Mamdani Hires Lisa Gelobter as Chief Tech Officer

As most people who have worked in engineering at large companies can attest, there are entrenched dinosaurs who have worked themselves up the management chain due to inertia. This is such an example. They are almost always out of their depth technically, and are great at taking credit for the work of others. There are people in this comments section, and online claiming she invented Adobe Shockwave.

This article claims she invented Adobe Shockwave while holding the title of "Director of Program Management".

https://www.govtech.com/workforce/tech-and-gif-pioneer-lisa-...

There are disparate sources online from Facebook and Instagram claiming she invented GIFs.

There are (incorrect) AI summaries when searching her name on Google that claim she invented Adobe Shockwave and GIFs.

> She was director of program management at Macromedia, which anyone who works in tech knows is more like a secretary type of role asking for project updates and timelines.

Also called Project Manager or Product Manager. It's generally the position that developers who don't like programming or are bad at it move to.

> I take issue with the title: `Groundbreaking Computer Scientist` in the NYT article

I remember when we weren't allowed to criticize the "authoritative source" here not too long ago. Is dang asleep at the wheel? I don't think the groundbreaking aspect has to do with her being a computer scientist. What about her or her attributes would make her groundbreaking in a nytimes article about her?

That may be a puff piece, but this comment reads like a slam? I don't know anything about her personally but the consensus among tech folks I follow and respect (and are politically aligned with...) are pretty universal in applauding the choice.

Disagreeing on politics is fine but let's not slam someone technically because we don't like them. Especially in a role where tech management is actually the way more relevant skill than hacking ability.

Non-animated though - there's a section on animated gifs coming out of Netscape in your link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF#Animated_GIF

I don’t have access to the article, so I’m basing this response solely on your comment. I wonder if the author thinks all animations on the web are called GIFs. So being part of creating one of the early methods of publishing animations on the web (Shockwave) confused the author.

̶N̶e̶t̶s̶c̶a̶p̶e̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶i̶m̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶G̶I̶F̶s̶. Edit: Netscape added looping to animated GIFs per reply. She apparently led that effort. The press is misreporting her actions as having invented GIF in the first place, which is wrong. That happened at CompuServe in 1987.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF#Animated_GIF

The misinformation around this is ridiculous. There's a bunch of articles, written more recently than not, that all make some kind of unfounded claim that Shockwave lead to GIFs or GIF animation. One of them is the source for the line in the Wikipedia article that makes a similar claim. The Wikipedia doesn't even mention her working at Netscape ever either. Brutal.

It's only interesting because 8 million people live there, and many more pass through the city

This population size is greater than most countries, and the density and speed of commerce there is fairly unique, so it's a constant coordination problem and experiment on a large scale that people look to.

Think of NYC more as one of the Free Cities in the old world.

They aren't a top level government by any means but they're mostly left alone to have nearly unilateral control of their jurisdiction. New York City has some unique challenges with key infrastructure (like all of the trains) being controlled by New York State and the Federal Government.

It varies by city. In some cities, mayor is barely more than a figurehead.

But regardless of power, what the NYC mayor does is widely reported and it's often a political stepping stone (if not always successful) to something greater.

Mamdani in particular is a celebrity right now, and with the reputation of the Democratic party in shambles, many eyes are on him.

NYC is a large city, consisting of 5 boroughs (divisions); each of which is larger in population than many US states. Its also the financial capital of the world. So just going by population alone, the NYC City Government represents more people than several state Governments. The economy of the city is also very high tech, high income etc. Although the Mayor does not have the same powers as Governor (e.g. they can't pass tax laws), he still has a lot of impact.

This is state by state, city by city. In some places, a mayor has broad powers over agencies, taxes, etc. That isn't quite the case in NYC. It's up to the state to delegate these powers, just as the federal government delegates powers to the states.

NYC is explicitly restricted (relative to other cities in NY) by the state in terms of what it can do. It can't independently pass its own tax laws (in many cases, at least), which other cities can, for example. Multiple agencies that would often be municipal are handled by the state or require state approval/ explicit delegation.

The city also gets exceptions for more power, including taxation powers. It's all case by case.

The NYC mayor's powers are complex for this reason. On the one hand, no one cares much about other mayors, so you have a ton of political power. On the other hand, you're not exactly empowered to do a lot without asking someone else to sign off.

NYC is a special case, because it’s at or near the center of the universe: the US financial hub, the center of theater, dominant in all entertainment media, the UN headquarters, the most important historical entry point for all immigrant groups, the most important city for book publishing, advertising, etc. It’s one of the five most important, powerful cities in the world. It has its own foreign policy and diplomatic relationships. Its mayors have frequently, and for many decades, been interviewed for their opinions on world affairs that would seem, at first glance, to have nothing to do with city government.

He has control over city agencies, budgets, personnel. Has little or no power as it relates to laws or infrastructure (like the MTA)--that's all state level.

Obviously NYC is very big and very wealthy. But the powers of a Mayor depend on the city.

I'm not a New Yorker, but here's how I understand it: NYC mayor appoints a bunch of people who run various bureaucratic legs of the city government. The guys who manage taxes, zoning, and whatnot. But the Mayor has to get those people approved by the city council. The mayor can also veto policies written by the city council, but he can be overruled with a two-thirds vote by the council. The council writes the budget, and the Mayor can only approve it or veto it.

This all sounds pretty normal, but it actually varies a lot depending on the city. In Chicago, for example, the Mayor writes the budget, instead of the council. But, the Aldermen (a Chicago city council member is called an Alderman btw) have a lot more power downstream of the budget, since they control stuff like zoning within their respective wards. The Aldermen also redraw their own political boundaries every 10 years, with no input from the Mayor whatsoever. I guess I'd say Chicago's mayor has less "first-order" power but more "second-order" power compared to NYC's mayor. Chicago is weird.

What should you make of this? I'm not sure. Maybe Mayors in Europe or Asia have way more power than Mamdani does, I don't know. I reckon that NYC mayor has more power than most American mayors, even when you ignore the differences in scale.

NYC's city budget is larger than every state apart from California, Texas, NY. At $115B, it equals Florida. By numbers alone, he's very influential.

Now NYC is a over-regulated mess that faces gridlock from both unions and the state representatives. In practice, it makes the NYC mayor a cog-in-the-machine. The real task for a NYC mayor is consensus building first, and allocation of funds second.

I so totally read this as "Hooli" on first reading.

Hilarious

Macromedia was a great company

Gell Mann amnesia hitting hard on this one.

The job is 99% program management and 1% tech. It’s the government. Anyone focused on tech will burn out in 2 weeks and quit loudly via twitter. You know, like DOGE.

This made me laugh but then I remembered I'm on HN and you're probably serious.

CTO is typically an executive position, not an IC position.

The CTO at my $500m, YC, series-C startup is not the most technical member of the staff, does not have the broadest technical knowledge, is not the most experienced, nor is he the best in any single technical field in our team.

You misunderstand the role of the CTO in most orgs. His job is to guide technical strategy based on where business is headed. Manage staffing levels, general technical org operations, manage people, be the final arbiter on some org-level technical decisions based on business strategy alignment.

>Notably absent on resume and in the news article is proficiency in AI or machine learning,

You say that like it's a bad thing.

There's still time to add the /s

Unnecessarily being voted down. Post is adding some information. Doesnt violate any HN rules. cc @dang

Good?

Seems like she was there when Hulu was great and when Macromedia was great.

Why do you think she doesn't have an high-level knowledge of AI? Like what's a NN, a transformer, how they're trained? Anyone can pick that up over a weekend. She doesn't need to have experience training models or designing new architectures for this job.

EDIT - someone posted a link to her Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Gelobter), which states:

"Gelobter enrolled in Brown University in 1987, eventually graduating in 2011 with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with a concentration in artificial intelligence and machine learning."

You could say the same about a cfo, if the company does not use financial engineering, etc.

The CTO role is to be invisible to the business, and do that by ensuring that the tech org is working

If they've been invisible, they are doing their job right.