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The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

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Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#121

Post by karmakurtisaani »

riskable wrote: post #95
godelski wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part I'm confused at is it doesn't seem that they are doomed, and end up being very successful companies. But I think this is likely due to lack of competition. I recently did an internship at one of these big companies, doing ML. I'm a researcher but had a production role. Coming in everything was really weird to me from how they setup their machines to training and evaluation. I brought up that the way they wer…

> due to lack of competition. So let's compete! What are they selling? What prevents competitors from springing up?

No connection to OP, but user base and network effect if I know modern online giants at all.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#122

Post by OkayPhysicist »

mlhpdx wrote: post #87
NateEag wrote: post #63

This is an appealing narrative without evidence. How does the author know Marias make up the majority of most companies? Where's the data supporting that claim? It may be true - it sounds plausible to those of us who've been a Maria in the salt mines of a dysfunctional company. It appeals to us to think we're the hidden gems the company needs to invest in. Something being appealing doesn't make it true, though, even…

> This is an appealing narrative without evidence. I had the same thought, but I’m grateful to the author for putting their opinions out for us to see. It is an interesting quandary - getting “more” from someone, pragmatic or otherwise, raises questions. Is the premise that they aren’t providing value on a level with salary? Or, is it that the business has a right/obligation to extract more? The latter is offensive,…

Labor relations are intrinsically adversarial. The employer wants to pay as little as they can get away with for as much work as possible, the employee wants to be paid as much as possible for as little work as they can get away with.

This article is written for the employer's side, trying to optimize their game. The employees trying to normalize working approximately nothing are optimizing their side.

It's not offensive, it's just economics.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#123

Post by WalterBright »

ryandrake wrote: post #112
WalterBright wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aren't we all (normal and decent people) doing this already? I've known many such in my career. They weren't fooling anybody. Everybody knew who they were. When they'd get laid off or were passed over for a raise they were always baffled and outraged.

I think this highly depends on the manager. Some know (Manager A), and either work to correct it, or get their ducks in a row to fire them. Plenty of managers, though, (Manager B) have no idea what a reasonable amount of work output is, and can be easily convinced that what took 1-2 hours to do constituted an entire 40 hour week. You get some developer who's good at "managing upward" and they'll bullshit/charm and wa…

I've been a manager and an employee and I've talked to many managers. They know who the slackers are, but there can be reasons why they take no action. When an opportunity arises to get rid of them, they do.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#124

Post by godelski »

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #121
riskable wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> due to lack of competition. So let's compete! What are they selling? What prevents competitors from springing up?

No connection to OP, but user base and network effect if I know modern online giants at all.

Yeah this is part of the issue with that particular product, the other is the initial capital. But also, the project itself was a bit too authoritarian style creepy so I'd rather not. But I've seen the exact same issues in MANY other products (I mean I could have told you rabbit or humane pin would be shit. In fact, I believe I even stated that on HN if not joked about it in person. I happily shit on plenty of papers too, and do so here)

I think what a lot of people don't understand is that there's criticism and dismissing. I'm an ML researcher, I criticize works because I want our field to be better and because I believe in ML, not because I'm against it. I think people confuse this. I'll criticize GPT all day, while also using it every day.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#125

Post by deathanatos »

dwaltrip wrote: post #48
sevagh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah, agreed; I quit the moment it happened. What I mean is now I'm sort of wary of the same situation re-occurring at the next place I work.

People aren’t all the same. It’s easy to forget this. And it totally makes sense to be wary! That will help you pick a better place next time. Although, to be fair, the average place probably closer to what you describe, meaning there is a limited supply of high quality places at the top end of the distribution.

> That will help you pick a better place next time.

I'm convinced there is no means available to an employee to "picking a better place". Last time I job hopped, I tried to do that — and largely, I think I succeeded. But company leadership changed, my good boss left and was replaced by a terrible new boss (who has since also left, and been replaced by a less terrible boss) … so what I evaluated when I joined is no more.

And that assumes I can even truly do a good job of evaluating a time of joining … I tend to believe I got more lucky than anything else there.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#126

Post by godelski »

riskable wrote: post #95
godelski wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part I'm confused at is it doesn't seem that they are doomed, and end up being very successful companies. But I think this is likely due to lack of competition. I recently did an internship at one of these big companies, doing ML. I'm a researcher but had a production role. Coming in everything was really weird to me from how they setup their machines to training and evaluation. I brought up that the way they wer…

> due to lack of competition. So let's compete! What are they selling? What prevents competitors from springing up?

Mostly capital? Honestly, I have no idea how to get initial capital. Yeah, I know what site we're on lol. But I'm not from a top university and honestly I'd like to focus on actual AGI not this LLM stuff (LLMs are great, but lol they won't scale to AGI). Which arguably, if someone is wanting to compete in that space, why throw more money at a method that is prolific and so many have a head start? But they're momentum limited, throw me a few million and we can try new things. Don't even need half of what some of these companies are getting to produce shit that we all should know is shit and going to be shit from the get go.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#127

Post by lazide »

szundi wrote: post #115
luisgvv wrote: post #7

I began as a junior dev and climbed up the ranks til the point where I became the SME in some areas of the product. Got laid off because sales goals were not met while they retained people which I think were incompetent in their work. Even some guys which I think were better and more critical to the projects were dumped. I'm not climbing that ladder by being proactive and "pragmatic" again... Call me a paycheck steal…

What about not fucking up your life and find a good comany to work for?

Since this is always relative, that’s like ‘why not just be rich?’ isn’t it?

The devil is in the details and the ‘how’.

Re: The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists

#128

Post by rawgabbit »

zer00eyz wrote: post #111
diob wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might want to think a bit about survivorship bias and see how it might apply.

Thats the point. Who survives in a down turn? It's not the folks who are "pragmatic" its not the folks who give up... You work with two people, Bob who punches the clock and Bill who puts in the time to get the extra work done. You move on to a new job and your boss says "we need someone new on your team, Bob and Bill are here". You're not picking Bob, Bill gets your vote. Dont be an asshlole be known as at the hard…

Been there. Done that. Doing the work of five people because I was the survivor and the others got a severance package was no fun. I could only pull it off for six months before being burned out.
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