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Comment by rajeshp1986 | Hacker News Reader

rajeshp1986

"I realized that, while I had a very deep understanding of artificial intelligence, I did not yet have some of the basics down. I knew how a database worked. I knew how an operating system worked. I knew how a compiler worked. But I hadn't taken classes on those topics, so I went back for my master's and took the rest of the AI offerings as well as a lot of programming basics. That way, I could actually go and market myself as a software engineer and say, “I've written a compiler. I've written an operating system. I've written a database. I know how they work"

I am confused. Is she talking about foundation CS courses like OS & database systems OR AI courses?

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Keep in mind that she is a queen of self promotion. When she was talking about 140 hour work weeks she conveniently left out the fact she was paying someone else to do her domestic work [0]. Or that most of her days involved meetings, lunches and dinners.

I am reminded of the story of Henry IV who stood barefoot in the snow for three days. And through the grace of God not getting frost bite. We have come so far when we no longer believe you need God for acts like this.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/marissa-mayer-who-just-ba...

> When she was talking about 140 hour work weeks she conveniently left out the fact she was paying someone else to do her domestic work

HER domestic work? There is absolutely no reason why she should or would mention this other than your sexist expectations.

Do you expect male CEOs to mention they pay someone to do their laundry and are abdicating their "domestic responsibilities"? Seriously?!

I liked the part were you called me sexist for making the complaint the mothers in Yahoo made against her when she cut their rights to work remotely.

You of course would know this if you read the link I provided, instead of the first line of my post.

You can't justify sexism with "hey look she did something bad for mothers". The merits of the article have nothing to do with what's wrong with your comment.

You can't justify 140 hour work weeks with accusations of sexism.

At some point you need to face the fact that you are a useful idiot to the lizard class by only seeing sexism, even when women are being worked to death by other women.

> she cut their rights to work remotely

Do you have a citation that mothers at Yahoo complained? Or that mothers at Yahoo were non-trivially worse off than other companies in their situation at that time?

disclaimer: ex yahoo

Yes, the link 'antt posted goes into it by the third sentence.

"This upset many employees – mothers in particular."

As for other companies, well, my employer existed at that time, had and still has a work-from-home culture that's more friendly towards mothers, and is routinely highly rated in most innovative company beauty pageants. The link from the link also details basically every other company in 2013 having a non-trivially better situation with flexible WFH policies.

I think you misread an emphasis where there was none.

Coming home from a 140 hour work week it’s nice if you don’t have to also do cleaning, cooking and other maintenance at home.

And to be fair, if you work that much you should probably have the money to pay someone to take care of that for you.

> Coming home from a 140 hour work week

There is no "coming home" if you work 140hrs per week (or 130, as MM claimed to have done in Google for years). I doubt it is sustainable by anybody (4hrs of sleep per night are simply not enough for anybody- assuming you can go from "work" to "sleep" and vice-versa in 0 time, excluding showering, dressing, teeth-brushing, eating and going to the loo-, you become unable to perform any intellectual job on that schedule). I suspect these figures come only from an extremely loose definition of "work" and are further inflated like the proverbial fish of fishermen's tales.

Probably the only hard limit to these claims is the fact that there are 168 hours in a week, otherwise it would be a contest between this CEO claiming he worked 190 and the other replying she worked 300.

> Do you expect male CEOs to mention they pay someone to do their laundry and are abdicating their "domestic responsibilities"?

Um, yes, if they're bragging about how much time they spend working? It indicates that their ability to put in that much time comes from a position of privilege (i.e., having the money to pay other people to perform tasks most people would have to take care of themselves), and hence isn't a reasonable expectation to project onto people not in that same position.

I would be far more willing to believe this if it happened in a discussion of Elon Musk or Jack Dorsey.

But I do not remember this point ever being made in discussions of those workaholics. Until a woman came along.

Also: the same user calls Mayer (and Holmes) „attention whores“ downthread. I rest my case.

My reaction to the post you’re replying to was different to yours, and you’ve helped me notice a subtle bias I had there. Thank you!

>When she was talking about 140 hour work weeks she conveniently left out the fact she was paying someone else to do her domestic work [0]

This is such an odd post. Who expects someone working 140 hour weeks to do all of their own house work? Sure, they're working 20 hours a day but they ordered chinese takeout and drop off their laundry!

Then, you link to child care as an example of "her domestic work"? Who complains about someone leaving their kid in daycare?

This is such an odd post. Who expects someone to work 140 hours a week?

>Who complains about someone leaving their kid in daycare?

The mothers in Yahoo who can't work from home any more and can't afford the $300 a day daycare in SF.

I think this is a bad comment.

Someone asked a technical question, and you managed to turn the topic into accusations against Marissa Mayer (and ones that at least invoke sexism).

There's a time and a place for criticism, but it's not every time someone asks a question about her.

Are there a lot of successful people who don't outsource their domestic work? It is a norm to be expected, not something you "have to disclose".

>It is a norm to be expected, not something you "have to disclose".

Because it might be something worth mentioning before you start telling people to plan their bathroom breaks.

>Could you work 130 hours in a week?” The answer is yes, if you’re strategic about when you sleep, when you shower, and how often you go to the bathroom. [0]

Adding "Oh and by the by I have a nanny, gardener, chef and maid too." makes the advice seem a lot less relevant.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-marissa-mayer-interv...

Got to be honest, if someone told me they worked 80 hour workweeks, I'd assume they paid someone to do their housework. That's just comparative advantage at play. In fact, I wouldn't expect them to even bring up their housework. I honestly don't think that's dishonest.

She majored in Symbolic Systems as an undergrad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_Systems

As I understand it, foundational CS classes are not a requirement for that degree. Although I do know people who majored in Symbolic Systems and completed such courses in undergrad, I assume they were electives rather than requirements.

She's talking about foundation CS courses. She talk 7 (!) AI courses in Undergrad but apparently missed out on core CS courses.

In Masters she got to cover those off. I think her majoring in Symbolic Systems not CS meant she missed out on compilers, DBs, etc..

Because she didn't study CS.

A university here has a cognitive science degree. Many people doing it and then a masters in CS to get at least a bit more practical with all the AI stuff they learned.

I did a CS undergrad and skipped compilers, O.S., DBs, and many others cause I just took as many crosslisted math/CS electives as possible (at least a theorems or math heavy course like automata if I couldn’t do better), then the minimum CS requirements to graduate

Also keep in mind this is AI circa 1996. Some changes since then

You quoted her saying both, no? "I went back for my master's and took the rest of the AI offerings as well as a lot of programming basics."

> I've written a compiler. I've written an operating system. I've written a database.

Yeah... I did both a Bachelor's and Master's degree in CS, and I've never written a complete working compiler, OS or database - I've written and tested "toy" versions of such, but that claim seems to be a bit hyperbolic. Maybe she did do all of those things, but none of those were coursework.

The rest of the sentence says “...and a lot of the basics”, so she did both, took all 13 AI classes and CS classes on databases and compilers etc.

Hope that helps.

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