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After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

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Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#241

Post by SquishyPanda23 »

oytis wrote: post #88
sillysaurusx wrote: post #16

I see a lot of people saying this seems not a big deal, or that his leadership deserved promotion. It’s because this is a second order article. The original, most substantive source that I could find is quite thorough: https://archive.is/wqdkF > "He would ask us to do personal things for him," one of these people said. "He said, 'I need you to write a briefing for me on Russian history and politics.' [...] We had abs…

It's a total mystery to me why do people feel the urge to defend him. I kind of understand this in the case of technically brilliant but socially awkward people, but this guy seems to have done nothing but management in his life. And if this is how he's doing management then I don't understand why he's tolerated at all.

It's the tech version of being edgy.

Some people in tech like to believe that it takes a real asshole to get things done.

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#242

Post by [deleted] »

qeternity wrote: post #223
password321 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok so the new theory is that there is nepotism present at DeepMind thanks to Demis Hassabis.

That’s not at all what I suggested. It seems like you just want an argument. Let me explain again slower: you implied that him being cofounder conferred some level of competence to him. I’m saying that he’s not really a cofounder in the traditional sense of the word, and so maybe that title doesn’t carry as much weight here.

[deleted]

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#243

Post by greesil »

xpe wrote: post #124
greesil wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll make up an inane and unproven theory too: Orgs that have leaders that shit all over its employees have large turnover, thus diffusing insider knowledge far and wide. It's a good thing for the world to have leaders be this way.

> I'll make up an inane and unproven theory too: Orgs that have leaders that shit all over its employees have large turnover, thus diffusing insider knowledge far and wide. I see a hint of underlying logic in this part, though the theory needs more thought put into it. Two comments: 1. Try to quantify the harm to people that get "shit all over". Some portion suffer personally and professionally, which leads to the or…

No my theory is garbage, totally unproven and not supported by any data. The point I'm trying to make is that the OP's is the same. I guess I could have just said citation needed.

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#244

Post by mpweiher »

zz865 wrote: post #229
omarhaneef wrote: post #106

Here is an observation, make of it what you will: These are the environments I’ve been in where it has been very common for people to scream at each other, both loudly and often: - banking - venture - consulting These are the environments where I have not seen this behavior: - academia - tech - an operating company I’ll tell you what makes it tolerable and normal versus abusive: if a subordinate is “allowed” to yell…

Honestly I wish there was more screaming and yelling. I'm tired of fake smiles and passive aggressive behavior. If you dont like what I'm doing please tell me. I'm up for a proper debate. One of the best places I worked at occasionally one guy would completely throw a tantrum - but then at the end of the day would have a few beers with the guy he was arguing with and make up. People just learned how he was. Ideally t…

Yeah, in my (fairly long) career, the most abusive workplace environments were the ones ones with the fake smiles and passive aggressive behaviour. And I had the chronic neck pain and burnout to prove it.

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#245

Post by Tycho »

alisonkisk wrote: post #197
Tycho wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was the British intelligence services, this is exactly what I’d do. Recruit bright, middle class students from Oxford, fast track their career through the NGO sector (where results don’t matter), build up their public profile with press coverage, then deploy them to the private sector and hope that they will end up inside one of the multinationals that are more powerful and influential than most countries. I mea…

That's a lot of work, for what goal?

Like I said, for the placement of your agents/assets in important places. Having insiders working in places like Google would seem to me to be of great strategic importance.

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#246

Post by s7atic »

krapp wrote: post #167
truetraveller wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The burden of proof is on the claimant. And if your gonna post a sensationalist article about it to the public, you better provide proof to the public. Don't just do character assassination on another fellow human.

You're the one claiming the story is exaggerated, dramatized, sensationalist and now character assassination. This isn't a court of law, there is no "burden of proof." And if there were, you're clearly not willing to carry it yourself.

> This isn't a court of law, there is no "burden of proof."

That's exactly the problem with news publications like this; they are extrajudicial. They throw away the right to due process. And make no mistake: The consequences for the accused are very tangible.

There are also important second order effects from legitimizing this rhetoric. A democracy cannot exist without a rule of law. When we violate those basic legal principles, we risk destabilizing our society at large.

In some jurisdictions, defamation is illegal irrespective of the claims' veracity in order to ensure the right to due process and avoid non-sactioned punishments. I cannot help but feel legalization in other countries, including the US and UK, have not yet caught up with the forces enabled by today's social media climate.

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#247

Post by prepend »

mcguire wrote: post #169
prepend wrote: post #4

This article leaves out why he was promoted. I assume he was promoted despite the discipline, not as a reward. The article doesn’t research whether he’s reformed or still a bully. Or whether the position is important or not. These are important details. Maybe the position is BS and doesn’t have much authority. Maybe he’s learned the error of his ways. Without useful information this article is lame as it seems to lin…

As a general rule, in most places, getting suspended means your career is dead. You don't get promoted immediately afterwards.

That’s what I thought too. So there seems something more here. So either they did something amazing. Or the suspension was BS. Or something.

This article is so frustrating and the author is a bit lazy, I think.

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#248

Post by caddemon »

vitus wrote: post #222
HWR_14 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In elite schools [edit: that are as elite as] Oxford, the drop out rate would be close to Oxford's. The US numbers are pretty skewed by the massive drop out rate in 2-year community colleges, which both admit huge numbers of people and have very high dropout rates. Also, a huge percentage of dropouts are in the first year, when people are deciding that college may not work for them or be the right fit.

Actually, the US numbers are already filtered to 4-year institutions. "The overall 6-year graduation rate for first-time, full-time undergraduate students who began seeking a bachelor’s degree at 4-year degree-granting institutions in fall 2012 was 62 percent. That is, by 2018 some 62 percent of students had completed a bachelor’s degree at the same institution where they started in 2012." https://nces.ed.gov/fastfac…

There are a lot of crappy 4 year institutions out there, the point still stands that the graduation rate at Oxford-comparable schools is very high.

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#249

Post by joebob42 »

klyrs wrote: post #233
truetraveller wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The burden of proof is on the claimant. And if your gonna post a sensationalist article about it to the public, you better provide proof to the public. Don't just do character assassination on another fellow human.

Here's a fun one: > "Employees said Suleyman encouraged them to use private chat groups on Signal and Telegram for work conversations, some of which were set up to automatically delete messages after a set period. Employees were also on occasion asked to delete messages from their phones, a former employee said. They were also told to notify the group once they had done so." The burden of proof is on the claimant, su…

Google makes all employees do this, for whatever it's worth. I think this may just be kinda standard for corporate stuff. (Not telegram, but the self destructing messages)

Re: After DeepMind’s cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google promoted him

#250

Post by ip26 »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #239
oytis wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a total mystery to me why do people feel the urge to defend him. I kind of understand this in the case of technically brilliant but socially awkward people, but this guy seems to have done nothing but management in his life. And if this is how he's doing management then I don't understand why he's tolerated at all.

It's the same reason people defend Bill Gates or Bezos, or any other rich or powerful person for that matter. People want what they have, and they feel if they attack them, recognize their immorality or destitute nature of their souls they are in a sense attacking their future self image, and it feels inconvenient. Especially where where there are a lot of valley Elizabeth Holmes types on here that fancy they are pot…

Alternate theory: We want to believe the rich and powerful deserve to be rich and powerful.

If they didn't deserve it, that would imply 1) the system is not fair and 2) we can't ever get what they have even if we become deserving.

Thus, we defend their credibility & merits so that we can go on believing in the meritocracy.

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