Bumped into this 1993 NYT article via hacker news yesterday about the pitfalls of incentives not aligned with the tasks, which prompted the question: what should the employees do under the current incentive system (which lets assume can only be changed by the management)?
One strategy that seems to work for me (which I have been executing at a subconscious level) is to focus on “doing this” without thinking too much (if at all) about “getting that”. Specifically, do we want to do this even without that?
For example, I worked on SIGGRAPH papers because it was a fun and exciting experience, not because I needed them to get tenure or promotion. (I used to tell people that I have the best job in the world because I get paid to do what I like.)
2022-10-10
For best results, forget the bonus
2022-10-04
Your life experience is no less valuable than your career achievement
In a meeting with a collaborator she told me that she is starting her post-doc in Tokyo and plans to work on an additional project during her spare time. I shared my thoughts about exploring Tokyo (and Japan in general) and how I regret for not even visiting the great wall during my 3-year stay in Beijing (I was considered a workaholic in MSR Asia).
If you just relocated for a new job, explore the new city/country/culture/food/people/etc. instead of just your work. As I progress in my life I miss more about not exploring a place than having an extra career achievement.
2022-05-11
Burning the 3 am oil
This comment from Elon Musk reminded me that back in the good old MSR Asia days when Harry Shum would buy people free food at around 3 am and I tried to convince everyone in my projects to go home no later than midnight.
🙂
2022-04-07
Everybody brings their pitchforks
The reason for my NVIDIA-bye subject line is that my then manager John Danskin once sent out an email with subject everybody brings their pitchforks and content about a team member who broke the code check-in protocol of a chip we were working on, so I thought I should reciprocate with another quote.
John is also a former student of Pat Hanrahan, and one of the smartest people I have worked with.
It appears that he designed not only GPUs but also his own car and home.
2022-03-26
Dictator meeting room
In a meeting few days ago a colleague was sitting alone in a conference room, which, due to camera angle, appeared much deeper than it really is. We joked to the colleague that he looked like a dictator sitting at the end of a long table, and he immediately moved closer to the camera.
2022-03-24
Burnout from a thousand little tasks
A task might not seem to take much time or efforts to complete, but if we take on all of these coming our way, we will run out or bandwidth before too late.
Better judge each task as part of the whole (work-life) optimization.
2021-12-18
Justifying compensation
I find interesting the part of this Planet Money episode no shortage of labor stories about a founder who let her employees propose and justify their compensations.
This can be a great exercise to think about what one can contribute to and receive from a job, but hard to do with companies that are sufficiently large or involve in sufficiently complex businesses.
2021-11-07
With great power comes great hassles
With great power comes great responsibility, but the real trade-off lies in the hassles.
2021-11-01
Patents are more like swords than shields
Patents are commonly thought as some kind of protection that can shield the inventors from lawsuits, but this is not the top reason as others can file patents for similar inventions.
Instead, patents are best used as potential weapons for counter-suits; the best defense is a good offense.