I mean, really depends on which company. The variance between different companies here is huge. My current model is that both the world’s best teams and cultures are located in for-profit companies, as well as the world’s worst epistemic environments. So I find it very hard to speak in generalities here (and think it’s somewhat obviously wrong to claim that for-profit companies in-general select for distortions of truth).
When you say that “world’s best teams and cultures are located in for-profit companies”, what companies do you have in mind? SpaceX? Google? Jane Street…?
Bell Labs is the classical example here, as clearly one of history’s most intellectually generative places.
It also appears that sadly, at least for the purpose of people really understanding engineering and computer science, Deepmind appears to be a quite good place for thinking, as have some other parts of Google been.
Bridgewater also seems quite good as far as I can tell. At least when I’ve talked to people who worked there, and when I read Ray Dalio’s work, I get a pretty good impression, though it’s of course hard to tell from the outside (I remember you shared an article like 4 years ago with some concerns, though I don’t currently buy the contents of that).
(Note: this comment delayed by rate limit. Next comment on this topic, if any, won’t be for a week, for the same reason.)
Very ironic! I had all three of those in mind as counterexamples to your claim. (Well, not Deepmind specifically, but Google in general; but the other two for sure.)
Bell Labs was indeed “one of history’s most intellectually generative places”. But the striking thing about Bell Labs (and similarly Xerox PARC, and IBM Research) is the extent to which the people working there were isolated from ordinary corporate politics, corporate pressures, and day-to-day business concerns. In other words, these corporate research labs are notable precisely for being enclaves within which corporate/company culture essentially does not operate.
As far as Google and/or Deepmind goes, well… I don’t know enough about Deepmind in particular to comment on it. But Google, in general, is famous for being a place where fixing/improving things is low-prestige, and the way to get ahead is to be seen as developing shiny new features/products/etc. This has predictable consequences for, e.g., usability (Google’s products are infamous for having absolutely horrific interaction and UX design—Google Plus being one egregious example). Everything I’ve heard about Google indicates that the stereotypical “moral maze” dynamics of corporate culture are in full swing there.
Re: Bridgewater, you remember correctly, although “some concerns” is rather an understatement; it’s more like “the place is a real-life Orwellian panopticon, with all the crushing stress and social/psychological dysfunction that implies”. Even more damning is that they never even bother to verify that all of this helps their investing performance in any way. This seems to me to be very obviously the opposite of a healthy epistemic environment—something to avoid as assiduously as we possibly can.
I mean, really depends on which company. The variance between different companies here is huge. My current model is that both the world’s best teams and cultures are located in for-profit companies, as well as the world’s worst epistemic environments. So I find it very hard to speak in generalities here (and think it’s somewhat obviously wrong to claim that for-profit companies in-general select for distortions of truth).
When you say that “world’s best teams and cultures are located in for-profit companies”, what companies do you have in mind? SpaceX? Google? Jane Street…?
Bell Labs is the classical example here, as clearly one of history’s most intellectually generative places.
It also appears that sadly, at least for the purpose of people really understanding engineering and computer science, Deepmind appears to be a quite good place for thinking, as have some other parts of Google been.
Bridgewater also seems quite good as far as I can tell. At least when I’ve talked to people who worked there, and when I read Ray Dalio’s work, I get a pretty good impression, though it’s of course hard to tell from the outside (I remember you shared an article like 4 years ago with some concerns, though I don’t currently buy the contents of that).
(Note: this comment delayed by rate limit. Next comment on this topic, if any, won’t be for a week, for the same reason.)
Very ironic! I had all three of those in mind as counterexamples to your claim. (Well, not Deepmind specifically, but Google in general; but the other two for sure.)
Bell Labs was indeed “one of history’s most intellectually generative places”. But the striking thing about Bell Labs (and similarly Xerox PARC, and IBM Research) is the extent to which the people working there were isolated from ordinary corporate politics, corporate pressures, and day-to-day business concerns. In other words, these corporate research labs are notable precisely for being enclaves within which corporate/company culture essentially does not operate.
As far as Google and/or Deepmind goes, well… I don’t know enough about Deepmind in particular to comment on it. But Google, in general, is famous for being a place where fixing/improving things is low-prestige, and the way to get ahead is to be seen as developing shiny new features/products/etc. This has predictable consequences for, e.g., usability (Google’s products are infamous for having absolutely horrific interaction and UX design—Google Plus being one egregious example). Everything I’ve heard about Google indicates that the stereotypical “moral maze” dynamics of corporate culture are in full swing there.
Re: Bridgewater, you remember correctly, although “some concerns” is rather an understatement; it’s more like “the place is a real-life Orwellian panopticon, with all the crushing stress and social/psychological dysfunction that implies”. Even more damning is that they never even bother to verify that all of this helps their investing performance in any way. This seems to me to be very obviously the opposite of a healthy epistemic environment—something to avoid as assiduously as we possibly can.
Xerox PARC also had some impressive achievements.