AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings • Hacker News Board

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#391

Post by esafak » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 4:10 PM UTC

gunsle wrote: post #389

esafak wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have those things when working remotely. You need to foster social relations at work too; after-work socializing is not a substitute for a collaborative work atmosphere.

You don’t “need” to foster social relations at work. They will naturally arise as people work together. This idea that we need to turn the workplace into a big “family” is nonsensical corporate propaganda pushed by HR departments primarily staffed by women. I promise, most men don’t give a single fuck about “fostering social relationships” at work. The guys I have respected and became the most friendly with at work h…

Why would they want to be in trenches with you, collaborate on a project, start a company, or otherwise stick their neck out for you, if they don't know you? They'll pick someone they enjoy rapport with.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#392

Post by dhritzkiv » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 4:56 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #71

asabla wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no agenda, no attenda I've been using this mentality for the last three years. Some responds with hostility and some see the benefits, but most are just indifferent to it sadly. I've also been observing people just throw in a short sentence or some AI generated shit list which is then not followed during the meeting. But those who take this seriously usually have pretty darn good meetings (e.g not book the full hou…

I like my meeting where we don’t have a fixed agenda but anyone can bring something up. If there’s nothing, we just end the meeting.

How do you prevent meetings from meandering and going over time? How do you ensure the correct people are in the meeting when there's no agenda?

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#393

Post by dangus » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 5:11 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #303

dangus wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is that people who talk like that aren’t management material. “I noped out of the management track” = “nobody was considering me for the management track”

> “nobody was considering me for the management track” I don’t know if this holds any more than saying “the only people who get into management are those that couldn’t hack it in the technical side”. There are many people who get recruited for certain management tracks and turn it down so they can put more focus on technical problems. IMO at the end of the day, every job is about solving problems and it’s up to you t…

My point is that the comment’s author clearly doesn’t have the right attitude/skillset to succeed in management.

It would be like me saying I noped out of the starting lineup of the LA Lakers to with on the custodial staff.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#394

Post by fnordpiglet » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 1:44 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #295

fnordpiglet wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homework before hand is an anti pattern IMO. It assumes people aren’t busy in the rest of their day and the meeting scheduler is inflating the toll of the meeting with a hidden prep tax. This is how people end up with 12 hour days. Bezos forbade pre-meeting homework at Amazon for this reason. He was having a hard time keeping up with everything and the meetings were basically people recriminating each other for not b…

I might disagree on this. For a meeting that covers any moderately complex situation to be productive, the attendees need to understand the context. That sounds like what Bezos was after. Doing “homework” beforehand ensures that people aren’t sitting idly while one person is reading the report for the first time or otherwise trying to bring themselves up to speed on the context everyone else already knows. I don’t th…

How do you ensure everyone does their homework? If they are busy, they won’t. If they’re managers they’re probably in back to back meetings all day. Do they prepare for every one of them? This implies they should be working 11 hours a day just to keep up with homework for their baseline meeting load? In my 35 years I’ve never seen a busy manager or even IC show up having read the material ahead of time. Especially a very senior person who gets scheduled in 16 x 30 minute sessions in a day. It’s impractical and they’ll just show up and tell the junior people to explain the material and do a presentation while they ask questions. Pointing out the inefficiency for everyone else who prepared is a nonstarter as they’re busy and more senior.

It’s not about delegation. Everything that can be delegated should be but often there are decisions that need to be made that involve more capital or other outlay/risk than delegates are entitle to have discretion over. Further there are cross organizational decisions where the “join point” is a fairly senior person and they need to tie break between delegates.

Amazon was pretty good about delegation and independent empowerment, at least at aws. But there were certain decisions that always went to Jassy or bezos. People moaned about how much work it was to prepare for those and what a friction it was but those frictions and efforts were throttles and high risk decisions to keep entropy from eating them alive due to the scaled and delegated nature of most processes.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#395

Post by absoluteunit1 » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 9:48 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #291

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also read a thing (dunno if it was opinion or fact) that posited that people's reading ability is directly correlated to a preference for video, I suspect it's the same with meetings. I read / write all day (including on here lmao), meetings are draining in comparison. But the people in those meetings don't read / write nearly as much as I do. I did once think that if the meeting were to be transcribed, people a…

I administer reading comprehension tests and typing speed tests to all candidates I consider hiring. It’s overlooked. Good ones who can’t type fast, I assign them typing lessons their first few paid days on the job, and a half hour twice a week thereafter for a while. I’m an outlier and can type 120wpm without trying very hard, but I expect 40-50wpm (touch typing, not hunt and peck) at a minimum from staff that work…

Hi

> Good ones who can’t type fast, I assign them typing lessons their first few paid days on the job, and a half hour twice a week thereafter for a while.

This is very interesting to me - I’ve actually been building https://www.typequicker.com recently and was curious about potentially adding features and marketing it towards businesses who then can use it to train their workers.

Typing quickly is extremely overlooked and since I learned touch typing, it completely improved my productivity and career trajectory. (Went from 40ish to about 100-120wpm depending on what I’m typing)

What are some tools that you use when you say you assign lessons?

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#396

Post by smeej » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 2:19 AM UTC

kaashif wrote: post #379

smeej wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. This sounds like, "I can't manage my direct report, so I need to waste the time of everybody else on the team just so the little punk realizes he can't hide forever." A team meeting should not be the go-to solution for "Bob is bad at communicating"!

It appears you didn't read my comment, here's the relevant part: > But some people just don't do that, especially people from other teams Hope this helps.

Oh I read it.

If you're the manager, YOUR job is to figure out how to get the information from the people who owe you a report, not weaponize my presence at a meeting to ferret out people you can't manage to reach.

But honestly the condescending tone of this whole exchange tells me everything I need it to about why you struggle to get information out of people.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#397

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 3:02 PM UTC

fnordpiglet wrote: post #394

bumby wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might disagree on this. For a meeting that covers any moderately complex situation to be productive, the attendees need to understand the context. That sounds like what Bezos was after. Doing “homework” beforehand ensures that people aren’t sitting idly while one person is reading the report for the first time or otherwise trying to bring themselves up to speed on the context everyone else already knows. I don’t th…

How do you ensure everyone does their homework? If they are busy, they won’t. If they’re managers they’re probably in back to back meetings all day. Do they prepare for every one of them? This implies they should be working 11 hours a day just to keep up with homework for their baseline meeting load? In my 35 years I’ve never seen a busy manager or even IC show up having read the material ahead of time. Especially a…

[deleted]

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#398

Post by bumby » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 8:35 PM UTC

fnordpiglet wrote: post #394

bumby wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might disagree on this. For a meeting that covers any moderately complex situation to be productive, the attendees need to understand the context. That sounds like what Bezos was after. Doing “homework” beforehand ensures that people aren’t sitting idly while one person is reading the report for the first time or otherwise trying to bring themselves up to speed on the context everyone else already knows. I don’t th…

How do you ensure everyone does their homework? If they are busy, they won’t. If they’re managers they’re probably in back to back meetings all day. Do they prepare for every one of them? This implies they should be working 11 hours a day just to keep up with homework for their baseline meeting load? In my 35 years I’ve never seen a busy manager or even IC show up having read the material ahead of time. Especially a…

>How do you ensure everyone does their homework?

To your point, I think this tone has to be set by the senior person or else it won't take. It has to be ingrained culturally.

Correct me if I'm off, but it seems like you're saying these things are true:

1) There are certain high-level decisions that must be made and only certain people can make them because of the risk.

2) Those people are busy and in meetings almost all of the day.

3) Because they are busy they can't do the homework.

All of that points to the decision-maker as being the bottleneck. Certainly I'm missing the nuance, but that doesn't sound like an organization that delegates effectively. Real delegation, where people are delegated the authority to make important decisions, could reduce the need for all of the above. What exactly are they being delegated if not the authority to make high-level decisions? It's sounds like delegation in name only, or a more superficial version of delegation. Sometimes I think leaders think of “delegation” as “allowing someone else to do the stuff I don’t really want to do.” That’s not the type of delegation I’m alluding to.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#399

Post by bumby » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 8:38 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #374

bumby wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve admired meeting stewards who will adjourn the meeting if people aren’t prepared and reconvene it later. If that person has authority and is well respected, it only has to happen once or twice, but obviously it can’t be applied everywhere.

Often, the purpose of the meeting is to get a busy VP to listen to some proposal and then say “yes.” That VP was booked solid for three weeks, and is booked solid for the next three weeks. This is his only 15 minute free time slot. Aint no way anyone’s going to adjourn this meeting just because someone isn’t prepared.

Yes, the VP needs to lead by example.

Re: AI note takers are flooding Zoom calls as workers opt to skip meetings

#400

Post by kaashif » Sun, Jul 06, 2025, 10:39 PM UTC

smeej wrote: post #396

kaashif wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears you didn't read my comment, here's the relevant part: > But some people just don't do that, especially people from other teams Hope this helps.

Oh I read it. If you're the manager, YOUR job is to figure out how to get the information from the people who owe you a report, not weaponize my presence at a meeting to ferret out people you can't manage to reach. But honestly the condescending tone of this whole exchange tells me everything I need it to about why you struggle to get information out of people.

Okay, well, if you read my comment saying that sometimes meeting with people outside the team is useful, then you start writing about how I'm wasting the time of people _inside_ my team, then I must have miscommunicated something.

You're reading things into what I'm saying that aren't there.

My job is to defend my direct reports from having their time wasted and clear blockers for them. Sometimes, yeah, this means meeting with people to ferret them out.

I'm not weaponizing anyone's presence at a meeting except mine.