I know almost none of those things. I've done great as an ML engineer. Sure I have to learn new things sometimes, but curiosity is why I got inti this in the first place
Remember that there is a lot of nuance to these sorts of deals.
I don’t have any domain knowledge, but I recently saw an executive put in restaurant reservations for five different places the night of our team offsite, so he would have optionality. An article could accurately claim that he later canceled 80% of the teams eating capacity!
But if it was reported in the press that your team was going to eat 5 meals at the same time before it was revealed that it was just an asshole screwing over small businesses, then that correction in eating capacity should be reported.
That was the point in the parent. How this is being reported is bit skewed.
And also there is the problem that nobody reads corrections. Lies run around the globe before the Truth has tied its shoelaces, or some quote like that.
I’ve never worked in grocery but from my experience in other pre-internet industries I can easily imagine a politically marginalized CTO who would rather spend $1k on a turnkey solution than herd 100 cats who can’t reliably format a spreadsheet of data.
I have been wondering about this in the context of being ready for work in the age of LLM‘s. What nobody can deny is that they memorize information at a superhuman level, so it might reduce the value of having done that myself. On the other hand, “couldn’t you just google that“has been an erroneous retort to the value of space repetition for decades, during which I’ve gotten a lot of value out of doing. has been a erroneous retort to the value of space repetition for decades, during which I’ve gotten a lot of value out of doing it.
In the same way that notation is a tool of thought [1] actually knowing facts paves routes[2] of possibility and impossibility (instead of pausing everything to research or drowning in too many paths).
It's akin to seeing 37*55 and knowing it won't be a 20 digit number, greatly reducing your search space. Imagine feeding someone without knowing what they like (how do you choose something?) vs. "allergic to dairy"?
It seems pretty easy to illuminate this question once you consider concrete examples.
For example, neither google nor an LLM replaces the utility of building your own vocabulary so that you can express yourself in a foreign language when you're in convo with someone.
If the goal is for you to be understood in a foreign language, this will become possible in the near future with real time translation with something as simple as an AirPod. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WzUnEfiIqP4
A software-based spaced repetition system probably could have made someone appear borderline superhuman in the era before Google. Google cleared a lot of this low-hanging fruit, and then it became "merely" the best way to cram facts into your noggin so you can become an expert at whatever you want, which is still extremely valuable. Your doctor probably used SRS to get through medical school, and now look at how much money they're making. For most professions, nothing -> Google was probably a much bigger jump than Google -> LLMs, so I expect that to still largely be the case.
TL;DR: SRS is, perhaps counterintuitively, most useful for those of us seeking true mastery over something.
> it became "merely" the best way to cram facts into your noggin so you can become an expert at whatever you want
Counterpoint: a noggin full of facts does not an expert make.
Makes a good cocktail party trick,
or Jeopardy champion.
Expert in a subject?
Definitely not.
> during which I’ve gotten a lot of value out of doing. has been a erroneous retort to the value of space repetition for decades, during which I’ve gotten a lot of value out of doing it.
I imagine spaced repetition is not actually a cause of repeating yourself. That's just caused by being too lazy to proofread before you post.
> What you remember becomes part of your thinking and reasoning
I find it also true for books, you unconsciously internalize things by reading the full book VS reading a summary. I sometimes reread books I read 10+ years ago and I often have these "ah so that's where I got this idea from". Most of the time it isn't even about the main point of the book, it can be a sentence or a dialogue that left an imprint on your psyche
I'd hate to be a simple proxy between google/llms and the real world
I would even go as far as to say, you don’t know something, so you look it up, and now you know the thing. Onus to remember notwithstanding, I personally feel like when I look something up I didn’t know, it tends to stick.
Except for the regex syntax, and ffmpeg pipelines, I won’t ever dedicate brain-space for those.
it doesn't have to become part of your thinking and reasoning, even in context, even though it does carry some actual weight. because it can be (over)shadowed. something that some people currently learn to code into LLMs, if I understood layering and quantization more or less superficially correct.
so, you might want to google it, because some part in the back of your head itches to remember something that is actually relevant and located on the rim (of the knowledge graph) of something that you do remember.
fucked up indexing. an 8 hour rabbit hole and that one of 43 links you didn't open in a new tab.
You have to start somewhere, and then economies of scale can work their magic. The most inspiring example in the last 30 years is probably photovoltaic solar panels.
Another anecdotal data point : I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out SVN too. I think I was using TortoiseSVN FWIW but basically gave up on my two person project
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it sounds like you should look into stoic philosophy. I think it is overly hyped, and actually caused me some damage when I applied it too much, for too long, but definitely one of several worthwhile perspectives to have deeply internalized.
This seems on brand for an old tech company like AT&T. But Amazon is a puzzle to me. it’s been a decade since people started talking about how terrible it is to work there, and how all of the squeeze they put on employees is for short term gain, but they have clearly had immense growth since then, and (while every company has failures) considerable innovation. How are they “getting away with it“? Shouldn’t all of the high performers have left by now?
They simply can afford to pay more high performers. And since they have sustainable growth, there is no reason to switch course of action.
Compare this to consulting which is known for squeezing their employees to the max. They simply pay enough that there is a steady stream of new highly qualified and highly capable candidates.
These are two wildly different companies. AMZN still has some upside and pays a lot in equity. The only reason to own T is for the dividend while your capital sublimates.
That said AMZN is a lot more like the old model, they never really subscribed to the Microsoft & Silicon Valley ways of doing things.
> it’s been a decade since people started talking about how terrible it is to work there, [...] How are they “getting away with it“?
Some companies have tough working conditions in some areas of the business, and not others.
You work for Amazon as a delivery driver or a warehouse picker? They'll probably be breathing down your neck about performance all the time, and not paying all that well, and you'll have to stand and walk a lot, lift heavy things, and endure heat and cold, and work unsociable hours, and they'll be mad if you call in sick. Maybe they tell you you're "self-employed" and you never know how much work they'll have for you each week, you get no sick pay, no holiday, and you're subtracting the costs of your own car, fuel and insurance from your pay packet.
On the other hand, if you have a white collar job in the retail division of the business? You'll still have demanding targets to meet, and the pay might not be great - but you'll know you're going to get paid each week, you'll be working normal hours in a nice air-conditioned office, and you'll be able to take sick leave when you're sick.
And if you've got a white collar job in AWS? levels.fyi claims after a single promotion you'll be on US$275,000.
> Shouldn’t all of the high performers have left by now?
What I hear is that the pay is really good, and worth it if you can tolerate the high workloads. I assume most FAANG high performers who also are workaholics would do well in Amazon's environment.
There are ways to throw money at the stress you are feeling, which will still be cheaper than divorce. Children can get much easier as they mature, which might give you space to work through your marriage even if it feels impossible now.
I was deeply burned out at the 14 mark with my first child. I did lots of things since then and am much better even after more children.
Yes, I also found the first child much harder than the second, which I wasn’t expecting.
I’m one of those people who had a strong feeling of falling in love with my child right away, but even so the toil and sleep deprivation ground my sanity down to a low I never reached before or since.
I was really anxious about #2, but a) we spent some savings and hired much more help for the first year, and b) she just sleeps better than her older brother, which is luck. It’s been incomparably better.
To the parent poster, look into a mother’s helper, or even a cleaner who can come daily. We also had to switch to formula earlier than we planned (biology intervened), and that transition had to happen even earlier with #2, and frankly that helped too. I’ve become very pro-formula. Nursing is nice when it’s working, but if it’s not, it’s not worth making a tough year harder—formula has gotten quite good and lets you balance the load better. The breastmilk-IQ link everyone’s scared of isn’t borne out by sibling studies anyway.
