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Sergey Brin's Unretirement

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Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#391

Post by ryandrake »

endemic wrote: post #369
throw101010 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a business/formal context it would be normal to introduce yourself like this in the countries you've mentioned. Do people introduce themselves like that in informal contexts in the USA? If so that's indeed a bit weird, and more a topic you would start talking about for small talk or if someone asked about it.

I would find it strange if someone introduced themselves to me with their business title. I sometimes ask "what do you do for a living?" as small talk, but that's solicited.

Even when it's solicited, I think it's weird. I don't tell people what I do for a living when I introduce myself. And when they ask, I tell them I'm an exotic dancer. It's a silly joke (since I'm a fat 50 year old) that tends to break the ice and lighten up the conversation. In general, I think small-talking about what you do for a living is not really interesting to people, and just allows them to silently put you somewhere on their mental totem pole of importance. Better to talk about actual interests.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#392

Post by ryandrake »

gen220 wrote: post #345
jasode wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's regular small talk. Also, people here seem to downplay it, but doesn't it tell you a lot about a person what they do roughly half of their waking time? What they chose to do with their life? Having a natural ebb & flow to conversation is all true but that's not the issue. Let me restate it differently. It's ok and natural to ask what people do/did for work. It's also natural to respond and share what was a sign…

Situations like this work as a filter of sorts (If you’re so obsessed with measuring relative status/prestige that you want to reduce me to a job title, we’re probably not going to be friends?). The fact that you’re neighbors with these people changes things. Maybe it’s a wedge into a Socratic discussion about how work isn’t and has never been your identity, where you come to some new and better mutual understanding.…

You can often politely dodge probing questions about your employment. When someone, for the purpose of small talk, asks me what I do for a living I just say I'm an exotic dancer or a runway model. It's funny and breaks the ice a little. Then I'll ask them about their watch or something. If they insist "no, really, what do you do for a living??" I'll politely say I work with computers and again try to move on. Very rarely I'll get someone who won't drop it "come on, WHAT COMPANY???" and at that point I know they're really not interested in talking--they just want to stack rank me in terms of importance or salary or whatever and I politely dip.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#393

Post by socalgal2 »

OJFord wrote: post #145
socalgal2 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t find hobbies to be a replacement for work. Maybe it depends on the hobby but many hobbies are solo. work, or work that I enjoy, is not. Accomplishing things with others and for others has its on motivation for me at least Of course maybe your hobbies or your dad’s hobbies are social. when someone says “hobbies” to me I generally think of things done mostly alone and I know for me, that’s not enough

That's definitely just how you're thinking of it - any team sport can be a hobby, for a start.

Yes there are hobbies that are socially. Many are not and will not sub for work

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#394

Post by ausbah »

im probably just projecting but going back to work when youve amassed enough to live off to an enormous fortune feels like a failure of imagination. sure everyone needs to keep their hands busy, feel valued by others, etc etc but surely there’s some other hobby, interest, or unprofitable passion project you would invest time into?

but maybe being in a corporate environment (any any env) shapes your thinking in such a way that it’s really hard to think outside tha conditioning. feels like that to me only a few years int working

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#395

Post by socalgal2 »

tock wrote: post #154
socalgal2 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t find hobbies to be a replacement for work. Maybe it depends on the hobby but many hobbies are solo. work, or work that I enjoy, is not. Accomplishing things with others and for others has its on motivation for me at least Of course maybe your hobbies or your dad’s hobbies are social. when someone says “hobbies” to me I generally think of things done mostly alone and I know for me, that’s not enough

Hobbies are just anything you truly enjoy doing that isn't mandated by your job. If you would continue doing your job even if your employer drops your salary to 0, then yeah your job is your hobby too! It is up to the individual to figure out what works for them.

Good point. if work is your hobby you retire then you aren’t at work and will find it harder to get the same satisfaction

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#396

Post by jandrewrogers »

piva00 wrote: post #389
jandrewrogers wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is entirely within the scope of "recreationally employed". There is no implication that what you spend your time on has anything to do with your former career. In most cases I know of recreational employment has little to do with their former employment. They often put in a lot of hours and it is still "work" in the ordinary sense but it is entirely self-directed.

I believe it's a misuse of "employment" then, I do not understand employment as something you do without payment, to me it is necessarily related to paid labour.

If you obligate yourself to significant and consistent labor when no such thing is necessitated by your life then you are effectively "employed". You have to show up. Absent external motivation, like feeding your family or staying out of prison, it is purely a lifestyle choice. It is the opposite of playing video games all day or sitting at the beach.

The FIRE types are not working to survive by definition, allowing them to work at non-profits for a pittance, run a farm with no meaningful market, do thankless maintenance on FOSS, or travel around the world saving the whales. The lack of a meaningful paycheck doesn't make these things not "jobs" for all practical purposes.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#397

Post by geodel »

ericmay wrote: post #372
kshacker wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took a four-year break from work (2009–2013) and moved to India. The reasons were simple: some family health issues required downtime (though probably not as much as I ended up taking), and I could afford to do this in India in a way I couldn’t in the US. This happened to coincide with the market bottom, but I wasn’t laid off—it was entirely voluntary. I didn’t experience an identity crisis for a single day. I didn…

> One big difference was social life. In India, I was constantly meeting people—connections were easy and organic. In the US, maintaining a daytime social life felt much harder. Everyone is on a treadmill—insurance, income, careers—often not by choice. I know there are ways to build community here, but in India it just happened naturally. The primary reason for this is the built environment we live in here in the Uni…

I don't know if it is build environment or cultural thing. In US showing up at friends, or neighbors unannounced and spend hour or two would be very odd if not downright impolite. But in India it is something everyone would do or at least used to do a 15-20 yrs back when I was there.

One simple reason I think is overall US is very rich so people just can have anything they need on their own and sharing small things which lead to more interaction is simply not needed.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#398

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

arjie wrote: post #27

It's been great to see. Google's AI efforts have truly seen a resurgence in quality with his return. What I enjoy about this article is the fact that it presents a view that now seems relatively rare: the idea that you may have a purpose beyond pleasure and that pursuing that purpose is a more fulfilling pleasure than any comfort you could give yourself. I think that kind of thing strikes many people. Sometimes like…

I'd have guessed that Google's rapid advance with Gemini was more due to the merger of Google Brain with DeepMind under Demis Hassabis than the return of Sergey Brin.

I remember seeing an interview (Dwarkesh?) with Sholto Douglas who had been working at Google at the time (now at Anthropic) who said he would work late there and the only other person was Sergey Brin, apparently wanting to be part of (or following) the development/training process.

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#399

Post by LarsDu88 »

dyauspitr wrote: post #93
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’m not going to attribute Gemini’s success to Sergey. It was already basically there before he came back.

Well all the core people left to do other shit, and when Sergey came back, some of those people were hired back for exorbitant sums of money

Re: Sergey Brin's Unretirement

#400

Post by coldpie »

CatMustard wrote: post #306
glimshe wrote: post #237

After FIRE I started building my own small to medium projects. Emulators, tools, games, some available to the public. I tell people I'm a full time software developer who does remote consulting gigs (the last not true but justifies my FIRE income)

Would you mind me asking what age you were when you retired? I'm 28 and five years into my boring corpo career and need something to lust after lol

Nothing will make a boring corpo job not-boring, but one thing that can help mix it up is to change which boring corpo job you're doing once or twice a decade. Five years is a decent stint at one job. Worth taking a look around and seeing if an opportunity catches your eye.
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