[HN Gopher] After DeepMind's cofounder was placed on leave for b...
___________________________________________________________________
After DeepMind's cofounder was placed on leave for bullying, Google
promoted him
Author : thereare5lights
Score : 261 points
Date : 2021-08-07 19:24 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.morningbrew.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.morningbrew.com)
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Not a good look for google. As a cofounder is he untouchable?
| truetraveller wrote:
| Great look. Not yielding to the obnoxious cancel culture.
| iamleppert wrote:
| He looks like one of those creepy guys at a nightclub who stands
| in the corner by himself that everyone avoids. A classic case of
| overcompensating at work due to severe deficiency in other areas
| of his life.
| mach_architect wrote:
| What's wrong with his physical appearance? Would you write the
| same thing if he was a black man?
| sjg007 wrote:
| AI researchers have so many options today. I'd be surprised if
| this hasn't hurt Google's and Deep Mind's recruitment efforts.
| vmception wrote:
| Just to poll the crowd, what do you prefer to happen?
| candyman wrote:
| If you are a really smart, hardworking, gifted producer - you
| should probably do that. The essence of people management is
| about maximizing the results of each individual, developing them
| and building a team that is more productive than just the sum of
| the parts. It's a very different skill set and deployment of
| energy.
| [deleted]
| prepend wrote:
| 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
| link the suspension with the promotion.
| truetraveller wrote:
| "still a bully"
|
| Labeling someone a "bully" has become the easy way to bring a
| person down. There could be personal vendetta. I've read the
| accusations against him, and they cannot be called "bullying".
| Need definitive proof.
| vmception wrote:
| I also don't have a feel for what people prefer to happen?
|
| I don't really understand people attempting to tie prosperity
| to morality.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| > The article doesn't research whether he's reformed or still a
| bully.
|
| An adult man being a bully in a professional environment?
|
| No one should care about him. Fire him and let him try and find
| a job somewhere else.
| vmception wrote:
| Going by this logic wouldn't Google be that job for him? The
| purpose of that organization is to capture mindshare, and no
| other priority.
| dylan604 wrote:
| As long as it's generating clicks, it doesn't really matter if
| there's a point
| tvirosi wrote:
| His disagreeability is probably correlated with his track record
| of innovation and if we cancel every outlier like that our
| ability to reach new plateaus will lag decades behind than if we
| only allow nice people to play.
| ur-whale wrote:
| For your theory to work you'd have to exhibit an actual track
| record of innovation in the case of this dude, other than being
| Demis's henchman / fusebox.
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| A correlation in the "cancelling" (aka termination for
| violation of company policy) of outliers does not mean we won't
| "reach new plateaus". You can fire 100 people, and there may be
| correlations ("they only fired people who like ice cream") but
| no causation ("only people who like ice cream reach new
| plateaus"). There is no evidence to suggest a causative link
| between douchebaggery and innovation in AI research.
|
| On the other hand, if our ability to "reach new plateaus"
| relied solely on promoting people with personality issues, we
| have much bigger problems.
| lpghatguy wrote:
| How many incredibly smart people are pushed out of the industry
| by awful people? By letting jerks run the show, you don't get a
| chance to see the intelligence of people who these folks
| suppress.
| corty wrote:
| But that works in all directions. There are many kinds of
| people who cannot work together. I for one, despise the "lets
| all be friends and never say a bad word" crowd. They drive me
| mad and drive me to leave. I'd rather have a frank exchange
| of views with someone.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| In the toxic positivity sense, "please don't be vulgar", or
| something else?
| corty wrote:
| There are many variants. "Don't be vulgar", but also
| "don't criticize" or "invent something positive to say,
| only then can you criticize". "Be lavish in your
| (insencere) praise".
|
| All this leads to a (despicable to me) culture of always-
| smiling emotional liars. If something I did is shit, say
| "it is shit". Make an unhappy face. Don't smile, praise
| my performance when cooking coffee and on the side
| mention that my last project "made some people somewhat
| happy".
|
| But I'm not sure if that answered your question, I didn't
| fully understand it.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Really smart people are rarely pushed out of the industry.
| They just suffer. Usually people who say they were pushed are
| not that brilliant to start and are just making excuses
| lpghatguy wrote:
| What are you basing that on? This is the worst in my
| experience in the games industry. So many people who
| strongly prefer to work indie instead of risk working with
| an endless cesspool of assholes.
| gigatexal wrote:
| How machiavellian of you... I think the world has moved on from
| the days of letting visionaries like Job's rant and rave and
| yell and scream to "bring out more in people than they knew
| they had in them". There are likely more effective ways to
| bring out the best in people that also build environments that
| are healthy and where people want to work.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > I think the world has moved on from the days of letting
| visionaries like Job's rant and rave and yell and scream
|
| What evidence do you see of that?
| gigatexal wrote:
| The fact that we are having this conversation. And if
| engineering wants to grow past its problems it has got to
| change.
|
| (edit: the previous part of this disparaged those on the
| spectrum and I am sorry)
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| Can we not imply that "on the spectrum" means being an
| asshole? Autism causes a lot of social difficulties, but
| it has nothing to do with publicly humiliating people on
| purpose to make yourself feel powerful.
| gigatexal wrote:
| I did imply that. And it's an unfortunate consequence
| that sometimes those on the spectrum can exhibit
| "asshole" like behavior but one does not need to be
| autistic to be an asshole so I've made a false
| equivalency and I am sorry.
|
| What I was trying to get at is that all this hero worship
| of sociopathic myopic founders and 100x engineers who
| "get results" that somehow gives them license to be
| assholes, we've transcended that.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > Can we not imply that "on the spectrum" means being an
| asshole?
|
| Conversely, can we _also_ not imply that being an asshole
| is excusable by being "on the spectrum"?
| gigatexal wrote:
| Well said.
| jwilber wrote:
| Can't see how being an asshole and being innovative are
| intrinsically linked.
|
| On the other hand, being an asshole and [taking credit for
| other's work, stepping on others to climb the corporate ladder,
| throwing others under the bus, other sociopathic behavior...]
| seem pretty correlated.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| Being innovative means ignoring the way things are supposed
| to be done, and maybe a bit of hubris to think you can do
| better.
|
| I'd imagine that being an asshole likely also involves
| ignoring the way things are supposed to be done, and/or a bit
| of (differently applied) hubris.
| jwilber wrote:
| As nice as that sounds in writing, it's entirely not true.
| Many innovations were stumbled on by pure chance, or were
| logical conclusions from observation-based studies.
|
| Not to mention, this man has innovated nothing. His career
| is entirely management.
| cowsandmilk wrote:
| His bullying probably caused the most intelligent, who could
| most easily find jobs elsewhere, to leave so that even he
| wasn't the most talented, he could rise to the top.
| crisper78 wrote:
| So far ive dealt with bullies all my career at every company
| and i observe then challenge, then challenge again, im 2/3
| getting them to quit...no need for hr or threats just be
| smart and trap em they never know who ;)
| greesil wrote:
| 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.
| xpe wrote:
| > 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 organization who is 'next in line' having
| to carry some of that burden.
|
| 2. Try to quantify the value in the "insider" knowledge being
| shared here according to such a theory. Some might be
| technical, fair enough. But a lot of it is likely related to
| how much of a jerk that boss was... Remember, not all
| information has a net positive value for a given time scale.
| For example, information about a previous toxic workplace may
| increase anxiety and hurt trust -- and in many cases, such
| information is often not net positive.
|
| > It's a good thing for the world to have leaders be this
| way.
|
| No. Not broadly (since there is no mention of harm) and not
| even in a narrow sense.
|
| Consider the kinds of leaders who help their employees grow
| so that:
|
| (a) knowledge is shared far and wide internally
|
| (b) employees grow into new roles, some outside of the
| company
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >His disagreeability is probably correlated with his track
| record of innovation
|
| No, it's probably correlated with a lack of accountability for
| his behavior. What is his track record of innovation? He has no
| technical background, dropped out of college and apparently
| does not know how to manage people.
|
| He worked as a political aide, a consultant, is somehow very
| close to Demis Hassabis (who is an actual innovator), which I
| assume got him his position. Looking at his bio his only
| innovation is how to network yourself up the ladder
| mattfrommars wrote:
| Does anyone know of good resource guide to climb up the corporate
| ladder? Apart being absolutely good at what you do and learning
| to communicate, what hard "things you should be doing" takes a
| good software developer climb up the ladder?
| rdxm wrote:
| if you want to play the management game learn how to be a
| sociopath.....quickly.....
| gundmc wrote:
| I feel like this story is overblown. He was clearly a bad
| manager. From what I can gather, he was placed on leave after an
| investigation and then moved to a policy position where he does
| not manage anyone.
|
| Calling it a promotion is pure spin.
| truetraveller wrote:
| This is today's cancel culture, unfortunately. Dramatize and
| exaggerate things. And hypocrisy, but that's a separate issue.
| [deleted]
| Traster wrote:
| At my old company it was a bit of a joke, you would repeatedly
| see shit managers become "architect"s. Management were too
| cowardly to get rid of bad managers, so they were forced to
| promote them to get them out of their role. So managers who
| were shit technically constantly ended up with senior technical
| titles - and everyone knew why.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| At this point I'd just leave. This is an employee market now.
| Promotions are made by changing jobs anyway. Be sure to leave
| the proper feedback when leaving (what are they gonna do,
| fire you?)
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Were they bad architects though?
|
| It's easy to paint bad managers as bad workers (or even bad
| _people_ ) - but sometimes, they're just bad at managing. In
| such cases, it's better to shift them into roles they're more
| suited for than to fire them and hire new people for those
| roles - existing employees already know the company's
| procedures and products. Plus, it'll likely be cheaper
| salary-wise - in our industry, new employees have a much
| better negotiating position than existing ones.
| geofft wrote:
| How can you possibly be a good architect if you're a bad
| manager?
|
| Every skill of a good manager - having good working
| relationships and pleasant interpersonal relations,
| understanding conflicting needs from different teams,
| building trust, being able to schedule and prioritize work,
| etc. - is also a skill of a good architect. If you're off
| in a corner developing things by yourself, you're not an
| architect, you're an individual-contributor team of one (or
| if they're not getting implemented at all, you're just
| wasting the company's money). If you're actually designing
| _architectures_ that other people will be following or
| implementing, you need to be able to work with people.
|
| The balance of work is different, of course: for instance,
| architects will less often (but not never!) need to have
| difficult one-on-one conversations. I can understand
| someone preferring one role or the other, of course. I
| can't really understand how you can be a _good_ architect,
| not just a mediocre one, if you 're a _bad_ manager, not
| just a mediocre one.
| edgyquant wrote:
| I think it's pretty straightforward. When we're young we
| often see friends, at our early jobs, who are good
| workers but get promoted and become mean + stop working
| as hard. Some people just aren't good at managing other
| people but are still skilled at their trade.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Google is generally loathe to fire unless they absolutely
| have to, so this explanation tracks.
| ATsch wrote:
| Sorry, but a good architect bully is not a bit better than
| a bad manager bully.
| maccard wrote:
| Someone who is a bad manager and a bully may actually be
| a fine architect and not a bully, once they are no longer
| in a position of power over people.
|
| Not a guarantee, but in my experience changing the formal
| power dynamic can have very unexpected (both positive and
| negative) effects
| edgyquant wrote:
| You can tell the architect with no power over you to,
| politely, go fuck themselves. You can not do this to your
| manager.
| squarefoot wrote:
| 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.
| omarhaneef wrote:
| 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 back.
| torstenvl wrote:
| "Misconduct" of "bullying"? With no further details or facts?
|
| Unless he was actually committing a crime and Google somehow
| shielded him from criminal responsibility, this is a
| nothingburger. When you are responsible for a significant step in
| AI progress you get promoted.
|
| I swear to God, the SV woker-than-thou crowd will be trying to
| cancel Babbage for "sexual harassment" of Ada Lovelace soon.
| neolog wrote:
| There are lots of practices that aren't crimes but which should
| nevertheless be discouraged within organizations.
| koheripbal wrote:
| This is why our company has enacted a no-comment policy on all
| internal affairs.
|
| Social media will take any news and dishonestly spin it to
| their own agenda.
| [deleted]
| arkitaip wrote:
| > Google's reported willingness to put up with Suleyman's
| behavior stands in stark contrast to its swift termination of
| Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell, former co-leads of its AI
| ethics team who produced research that challenged the company's
| direction on large language models.
|
| Suleyman is a sociopath who makes Google money - that's why he
| was promoted and rewarded for his sociopathy.
| chronic2703 wrote:
| > who makes Google money
|
| I'm sure you invest your personal portfolio in companies that
| make less money (lower return) when higher return alternatives
| are available?
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Yes, and for obvious reasons.
| xioren00 wrote:
| > "He used to say, 'I crush people,"' one former DeepMind
| employee told Insider
|
| The horror...
| fortuna86 wrote:
| The amount of excuse making in this thread is insane.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Is this reaction sarcastic? As if to say "I'm not afraid of
| people who boast of crushing others"?
| xioren00 wrote:
| Are you saying you would be afraid of this person for that
| comment? Part of being an adult is learning to deal with
| adversity.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Part of being an adult is to give up behaving like -- and
| excusing -- a bully.
| munchler wrote:
| "I crush people" is an unacceptable attitude for a manager
| to take regarding his own employees. Whether those
| employees can handle that sort of counterproductive
| adversity is irrelevant.
| xioren00 wrote:
| We don't live in a utopia. There are going to be people
| that say and do things that you dislike; That's reality.
| Instead of running to an authority figure to complain
| every time you encounter adversity, like a child, people
| need to learn to handle those situations...like adults.
| Someone acting mean or making an off color comment like
| this are a fact of life. No amount of safe spaces and
| down voting inconvenient truths is going to change that.
| xioren00 wrote:
| @munchler
|
| I did read what you wrote, I meant to reply to the
| commenter below. As for your point, clearly the higher
| ups at Google disagree.
| burnished wrote:
| So, duels at dawn? No? Talking about it? But you don't
| like to hear about it. Uhm, hmmm, how does an adult
| handle a situation?
| kitsune_ wrote:
| The only people in need of a safe space are people who
| say "I crush people" and then are unable to deal with the
| blowback.
| munchler wrote:
| I don't think you read what I wrote. This has nothing to
| do with anyone's ability to handle adversity. It's about
| whether "I crush people" is an acceptable management
| style. Hint: It isn't.
| simias wrote:
| I would probably handle the situation like an adult. By
| quitting. People dealing with the consequences of their
| actions are a fact of life.
|
| I want my place of work to be a safe pace and I'm not
| ashamed to admit it. If I want to confront somebody's
| tamper tantrum I'd... do exactly what I'm doing right
| now, really.
| kitsune_ wrote:
| Uhm, isn't pushing back against such "adversarial
| behaviour" one of the adult ways to deal with such
| behaviours? What are you trying to say?
| random314 wrote:
| Just looking at Suleymans credentials, he has literally zero
| technical credentials. Why is he leading AI divisions within
| Google? Because he managed to become Demis Hassabis' lackey at
| the right time?
|
| Looks like a standard issue corporate climber who demands work
| from his subordinates that he himself cannot deliver.
| mach_architect wrote:
| > he has literally zero technical credentials
|
| > Looks like a standard issue corporate climber who demands
| work from his subordinates that he himself cannot deliver.
|
| The people I've seen like this had machine learning PHDs and
| lots of publications, while some of the most productive had no
| such pedigree. I'd be careful judging based on "technical
| credentials".
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| 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 absolutely no work in
| Russia."
|
| I originally made a joke in a now-deleted comment, but then was
| slightly horrified to hear people excusing this behavior. So
| here's a serious one: if you get locked into a prestigious
| institution under someone like this, run.
|
| EDIT: I should have known this would turn into a sub thread about
| whether it's ok to demand an AI researcher brief an executive on
| Russian political history.
|
| Here's another one: gossiping about firing someone across the
| entire office, before you fire them. This article says he did
| that. I recommend reading through it. I have to go move into our
| house now, so I can't paste everything. Suffice to say, the
| behavior patterns were not productive.
|
| I think people want to recognize DeepMind's eventual success.
| Having worked under some effective YC founders vs some Suleyman
| types, I've learned that sometimes a startup can succeed in spite
| of flaws. And remember, DeepMind was bought by Google. At that
| point they were the anointed child. Their success wasn't
| guaranteed, but it wasn't as tenuous as pre-billions Google
| investment.
| oytis wrote:
| 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.
| truetraveller wrote:
| 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.
| mLuby wrote:
| > screaming by a very senior exec is common place and
| cannot be called abusive
|
| It _is_ possible that what 's been acceptable for a long
| time is no longer okay. At the very least, I'd say tantrum
| are unprofessional; After all, if the exec is losing their
| shit over something minor, how can I trust them to keep a
| level head if things really get challenging? But maybe some
| people respond better to the stick than to the carrot, or
| to a reasoned explanation of why the cart needs to go to
| market.
| truetraveller wrote:
| I'm against screaming. But doing someone once or twice in
| year, is not the same as doing something everyday.
| There's no mention, at all, about how frequent his
| outbursts / yelling / screaming was. This is precisely
| the issue.
| Volundr wrote:
| > I'm against screaming, but infrequent/involuntary
| screaming by a very senior exec is common place.
|
| What?! I've worked with executives most of my career.
| Screaming was definitely not common place. I can only
| recall 2 examples, and neither lasted long or had any
| business being in a position of power. And what even is
| "involuntary screaming"? Has the executive just broken
| their leg or something? If so OK. But if they're just
| yelling at an employee about work, it's not "involuntary".
|
| > cannot be called abusive.
|
| It can. I'm calling it abusive to scream at an employee.
|
| > 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 don't want an exec whose almost screaming. I want an exec
| who is in control. Screaming is the antithesis of that.
| truetraveller wrote:
| I agree that is not "common place" in every industry.
| I've removed that bit. It does happen, and and it becomes
| "normalized" as "that manager is just being himself".
|
| But, there is no mention that he frequently screamed.
| Screaming once or twice, out of stress perhaps, is not
| "abusive". Definitely, one should make amends / be
| regretful of that.
| jspash wrote:
| Is this a common thing outside Silicon Valley? The US?
|
| Having worked almost ny entire professional life outside of
| the States I have never, not once, heard of this happening.
| And it would absolutely not be tolerated in any
| professional organisation that I've been part of.
|
| Or have I just been lucky not to have come across this type
| of behaviour?
| mcguire wrote:
| " _...but infrequent /involuntary screaming by a very
| senior exec does happen,..._"
|
| After about 30 years in the industry, I suggest you
| reconsider your experience. The only place I've worked that
| had any kind of executive screaming was IBM, which was
| completely disfunctional.
|
| Someone who involuntarily screams at a coworker is someone
| who needs help.
| IfOnlyYouKnew wrote:
| It's a culture war thing... HN believes that capabilities
| tend to be zero-sum, and any character flaws are evidence of
| genius in other regards. The "brilliant but eccentric
| scientist" cliche, more or less.
|
| There's also an unwillingness to either consider the concept
| of "bullying" as real, because it's not easily quantified
| and/or defined in such a way that you could spot it in a
| single-page flowchart. Or a learnt defense to immediately
| show solidarity with any bully so as to avoid being targeted.
|
| There might be hints of what's sometimes referred to as
| "toxic masculinity" in there, as well. This exec's mistake,
| resulting in less than overwhelming support here, was not to
| get accused of sexual harassment.
| ATsch wrote:
| My unfortunate conclusion is that a large portion of people
| in this industry are either like this or wish they could get
| away with being like this. The amount of people who always
| reply about how they don't see any issues is enough proof of
| that.
| truetraveller wrote:
| Nah. These accusations are exaggerated and without proof.
| Put yourself in his shoes. Would you like random internet
| people to accuse you with dramatized statements and/or
| exaggerations?
| krapp wrote:
| If they're without proof, how do you know they're
| exaggerated and dramatized? Were you there? Do you have
| the proof to the contrary?
| truetraveller wrote:
| 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.
| krapp wrote:
| 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.
| Guthur wrote:
| Because some of us are getting really tired of these witch
| hunts. Was he an ahole, possibly. Did Google value his
| contribution, probably. Did he commit any crime, doubtful.
|
| Humans are all deeply flawed and if you were to pick enough
| sound bites about someone across a long enough period of time
| you could paint them as monsters. This current climate of
| holier than thou rhetoric is becoming increasingly poisonous.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| The guy is certainly a terrible leader if these accusations are
| true. But if worst things he did are giving dumb assignments
| and being mean to people he's planning to fire, I'm pretty
| comfortable saying that's not a big deal in the scheme of
| things. I'm not _excusing_ the behavior, I 'd never work for
| someone who acted like this, but I don't know why it's
| important news either.
| marcinzm wrote:
| >We had absolutely no work in Russia.
|
| Wouldn't the point of such a high level briefing be because
| they're tying to get work in Russia but don't already have any?
| It's rather common for employees to not know the details of the
| strategic plans of the executives until the execution starts.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| No.
|
| Because when you're as large as Google, you don't ask your
| underlings to write book reports on things that are of
| strategic business importance. You go through the proper
| channels and get them to hire qualified people to cut through
| the bullshit.
| Closi wrote:
| > you don't ask your underlings to write book reports on
| things that are of strategic business importance
|
| Of course you do, that's exactly how it works.
|
| Usually the 'underlings' do the research or collect
| information, and then the people higher up synthesise that
| information into a strategic decision.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| No, you don't. Not when you literally have business units
| IN that country.
| mcguire wrote:
| Would you be comfortable writing a report on Russian
| political history? Remember, you can be fired for doing it
| badly, too.
| marcinzm wrote:
| In a good org you wouldn't be fired for doing a mediocre
| job. In a bad org you'd be fired for saying no. In either
| case trying is better than not trying.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Were these peopled hired for responsibilities including
| historical briefings?
|
| No?
|
| So why are they being asked to do them?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| If you want to work to a job description, go join the
| plumbers union.
| bradlys wrote:
| End of the day, it's a job. Requirements change. You have
| to do things you don't want to do that might not even seem
| related. If you don't want to work under someone who does
| that stuff then leave.
|
| I yelled at a CEO because he asked me to do something that
| wasn't related to software engineering role. He stopped
| asking me and anyone else in eng due to that confrontation.
| But - guess what - he wanted to fired every single day I
| worked there after that incident. I only remained because I
| had a lot of people protecting me.
|
| So - you have to ask - are you willing to lose your job
| over it? If so - great - see ya! If not - then take your
| lumps and get it done.
| edgyquant wrote:
| > o - you have to ask - are you willing to lose your job
| over it? If so - great - see ya! If not - then take your
| lumps and get it done.
|
| This is ridiculous. Jobs have pretty clear, if arbitrary
| at times, functions. You wouldn't ask a chef to brief you
| on Russian political history, a field of itself that is
| vastly nuanced just as much as AI itself, nor would you
| ask a data scientist. It isn't because job function can't
| change it's because people have careers and an AI
| researches is not likely to be able to actually brief one
| on Russian political history without doing a deep dive
| and learning the field itself.
| aaron-santos wrote:
| > without doing a deep dive and learning the field
| itself.
|
| My response would be to ask about the employer's
| continuing education program. I could see myself taking a
| Russian studies program and get that report back in 2-3
| years if tuition and time was 100% covered by the
| employer.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >This is ridiculous. Jobs have pretty clear, if arbitrary
| at times, functions.
|
| In large organisations, yes. If you work for yourself or
| for a startup, though, you're typically just doing
| whatever needs to be fine.
| geofft wrote:
| The CEO has a job, too, and that job is set by the board
| and/or the company's owners. And the most important job
| of the CEO is to be a good leader.
|
| Was your CEO within his legal rights to ask you to do the
| job? Sure, assuming it was legal and not forbidden by
| your contract. Would it have been advisable for you to do
| it anyway, for the sake of your job? Probably. But that
| doesn't mean that the CEO was doing _his_ job well by
| asking. And evidently he knew that, because he didn 't
| actually fire you and the people protecting you.
|
| In the case of Google, a public company, it is
| simultaneously true that individual low-level employees
| should act strategically and optimize for their own
| benefit - which might include putting up with misbehaving
| management to remain employed under them - and that the
| public has a strong interest in knowing when management,
| especially senior management, is being bad at their jobs.
| bradlys wrote:
| I really don't think there's that much alignment in
| organizations in the sense you're speaking of. While it's
| nice to think that these places are acting in best
| interests of blahblahblah - I think selfish interests
| hold true more often than not and accountability is
| basically nigh impossible in our world.
|
| We have so many people who have been abusing people in so
| much worse of ways than "write me a report on Russia" and
| they have little to no accountability.
|
| The public doesn't care about how a company is managed -
| they care about the share price going up so they make
| their money.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| We have not heard the story from all sides with zero bias. So
| why are we making authoritative conclusions? Some of these
| threads feels like celebrity tabloid gossip.
|
| Edit: Absolutely baffled by the downvotes. Do we _really_ ,
| truly, factually know all sides of the story? What's the
| disagreement here?
| dalbasal wrote:
| >> Behavior patterns were not productive.
|
| I agree with you on success often being in spite of, or
| regardless of negative traits. That said, there are quite a lot
| of arseholes at the top... or maybe being at the top allows
| arseholes to indulge.
|
| Jobs, by most accounts, was a real arsehole. Musk, by some
| reports, at least at time. Gates too, had a reputation for
| nastiness. Lots of professors are known for bullying and
| meanness. Film directors, rock stars.... In fact, most people
| have encountered areshole bosses at some point.
|
| I'm not saying that arseholery isn't a problem. There's just
| sense of willful ignorance here. No one wants to admit that
| they tolerate arseholes in positions of power, but most
| everyone has them. Creating an environment of no tolerance
| would be novel, probably hard.
| [deleted]
| truetraveller wrote:
| It's absolutely fine for an exec to ask an employee to do "x"
| task, where there is value for the company, even if it is not
| in the employee's scope. This is a moot point, and I'm
| astonished we're even debating this. What has the world come
| to?
|
| So, imagine I ask my developer or even my accountant on a one-
| off, rare occasion: "write me a critique of this new UX
| design". He replies "How dare you ask me about UX design!".
| What a strange answer.
| edgyquant wrote:
| 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 kidding or seriously biased here.
| truetraveller wrote:
| 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).
| jfoutz wrote:
| Ya know, I'm not a Russian political history subject matter
| expert. I'd make a solid effort. But, if I feel like I'm being
| screwed around with, I'd probably spend my 5 minutes with the
| execs talking about Rasputin, and how his soothsaying screwed
| everything up.
| horrified wrote:
| The complaints in the article sound ridiculous. He wrote "the
| F* word" in an email? He fired people? He sometimes got angry?
|
| Maybe he just is a human being. People seem to feel entitled to
| godlike father figures as bosses now, who pamper them all the
| way in their comfy 9 to 5 jobs?
|
| Not saying you should scream at your employees, but humans can
| get angry and in general are not perfect. If it is too much for
| you, quit.
|
| I wonder how far Steve Jobs would have come if he only stared
| out today? I've heard he also made people cry.
| bobobob420 wrote:
| Toxic work environments are just a breeding ground for
| lawsuits and expose anyways
| nitrogen wrote:
| Being excessively sensitive to carefully chosen four letter
| words used appropriately for emphasis is a form of
| toxicity.
| user-the-name wrote:
| > The complaints in the article sound ridiculous
|
| Or maybe they are so far removed from the actual events that
| you can not tell the seriousness of them from just a random
| news article?
|
| Is it so hard to just trust the people who say his behaviour
| was awful?
| Shindi wrote:
| >> Multiple people said Suleyman would sometimes scream at
| employees in group meetings and one-on-ones.
|
| This is the behavior you're excusing? If my boss screamed at
| me, I would tell them to fuck off. I'm shocked you think this
| is OK behavior, especially from a Google executive.
|
| People are human which means we sometimes lose our cool, but
| it also means, hey I'm a human so don't fucking scream at me.
| lazide wrote:
| If that is the worse accusation we're hearing from an
| entirely 1 sided story - that's pretty mellow. I've seen
| people accuse some of 'screaming at them', when they
| literally never raised their voice and just disagreed with
| them firmly in a meeting
| truetraveller wrote:
| Absolutely. It's possible to be firm/assertive while
| being polite. Not called "screaming". Even "screaming" is
| very low on the scale of "abuse".
| shadowgovt wrote:
| There was also a time where (regardless of if it were
| acceptable when they were a startup) this would be
| considered unacceptable at Google.
|
| Not anymore, I guess.
| truetraveller wrote:
| "If my boss screamed at me, I would tell them to ** off"
|
| The irony.
| temp8964 wrote:
| Why is writing about Russia a personal thing? I think I will
| need more context to understand this.
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| It's personal because it's not work-related. He would demand
| people do random, pointless tasks for him to show dominance.
| ffhhj wrote:
| Then subordinates must show their dominance not doing
| useless work. I've been in meetings in which I'm the one
| screaming to my boss in the face. When another boss tried
| to make me look bad with our superiors, I showed them their
| ineptitude and bully behavior. A few times had to quit a
| job due to the toxic environment, but always got more
| interesting and rewarding jobs. Never felt guilty about
| crushing a bully.
| mLuby wrote:
| > subordinates must show their dominance
|
| That's how to get fired. If the boss says "do it" and you
| say "no" and you each hold your ground, eventually it
| gets to "do it or you're fired." (In a _few_ companies it
| might be "do it or you're fired" vs "stop asking or I'll
| transfer" but it's rarely "stop asking or boss is
| fired.") A good boss won't let it to that, but that power
| over another--to hire, promote, and terminate--is what
| fundamentally defines the hierarchy.
|
| Giving you the benefit of the doubt as to who was toxic
| at those jobs that ended badly, it still sounds like
| you're significantly more assertive than most workers. I
| do agree that people should stand up for themselves
| regardless of their position in the hierarchy. There's no
| excuse for mistreatment, and especially these days,
| consider how someone who's mistreating you may mistreat
| someone who's more vulnerable.
| squarefoot wrote:
| That's why when any boss asks for something completely
| irrelevant for the job, in my opinion the correct
| approach would be to ask for a documented request. i.e.
| "please, send me an official email with your request". If
| the boss then goes crazy, then reveals he had no good
| intentions from start, and yes, it's definitely hard to
| fight back without eventually get to that point of no
| return. If that's the case, you then better leave that
| place before getting fired, which has the side effect of
| showing that you're not that easy to manipulate. It's not
| just about self esteem and/or testosterone however: any
| time diverted from the job to other things could impact
| the project, and doing that during your time means
| there's your name stuck to the job at that time; if
| something goes wrong because of the time spent doing
| other stuff then it is your fault, so he better gives
| some good official explanation for demanding that extra
| work.
|
| (edit: moved under the right parent post)
| [deleted]
| ptero wrote:
| Demanding random, pointless tasks from subordinates is a
| bad sign, but the Russia example might not be one of those.
| If a boss needs information s/he can ask a subordinate to
| make a brief.
|
| Sometimes the reasoning behind the important request is not
| clear to the subordinate and it might seem pointless. A
| good boss would generally explain, but failing to do it is
| still very very far from bullying (plus, some important
| info is gathered piecemeal on purpose to avoid leaking
| things early). I am not claiming those are applicable here,
| just that much more context is needed to understand the
| situation.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Well, I write software. If you randomly ask me to write a
| brief history of Japanese factories, I'm going to be like
| wtf. You're going to have to explain yourself.
|
| I won't do it for the Elongated Muskrat himself.
| ptero wrote:
| That is perfectly reasonable. Someone else might gladly
| learn something interesting on the company dime, even if
| the topic seems unrelated to the job. For example, if my
| employers offers me a sailing, woodworking or machining
| class (neither of which has anything to do with what I
| work on) I will take it. Sausage making -- I will pass;
| not my kettle of fish.
| serf wrote:
| > Well, I write software. If you randomly ask me to write
| a brief history of Japanese factories, I'm going to be
| like wtf. You're going to have to explain yourself.
|
| honestly I see that more as evidence of employment
| mobility and financial security.
|
| a friend of mine works as a fry-cook as a chain
| restaurant. He is paid a low wage, and has a dwindling
| savings account. He told me a story about having to re-
| caulk toilets at the restaurant during low-traffic hours,
| I replied with "I thought you were a fry-cook?, he
| replied with "I do whatever keeps the job."
|
| (i'd have serious misgivings about the history essay,
| too.. I just tend to think that our willingness to
| question the duty is just evidence that we're confident
| we could go elsewhere and write code instead. That
| confidence isn't intrinsic in the workplace across all
| professions.)
| dmix wrote:
| > 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 "random tasks to show
| dominance".
| tobias__ wrote:
| I feel if it was for a purpose like this it could be
| contextualized to the employee (which IMO is necessary if
| they're going to write anything that is useful for any
| purpose beyond personal interest)
| lazide wrote:
| It would if he wanted to, and it's what we generally
| expect of good bosses. I don't think there is any rule
| requiring it anywhere I've seen.
| catillac wrote:
| It sounds like it was a side task not related to the company
| or the company's work, but rather the writing was at the whim
| of the person at issue. My framing is something like telling
| someone who reports to you to do your college homework.
| temp8964 wrote:
| Without full knowledge, I feel it's difficult for an
| outsider to determine whether Russia is "work-related".
| ic4l wrote:
| He was training AI models, and needed some test data
| sets... Of course he upset many people .
| Ftuuky wrote:
| > "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.
|
| > "Mustafa was super paranoid about Google spying on him, so he
| didn't want to use corporate apps, even though we were doing
| corporate work," one former employee said.
|
| Interesting but I can't wrap my head around its implications.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Whenever I've encountered managers refusing to use company-
| provided communications for company work, it's one of two
| explanations:
|
| (Note these apply specifically to managers communicating with
| their teams. I'm not including ICs who just prefer to not use
| company comms)
|
| 1) Leadership has developed a reputation for routinely reading
| people's private communications. Specifically, not just for
| investigating specific events like harassment claims, but just
| to surveil people as lazy way of seeing how things are going
| instead of doing the hard work of actually talking to employees
| to see what's going on.
|
| or
|
| 2) The person is behaving in a way that would be very
| incriminating, so they force the team to use communication
| channels that won't leave a record behind. I can think of one
| manager who was exceptionally kind and caring in company
| e-mails and Slack messages, but would constantly berate people
| from his personal Skype account. If you were on his team, you
| had to be available in both Slack and Skype, and you could
| usually guess the tone of the communications based on which app
| pinged you.
| renewiltord wrote:
| That second anecdote is absurd in its ridiculousness. What a
| crazy person that guy must have been!
| Igelau wrote:
| Sounds like someone who has seen way too much of how the
| sausage gets made.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Sounds like a reasonable guy. I wouldn't want Google spying on
| me either. It's amazing that he made everyone use Signal.
| xdennis wrote:
| > > Mustafa was super paranoid about Google spying on him
|
| > Interesting but I can't wrap my head around its implications.
|
| It's not paranoia when you're on the inside. It's like saying
| Snowden is paranoid for typing his password with a hood over
| his fingers.
| dandanua wrote:
| The "don't be evil" company promoted a bully to VP in AI ethics.
| I wonder how much time we have left until cybernazi arrive.
| whoisjuan wrote:
| Don't care about this guy, but why would they think that changes
| in the reporting hierarchy means a promotion? If my boss leaves
| then I would report to my skip in the interim and in many
| companies that's forever.
|
| So just because there's nobody between me and my skip I got
| promoted? That's the most dumb rationale I have ever read.
|
| This guy was already the head of a prominent Alphabet division.
| If you move him around the executive structure he could have
| ended up one or two skips below the CEO without that meaning
| absolute shit .
|
| At that level of organizational hierarchy that's far from a
| promotion. He is now the VP of some random AI program that's way
| more obtuse and irrelevant than DeepMind.
|
| The only clear public signal of a promotion at executive levels
| is being a VP and becoming a Chief or a SVP. That's it. At
| companies like Google and Facebook changing titles doesn't mean
| that you got promoted. A promotion is going from one level to the
| next one. This guys was probably an L10 and is still an L10.
|
| Blows my mind that they arrived to this conclusion based on such
| a weak signal.
| shkkmo wrote:
| So becoming a VP doesn't qualify as a promotion but going from
| VP to SVP does?
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Becoming a VP can certainly be a promotion, but depending on
| the corporation being a VP is just a nice high-level title to
| give to someone too valuable to fire while you put them
| outside of the main structure. So, it's a promotion in title
| but a demotion in duties/authority so it doesn't feel bad to
| the person.
| whoisjuan wrote:
| Going from VP to SVP is most certainly a promotion... In this
| particular case, this guys was probably an L10 before his
| leave and is probably still an L10. In companies like Google,
| Facebook, Amazon, etc; an official promotion is changing
| levels, not titles.
| babesh wrote:
| Did I get promoted when I got that new title?
|
| - If I make more money, it is a promotion. If I didn't, it is a
| demotion.
|
| - If the number of reports increases, it is a promotion. If it
| decreases, it is a demotion.
|
| - If I have more areas reporting to me, it is a promotion. If I
| have fewer areas, then it is a demotion.
|
| - If I have greenfield projects under my direction, it is a
| promotion. If I have maintenance projects, it is a demotion.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| His new job would be considered a promotion from his old job by
| most tech workers, if it were laid out for them without the
| surrounding context of him likely being a repeat abuser of his
| workers. The uncertainty about whether it's a promotion is
| brought along by that context, not the facts of the job change
| itself.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Article doesn't seem to work correctly - it throws up an
| interstitial saying it's trying to access the site, but then
| never does. Might be down?
| Tycho wrote:
| This guy appears to be a self-styled liberal activist operating
| in the business world. According to this fawning Business Insider
| piece (did his PR agent write it?), he has tried his hand at
| fixing climate change, inequality, health care, AI ethics, and so
| on. https://www.businessinsider.com/mustafa-suleyman-the-
| lefty-a...
|
| He dropped out of his degree at Oxford and then founded a
| telephone helpline for Muslim youths. Then got a job with Ken
| Livingstone, the politician.
|
| This early history seems strange to me. Who drops out of Oxford
| unless it's to start a business? You'd almost think he was an
| intelligence asset of something.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Quite a lot of people drop out of Oxford because it's an
| intense high-pressure environment. It may not have been out of
| choice, even if he's portraying it that way
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Only 1.3 percent of students drop out of Oxford, versus 7.4
| percent for the UK.
|
| https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/full-version-
| fa...
|
| Not at all like America where only 1/3 graduate.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| 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.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| > In elite schools like Oxford, the drop out rate would
| be close to Oxford's
|
| Typo?
|
| Lots of US 4 year colleges have terrible graduation
| rates. It's not just community colleges.
|
| The UK also doesn't have a culture of "drop out and start
| your own company."
| ipaddr wrote:
| Harvard has 98% and that would be the high bar. 93-95 for
| MIT.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Fixed the typo, if by that you were referring to the
| construction "elite schools like Oxford" to mean "elite
| schools that are as elite as Oxford".
|
| And yes, it's not just community colleges. But those are
| the worst part.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| I don't think that's a typo. Instead, I think when they
| write "like", they mean "similar to" (not "such as").
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| So that's 1.3% out of "more than 24,000 students at
| Oxford", i.e. ~310 students per whatever the counting
| period of that 24k number is. That's not a low number, of a
| population that's already heavily selected. Plenty of
| resourceful folks could find themselves in this group.
| angrais wrote:
| I'm deeply confused at your response. 310 is still 1.3%,
| which is both a low number and percentage. Especially
| when compared with the larger 7.8% of other UK
| universities as OP stated.
|
| Most UK universities are heavily selected. Indeed,
| Oxbridge moreso and as such you'd expect the dropout to
| be lower which it is. Hence OPs response.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Interesting article, thanks for finding it. He's described as a
| successful and "well-rounded" leader who genuinely cares about
| the welfare of everyone on the planet, who had a falling out
| with others at Google due to his insistence on requiring an AI-
| ethics oversight board to be set up re: Google and DeepMind's
| AI efforts. That's certainly an intriguing perspective, and it
| seems to jive with claims by others that AI ethics and bias are
| not being given the attention they require, either at Google or
| elsewhere.
| Shindi wrote:
| > Who drops out of Oxford unless it's to start a business?
| You'd almost think he was an intelligence asset of something.
|
| I think you've been smoking too much weed my friend.
| Tycho wrote:
| 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
| mean I'm just idly musing here but something definitely seems
| off about his bio.
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