Apple's Director of Machine Learning Resigns Due to Return to Office Work

[HasanDaddy]

No apology needed 👍🏽

The challenge for this obligation notion is that people who feel as though they have very little will get nervous and possibly angry that someone is suggesting they lose something of theirs. I understand it, because I have very little and am terrified of losing what little I have, but not for that reason. I don't understand why they seem to put themselves in the shoes of millionaires/billionaires, which are the ones people like me actually want to see some wealth distributed from. Most of the so-called philanthropy being promoted by our lineup of "world's richest guys" is actually just more entrepreneurialism, political plays, and tax write-offs

is an amusing quick take on this.

I don't think it's reasonable for multi-millionaires to even exist (and definitely NOT billionaires), and our society just keeps trying to prove this correct by continuing to get more visibly dystopian. Hypernormalization slows people's recognition of it, but it's not invisible. We are already ruled by corporations; do we need to be ruled by wasteland warlords before people really start to object en mass?

Correct in that - the finest tax shelter in the world for a billionaire is “creating” a US foundation, that is forever “controlled” by their children. Foundation pays for all expenses and revenues aren’t taxed, as long as the kids document some kind of activity that addresses the charitable rationale (this is easy - just host a $10k per plate fundraiser at the mansion - lol). Note: the kids will pay income tax, but the foundation can cover an array of expenses if the goal to help the charitable mission is satisfied, creating great advantage. Second best is becoming an ambassador - diplomatic immunity allows one to open a dynasty trust and transfer assets into it without paying a gift tax.

That said - the idea that we need to target the wealth of billionaires to even the playing field - that is foolish. The money will go to the govt, where it’s unlikely that anything substantive will come from the money’s use - better to leave it with the billionaire who will open businesses, or spend it, either way, it’s stimulating the economy and creating sustainable jobs.

What we should campaign against is corporations who pay to get mandates instituted that fill their pockets, especially at the hands of constricting civil liberties (*cough* vaccine mandates and Pfizer contracts).

 

[MRrainer]

The problem is that it probably took him ages to get into work and only slightly less to get back.

Even if you've got a limo-driver, that time is essentially lost forever.

The question is: if there were huge high-rises around Silicon Valley (so that a large number of people could live in reasonable distance from work), would people move there with their families?

What would it take for people to give up the American Dream of living in a house with a front-yard, a back-yard and picket-fence around?

I believe, Tim Cook is more or less spot-on for requiring people to go back to the office.
But I couldn't see myself doing 90 minutes+ commutes (30 minutes by bike now).

 

[Adamantoise]

With all that's been said in this thread, I think the most annoying thing to me is the people who think Machine Learning == Siri.

I can't explain why this irritates me so much but how are you a tech enthusiast and don't know more than one application of Machine Learning?

 

[hans1972]

Nope.

People seem to take issue with the reason why this man quit. His current employment situation was no longer working for him and he made a choice to address that by moving on.

So the real question is... Why do some people feel he should he stay in a situation that is no longer working for him?

It seems flat out pathetic to me for people to care this much about a stranger's career choices.

Lot's of people are arguing against Apple forcing employees to get into the office and about their great love for working from home.

Yes, some people also thinks being forced to work 60% at the office when you worked closed to 100% before is a bad reason to quit a good job.

It's many things being discussed in this thread. Not only one issue.

 

[hans1972]

isn't multi-core literally multi-tasking where you have 2 cores or 4 doing 2 or 4 things at the exact same time? or does each core needs to wait for the other until its done?

Yes, but having multiple cores is a recent invention in the history of computing.

 

[pshufd]

Yes, he jumps around/job hopping. Google 1.5 years, open AI 1 year, google 2 years, apple 3 years. How can you contribute enough within that short time? He’ll be back to Google, and in 2 years time, back to Apple again. Every time to get pay rise. Lol.

He's a scientist and he really likes to do research. It appears that he has fewer published papers working at Apple so he was probably doing more management work. Some companies support research and some don't and I suspect Apple is more Applied Research than Basic Research. Google and Microsoft are better companies if you want to do Basic Research. Or he could work as a professor.

US Companies used to fund folks like these back in the 1950s, 1960s, etc., and they contributed greatly to science which turned into products. But then we had more competition from other countries and basic research became a luxury. I think that we should fund it for competitive advantage for the future of the country. China has poured a lot of money into research as they are plan far ahead.

Apple has benefited greatly from the Basic Research at Xerox PARC. Xerox isn't really known as a tech powerhouse but their Basic Research has made large contributions to the modern tech world and to Apple in particular.

This world is a bit hard to understand if you only think in terms of work, output and pay.

 

[pshufd]

Interesting. I don't think that the average person has the ability to try to game the system like that.

It definitely is a thing. One of my coworkers asked me about it as his son was going into medical school. He had the ability to pay for it out of pocket but he asked me if it's better for his son to take out loans in case they are forgiven. I told him that he has the ability to pay for it and I am averse to debt as debt removes some level of peace of mind, even if you know that you can pay it off at any time. Legislators have to think in terms of game theory because there are people that will try to game the system.

The better approach is what California does in their state university system in making higher education inexpensive. California's economy would the world's 5th largest if it were a country so that's an aspect of the benefit of inexpensive higher education. The real focus needs to be on K-12 as a lot of costs and failures to graduate are driven by remedial education in college.

I would guess that you heard about the college cheating scandals where the wealthy paid for their kids to go to elite schools via fraudulent means. This stuff happens with college financing as well with upper-middle-class parents. Some of it is illegal but the odds of getting caught are small.

 

[dysamoria]

In Australia you have the state government office of the ombudsman if you work in a government job.
For those working in the private sector you have state government mediation services and facilitation services.
They all exist to deal with your worker rights (and similar) issues. I've dealt with them in the past and had they cared. They used for good communication between both parties and if that broke down, offered us legal advice (not specifics, just names of qualified workplace lawyers who can take things further and actually provide legal advice). Sure the outcomes were not always favourable, but they honestly cared. Unlike the unions here who do not care about worker rights.

That's sounds great.

I am sure in the USA there are similar organisations or government departments that workers can turn to, to get their issues solved without having to resort to using unions. Well I hope that is the case. The US folk deserve far better than the union movement.

We have the EEOC: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and it mostly concerns whether an employer has acted in a discriminatory manner that violates rights. My mother's experience with them, after being harassed out of her job, ended when they said "Our findings are that your employer violated your rights and you have every right to sue. We cannot help you do that because we aren't funded to do so. I feel sorry for you." To get to that point cost plenty of money, lawyering, re-traumatizing herself to document and report, and therefore also considerable misery, so she didn't take it any farther. She was burned out.

This is how many of our protective systems and regulations are: sabotaged into uselessness by "small government" funding cuts. Same for the EPA, IRS (who admitted that they primarily target lower income people rather than wealthy people, because they can't afford to go after the wealthy), and so much more.

Also just to let everyone know, how unions work are slightly different, in different countries. Here in Australia (as one example), workplaces do not unionise. You can choose to be a member of your relevant union, be it teachers union or maritime union or mining union or hospitality union or etc etc. Almost all of the broad industry types here have a union you can join. How they function though, is the same as the USA. Being the middlemen in any kind of dispute that might arise.

This sounds smart. You do not have the step of fighting businesses to unionize individual workplaces, which is the largest obstacle here (and companies break laws on union busting and sabotage, paying a pittance in fines, if any). The USA also has overcomplicated tax collection and voter registration bureaucracy, while other countries automatically send you a notice of how much you owe on tax (or what the government owes you), and you're registered to vote automatically at legal age. Now I learn that instead of fighting to unionize your workplaces, you just join the appropriate industry union. What a concept.

The USA maintains convoluted nonsense to keep the corporations (like tax prep companies, who lobby to prevent simplified tax reporting) and politicians (like the ones who don't want people to vote) comfortable and in power, and there's literally billions of dollars going into political bribery so that we remain trapped under corporate legislation.

 

[pshufd]

That's a pretty big claim. Cite your sources.

There is actually quite a bit of research in this area:

The recent outbreak of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) has plunged countries across the world into crisis. Both in the general population and in specific subgroups such as infected people or health care workers, studies have reported increased symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress. However, the reactions of individuals with mental disorders to Covid-19 have largely been neglected. The present study therefore aimed to investigate the perceived impact of Covid-19 and its psychological consequences on people with mental disorders. In this online survey, participants were asked to evaluate their disorder-specific symptoms, perceived psychosocial stress and behaviors related to Covid-19 in the current situation and retrospectively before the spread of Covid-19. The study included participants with self-identified generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder and agoraphobia (PA), illness anxiety disorder (IA), social anxiety disorder (SAD), depression (DP), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), eating disorders (ED), schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders (SP), other non-specified mental disorder (other) as well as mentally healthy controls (HC). The results of bayesian parameter estimation suggest that the symptom severity of DP, GAD, IA and BDD has deteriorated as a reaction to Covid-19. Across all mental disorders and HC, self-reported psychosocial stress levels were higher during the outbreak of Covid-19 compared to before. A reduced frequency of social contacts and grocery shopping was found for all participants. People with self-identified mental disorders showed higher personal worries about Covid-19 and a higher fear of contagion with Covid-19 than did HC. According to our findings, Covid-19 may reinforce symptom severity and psychosocial stress in individuals with mental disorders. In times of pandemics, special support is needed to assist people with mental disorders and to prevent symptom deterioration.

Perceived Impact of Covid-19 Across Different Mental Disorders: A Study on Disorder-Specific Symptoms, Psychosocial Stress and Behavior - PubMed

The recent outbreak of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) has plunged countries across the world into crisis. Both in the general population and in specific subgroups such as infected people or health care workers, studies have reported increased symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to being a global health emergency, has multiple socioeconomic and psychological ramifications. COVID-19 research and media reports have revealed a rise in fears related to contracting the virus. Though fear is a common psychological outcome during pandemics, the COVID-19 pandemic is a continuously evolving disease outbreak and has unique risk factors. Therefore, fear related to COVID-19 might manifest in not only fear and anxiety related to disease contraction and dying, but also associated sociooccupational stress. We attempt to understand the psychosocial process of the development of coronaphobia and postulate what constitutes coronaphobia, a new emerging phobia specific to COVID-19. We present a conceptual model delineating the risk factors causing coronaphobia and the underlying mechanisms, for a better understanding of its developmental process. From review of relevant research, the factors identified are, an unforeseen reality, unending uncertainties, need of acquiring new practices and avoidance behavior, loss of faith in health infrastructure, contraction of COVID-19 by head of states, cautionary statements from international bodies, and infodemia. These factors are assumed to cause interference with routine life, catastrophizing interpretation of benign symptoms, and social amplification of risk which lead to coronaphobia. The conceptualization of coronaphobia and the model will aid future research in developing psychometric measure of coronaphobia for use in clinical and research settings and design of policies and interventions for mitigating risk factors.

Understanding coronaphobia

COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to being a global health emergency, has multiple socioeconomic and psychological ramifications. COVID-19 research and media reports have revealed a rise in fears related to contracting the virus. Though fear is a common ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[hans1972]

I've read the entire thread up to this point and I see only ONE person stating that NOBODY should be working at an office. It's an absolute statement, and wrong for that reason.

So you agree with Apple's policy of 60% in the office and 40% at home?

Because a lot of people here seems to disagree with Apple. If they do, then they must believe that 60% is too much.
So what percentage should Apple enforce according to you?

 

[pshufd]

Those people probably don't understand what kids are dealing with, or they don't care and it's really about themselves. The must succinct thing I can say is, I'm glad I wasn't born even a single year later.

My kids grew up in an environment of paper, pencil and textbooks. They had computers but it was dialup access and social media sites were crude and generally for adults. They had feature phones in college. So I don't really understand the social media stuff with kids these days but I just see some glimpses of it in news reports. I've no doubt that it's a real problem but it's not something that I've cared to look into.

 

[VulchR]

[Liked for the light pollution comment alone]

One of my hobbies is stargazing. 🤓

Light pollution not only spoils the night sky for nerds like me, it does cause changes to the ecosystem. An owl used to fly to my place every night, sit on the corner of the roof, and let out a blood-curdling screech at exactly 12:36 AM – to the minute – for weeks on end. It seemed obvious he was marking the boundaries of his territory, for he would then fly off for about about two blocks to the east and make another call. I couldn't figure out how he was being so precise with his timing given that in Scotland at the height of Spring the daylight hours change by minutes every day. Then it dawned on me. The local street lights are set on timers for the same time every day. The owl simply started his territorial patrol when he saw the lights turn on.

 

[dysamoria]

Well you are free to believe as you wish but I don’t need a study to tell me whether or not humans spent millennia evolving as collaborators.[...]

"Free to believe", "don't need a study to tell me", "common sense"... What is this language usage about?

"Common sense" didn't bring us computers and the components that comprise them. Efforts at making as unbiased-as-possible efforts at observation and experimentation are what brings us verifiable facts that lead to useful developments and understanding. Belief is irrelevant.

I'm not attempting to debate whether or not humans are social animals. That's pretty much settled: we are. I'm challenging an appeal to nature that's being used to make a blanket statement about how people can't really work remotely and without face-to-face interaction with others. Some yes, some no. There's no rule because everyone has a range of attributes that make them more or less suited to one work modality over another. Some people are balanced, some are more toward the ends of the spectrum, and others are downright at the extreme ends.

 

[pshufd]

They do to a lesser extent. When I was in college, my friends were taking out subsidized student loans to buy Bitcoin. They maybe couldn't legally spend it on that directly, but they had some other source of money that went into BTC instead of school because the loans would cover that. And it was wise of them.

The more common abuse is, people go to college for no good reason, maybe partying the entire time, because someone else is picking up the bill, whether it's their parents or the government or both. Some of them extend it as long as possible with an MS then a PhD; this leads to the common saying that PhD students are either brilliant or aimless, with nothing in between. Anyone trying decently hard towards a career they actually want to pursue will go through the required schooling then pay off the loans easily. The others are either mooching or didn't plan things well, and I have no interest in supporting that.

I have a friend with a Phd in Fine Arts. You might scoff at why anyone would bother to get such a degree.

You've likely already enjoyed some of his work: https://www.kneuppermusic.com

David Kneupper | Sound Department, Composer, Music Department

Known for: In the Line of Fire, Outbreak, The Crow

www.imdb.com

 

[Jim Lahey]

I'm challenging an appeal to nature that's being used to make a blanket statement about how people can't really work remotely and without face-to-face interaction with others.

I never made that claim. I said I can understand why a company like Apple wishes to maintain a working culture of face-to-face interaction. I didn’t say people can’t work remotely. You’re just making stuff up now.

 

[beanbaguk]

Sounds like the issue wasn't working in the office, but rather a brutal commute. A 10k€ annual commuting cost and a 50% longer effective work day means that there have to be other factors at play (such as a high salary) to keep you from moving or quitting.

Many people like myself do this. I also the same as I did before albeit without the commuting costs. Think of the environmental impact too!

Anyway, my new office is so much better now…plus my dogs are happy to have me home wink 😉

 

[dysamoria]

How are you going to keep kids from spending time together outside of school? Maybe something like what China is doing? Or, maybe arresting children playing at public parks? Or, maybe arresting parents holding play dates? Family gatherings with cousins? Birthdays?

Is it really practical and workable to isolate children from each other outside of school for the entire duration of the school closures, which went on for almost a full term in some areas? What are the deleterious effects of this type of isolation....not to mention the loss in educational progress from closed schools in the first place?

I wonder how many public health officials would argue for what you are suggesting. Public policy has to be workable. Do you have children? I am no expert, since I have only raised three, but what you are proposing does not seem workable to me.

I don't have the answers to these questions. They are fair questions. I would have to work with policy experts, parents, etc, before I proposed a specific plan. I just don't think throwing our hands up and saying "whatever happens happens" is reasonable policy in the face of a pandemic. I feel the same frustration about people's reluctance to moderate their own adult behavior, but I thought children were being supervised to some degree by their parents/guardians.

Do children typically have free roaming opportunities in their communities? I did in mine, after a certain age (12??), but it was wooded, sparsely populated (at least compared to the urban-ish town I'm now suffering), and there were few other children my age with whom to socialize. My two friends and I didn't have a playground to show up at and be surrounded by tons of other kids (that required parents driving us a mile or more). I did have to inform my parents where I would be, with whom, and they told me when I was allowed to come and go, and how far they were okay with me going. I had a long leash, but I had fewer environmental dangers. My experience does not map to big cities or suburbia.

At what age did you let your kids just go wherever?

 

[6787872]

Maybe they were just filtering out the people who weren’t interested in coming into the office. 🤪

....this was after the offer had been made and i rejected it. although it wasn't over that reason.

 

[Ciclismo]

You're not a marriage counselor to work from home. You work at a company that builds products, some are life-changing products, products that require maximum focus, productivity, discipline, quality check, again and again. At-home productivity will never equal at-work productivity. At-home discipline will never equal at-school discipline.

Just like you'd never be comfortable with a home-schooled heart surgeon; or get on a rocket built by engineers who worked from home.

Anyway, that said, good riddance to him. There are no irreplaceable people.

The company I work for can gauge performance of call-center agents and found that they performed 12.5% MORE transactions than those in the office. They also had a lower error rate and our HR performed a survey and found the work-from-home agents were happier.

On top of that there’s the money / environmental savings of not having to travel.

So please don’t tell me that “At-home-productivity will never equal at-work productivity” because that is flat out wrong.

As with all things in life, it is not bald-and-white, it’s mostly a case of “it depends”.

 

[dysamoria]

I have been working remotely for the last 5 years, not because of covid but because of the location I’m living at. As a co founder it was my decision to build the company like that.
While flexibility, especially with key talent, is a must, there is nothing that can replace meeting people in person.
I am starving to go back to at least some regular office days. Would not want it to be 5 days, but the 3/2 ratio is a very good compromise.
This whole Apple discussion sounds very entitled to me…

Your last sentence is where the difficulty comes in. It's perfectly fine for anyone to share how THEY feel about THEIR working needs, but it's not their place to decide those needs for someone else. What is entitled about leaving a job that does not suit your working preferences? Privileged? Sure. I'll definitely give you that.

 

[pshufd]

Was this a demonstrable fact (kids being less vulnerable) or has it simply been oft-repeated meme without citation of source? I have definitely read that one of the variants were putting more kids into the hospitals.

The second issue (being able to pass it on to others) is absolutely reason enough to close schools and keep kids at home, but I find the oft-repeated meme of "kids are fine" to be suspect.

The argument for kids being less susceptible is the COVID infection, hospitalization and death age stratification numbers. With earlier variants, infections in those under 18 were small. In later variants, infections increased in those under 18 but hospitalizations and deaths remained tiny. You can see this in the data from my state at https://www.covid19.nh.gov/dashboard/case-summary but I imagine that you could see this in any state or country.

 

[dysamoria]

Wasn't talking about you

Then don't write sentences that say "YOU" this and "YOUR" that. Especially in bold. I mean, kind if a direct way of wording things, and then you say "no, I'm not".

 

[citysnaps]

There is actually quite a bit of research in this area:

The recent outbreak of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) has plunged countries across the world into crisis. Both in the general population and in specific subgroups such as infected people or health care workers, studies have reported increased symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress. However, the reactions of individuals with mental disorders to Covid-19 have largely been neglected. The present study therefore aimed to investigate the perceived impact of Covid-19 and its psychological consequences on people with mental disorders. In this online survey, participants were asked to evaluate their disorder-specific symptoms, perceived psychosocial stress and behaviors related to Covid-19 in the current situation and retrospectively before the spread of Covid-19. The study included participants with self-identified generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder and agoraphobia (PA), illness anxiety disorder (IA), social anxiety disorder (SAD), depression (DP), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), eating disorders (ED), schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders (SP), other non-specified mental disorder (other) as well as mentally healthy controls (HC). The results of bayesian parameter estimation suggest that the symptom severity of DP, GAD, IA and BDD has deteriorated as a reaction to Covid-19. Across all mental disorders and HC, self-reported psychosocial stress levels were higher during the outbreak of Covid-19 compared to before. A reduced frequency of social contacts and grocery shopping was found for all participants. People with self-identified mental disorders showed higher personal worries about Covid-19 and a higher fear of contagion with Covid-19 than did HC. According to our findings, Covid-19 may reinforce symptom severity and psychosocial stress in individuals with mental disorders. In times of pandemics, special support is needed to assist people with mental disorders and to prevent symptom deterioration.

Perceived Impact of Covid-19 Across Different Mental Disorders: A Study on Disorder-Specific Symptoms, Psychosocial Stress and Behavior - PubMed

The recent outbreak of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) has plunged countries across the world into crisis. Both in the general population and in specific subgroups such as infected people or health care workers, studies have reported increased symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to being a global health emergency, has multiple socioeconomic and psychological ramifications. COVID-19 research and media reports have revealed a rise in fears related to contracting the virus. Though fear is a common psychological outcome during pandemics, the COVID-19 pandemic is a continuously evolving disease outbreak and has unique risk factors. Therefore, fear related to COVID-19 might manifest in not only fear and anxiety related to disease contraction and dying, but also associated sociooccupational stress. We attempt to understand the psychosocial process of the development of coronaphobia and postulate what constitutes coronaphobia, a new emerging phobia specific to COVID-19. We present a conceptual model delineating the risk factors causing coronaphobia and the underlying mechanisms, for a better understanding of its developmental process. From review of relevant research, the factors identified are, an unforeseen reality, unending uncertainties, need of acquiring new practices and avoidance behavior, loss of faith in health infrastructure, contraction of COVID-19 by head of states, cautionary statements from international bodies, and infodemia. These factors are assumed to cause interference with routine life, catastrophizing interpretation of benign symptoms, and social amplification of risk which lead to coronaphobia. The conceptualization of coronaphobia and the model will aid future research in developing psychometric measure of coronaphobia for use in clinical and research settings and design of policies and interventions for mitigating risk factors.

Understanding coronaphobia

COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to being a global health emergency, has multiple socioeconomic and psychological ramifications. COVID-19 research and media reports have revealed a rise in fears related to contracting the virus. Though fear is a common ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Excellent - thanks for posting!

 

[citysnaps]

So you agree with Apple's policy of 60% in the office and 40% at home?

Because a lot of people here seems to disagree with Apple. If they do, then they must believe that 60% is too much.
So what percentage should Apple enforce according to you?

I'm one who agrees. And I'm guessing it's a bit more nuanced than that, as a function of job category.

In any case, it's a very generous policy. If it's not generous enough for some, then the remedy is to seek employment at companies where their requirements can be satisfied. A win-win solution.

 

[pshufd]

So? They don’t qualify for class action lawsuit? Or can’t lawyers make millions out of that? Here’s proof.

Apple Employee Bag Security Check $30M Class Action Settlement

Apple will pay nearly $30 million as part of a settlement resolving class action lawsuit claims it violated California law with its employee security bag check policy.

topclassactions.com

Do you think that a lawsuit will arise? The employee in this case didn't cite any negatives with Apple.

Employee lawsuits are rare because you sign away a lot of your rights when you accept employment.

You can see the relative imbalance in power in the ongoing unionization efforts at Starbucks and Amazon.