If everyone is gunning for L6 after 8 years or L6 -> director in 8 more years, then the culture will be much worse. Assuming the long-tenured senior SWE is actually a solid engineer but doesn't want to play politics or…
I wouldn't call Amazon Prime same day. Amazon had prime now for awhile in response to Google's Express program; these were both same-day services that delivered in 2-4 hours from order placement. Both programs were…
Breakfast stopped 9:30 or 10am, depending on cafe in mountain view. Dinner mostly started 6:30pm. There were some cafes that provided food continuously, so some folks grabbed dinner at 5pm and left.
This makes no sense. Google makes more money when users click on some crappy landing page filled with display ads?
The chapters on Watson are super interesting. If Isaacson had written the book primarily about Watson, it likely would've been at the same level of Steve Jobs.
The last sentence is only true if you believe the Fed will actually sell back the assets. When I look at this chart, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL, I have very little confidence that the Fed will sell a…
That's correct. If you're a software developer and interested in maximizing pay while minimizing stress, you obviously avoid the gaming industry. The only news here is that the company seems to have reneged on the…
I disagree. This would prove why big government is dangerous. This is the perfect example of how powerful individuals can leverage governmental power to enrich themselves. He's like Trump, pointing out all these…
It's not worse than US: http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/ (third plot on page)
Is eating live seafood animal abuse? I also don't see how this channel is directed towards children. This type of food looks expensive and I don't think kids normally eat this stuff.
It also depends on if you include retirement accounts. It seems nuts to have 3-5 years of savings as cash in taxable accounts. But this is easily doable if you include retirement accounts, which you would start…
I don't follow this logic. Bird/lime own their inventory. Airbnb is better off than the hotel chains IMO. The hotel chains have to keep paying their staff and rent while revenue drops, but airbnb just sees the revenue…
There is some evidence that humidity and temperature do influence the transmission rate: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3551767
The key factor that doomed the big 3 car makers in US is the unions. They forced a high cost structure and no one was able or willing to fix this (automation that reduced labor costs meant less jobs). The big 3 were…
You work on ads at Google and feel that ad tech is a house of cards? I actually disagree, primarily because of the auction. It's an incredibly clever way to ensure Google's incentives are aligned with the advertisers'.…
a) How do we know these clicks are bad? A sample size of 3 is pretty early to make any conclusions. b) If clicks are not delivering value, advertisers should lower their bids. As Google encourages advertisers to switch…
This project doesn't seem that expensive to run and it resulted in a Nature paper. Seems like a favorable ROI already even for a for-profit company (given Google's size and possible benefits in PR and recruiting).
You're overstating the issue here. Deepmind wasn't forced to control units using the standard control groups. My understanding is they could directly issue commands to arbitrary group of units. If you watch the replays,…
You have it backwards. If you directly replicate an ETF by buying stocks directly, you can capture the loss as soon as one stock goes down (and buying a share of something equivalent to stay approximately indexed). In…
I think the key reason to present min wage vs ridesharing wage is to ask how much pressure is there to raise wages for drivers. The article presents some data that wages for drivers in these countries is high relative…
This is a big reason why people buy SUV's. That, and the belief it's safer since momentum is mass*velocity, so the winner in a crash favors the heavier car. I think we need some more taxes to punish the externalities of…
I think your previous answer using the word "fun" was spot-on. I have a non-CS PhD that's not really related to what I do today. I would describe what I did previously as "fun"; despite the intensity and worse WLB than…
Yes, total comp of 250k is highly doable. At the famous mega-corps, total comp would be 300-400k now, including stock appreciation.
I wonder at which point he gave up on paying back the loan. I think they were reasonably frugal for the first four years (the $400/mo MB being an exception). It seems like when they started the orthodontics school they…
Real wages in silicon valley for the hot industry at the moment have definitely gone up the past 40 years.
If everyone is gunning for L6 after 8 years or L6 -> director in 8 more years, then the culture will be much worse. Assuming the long-tenured senior SWE is actually a solid engineer but doesn't want to play politics or…
I wouldn't call Amazon Prime same day. Amazon had prime now for awhile in response to Google's Express program; these were both same-day services that delivered in 2-4 hours from order placement. Both programs were…
Breakfast stopped 9:30 or 10am, depending on cafe in mountain view. Dinner mostly started 6:30pm. There were some cafes that provided food continuously, so some folks grabbed dinner at 5pm and left.
This makes no sense. Google makes more money when users click on some crappy landing page filled with display ads?
The chapters on Watson are super interesting. If Isaacson had written the book primarily about Watson, it likely would've been at the same level of Steve Jobs.
The last sentence is only true if you believe the Fed will actually sell back the assets. When I look at this chart, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL, I have very little confidence that the Fed will sell a…
That's correct. If you're a software developer and interested in maximizing pay while minimizing stress, you obviously avoid the gaming industry. The only news here is that the company seems to have reneged on the…
I disagree. This would prove why big government is dangerous. This is the perfect example of how powerful individuals can leverage governmental power to enrich themselves. He's like Trump, pointing out all these…
It's not worse than US: http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/ (third plot on page)
Is eating live seafood animal abuse? I also don't see how this channel is directed towards children. This type of food looks expensive and I don't think kids normally eat this stuff.
It also depends on if you include retirement accounts. It seems nuts to have 3-5 years of savings as cash in taxable accounts. But this is easily doable if you include retirement accounts, which you would start…
I don't follow this logic. Bird/lime own their inventory. Airbnb is better off than the hotel chains IMO. The hotel chains have to keep paying their staff and rent while revenue drops, but airbnb just sees the revenue…
There is some evidence that humidity and temperature do influence the transmission rate: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3551767
The key factor that doomed the big 3 car makers in US is the unions. They forced a high cost structure and no one was able or willing to fix this (automation that reduced labor costs meant less jobs). The big 3 were…
You work on ads at Google and feel that ad tech is a house of cards? I actually disagree, primarily because of the auction. It's an incredibly clever way to ensure Google's incentives are aligned with the advertisers'.…
a) How do we know these clicks are bad? A sample size of 3 is pretty early to make any conclusions. b) If clicks are not delivering value, advertisers should lower their bids. As Google encourages advertisers to switch…
This project doesn't seem that expensive to run and it resulted in a Nature paper. Seems like a favorable ROI already even for a for-profit company (given Google's size and possible benefits in PR and recruiting).
You're overstating the issue here. Deepmind wasn't forced to control units using the standard control groups. My understanding is they could directly issue commands to arbitrary group of units. If you watch the replays,…
You have it backwards. If you directly replicate an ETF by buying stocks directly, you can capture the loss as soon as one stock goes down (and buying a share of something equivalent to stay approximately indexed). In…
I think the key reason to present min wage vs ridesharing wage is to ask how much pressure is there to raise wages for drivers. The article presents some data that wages for drivers in these countries is high relative…
This is a big reason why people buy SUV's. That, and the belief it's safer since momentum is mass*velocity, so the winner in a crash favors the heavier car. I think we need some more taxes to punish the externalities of…
I think your previous answer using the word "fun" was spot-on. I have a non-CS PhD that's not really related to what I do today. I would describe what I did previously as "fun"; despite the intensity and worse WLB than…
Yes, total comp of 250k is highly doable. At the famous mega-corps, total comp would be 300-400k now, including stock appreciation.
I wonder at which point he gave up on paying back the loan. I think they were reasonably frugal for the first four years (the $400/mo MB being an exception). It seems like when they started the orthodontics school they…
Real wages in silicon valley for the hot industry at the moment have definitely gone up the past 40 years.