271–280 of 282 posts
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$10 billion annually sounds pretty good until you consider that they've spent close to $40b on a Second Life clone. Blackberry profits were looking good in 2009 as well, it wasn't until 2012 that the wheels came off.
IBM has spent billions on Watson with very little return. I don't think anyone is calling IBM unstable.
> > Our early analysis of performance data suggests that engineers who either joined Meta in-person and then transferred to remote or remained in-person performed better on average than people who joined remotely. This analysis also shows that engineers earlier in their career perform better on average when they work in-person with teammates at least three days a week. This requires further study, but our hypothesis…
Why does there need to be a metric? People with management experience can decide these things based on intuition. It's practically impossible to quantify anything in this industry, but 'data-driven decisionmaking' is fetishized to the extreme. Ultimately it just becomes another buzzword and method for people with little or no experience to override people with experience. Phrasing the whole discussion in terms of 'me…
Ask Facebook.
> People with management experience can decide these things based on intuition. It's practically impossible to quantify anything in this industry, but 'data-driven decisionmaking' is fetishized to the extreme.
The answer to "it's practically impossible to quantify anything in this industry" is not "therefore we should just give up and rely on managerial intuition with zero accountability or measurement", but rather "therefore we should improve our ability to quantify things and pair that quantification and measurement with human judgment and oversight".
> > Our early analysis of performance data suggests that engineers who either joined Meta in-person and then transferred to remote or remained in-person performed better on average than people who joined remotely. This analysis also shows that engineers earlier in their career perform better on average when they work in-person with teammates at least three days a week. This requires further study, but our hypothesis…
Most business decisions, including this one, are made on incomplete data. Expecting a level of scientific rigor such that conclusions are unassailable is not realistic, as science moves slowly on high-certainty and business moves quickly on low-moderate certainty. If you don’t like the conclusion your company has reached, it’s going to be a lot faster and more fruitful to change companies than to change their mind. I…
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> Why is it supposed to be problematic for the metric to favor or skew towards one over the other? It's akin to asking whether a weightlifter or a marathon runner is more athletic. If I'm measuring athleticism by one's max jogging distance, that'll disproportionately favor the runner. If I'm measuring athleticism by one's single-rep max deadlift, that'll disproportionately favor the weightlifter. This ain't problemat…
I guess the relation I'm failing to see in this argument is why skew or no skew is supposed to be a determining factor in whether or not the metric is to be applicable outside of Meta in the first place. Say the metric weren't skewed, you still don't know it is applicable outside Meta because you don't know what it was measuring only that what was measured didn't favor either remote or on site work. Say you knew what…
And I guess what I'm saying is that it ain't a determining factor in and of itself, but it's rather a tool to discern whether it is indeed applicable outside (or, for that matter, inside) Meta. If a metric does skew toward a specific form of "athleticism" or "productivity" at the expense of others, then it's worth asking whether there's a particular reason for using it v. it being arbitrarily selected.
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> But after a period of time, I got it. Sure it took longer, but I got there. And then you leave the company. So it's not really at all in the best interest of the company for you to take longer to get up to speed. Average tenure of a SWE is still low across the entire market, at Meta it's probably even lower given who they hire for.
> And then you leave the company. So it's not really at all in the best interest of the company for you to take longer to get up to speed. Maybe it would be in their interest to pay more, so you don't leave. If average tenure of a SWE is low, they are probably switching jobs for better pay. In that case, paying them more to stay makes more sense than having to pay to get a cheaper but unproductive new hire up to spee…
I don't believe paying more would instill any sense of loyalty in SWEs.
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I don't see that as ironic. It in fact reinforces the importance of the metaverse. If there is a benefit to being in person, but not everyone can physically be in person being virtually present would be the next best thing.If presence wasn't shown to be valuable it would mean that the metaverse wouldn't be valuable for work purposes. Remote work is here to stay in society so finding ways to improve it will be valuabl…
> If presence wasn't shown to be valuable it would mean that the metaverse wouldn't be valuable for work purposes. Outside of some very specific circumstances, I have a hard time seeing the value of VR meeting for work purposes that regular old video chat doesn't already have.
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I guess the relation I'm failing to see in this argument is why skew or no skew is supposed to be a determining factor in whether or not the metric is to be applicable outside of Meta in the first place. Say the metric weren't skewed, you still don't know it is applicable outside Meta because you don't know what it was measuring only that what was measured didn't favor either remote or on site work. Say you knew what…
> I guess the relation I'm failing to see in this argument is why skew or no skew is supposed to be a determining factor in whether or not the metric is to be applicable outside of Meta in the first place. And I guess what I'm saying is that it ain't a determining factor in and of itself, but it's rather a tool to discern whether it is indeed applicable outside (or, for that matter, inside) Meta. If a metric does ske…
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Because a lot of work needs sync and is inefficient to do in an async manner. Even for software engineers, let alone other people centric roles. Most obvious example would be designing nuances of a complex system. That discussion is needed at least once every 4-6 weeks and I wish we are around a whiteboard at that time.
Async work is more difficult, but not more inefficient. It is the difference between putting a lot of work into an email that perfectly explains something, vs shooting a quick email and offload the effort to the recipient. In this case communication ability is crucial, since it requires written documents. Many people (managers and developers) lack the discipline, patience, and incentives to adopt this style of work.
Correct. So what do we do then? Changing people is hard. And communication styles are ingrained after a certain age.
Also, even the best communicators are finding it hard to do some tasks async, like designing a complex system.
There are managers who aren’t competent, either at their functional craft, or managing. And there are organizations which have too many layers. But effective leadership is indispensable to make a company successful. And the best way to distribute leadership through an organization is through a hierarchy, and that usually means managers. Anyone who exclusively sees the negative aspects of having managers has only play…
I believe you might be a manager. One term frequently associated with managers is "leadership." True leadership involves being able to guide someone by saying, "Let me demonstrate the proper way to do this, so you can learn from it." In my current role, although my "leadership professional" may not know how to perform my job for an entire day, they always have "valuable advice" to offer though
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Async work is more difficult, but not more inefficient. It is the difference between putting a lot of work into an email that perfectly explains something, vs shooting a quick email and offload the effort to the recipient. In this case communication ability is crucial, since it requires written documents. Many people (managers and developers) lack the discipline, patience, and incentives to adopt this style of work.
> Many people (managers and developers) lack the discipline, patience, and incentives to adopt this style of work. Correct. So what do we do then? Changing people is hard. And communication styles are ingrained after a certain age. Also, even the best communicators are finding it hard to do some tasks async, like designing a complex system.
If kernel devs can do it so can 90% of companies, if there is a will.
This seems to me like a culture matter that needs to come from the top, though.