For me the best moments at work have been when the direct manager was sick or on a very long holiday. We're adults, why would I need someone to tell me 'I agree with you', 'go ahead, I trust you'. Maybe if you don't know what you're doing, or you can't manage the stakeholders, but otherwise, the manager just gets in the way, unless they know how to make themselves invisible, or they have the connections and will to propel your career forwards I've had plenty of managers in 20+ years
So you think most engineers are not capable to work in a group, without supervision? Who's insulting? "If you don't know what you're doing" = "You're out of depth and you need someone to guide you through"
> why would I need someone to tell me 'I agree with you', 'go ahead
You might not, but that's just an example where a different style of communication might help some people. It's great that you would be happy without validation, but I can safely say some people do flourish when given it! Lots of people need to be given a bit of confidence, particularly when they are new to a role, and in my experience that's easier over a call.
As another example if I ask people on Slack how busy they are I will often get a different answer compared to calling them and checking in, asking if they need support, particularly if I can hear that they are stressed.
Or while on a text chat someone might say they understand a problem, on a phone call it's much more natural to get them to play it back to you so you can work out when they miss some nuance.
Basically coding, explaining, and owning the whole stack from the DB schema to the CSS. In 2005 that meant a client wanted a website but it needed to be driven with live data from a database, with a custom back-end they would use to update it, something that wordpress wouldn't be able to do easily. Or they wanted a data-driven Java or Flash applet embedded, dynamic resizing, or "mobile-friendly" circa 2008. I had worked for a company in 1999 making websites, split between designers (like me) whose job was to make Photoshop comps with rollover layers and split them up into tables, and the "webmonkeys" who got paid more to take that and mess with the javascript in Dreamweaver. The guys who knew how to tie that into Coldfusion or something made the most. Primitive HTML and PHP and inline javascript and mysql. I just figured out how to do all of it together. Then, web apps, multiplayer games front/back, and starting to get into logistics software. Typical gig from 2005-2010 was 9-12 months, single project stuff, hourly and freelance.
What I realized was that knowing what my software did, being able to explain every part of it and being able to rewrite it from scratch if necessary, was much more valuable than just delivering it. The powers that be who run companies are looking for communication, so they understand what they're getting, someone who can speak the same language as them and materialize it into code that works. LLMs are a decent imitation of that, but they're fatally flawed, because they never understand a whole stack.
Today I had to edit in MacOS a pdf which had some text fields. It had 3 places which resembled checkboxes, so in those I was able to place an `x` character. When I saved it and previewed it, the `x` was in 2 places, but not the third. I tried several times but couldn't make it work. I gave up, started a Claude session, and asked it to fill in the `x`. 4k tokens of Python later it managed to place the `x` correctly.
Many others from the big labs are moving back to their core EE field into stuff like optical networks for data centers and so on by the way. That is a lot of the attrition.
At his level and position I doubt that is actually the primary reason simply because at his level, a way would have been found to retain him despite family issues (eg. opening an OpenAI tech office in Bangalore, Hyderabad, or Chennai or make him GM for OpenAI in India). Something else is going on with Srinivas' departure - either pushed out by Fidji or planning on starting his own thing.
That said, in my peer group I would say around 25-35% of people left for the family reason - especially after how COVID was handled in India. At one point, Google leadership was offering to match MTV salaries for engineers and PMs who Google wanted to retain but who decided to shift back to India to care for family during and slightly after the pandemic.
> Many others from the big labs are moving back to their core EE field into stuff like optical networks for data centers and so on by the way. That is a lot of the attrition.
My hunch is he is probably leaving to work on something like this or an adjacent space, but admitting as such would leave him open to litigation. That said, given his age I'd assume family decisions are also somewhat playing a role.
Ofc, some Indian diaspora types do leave for other reasons (eg. Sridhar Vembu and his divorce).
On the EE and optical side, diaspora founders are actually serious about leaving the US for Hyderabad simply because the Indian vintages of American deeptech funds plus the RDI are giving ridiculously competitive funding terms for startups in that space.
And yeah that makes sense on the returning from the bay part. Many of those people ended up being fodder for startups here to poach. Work with a few of them.
I find it absurd how she generalized that Western Europe is complaining a lot and less pragmatic than whatever. The same for working remote but not having the chops like the 'Bay Area'. Could have been a serious question as well, why do you find it absurd?
So is DuckDb a database or a cli tool to query all sorts of file format using SQL statements? I've used it as a CLI tool, somehow don't understand the comparison to a database, which stores your data reliably, besides responding to your SQL queries.
My personal use case is a replacement for pandas for ad hoc analysis in Jupyter notebooks, which I have to do very often these days. If I had to store the data I'd pick S3+Glue+Athena.
Along with parsing various file formats, you can create duckdb files to store tables, and make related views, schema, etc. They also have a newer ducklake tool
Given the huge environmental cost involved in manufacturing a car, 20 years seems fair.
I’m still driving a 26-year old Nissan Micra – though it’s now on its last legs: the Irish climate isn’t kind to steel and we’ve had to have the under-carriage re-welded three times in the past five years. :(
EV batteries are expected to offer about 60-70% of capacity at 20 years. I think that's really good compared to general wear and tear of the car.
But let's go back to the original point, about being able to UPGRADE (not repair/replace) battery in the car. 20 years old car is worth like $1k-2k, which is fraction of the cost of the new battery.
While it's cool thing to do for hobbyists, it makes 0 economical sense.
What an old car is worth depends on many factors, but age is not the most important one. The average age of passenger cars on the road in the U.S. is 14 years old -- I think 14.5 years now. I don't think we have data on average appraised value of passenger cars on the road, but I would guess it would be in the range of 10-15K.
The men I know try not to go unless it's absolutely necessary. The women generally prance to Russia and back all the time. (Exceptions exist, of course.)
What do you mean? Champagne is classy, it matches perfectly the role of VP. These are special, unique people. They will take your unrefined words and use their magic to make it stand out.
Thats nothing, try nearly 400 nukes that "don't exist" and the man who exposed them was jailed and tortured for 18 years. Its not imaginary "in future" nukes, but nukes that exist and work right now. I am far more worried about that country. We must urgently force an audit and transfer or decommissioning of all these illegal nukes.
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