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Sergey Brin's Unretirement

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Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#251

Post by unsupp0rted »

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…

Mental illness. They tied their entire sense of self to some job at some company. Their body belongs in some parking lot on somebody's schedule.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#253

Post by freehorse »

wartywhoa23 wrote: post #231
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…

> drive up in his Porsche to the parking lot I wonder if that'd still be the case should he drive a Ford Focus.

If he drove a Ford Focus and did this everyday, I bet they would have called the police.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#254

Post by cornonthecobra »

I really don't buy his explanation. Here's one of the world's smartest guys, with more money than Smaug, and he really couldn't come up with anything better than going back to Google to work on Gemini?

What's the point of all that money if you won't even hire someone to help you find hobbies.

So many STEM universities have online courses. The art world froths itself mad over smart people with stupid money. Local projects beg for angels like him.

Hell even just doing the AI schtick but for free open source or as a pet startup.

My mind reels with ideas. Why didn't his?

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#255

Post by nusl »

Really weird clickbait subline

"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. "

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#256

Post by HellDunkel »

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.

Yes. People are so much more enjoyable and interesting when they have a life, go out, have hobbies, do things a little different to everyone else.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#257

Post by unsupp0rted »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #193

This might rub some people on HN the wrong way but what these people call "work" isn't really work in the sense of what most people consider work. They jet here and there, intervene wherever they want, and everybody listens to them all the time. They can cancel and postpone meetings as they wish, and so on and so forth. It's work in the same sense as buying another house is work -- you have to get together with lawye…

It's work in the sense of exchanging their attention, energy and the hours of their lives towards a goal, while in the moment they'd rather be somewhere else doing something else.

Same way that dusting your cupboards is work.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#258

Post by solarkraft »

m348e912 wrote: post #38
LarsDu88 wrote: post #26

Sergey unretires, Gemini suddenly becomes the top LLM (for a week or two at least) Google has made some subtle moves that a lot of folks missed, possibly with Sergey's influence. Like hiring back Noam Shazeer, who practically invented the backbone of the technology. It's good to have folks with presumptions of being scientists actually run companies for once. That being said, I wish his ex-wife hadn't spent her milli…

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.

FWIW, my productivity tanks when my Claude allowance dries up in Antigravity. I don’t get the hype for Gemini for coding at all, it just does random crap for me - if it doesn’t throw itself into a loop immediately, which it did like all of the times I gave it yet another chance.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#260

Post by ncruces »

lanthissa wrote: post #158
lionkor wrote: post #149

Do you think he can still spend time on his $450 million yacht or is he too busy writing prompts? Snark aside, good for him. Absolute non-news though, as is any extraordinary individual action during and contributing to a bubble. It'll be interesting to see what stays when, or if, the bubble ever pops.

i never really understood the billionaire yacht hate. Once you buy a yacht 450 million dollars of ownership in a company you had goes to people who built a beautiful thing that exists in the real world and you're on the hook for employing a lot of people to maintain it. I take a lot more issue with accumulation and hoarding of wealth than the spending of it.

An economy that wasted resources building mega yachts for billionaires is more unequal than one that builds cruise ships that high income families can go on an holiday.

https://scottsumner.substack.com/p/imagine-130000000-washing...

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