Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#281

Post by barry-cotter » Sun, May 08, 2022, 1:18 AM UTC

kadoban wrote: post #202

csande17 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say, for sake of argument, that I'm the World's Greatest Widget Engineer. I'm worth more than the average employee at my company, so I can get stuff I want by negotiating individually with my employer. On the other hand, if a union imposes some broad agreement on the company under threat of strikes, I can't convince my company to break that agreement on my own because I'm not more valuable than the entire rest of the…

> A union's interests are probably not completely aligned with mine Sure, but the company's interests are almost completely opposed to yours in most ways. It's _possible_ for you to be worse off in a union, but rare.

> but the company's interests are almost completely opposed to yours in most ways.

This really isn’t true. What you’re describing isn’t even a zero sum game it’s negative sum, where hurting the other party is among your goals in itself. The company is interested in using you to make money and for many purposes happy, satisfied employees who are growing in productivity are good. All of those are also things the employees usually want.

Are employee and company interests fully aligned? Absolutely not, but if your employer’s interests are almost completely opposed to yours get out.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#282

Post by sodapopcan » Sun, May 08, 2022, 1:19 AM UTC

ineedasername wrote: post #273

davidgerard wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this sounds like your own resume should be in play, you have your exit interview already written out

Yeah, I could probably get +50% if I went job hopping, but the non salary benefits are very good, work is not stressful-- 40 hours, rarely the expectations of more than that, though it does happen maybe one a month. Very good PTO, 5 minute commute... So it's all an extremely good work life balance, which has always been the most of mportant factor for me if the money is otherwise sufficient to cover things.

I get paid very well for 36 hour weeks (half-day Fridays) in a low stress atmosphere with no expectation of over time. All I'm saying is that there is no harm looking around as there are plenty of jobs like that out there.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#283

Post by Godel_unicode » Sun, May 08, 2022, 1:19 AM UTC

JW_00000 wrote: post #154

Godel_unicode wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this question is there are people, like me, for whom the answer is "a lot". I have repeatedly gotten my employer to do things for me that they would not have done on their own. They need me more than I need them, and we both know it. This is also by the way the main dissenting opinion in the recent Amazon union vote. There were several people who were interviewed by the economist as voting no, who sa…

Open question (I'm not American, so I don't get the full context): would you lose that bargaining power if a union was created at your workplace?

According to a family friend who worked for the UAW (the huge American auto workers union) the answer to this is yes. I suspect the answer is actually "it depends", but I don't know of any documented examples of unions whose members are allowed to make a separate peace. There are people in the comments who it sounds like have done so, perhaps they can weigh in on the mechanism.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#284

Post by lizknope » Sun, May 08, 2022, 1:20 AM UTC

quadrifoliate wrote: post #265

filoleg wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to undermine your point, wich which i agree wholeheartedly, but I wanted to address one thing. I imagine quite a lot of people who worked on M1 hardware probably still had to show up to the office. For some positions it is just required. A friend of mine who worked on hardware at Apple had to go to the office almost every day throughout the pandemic (and no, i dont know what product he worked on, and I am not goi…

> For some positions it is just required. Typically the positions for which work is "just required" are lab and hardware positions. These don't tend to have the shoulder-to-shoulder squeeze of humans and desks that I always see in open-plan offices. Any time I have worked in a lab or on electronic hardware, I have had around 10 times the amount of personal space compared to the tightly packed "collaborative" open-pla…

I had an office with a door and window for 12 years at 2 different companies. It was great. I left the door open 90% of the time but it was great to be able to close the door for privacy the other 10%.

I changed to a much better job in 2019 regarding work and salary but everyone including the VP's are in cubicles. It is really annoying when everyone around you is on a different conference call and you have to block them out while trying to have your own conference call.

I only had to deal with that for 6 months before the pandemic sent us all home for 2 years. We are supposed to be in the office 3 times a week for the last 2 months. Some days I go in and immediately get annoyed by all the people talking loudly on their own meetings. I eat lunch and I just go home and work from there.

I look around on the days we are supposed to show up and about 1/3 actually show up. They are trying to entice us back with free lunch once a week but the food isn't even good. The company is doing well but the rest of the industry is doing great too so we have a retention problem. I don't think any of the managers really want to say "You have to be in 3 days a week" because they fear it will cause more people to leave.

I would really love to have an office with a door again but working from home is the next best thing. I like having my meetings with speakers and a speakerphone rather than headphones and a mic at my mouth.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#285

Post by paulcole » Sun, May 08, 2022, 1:23 AM UTC

atty wrote: post #263

paulcole wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The one group of people I don’t get are the ones who suggest people should be forced to work from the office, and not able to decide for themselves 1. Is anyone suggesting this? Or do you mean “ones” as in companies mandating a return-to-office? 2. I mean isn’t that what work is? Being told what to do by somebody else in exchange for money and deciding if you’re going to do it or not? 3. Personally, I don’t get the…

1) Unfortunately yes, I have seen some of that. I mean both the companies and the sideline quarterbacks. 2) Of course, but I’d hope most companies would be smart enough to be paying for productive output, not for bodily location. 3) Agreed. I personally prefer remote work, but I know many people who prefer going in - either to better structure their day, or to see others, and they should be able to do that. And I bel…

> 2) Of course, but I’d hope most companies would be smart enough to be paying for productive output, not for bodily location

I think on this point, you’re seeing companies who value control, consistency, and predictability over maximum productivity. They just think that they’d rather get less done overall and have more control over the people they hire because they know not everyone will be more productive in a remote environment. There’s nothing wrong w/ that. It’s not a decision everyone will agree w/ but that’s why resignation letters exist.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#286

Post by andrekandre » Sun, May 08, 2022, 1:24 AM UTC

prirun wrote: post #72

qbasic_forever wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We deserve to have input into how we work best and if that means walking away from companies run by egomaniacs that need to see butts in seats, then so be it. The logical conclusion of this line of thinking is to organize your coworkers. You have much more bargaining power about your work conditions as an organized union. The history of unionization stems primarily from workers demanding safe working environments.

> 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.

  > You also give away your power as an individual to those running the union.

ideally it would be run by the members, not necessarily by another boss

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#287

Post by herewego » Sun, May 08, 2022, 1:25 AM UTC

stavros wrote: post #259

hn_version_0023 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a quote from Jobs, or ad copy, or both?

It's ad copy, AFAIK.

By the Chubb ad agency, I believe. There’s an old video of Jobs introducing the ad where he briefly mentions it.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#288

Post by barry-cotter » Sun, May 08, 2022, 1:25 AM UTC

tikhonj wrote: post #247

csande17 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say, for sake of argument, that I'm the World's Greatest Widget Engineer. I'm worth more than the average employee at my company, so I can get stuff I want by negotiating individually with my employer. On the other hand, if a union imposes some broad agreement on the company under threat of strikes, I can't convince my company to break that agreement on my own because I'm not more valuable than the entire rest of the…

Hollywood actors are part of a large union (SAG-AFTRA), but individual actors still get compensated orders of magnitude more than the average. What particular aspect of having a union would make that substantially more difficult in tech?

The completely different industry structure. The film and theater industries work on time limited projects with a defined beginning, end and deliverable and most teams break up at the end of each project. Under those circumstances all a union can do to protect members is dualise, making lives better for insiders and harder for outsiders by restricting entry.

Long lasting organizations that have multiple overlapping projects with unions end up with compressed wage structures because the union campaigns for the median worker and the structure does not militate against that.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#289

Post by holografix » Sun, May 08, 2022, 1:25 AM UTC

sodapopcan wrote: post #278

holografix wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I currently work at a very prestigious tech company and I’m surprised by how boring it actually is. There’s hardly anyone around in the office and frankly I couldn’t care less about the free stuff. They pay me enough that I can go out and buy my own snacks. What I want is a team to learn from and grow. Not some teachers pets that sit behind zoom calls making sure they know exactly what’s “on the test” so t…

I'm on my second highly-collaborative, fully remote team and I'm always learning a lot and challenged. You're "teacher's pets behind zoom calls" example is very oddly specific and not a thing I've encountered.

I think it’s to do with everyone getting along and working well as professional colleagues but not as a team.

There’s little camaraderie though or sense of shared ownership. interactions are more transactional, deliberate, thought out.

People maximise what’s best for their OKRs only. If this months it’s John on zoom or Jeff and if Mary was replaced with Sue, does it really matter?

There’s a reason team events and off sites etc exist. It helps people see beyond the professional façade to the human behind it.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#290

Post by ineedasername » Sun, May 08, 2022, 1:27 AM UTC

sodapopcan wrote: post #282

ineedasername wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I could probably get +50% if I went job hopping, but the non salary benefits are very good, work is not stressful-- 40 hours, rarely the expectations of more than that, though it does happen maybe one a month. Very good PTO, 5 minute commute... So it's all an extremely good work life balance, which has always been the most of mportant factor for me if the money is otherwise sufficient to cover things.

I get paid very well for 36 hour weeks (half-day Fridays) in a low stress atmosphere with no expectation of over time. All I'm saying is that there is no harm looking around as there are plenty of jobs like that out there.

Good point... I'm very comfortable where I am and really like the work & mission of my organization, so I haven't looked around much. Maybe I should, maybe my situation isn't as unique as I though it was....