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Sergey Brin's Unretirement

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Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#181

Post by neilv »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #138
neilv wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be happy to do 60-hour weeks of good work, in a good environment. I wouldn't want 60-hour weeks of dealing with a lot of promotion-seekers, though. I wonder how different Google would be if they'd just paid people enough money they didn't have to think about money, but it was the same amount of money to everyone. You do the work, not for promotions, but because you like doing the work. You can train up for and tr…

Why would I want to be paid the same amount as any moron that gets in? What motivation is there for me to work hard?

* You like the mission.

* You like the craft.

* You want to be there for your team.

* You like that your financial needs are taken care of, so that you don't have to think about that.

* You like that everyone else's financial needs are taken care of, because you want everyone to be happy.

* You like that there's alignment by everyone on this. (Even though there will be disagreements on, say, how best to accomplish the mission.)

If someone gets in and doesn't actually have or find motivations like that, or doesn't rise to the occasion despite help, I guess they'd be managed out. That cultural mismatch wouldn't be good for anyone involved.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#182

Post by aleph_minus_one »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #138
neilv wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be happy to do 60-hour weeks of good work, in a good environment. I wouldn't want 60-hour weeks of dealing with a lot of promotion-seekers, though. I wonder how different Google would be if they'd just paid people enough money they didn't have to think about money, but it was the same amount of money to everyone. You do the work, not for promotions, but because you like doing the work. You can train up for and tr…

Why would I want to be paid the same amount as any moron that gets in? What motivation is there for me to work hard?

> Why would I want to be paid the same amount as any moron that gets in?

You answered your question by yourself: the company has to prevent these morons from getting in.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#183

Post by scotty79 »

cuttothechase wrote: post #47

Sergey's challenge looks like is not in retiring early or with non-work. We had a high performing co-worker who was scared witless after a lay-off episode and this was not because he was worried about lacking money or loss of prestige., but because he could not come to terms with the simple fact of facing the 9 am on a Monday morning with absolutely no expectations. It freaked so much to not feel the hustle and the a…

[flagged]

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#184

Post by ithkuil »

fragmede wrote: post #106
nsoonhui wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sergey might have some positive influence on Gemini, but given that he isn't an AI scientist ( AKA no technical background), I really do wonder what sort of influence that (only) he could have had, beyond just bringing in key people.

The man that invented PageRank while going to college at Stanford for a PhD doesn't have a technical background? He did not get that PhD because he founded Google . He may not be as smart as you think you are, but he's no slouch either.

A charitable interpretation of what GP said is that Brin might not have a specific expertise in AI.

I also think this doesn't make sense, because he certainly stayed on top of things

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#185

Post by black_knight »

tempestn wrote: post #179
black_knight wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dreams and hopes are powerful weapons of suppression. Everyone is a millionaire just down on their luck at the moment… In our advanced society, with incredible automation, we should _all_ have vastly more freedom and control over our time.

That attitude is the weapon of suppression. Yes, it's true that life isn't fair. But it's also true that people have agency and can make material improvements to their own quality of life through smart decisions and dedication. Of course most of us won't start the next Google, but that doesn't mean dreams and hope are bad in general.

I am not saying we should be defeatist! I making the argument that it does not, and morally should not, have to be so that we all have to toil when we have such a wealth of technology.

How we go about changing this, I do not know, but everyone just playing along nicely in hope of one day being the one who strikes gold seems not to be working!

“Life isn’t fair, suck it up and get good!” is another form of suppression/delusion. Well, if life isn’t it fair, let us at least try to counteract that with cooperation. It seems to me that we have all the tools and technologies we need to make it a lot better.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#186

Post by leoc »

skibidithink wrote: post #133
leoc wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brin wasn’t bothered to wield any of that power to try to arrest the decline in Google’s search quality. He wasn’t bothered to direct the Chrome team to support MathML, or to bring back Google Reader, or do anything about a hundred small insults like, say, the deletion of YouTube comments with URLs to keep the rubes inside the casino. But he was able and willing to come back and wield his clout because he was bored a…

He saw AI as an existential threat to Google.

Right, though it's also reasonably clear that part of the story there is that he finds a high-stakes AI race personally interesting and exciting on a technical and a business level. Conversely it's also fairly clear that he finds doing anything about the steady encrudification of Google to be a big snooze. (Even though it may also be a long-term, though less dramatic, problem for the company's future health, exactly the sort of long-term issue which Google's dual-stock structure was supposed to empower Page and Brin to care about and act on.) But in any case, whatever his mix of motivations are, he's able to act within Google on things he cares about. He is also perfectly able to act on a number of the issues at Google which have significantly bad effects on its users and on the population of Earth at large. (Not all of them, to be sure: there are clearly some problems which would be very hard to fix, alongside a number of no-brainers.) He evidently just isn't willing, because he doesn't care about them.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#188

Post by scotty79 »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #94
cuttothechase wrote: post #47

Sergey's challenge looks like is not in retiring early or with non-work. We had a high performing co-worker who was scared witless after a lay-off episode and this was not because he was worried about lacking money or loss of prestige., but because he could not come to terms with the simple fact of facing the 9 am on a Monday morning with absolutely no expectations. It freaked so much to not feel the hustle and the a…

I took a career break and was weirded out by the question of "how do I introduce myself?". So used to saying "Hi, I'm Marcus, I'm IT Director of " that suddenly having nothing to say there was strange. When people asked "what do you do?" I had no good answer, and that felt like I had no good identity. I guess for Sergey Brin it's a little different, he will always be "Founder of Google" even if he leaves Google. But…

> When people asked "what do you do?"

"I mostly breathe. It's a bore but you gotta do it"

"I meant for a living"

"Same"

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#189

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #94
cuttothechase wrote: post #47

Sergey's challenge looks like is not in retiring early or with non-work. We had a high performing co-worker who was scared witless after a lay-off episode and this was not because he was worried about lacking money or loss of prestige., but because he could not come to terms with the simple fact of facing the 9 am on a Monday morning with absolutely no expectations. It freaked so much to not feel the hustle and the a…

I took a career break and was weirded out by the question of "how do I introduce myself?". So used to saying "Hi, I'm Marcus, I'm IT Director of " that suddenly having nothing to say there was strange. When people asked "what do you do?" I had no good answer, and that felt like I had no good identity. I guess for Sergey Brin it's a little different, he will always be "Founder of Google" even if he leaves Google. But…

Who were you before you got a job? No one? Nothing?

I identify more with myself as a child than I ever did with my work.

Why would I identify with someone else’s goals that I’m being paid to help achieve?

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#190

Post by amelius »

cuttothechase wrote: post #47

Sergey's challenge looks like is not in retiring early or with non-work. We had a high performing co-worker who was scared witless after a lay-off episode and this was not because he was worried about lacking money or loss of prestige., but because he could not come to terms with the simple fact of facing the 9 am on a Monday morning with absolutely no expectations. It freaked so much to not feel the hustle and the a…

I don't get this. Just find a coworking space and work on a FOSS project.
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