[kgraves]

Disagree, I don't find this a "toxic" comment. The parent makes a point. Such potential in my opinion from these researchers/engineers and instead gets scooped up by the big tech companies, hoarding the talent such that nobody can compete with them.

Happy for Chris's decision to be at the big G doing his research, but it seems every researcher/engineer is obsessed with being at the big tech companies being on their resume, which is such a shame.

[seanmcdirmid]

Working research for a big tech means you are much less subject to the “publish or perish” req of a university. It often isn’t a must have resume point, but it actually gives you a different kind of freedom.

[kgraves]

Given that he was awarded a Thiel fellowship, this gives him more freedom to research what he wants and make an impact than big tech and can literally go anywhere.

But obviously chose Google.

[colah3]

Hello! The Thiel Fellowship was a wonderful period for me, and gave me a lot of freedom to work on different topics. I'm very grateful for it.

Unfortunately, the Fellowship only lasts for two years. Towards the end, it was actually super stressful. How could I support myself while continuing to work on what I thought was important? And if I wanted to live in the Bay Area, how could I event get immigration status to work and live there?

Getting to work at Google Brain at this point let me continue to do what I was doing before -- many of my blog posts, including the one being discussed here, were written while I was at Brain.

[lonelappde]

Olah isn't even at Google anymore.