Irony is not dead: https://youtu.be/GC5Gmkn92Bg
Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
181–190 of 734 posts
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#182WFH is screwing young workers by eliminating the mentorship, learning by osmosis and relationship-building that has propelled many knowledge-based careers. If Goodfellow were truly a good fellow, he would recognize the higher purpose.
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Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Group synergy” where “group” means “reduced real estate cost” and “synergy” means “fnord.”
Synergy means multiplication instead of addition when things are put together, like male and female oxen. You put them together in an open office and more oxen are sure to be produced.
Oxen are commonly castrated adult male cattle. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Ox
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#184There are both good arguments for in-office work as for work from home. The first might give you better access to interaction with colleagues, the second more flexibility, less communte and often better productivity due to less interaction with colleagues :).
No doubt there is a huge challenge for companies how to organize their work as they are reopening their offices. In general, I think they should allow for more time. No one likes to be forced back to the offices, but as more and more people return to the office, they might gain more attraction as a place to meet people again. The 3 day in-office work week might happen on its own quickly enough, forcing people might be quite counter-productive.
The big elephant in the room in the case of Apple surely is their shiny new headquarter. They spent like 5 billion on it, and from what I read it wasn't even popular before the pandemic. Because it was designed by upper management, but somehow the people who should work there were not asked. With that amount of budget, it should be possible to design offices that people desparately want to work in. Hint: open offices aren't this :p
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do they leave them all the time because of a return-to-office policy?
Probably not. I really doubt that most people would give up a job in a satisfying office environment with people they truly enjoy working with on a product/project they are excited to work on everyday simply because of they are told they have to go in and meet those people they really groove with three times a week.
I did. I don't go for bullshit, and forcing me into the office is bullshit.
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you need is a new job where they don't treat your skill as a cost center
“directly supports the main revenue-generating operations of the organization so there is real $$$ lost by having this position empty” How companies consider that a cost center is beyond me. But I’ve seen them do it.
Oh golly, how right you are.
> How companies consider that a cost center is beyond me. But I’ve seen them do it.
I may have an answer: Because of our fetish with metrics. It is possible to measure the cost of an engineer or computer programmer. This can be assigned a cost which is arbitrarily precise. Calculating teh benefit is usually not so easy. So the decision makers (rational beings, just mislead by an intellectually bankrupt management philosophy) concentrate on what they can count.
This is McNamara's fallacy
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
A couple contenders off the top of my head: 1. Defending pseudoscience (as long as it’s related to nutrition and exercise) 2. Disgust with “marketing people” and anyone with an MBA 3. Hating “woke” culture 4. Justifying piracy
These all seem like high priority virtues so it’s nice that you think HN feels similarly about them.
5. Smugly thinking they’re very clever
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#188I 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.
this is not a very informed take. ML is increasingly used across all kinds of use cases. Some of the wild uninformed visions haven't materialized cause they never do in any tech fad, but saying ML is fizzling is just totally inaccurate.
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#189I 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 isn't fizzling out. What planet do you live on?
It does seem to have arrived in a cul-de-sac?
I am not a ML specialist. Watching from the sidelines.
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You have much more bargaining power about your work conditions as an organized union. You also give away your power as an individual to those running the union.
In much the same way that “getting a lawyer” gives away one’s power in a courtroom.
It's more like joining a class action settlement.