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

[Adamantoise]

Apple's main concern is not the quality of your life. You don't want to work at the office? Okay--there are plenty of people who will take that Apple $$$ and be happy to work in Cupertino.

He removed himself from a situation that was no longer working for him. Why do you feel he should stay?

He's an adult with options, he is exercising his options.

Honestly, most of you just sound bitter that you don't have cushy jobs where remote work is an option. That is the legitimately the only reason I can think of for people to be upset about a complete stranger's career choices lol.

 

[MacBH928]

Most of those workplaces were people's homes, especially rurally. The "boss" owned them, but they were homes. Cities were far less densely populated and built up than today, of course, so not really industry or offices, but did have workhouses, which literally were places people lived and worked. Here's some interesting info:

No, remote work isn’t a “new” perk—it’s been around for about 1.4 million years

Sure, everyone is talking about remote work and flextime now, but at every point in human history, there has been some version of “working from home.”

www.fastcompany.com

Life Before the Industrial Revolution

https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html

People even slept differently before the industrial revolution.

So you are telling me a blacksmith was melting and banging iron with his co-workers between his kids in the living room and a carpenter and his two assistants are shaving and cutting wood in his bedroom?

Even if the workshop was attached to the home it was still a different place, not where he sleeps and eats. Even in that case those jobs were single man jobs, if 2 people worked together than at least one of them has to leave his home to go to the other's to work there so its not "working from home" any more.

 

[pshufd]

Apple's main concern is not the quality of your life. You don't want to work at the office? Okay--there are plenty of people who will take that Apple $$$ and be happy to work in Cupertino.

There aren't many with the skills and background of Goodfellow. In fact there might not be any others.

 

[firewood]

So you are telling me a blacksmith was melting and banging iron with his co-workers between his kids in the living room and a carpenter and his two assistants are shaving and cutting wood in his bedroom?

Pretty close. Many shops were on the ground floor, with the living quarters (bedrooms) directly overhead, and the kids helping with various chores around the shop. Separate "living rooms" were a luxury.

 

[Itinj24]

I don't even know where to start... But the 10,000 ft answer is:

Some features of Siri use ML, just like some features of Face ID, Touch ID, Spotlight, etc.

ML ranges from least squares to GANs.

That's why it's so silly to say "hur durr, Siri no work! So ML employee sucked".

Goodfellow is the brain behind https://this-person-does-not-exist.com/en

Machine Learning has way more applications than trivial virtual assistants. For whatever reason (and I'm not sure why), I just assumed the audience of MacRumors would know these things.

Again, I’m a consumer, not an employer. I don’t need this guy’s resume. I don’t care what he did other than his involvement with the products I purchase.

Siri may be a trivial feature to you, but to me and the many other HomePod owners, it’s a critical feature when that’s the main way to interact with it. It’s obvious you don’t own any HomePods. When a headlining feature of a product is Siri, it’s not trivial.

Yes, I understand ML goes beyond that of a voice assistant. You can continue to be condescending but just because it works with other features doesn’t make me happier that it doesn’t work well with Siri. Stuff working as advertised should be a bare minimum but you can congratulate Apple on a fine Spotlight search feature.

Further… of course an Apple employee should be blamed for a botched feature. Who the heck else you going to blame? A Google employee? The consumers? Sheesh.

 

[tranceme]

Absolutely no reason for anyone to work in the office. Zoom/Teams is perfectly fine, and likely more efficient than being in an office. I mean, you at least save the hour or 2 you waste commuting every day.

yeah, I said that too. But, had a few meetings with my team in person. Crush Zoom/Video garage. That said, I only ask my team to come in every once and while. But, you an't beet in person for really deep diving into stuff.

 

[tranceme]

Is person tied to Siri? Because if so, might be a good thing for Apple.

 

[tranceme]

Commuting stress, road rage, less sleep, less time for yourself, less time for your family, social interactions you don't care for, uncomfortable clothes, exposing yourself to potential health hazard, less productive, more stressed. Working in the office is ********. Period.

yeah, but I remember one guy telling me that he is going crazy at home and needed the office to get a break from home. So, I dunno.

 

[bpeeps]

Apple's main concern is not the quality of your life. You don't want to work at the office? Okay--there are plenty of people who will take that Apple $$$ and be happy to work in Cupertino.

If you want to simp for corporations, be my guest. But quality of life is a valid reason for people quitting their jobs for remote-only work.

 

[Ethosik]

As someone who’s had a 20+ Year tech career in Silicon Valley you can’t have spontaneous collaboration while sitting on your ass at home!!

Message on Teams. Problem solved.

I cannot do my best work when someone is chatting to the person next to me about movies or TV shows for over an hour while I am trying to work and getting distracted.

 

[Ethosik]

Of course not, people are entitled to two 10 minute breaks per day in addition to an 30-60 minute lunch break. It's not treating employees like children...its expecting people to perform at 100% effort while on the clock. While on the company's dime you should be focused on work. Too many people think of work as an inconvenience and they only give what they feel they should. Just like these lazy Amazon employees trying to unionize because the big mean Amazon actually wanting to track their efficiency and effectiveness while they are on the clock...oh the horror of it all...actually having to work while being paid to work....

Do you know what happens a lot of times in the office? Idle chatter about this movie, or that TV show, get a group of 6 people all around someone trying to work and discuss the ball game last night!

 

[Ethosik]

People thinking you can work from home effectively are crazy. You have all kinds of distractions. Your family interrupting, pets, television, getting mail/packages. Your time is not dedicated to working as it would be in the office. Plus, when you need something and you send a Teams message, people ignore it due to distractions. If in the office, I can simply walk to their desk. People refuse to turn on cameras on calls, so facials expressions and body language are lost.

I am single, no pets or kids, no TV in my office, and I only check for mail/packages on my breaks.

Counter that with the constant "Hey Bill you see that movie last night?!" or "Hey Bill what did you think of the game last night?!" talks that last over an hour every day.

And that is with one person. Try getting stopped by 10 people a day in the hall talking about the game or movie. Yeah I am WAY more productive in the office (sarcasm).

 

[KennyJr]

People don't quit choice jobs for petty reasons. I don't know his true reason but I'm guessing that the job proved to be just too much for him.

 

[Ethosik]

Which means you effectively distracted whoever you interrupted and potentially made them lose a significant amount of productivity due to bringing them out of focus, which will require time to achieve again.

There are places for synchronous communication and places where asynchronous communication is far better and you needing something does not mean it's always a good idea to interrupt someone else "right now".

In remote working asynchronous communication is incentivized and if you need something "right now" you can still issue a direct call, whereas in the office going directly to someone is incentivized which is much more disruptive for their work focus.

THIS! I cannot stress enough that people need to be thoughtful of other's work. At any given day I have about 50 tasks to do. Sorry if I can't get to a Teams message the EXACT SECOND you send it! This leads to massive delays in my work REQUIRING ME to work more when in office because people just like to approach my desk.

 

[jonblatho]

At my company we were so effective working from home for the last 2 years... that they are giving every employee the option to do what they want. You can choose full-remote, in-office, or hybrid... and if you go hybrid you can set your own in-office schedule.

Now - my particular team (of programmers of scientific software) are _ready_ to get back to the office _some_. There are some interactions that we weren't able to have as effectively when we were full remote. Most of our team settled on a hybrid schedule with 3 days a week in the office and we lined them up: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. That way when anyone is in the office, we all are, so we can collaborate.

We have always had a few full-remote people - and a couple more chose to go that path. We've set up a nice "Teams Room" using a Logitech Rally Bar that lets us pull our full-remote people into discussions very easily.

I don't understand all of the hatred towards these people who are quitting because their job is saying they need to be in the office. There are many jobs in the world (especially in tech)... and we should all work to find the one that fits our goals/lifestyle/pay needs. For some people that will mean working from home - so they should seek out employers that do that.

Why are so many here so *angry* ?

What a concept — instead of a one-size-fits-all policy, upper management letting employees (presumably with supervisor approval) do what works best for them.

That’s what my workplace did starting this March after instituting (effectively) a no-remote-work policy last summer. They started having trouble attracting and retaining workers and backtracked quickly. I’ve since elected to work some Mondays and all Fridays from home. It’s wonderful, and I’m both happier and more productive as an employee as a result. That’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s fine, too.

It’s uniform policies like this that are the issue at the end of the day. If an employee’s direct supervisor has no issue with them working remotely, why should upper management care?

 

[Adamantoise]

Again, I’m a consumer, not an employer. I don’t need this guy’s resume. I don’t care what he did other than his involvement with the products I purchase.

Siri may be a trivial feature to you, but to me and the many other HomePod owners, it’s a critical feature when that’s the main way to interact with it. It’s obvious you don’t own any HomePods. When a headlining feature of a product is Siri, it’s not trivial.

Yes, I understand ML goes beyond that of a voice assistant. You can continue to be condescending but just because it works with other features doesn’t make me happier that it doesn’t work well with Siri. Stuff working as advertised should be a bare minimum but you can congratulate Apple on a fine Spotlight search feature.

Further… of course an Apple employee should be blamed for a botched feature. Who the heck else you going to blame? A Google employee? The consumers? Sheesh.

You're blaming a director of ML for Siri's failings... And I'm telling you that that employee may not have even been involved with Siri at all.

By your own admission, you know nothing about ML, I'm telling you that the field of ML has a scope that goes beyond virtual assistants.

In other words, you're assuming he was charged with Siri for reasons that aren't really clear to me. All I can imagine is that you as a consumer don't have a good understanding of what ML actually is and you therefore conflate it as Siri.

 

[Ethosik]

Never said I did. However, his mainstream narrative thanks to websites like this, is a pouty, self entitled baby who doesn't respect his employers wish to return to work. If he wants to "protest", all the power to him. I wouldn't touch that guy with a 10 foot poll if I were hiring. The problem is the insanity of "leeway" companies are affording these employees. Apple has its structure and you need to respect it as an employee. It is the classic give an inch take a mile. The lack of respect and "you owe me" mindset is so far extreme now. The entire world is losing the sense of rules and respect for others and their employers. It's getting so far beyond gross. I have had a handful of job titles in the tech field, if I pulled this crap I would have lost all respect for myself. I grew up with a family business that we all pitched in hard to succeed. We gave the community the honour of providing employment at our business. There are unions and/or laws protecting employees. This entire mindset of the employees dictating the rules is insulting to the companies that provide the employment and the leadership that knows what they are doing to make the business successful. Believe what you want. But when the tables turn and their "expertise" aren't required in the work force anymore, I would love to see them pull that "protest" mentality crap.

I don't understand the logic on this site sometimes.

So saying "Its not working out, I am getting another job" is pouty, self entitled baby?

Instead you want that person to "protest", potentially at the office. I think you have things in reverse here.

If my job suddenly moves the HQ to Florida and requires me to leave where I am now, do you expect me to do so and protest in Florida? Or should I do the reasonable thing and say "Sorry every one of my family and friends are here so I am not going to Florida" and quit.

 

[Adamantoise]

Message on Teams. Problem solved.

I cannot do my best work when someone is chatting to the person next to me about movies or TV shows for over an hour while I am trying to work and getting distracted.

Some people just need their coworkers to hold their hand through everything it seems. Reminds me of group projects where one or two people get carried by the rest of the group.

If you're an experienced professional in any field of science, you shouldn't need a physical whiteboard to effectively communicate ideas.

We have so many virtual tools these days that the only reason I can think of people needing to meet in person is to socialize or not being able to accomplish things on their own.

 

[Adamantoise]

I don't understand the logic on this site sometimes.

So saying "Its not working out, I am getting another job" is pouty, self entitled baby?

Instead you want that person to "protest", potentially at the office. I think you have things in reverse here.

If my job suddenly moves the HQ to Florida and requires me to leave where I am now, do you expect me to do so and protest in Florida? Or should I do the reasonable thing and say "Sorry every one of my family and friends are here so I am not going to Florida" and quit.

You're looking for logic where there isn't any.

Honestly, people that are complaining about him quitting are just envious they don't have the same career options.

As I said earlier, the real story here is the number of people that care this much about a stranger's career choices.

He doesn't like the situation he is in and chose to leave, and that's apparently an issue for some people. They want him to be unhappy because they are. Misery truly loves company.

 

[ThomasJL]

return to office work = COVID denial

 

[Ethosik]

Before COVID no one even thought of it?? Have you not read this thread or been exposed to the outside world??

Innumerable people have already posted about how they, their coworkers, and people they know have been doing WFH for many years. A programmer friend of mine worked remotely for years and has since moved country because it has worked so well for him. My GF's ex has lived as a nomad, and he's a highly regarded programmer who has continuous work and never does any of it in anyone's office.

The difference after COVID19 is that now WAY MORE PEOPLE are aware of this option after living it, and discovering that it's WAY BETTER for them.

Not to mention that I applied to Apple for....wait for it....a Remote position. And guess what year? 2015! WAY before COVID, and Apple had a remote position available on their website.

 

[Ethosik]

I specifically mentioned the HomePod, HomeKit and iOS 15.

Yes, iOS 15 is when Siri on the HomePod went full on…, right during the thick of WFH. If you used the HomePod with HomeKit for the past few years, you’d understand. It’s a warm heaping pile of donkey dung right now and many of the users in the HomePod/HomeKit sub can attest to that.

Never had issues with Siri on the HomePod, pre iOS 15.

So once again, glad he left. His product is terrible and the end users are paying for his laziness.

I have no issues with it. I have a Homepod Mini, I have a lot of Homekit scenes and devices, and iOS 15. No issues here. I think people make mountains out of molehills sometimes.

 

[Ethosik]

Last time with you. Apple didn't hire people to chill at home and then whine like a toddler when they're told to get back in the office to do their job. Apple is their employer and can dictate terms as they see fit. They don't like it, don't let the door hit their ass on the way out.

Apple didn't hire people to drive to the office. If you can do the task you were hired to do from home, you accomplished the purpose why you were hired.

 

[SFjohn]

There are way more people looking to WFH than there are WFH positions, so something’s going to have to change…

 

[DeepIn2U]

I was at an in-person conference for work last week. They know of several dozen people — adding up to about 10% of attendees — who have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection since, and I'm sure there are more still who didn't think to notify the sponsor organization upon receiving their positive test result.

But sure, the pandemic is "pretty much over."

How many where hospitalized? Here in Ontario still over 1360 cases gov pushing to extend mandatories in province well over 5 million! 2nd day in 30 days reporting (none more) still no deaths.

How many deeaths reported?

This is an epidemic not a pandemic now all global bodies have stated this, just no gumption to make it official cause reasons. But that’s a topic for another thread.