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Sergey Brin's Unretirement

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Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#211

Post by alex1138 »

SXX wrote: post #207
alex1138 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just links, either Youtube comments are completely censored in real time with some sort of AI, it's horrible

Yet Google cant remove porn bots with 99% similar usernames or avatars.

I do think about this in the context of other tech companies, the "bidirectionality of enforcement", or whatever you want to call it

Let's say you have Facebook, which is notorious for banning people yet never seems to ban the things people report that should be banned. That's a real life example, but take any hypothetical company

If someone posts x bad thing and doesn't get banned, do we immediately take our torches and storm the premeses to protest? Maybe, maybe not; "look, scale is hard" (and sometimes calls to remove things outright get politicized, as seen in the last few years, so sometimes it's a tricky line)

That would be... not fine, but more fine than it is now. The lack of fairness in the bidirectionality ensures that you, Joe Schmoe, get a month ban for calling someone a jerk while the most egregious hate or racism or... anything... gets a quick check followed by This Does Not Violate Our Community Guidelines

(And of course because these services are monopolies, well, too bad, you just have to suffer. Hope you don't need the information from that Facebook page, because Facebook will tend to make it borderline impossible to view something public without an account)

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#212

Post by z0ltan »

mattlondon wrote: post #117

I too would very happily do just the bits of my job that I like, when and how I want, and have any requests or comments or complaints I make get immediate attention and responses. All in the knowledge that no one is going to be time-tracking me or doing performance reviews, and I can just not do work at any moment I don't feel like it or have something better to do that day, like go to my private island or take my pr…

[dead]

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#214

Post by jaapz »

lucianbr wrote: post #198
marcus_holmes wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What is the point of the "I'm Marcus" part of your introduction? Reading your post I get the impression it has zero value, or at least you think so. > Hi, I'm Marcus > What do you do Marcus > I'm on a break now, but I used to be a director of IT Is this really difficult? Seems really easy, and I was never a director of anything. Maybe that's the problem.

For some people, their work/job is just such a big part of their identity, that for them this is a problem. That is I guess the point the person you were replying to was trying to make.

It's also not really weird for a job to become such a big part of your identity, when people spend most of their time at work or at home thinking about their work.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#215

Post by SXX »

alex1138 wrote: post #211
SXX wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet Google cant remove porn bots with 99% similar usernames or avatars.

I do think about this in the context of other tech companies, the "bidirectionality of enforcement", or whatever you want to call it Let's say you have Facebook, which is notorious for banning people yet never seems to ban the things people report that should be banned. That's a real life example, but take any hypothetical company If someone posts x bad thing and doesn't get banned, do we immediately take our torches…

I think companies like Google dont even try like they are "Too Big to be Regulated".

Facebook is much worse because everyghing on there is user gemerated. Any small company would be just crushed by governments if they would have similar issues.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#216

Post by firesteelrain »

falloutx wrote: post #203

> The tech founder’s return to full-time work is a reminder that even billions can’t guarantee a happy retirement if you don’t also do this. Is this generated by AI? English is all over the place in the article.

I got a sense that it was written partially by AI.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#217

Post by knowriju »

energy123 wrote: post #105
m348e912 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know who to credit, maybe it's Sergey, but the free Gemini (fast) is exceptional and at this point I don't see how OpenAI can catch back up. It's not just capability, but OpenAI have added so many policy guardrails it hurts the user experience.

It's the best model pound for pound, but I find GPT 5.2 Thinking/Pro to be more useful for serious work when run with xhigh effort. I can get it to think for 20 minutes, but Gemini 3.0 Pro is like 2.5 minutes max. Obviously I lack full visibility because tok/s and token efficiency likely differs between them, but I take it as a proxy of how much compute they're giving us per inference, and it matches my subjective ju…

When ChatGPT takes 20 minutes to reason, is it actually spending all the time burning tokens or does a bulk of the time go into 'scheduling' waits. If someone specifically selected xhigh reasoning, I am guessing it can be processed with high batch count.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#218

Post by cheschire »

amelius wrote: post #190
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.

Seriously. There are so many opportunities to give back to society. One does not need formal employment to be fulfilled.

I will say in Sergey Brin’s case, he had the unique opportunity to go back to work with the best and brightest without any friction, and nobody could tell him “hey maybe your credentials don’t quite stack up high enough for this department yeah?”

But for the rest of us, there’s FOSS, there’s computer repair, home automation, day trading a small fraction of your wealth, volunteer work at hospitals and libraries, gig work apps like taskrabbit…

If you are bored after being away from work for even a month, I’m not sure I could be friends with you.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#219

Post by TacticalCoder »

phtrivier wrote: post #144

Considerations of a poor billionaire being bored apart - why is it that we still consider work and retirements as "black or white" things ? It might have made sense for physically exhaustive works, but for anything intellectual, wouldn't "progressive retirement" make much more sense ? As in, starting a certain age, provided you're physically and mentally able, of course, you get to work 80% of your time (in civilized…

> ... wouldn't "progressive retirement" make much more sense ?

Of course it does. I've seen it in my parents' generation: many wanted to reach retirement do "do nothing" and, well, they just lost their marbles. Doing nothing is neither good for the body, nor for the mind. Endless TV watching or endless pina colada drinking in the pool (or both at the same time): idleness brings absolutely nothing good.

But my parents' friends who kept working a bit (like my godmother who kept supervising her real estate agency): she stayed sharp and fit.

People think they're going to read and do exercice etc. but truth is: most are going to do jack absolutely shit. And turn to the latter.

So keeping partially active is the best thing possible.

I see it with my mother-in-law: 70 y/o, still working, daily, with my wife (they own a little SME). It keeps her in the loop: she still knows how to use a computer, her mind is quick. She's not idling.

The financial aspect of it all is something else: but people doing nothing is not what a society needs.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#220

Post by throw-qqqqq »

awendt wrote: post #135
senorqa wrote: post #114

> Sergey Brin’s lesson for the rest of us Is it? I know people who are really happy without doing much in their retirement. Probably because they weren't workaholics. To my mind, if one doesn't have hobbies during the working years, then they will struggle to find purpose when they retite.

This! People need to get a life. I wouldn't have any trouble keeping myself busy after retirement. I do not have nearly enough time for the things I really WANT to do beside work.

This is also my sentiment.

I am saving up to retire early. If I mention this to friends, most look at me with big eyes and ask “But what will you spend your day on then!?” in a sceptical tone.

I imagine they think I want to drink beers and play golf all day every day, or something like that.

I’m a bit heart broken, that so many of my friends cannot imagine being masters of their own time, without thinking it would be bad for them and/or unproductive.

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