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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

#301

Post by torstenvl »

SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #241
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 tech version of being edgy. Some people in tech like to believe that it takes a real asshole to get things done.

No. People in tech like to believe that holding people accountable is "abusive" or "bullying." Someone in this thread literally posted that shooting down someone's opinions is bullying, accusing someone of insufficient effort is bullying, working them hard is bullying.

There are people in this world who actually care. They want to make a positive impact. Then leeches join their team and want to do the minimum. And when they get called out, it's "bullying." That's bullshit.

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

#302

Post by edgyquant »

digislave wrote: post #202
edgyquant wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you just compare asking if something looks good to having them write up an assessment of Russian political history? Yeah I’ll go ahead and ask my dog walker to write me an analysis of the potential outcomes if Britain had joined against the US during the Trent affair. If they refuse I’ll fire them and write horrible reviews about them because obviously they don’t take their job seriously /s You’ve got to be kiddi…

You are totally in your rights to fire your dog walker if they refuse to write you an essay about Russian political history.

I’m not disputing that though. That doesn’t mean the average person would consider it reasonable

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

#303

Post by edgyquant »

squarefoot wrote: post #162
edgyquant wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can tell the architect with no power over you to, politely, go fuck themselves. You can not do this to your manager.

True, although in a few cases I've witnessed the bully without superpowers becoming a lapdog of some higher level boss, so essentially all he had to do was go crying mommy to the boss to have someone moved to other tasks or fired. Bad bosses need lapdogs.

Yeah but that seems like it’d be time to look for work elsewhere

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

#304

Post by edgyquant »

truetraveller wrote: post #143
edgyquant wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you just compare asking if something looks good to having them write up an assessment of Russian political history? Yeah I’ll go ahead and ask my dog walker to write me an analysis of the potential outcomes if Britain had joined against the US during the Trent affair. If they refuse I’ll fire them and write horrible reviews about them because obviously they don’t take their job seriously /s You’ve got to be kiddi…

I never said "asking". I meant a small report. And this, only a single time. Absolutely no problem in my book. Are you really comparing a "dog walker" to somebody who creates IP (nothing against dog walkers).

> Are you really comparing a "dog walker" to somebody who creates IP

Yes. Why wouldn’t I? These are examples of people who were hired from completely different fields than what is requested of them in the scenario. Why would an AI researcher be a better Russian political history analyst than a dog walker? Neither is a polsci major.

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

#305

Post by cma »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #288
krapp wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And make no mistake: The consequences for the accused are very tangible. A promotion and a raise? The horror. > democracy cannot exist without a rule of law. When we violate those basic legal principles, we risk destabilizing our society at large. It's weird, Hacker News is usually extreme in its defense of absolute freedom of speech and the press, especially the freedom of the press to report negatively on people i…

The underlying idea I think you're missing is that personnel disputes just shouldn't be litigated through the media. There's no reliable information that can be gained and no productive discussion that can be had; the only possible outcome is to feed our confirmation biases and provide a platform to get mad. For example, you mention: > Where did all the Friends of Voltaire go, I wonder? Where was all of this sympathy…

> You're condemning people who argue against you here, not because of anything they said, but because of your assumptions about what position they might have taken in a different controversy about different people.

Can you prove this beyond a reasonable doubt? Should you have to?

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

#306

Post by [deleted] »

Guthur wrote: post #212
jakelazaroff wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a “witch hunt” when someone doesn’t get a promotion? No one’s calling for his arrest. They’re just saying that someone who abused his power to bully people should not be rewarded with more power over people.

And so what. If you work at take it up with them. Or if it's bad for the company or will hurt them. Or if you are shareholder take it up at the next meeting. You and I have no idea of the context unless we are actually there. It's frankly none of our business. All these journalists and keyboard sycophants live to pull something down and destroy.

[deleted]

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

#307

Post by PhasmaFelis »

dmix wrote: post #47
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's personal because it's not work-related. He would demand people do random, pointless tasks for him to show dominance.

> He would demand people do random, pointless tasks for him to show dominance. Is this just speculation or do you know more examples where he did this? Given his background of bringing up his political activism during tech conferences he could have just been using it as background for his talks (which has included AI ethics). In that context I could see a connection to Russian politics. Still likely personal but not…

> Is this just speculation or do you know more examples where he did this?

I'm going by the article at the top of this thread, which is the source for the "Russia" passage we're discussing.

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

#308

Post by [deleted] »

Guthur wrote: post #212
jakelazaroff wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a “witch hunt” when someone doesn’t get a promotion? No one’s calling for his arrest. They’re just saying that someone who abused his power to bully people should not be rewarded with more power over people.

And so what. If you work at take it up with them. Or if it's bad for the company or will hurt them. Or if you are shareholder take it up at the next meeting. You and I have no idea of the context unless we are actually there. It's frankly none of our business. All these journalists and keyboard sycophants live to pull something down and destroy.

[deleted]

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

#309

Post by PhasmaFelis »

truetraveller wrote: post #129
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.

We're defending him because the accusations against him are egregiously exaggerated, and without proof. I'm against screaming, but infrequent/involuntary screaming by a very senior exec does happen, and in my opinion, cannot be called abusive. In fact, I would be upset if I had a sheep for an exec. I want a exec who is kind, and who can lead and is firm. Not screaming, but almost there.

> I'm against screaming, but infrequent/involuntary screaming by a very senior exec does happen, and in my opinion, cannot be called abusive.

There is no situation where screaming at employees is okay unless they're actively endangering lives.

If somebody loses their shit and flies off the handle, then calms down and apologizes and doesn't do it again, that's forgivable. That doesn't mean it was acceptable to do it in the first place.

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

#310

Post by renewiltord »

Tycho wrote: post #201
bowmessage wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why make them drop out? Just have them graduate as normal?

More beholden to your programme. With a degree from Oxford, world is your oyster. Earlier also means younger and easier to mould.

So these kids are bright but don’t realize that if they got the degree, the world would be their oyster. Smart enough to be spies, dumb enough to actually be spies.
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