a flexible work policy. You don't, well, here are another companies you would love to work for. Ultimately, markets (including job market) is all about equilibrium. Either companies are going to increase the salary to come back [or reduce if you are staying back at home]. The…

> At the end of the day, it boils down to your personal choices.

I like working remote fine I guess but all else being equal I'd consider an office for the right job.

All else isn't equal though and the reason we went remote is still in play. A company I left a few years ago went back into the office in january. My old manager who was still working there just died of covid a few weeks ago. Vaccinated, boosted etc.

The risk might be lower now but it's not gone. I never fully recovered from my first round with covid almost two years ago. I'm not looking for another go.

The balance of risk/benefit might favor companies choosing to have workers back. We really might be more productive in there, and hey probably only a handful will die. There's a little more going on than my personal choices though.

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