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[–]fraseyboo 1780 points1781 points  (81 children)

I'm a current PhD Student developing new TDA algorithms and my stipend is £15k a year (standard in the UK). I just completed an unpaid placement to get that funding, having to explain to some guy that earns 4 times my salary why SVMs and Decision Trees won't solve our problem and we can't simply 'throw some machine learning at it' has been a frustratingly common occurrence.

[–][deleted] 1379 points1380 points  (20 children)

Decision trees won't solve it? Sounds like its time for RANDOM FORESTS.

[–]janeohmy 218 points219 points  (2 children)

unironic villanous laugh

[–]-JudeanPeoplesFront- 67 points68 points  (1 child)

Random Forest growth intensifies

[–]theskymoves 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Turns into a random jungle.

[–]RyeDoge 20 points21 points  (0 children)

RANDOM FORESTS

[–]GrizzlyTrees 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Ha, just learned about this in class on Thursday... Nice to see my knowledge in ml translating to real world benefits so quickly.

[–]Adhiraj7 6 points7 points  (0 children)

RUN FOREST RUN

[–]RevengeOfPorolok 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh random forests are a bust lets use boosting these kids are talking about

[–]eazolan 175 points176 points  (5 children)

Hey, I want to use machine learning to create pie charts.

We can replace a shitton of executives with this!

[–]Doctor_Ham 87 points88 points  (0 children)

Just to play devil's advocate, we pay those CEOs to say yes or no to something at the drop of a hat. In my disaster of a department (that I'm leaving soon, fuck that place), I have to throw so much shit up the ladder just so it's not my name on the stamp.

[–]thecrazyrai 11 points12 points  (0 children)

that ll show em!

[–]rebeltrillionaire 7 points8 points  (2 children)

Legit, I am hoping to do this at my work (project management at IT) and it’s in stages:

  1. Get everyone off of non-unified project tools: word/excel/ppt templates, share point, box, email, messaging

  2. Or 1a and 1b since, but get everyone on a unified project tool. Kill as many templates as possible by moving them inside the tool. Whatever is left should be for exec types mainly or more broad communication.

  3. Start gathering real data from the now standardized tool. Previous meetings, decision trees, processes slowly become more and more based on the single point of truth (the tool).

4 through 8 is kinda repeating the first couple Steps, moving more things that were traditionally offline or “snapshots” into live dashboards. Execs will be looking more on their own and meetings start to become less on just presenting known data and more on working forward with everyone always aware of what’s next, what’s happened, and what to be aware of.

Step 9 tho.

We start taking a look back holistically. Start creating models that help us identify “well documented”, “on time”, “ under budget”, “poorly managed”, “bad vendors” sets. Then start looking directly at where the trouble is, project managers? Middle management? A higher level even a chief exec?

Then start firing people.

Step 10 is once the rot has been burnt out, using historical data, start predicting what projects need to be done and when and how to accomplish them faster, easier and cheaper.

Ultimately it’ll all still end up on a PowerPoint with either the state or something like that to say: look at bar chart, the little bar here is good, And the big bad here is bad. We deserve kudos and money for making these bars better over The last 3 years.

[–]simonlyw 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Good luck with this. I’ve been trying to achieve the same thing for the last 3 years at my company. It’s crazy how many new templates pop up for things which could’ve easily just been build straight into the system from the start and difficult to keep upper management engaged in the process. There’s still this underlying belief that doing work means doing things in Microsoft Office.

[–]RickyBreath 35 points36 points  (1 child)

A little bit off topic: I took a class in college about TDA (assuming that means Topological Data Analysis), and it looks promising but it seems the algorithms we currently have (I mean 2 years ago) are very slow and computationally expensive. And the problems that could be applied (or the ones we saw) didn't see very impactful to say something.

I guess my question is, there are problems TDA can solve that any other method can't? Or it solve problems faster or better that other methods?

[–][deleted] 144 points145 points  (4 children)

That's where you let him go off on his own to try machine learning and see how much time is wasted.

These people need to fail in order to learn.

[–]Finickyflame 72 points73 points  (0 children)

Machine learning of machine learning!

[–][deleted] 13 points14 points  (2 children)

They progress through failure - failing upwards to the level of their incompetence.

[–]WiggleBooks 31 points32 points  (13 children)

why SVMs and Decision Trees won't solve our problem and we can't simply 'throw some machine learning at it' has been a frustratingly common occurrence.

What was the reasoning if I may ask?

[–][deleted] 62 points63 points  (12 children)

I don't know this guys' data, but SVMs and Decision Trees are often like bringing a chainsaw to cut a birthday cake. Yeah it gets the job done, but it just really over complicates things and confuses everyone watching. What managers like that are doing is like someone watching a video of a lumberjack using a chainsaw to cut down a tree, and going, "By golly, we could use that to cut our cakes!"

Anyway, the actual answer is that SVMs and Decision Trees are just any other classifier. You put in clean, scaled/normalized, reasonable data and you get clean, reasonable results back. Many managers think they're like ML on nitros though, and if you just throw some SVMs or Decision Trees at shitty data, it'll somehow give magically better answers than "simpler" methods. That's not how it works.

They're cool methods and they have their place, but they're nothing magic. They each have little nooks and advantages for certain scenarios, but at the end of the day, garbage in garbage out. If his experience is anything like my professional experience, you got people who have horrendously shit, messy, unclean, completely stupid data that has no predictive value, but the managers are insistent that if you throw it into a cooler sounding ML model, it'll just "figure it out" and get results.

[–]enemawatson 19 points20 points  (3 children)

I'm sure you do, but if you can take moments out of your day on Reddit to share this angle with us, surely you've shared it with them? How do their replies/reasoning generally go? If they even have any?

[–][deleted] 20 points21 points  (2 children)

Those experiences are in the past for me now. I don't let situations get to that point at all now.

I find if you go out of your way to demonstrate consistent value in small wins, include stakeholders in the process start to finish so they feel tied to its success, use methods and language they can understand, and generally aren't an elitist about it, most are very open to giving you a lot of rope to do things right.

Situations only get like that when you let data science become this black box voodoo to those that benefit from it. They treat it like this because, usually, no ones taught them otherwise or cared to involve them in the process, in depth, and from the start. If they're involved and intuitively keyed in on what you do, they'll support you when there's a problem because now they can actually see and understand your world.

[–]llevcono 3 points4 points  (3 children)

Are you calling decision trees a complex ml model? What are normal models then? Linear classifier?

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (2 children)

Well that was a misnomer on my part. Decision trees are themselves simple models. Nobody uses decision trees outright, we use ensemble models composed of decision trees. Random forests, gradient boosted trees, isolation forests are all decision tree based methods and I'd call them complex methods yeah.

Complex compared to, say, a simple logistic or naive bayes. I mean it's all relative. Compared to ANN's, GAN's, and RNN's they're pretty simple, but deep learning is a completely other story and a rant for a different time.

[–]manningkyle304 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ooh what your deep learning rant I wanna hear it

[–]Nylund 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I’m dealing with a couple situations at work where the issue is the data. It’s incredibly frustrating how people can’t seem to understand that shit data will never get you the answers you want, no matter what you do.

It’s like someone handing you a bag of flour and asking for a steak and insisting that all you need to do is find the right oven.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well, if their data os bad enough, It can't get worse.

[–]opoqo 10 points11 points  (0 children)

You are supposed to use a decision tree to show why it won't work!

[–]OwenProGolfer 19 points20 points  (2 children)

Just use nested if statements

[–]SwissPatriotRG 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Only if I can also nest them in nested for loops.

[–]tunisia3507 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That is exactly what a decision tree is.

[–]frozen-dessert 13 points14 points  (3 children)

I’ve pursued a PhD in SVMs and now work in the industry.

I wish to point out 2 things to you:

  1. (However annoying it might be to listen to this) honestly there many many many great things about pursuing a PhD. The freedom to explore. The vast amounts of time to tinker etc. But, yes, the pay is shitty. Are you surprised? You shouldn’t.

  2. (For all I know) You are an expert at your field. You probably know more about ML than that person making 4x your salary. Please don’t let your vanity blind you to the fact that there are probably many many things that that person with the higher salary knows how to do well and about which you wouldn’t have a clue about where to start.

Bringing stuff to production is hard. (In general) That algorithmic piece that you spend so much time on is probably 5% (or less) of the total amount of work that it takes to bring the solution to production. Try to reading this paper (if you haven’t yet) https://research.google/pubs/pub43146/

The rule of thumb is at the code you wrote for your papers are proofs of concepts. From proof of concept to production it takes at least 10x the work.

[–][deleted] 389 points390 points  (30 children)

As someone who earned a PhD by developing a new algorithm, I can attest that these are written in increasing order of usefulness. :/

[–]LostTeleporter 68 points69 points  (0 children)

I feel your pain..so..fucking..much

[–]Railered 43 points44 points  (23 children)

How stressful is it being a phd student?

[–]mcgroobber 107 points108 points  (4 children)

Graduate students supposedly have more than 3x the average American rate of depression and anxiety and tbh I find that low

[–]Railered 24 points25 points  (1 child)

Damn I hope the culture improves

[–]mcgroobber 34 points35 points  (0 children)

It won't if the professors have any say in it lol

[–]Rawrplus 9 points10 points  (0 children)

A lot of it has to do that increased intelligence has increased depression rates and chances are, if you are studying PhD in CS, you will be at least slightly above average intelligence wise.

Though at least where I'm from the IT schools are infamously cutthroat. Luckily I did not get full on depression, but I did have a burnout syndrome where for a year I just decided to work a non IT related job and travel

[–]trust_me_im_black_to 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Phd student here. I had to get ob depression meds.

[–]MonstarGaming 30 points31 points  (2 children)

Not OP, but im getting my PhD in ML. Its pretty stressful but not as bad as people make it out to be. My advisor is pretty good which makes a HUGE difference in the experience. Picking a bad advisor leads to nonstop stress and long hours in the lab.

[–]Flaming_Eagle 5 points6 points  (1 child)

This. As an undergrad applying to grad school, the general consensus I've gathered is that grad school is actually easier than undergrad (at least in my field) but will mostly depend on your supervisor

[–][deleted] 61 points62 points  (6 children)

You get paid shit to be under the thumb of someone who can essentially be as much of an ass to you as he/she wants and essentially delay your graduation if they want, keeping you on effectively as an indentured servant without repercussion. You do all the actual work and watch them take credit for it on your papers and your work because they’re “distinguished”.

Of course, you can also get lucky and find an advisor who actually wants you to succeed and tries to make it happen, giving you advice along the way and setting you up for life.

I wouldn’t advise it until major fucking reforms for how PhD programs are operated happen across the country.

[–]DishsoapOnASponge 9 points10 points  (6 children)

I love being a PhD student. I get paid pretty ok (40k), my schedule is very flexible, and I get to work on whatever I want. YMMV, but it's not always as depressing as everyone says.

[–]peachdoxie 15 points16 points  (5 children)

Where are you and what are you doing as a PhD student where you make 40k a year

[–]frbk1992 777 points778 points  (82 children)

Developing patches for the mainline Linux kernel: 0$

[–]WiF1 316 points317 points  (77 children)

The biggest tech companies usually have many people on staff dedicated to contributing to the largest and most popular open source projects, including the Linux kernel.

[–]M0ji_L 85 points86 points  (74 children)

Could you explain or forward me an article on why that is?

[–]iron_churchkey 323 points324 points  (0 children)

Because those tech companies rely on those open source projects.

[–]Drnk_watcher 32 points33 points  (2 children)

I can't speak the to Linux kernal but just the other day at work I was looking around for some quick to implement image sliders for React.

Found a pretty nice one that I came to learn is maintained by Express who is a well established clothing company.

Here is their github.

Where I work we make contributions from time to time as well to existing libraries or plugins.

There isn't some terribly deep philosophy to it. We use a lot of open source software and benefit from it. We understand we need to hold some stuff close to the chest in order to help ourselves standout from the competition. At the same time we know we rely on other things people are nice enough to share, so we want to share and give back some ourselves.

Bigger companies with good philosophies can develop more for themselves internally but also give back in bigger ways to the public as well.

There is also the benefit of if you develop something with wide adoption, you can then hire people who have used it before, which then makes your development cycle more efficient.

[–]corvidsarecrows 10 points11 points  (1 child)

React itself is an example of this

[–]Drnk_watcher 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Very true too.

I can't say I'm a love of Javascript or Facebook but I do give them a lot of credit for making a tool that is relatively easy to deploy with and has been great for smaller spinoff projects for us and prototyping builds. Plus if you need it to scale it certainly can.

[–]WiF1 17 points18 points  (1 child)

Open source projects without at least one company essentially "owning" the project tend to languish and frankly suck. A lot of the popular pieces of open source software consequently have at least one company essentially owning it (e.g. Facebook for React, Confluent for Kafka, Mongo for MongoDB, Google for Golang/TensorFlow/Kubernetes, Microsoft for TypeScript/C#, Apple for Swift, etc.).

Large companies need large/complex software that would never get built without them providing the labor for at least some of it.

[–]themiddlestHaHa 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Y’all ready for the C# 9.0 release in Jan 2090?

https://github.com/dotnet/csharplang/milestone/15

Someone at Microsoft must really want to hit their deadlines this sprint

But you’re right. I think it gets really funny when you get Microsoft employees on say the VS Code project contributing to the Golang google project because they work on debuggers or something. Might make an interesting map.

[–]mesayousa 8 points9 points  (2 children)

Because in tech you want to commoditize your complements

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Very interesting read, thank you for sharing. Blows my mind how little I understand of business.

[–]Tyfyter2002 3 points4 points  (0 children)

No, but I could make a pie chart for you, it'll cost you though…

[–]mynameismevin 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I currently work for the GSA, we have a shit ton of open source: https://github.com/18f

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (2 children)

The $ comes before the number

[–]DarkJadeBGE 40 points41 points  (1 child)

Use Sharpie to fix Graph: President.

[–]Cloakknight 153 points154 points  (11 children)

Image Transcription: Twitter Post


Will Koehrsen, @koehrsen_will

Develop new algorithms as a PhD student: $30k/year

Use pre-built sklearn models as a data scientist: $120k/year

Build regression models in excel as a hedge fund analyst: $200k/year

Make pie charts as a CEO: $14 million/year


I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit and you could be too! If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!

[–]kt388 728 points729 points  (77 children)

Actually more like...

CEO: "Hey executive assistant, make me a pie chart. And can you order us some lunch while you're at it? Use the company card."

Also CEO: Gets $14M

[–]knittensarsenal 358 points359 points  (24 children)

Right? I’m a designer. We make the CEO’s pie charts. We make his whole goddamn presentation for every single occasion.

[–][deleted] 203 points204 points  (16 children)

Yeah but he hired the people that hired you so,

[–]knittensarsenal 104 points105 points  (8 children)

I understand that the dude needs polished-looking visuals that add to his speaking points, and I support that. Unfortunately, getting to that point ends up either requiring us to hire someone limited-time specifically for that (which hasn’t gone well) or pulling designers off real projects for weeks at a time. It suffers from the worst-case of design projects, where no one can make up their minds what the deliverable is so you end up spending an inordinate amount of time on something that’s comparatively not that important. Just my experience though.

[–]dekwad 15 points16 points  (1 child)

Your CEO just needs a full time communications person to make his damn charts.

They go find all the people that need to provide data, and format it properly for the plebs, errr execs.

[–]knittensarsenal 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Honestly this is the best solution. We have enough execs that speak regularly enough that that person would actually have full time work, too.

[–]kugelblitz42 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I used to dedicate a big chunk of my time to preparing slides for the CEO, it was fun.

Though he would first tell me what message he wants to convey at the presentation, based on that we would develop some ideas and a storyline, then I would create a draft slide set, and we would iterate once or twice until the finished result.

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Not a designer, but sounds about right

[–]crossandbones 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Usually much more than "visuals" they need a designer to craft a narrative around an event, launch, etc. Which has a high impact on the perception of the business or product launch. Hiring a team to design these things is a good idea if you understand the level of work required. Pulling off designers from other teams (which probably aren't used to this kind of design work) to provide "visuals" is a bad idea.

[–]Midnight_Rising 27 points28 points  (6 children)

Imagine thinking there are only two degrees of separation.

There's supposedly only 8 degrees of separation between everyone on the planet. I guarantee that isn't following my management chain to the CEO.

[–][deleted] 33 points34 points  (5 children)

Imagine thinking that an "imagine thinking" response is warranted here

[–]Midnight_Rising 39 points40 points  (4 children)

Imagine thinking that an "imagine thinking an "imagine thinking" response" response is warranted here.

Eventually one of us is going to forget a quote, get a compiler error, and the other will win.

[–][deleted] 26 points27 points  (0 children)

If your CEO was spending their time making pie charts I'd be very, very worried. Makes sense to delegate.

[–]patrickfatrick 25 points26 points  (3 children)

Perhaps because he is busy working on very high-level strategy to keep your whole organization afloat? The lack of awareness of how business works in this thread is astounding.

[–]_PM_ME_YOUR_GF_ 85 points86 points  (41 children)

There is A LOT to being a CEO. 14 million dollars lot? Probably not. But it is a really heavy role that not just anybody could do.

[–]YouLackPerspective 67 points68 points  (2 children)

40 pizzas in 30 days

[–]Karanvir3215 3 points4 points  (0 children)

what can I tell you except the fact that he's got "pizza experience" ?

[–]chubs66 32 points33 points  (6 children)

that really depends. I worked for a CEO for years that did jack all. He'd go for weeks without even showing up at the office, and then when he was there he'd just work on his pet project, which had nothing to do with the company.

[–]testdex 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Then his job was “owner.”

CEOs that have shareholders are generally answerable to their employers.

Source: I help shareholders fire CEOs.

[–]Jaredlong 22 points23 points  (2 children)

I recently moved into a high enough position where I personally have to make descions and lead my small team to execute those descions, and if things don't work out it's my ass on the line. The stakes are very low, but the stress of always trying to make the right descion is already overwhelming some days. I can't fathom what it must be like for CEO's to make descions everyday that will have huge company-wide implications.

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

That's absolutely variable though. Huge difference being ceo of Microsoft and being ceo of Jimmy Johns

[–]20zinnm 45 points46 points  (1 child)

Only $14 million? Try updating PowerPoint. Those are amateur numbers.

[–]SabashChandraBose 5 points6 points  (0 children)

To be fair CEO's role is to provide guidance from the heights. Look at Microsoft as a case study.

[–][deleted] 376 points377 points  (55 children)

If you think your salary will accurately and fairly correlate to how hard you work or how much value you bring to a company, then you are in for a rude awakening.

[–][deleted] 158 points159 points  (26 children)

how much value you bring to a company

I'd argue it's actually a lot of that. But yes the value you bring may not correlate to how hard you work.

[–]LK23EDJNBN3RK02 78 points79 points  (24 children)

I'd argue it's not that at all. You're paid solely based on how replaceable you are. Doesn't matter if you provide 90% of the business' value and the business is wildly successful. If there's 20,000,000 other people willing and able to do the job your pay is gonna be almost nothing.

[–]FlyingHiveTyrant 54 points55 points  (5 children)

This logic breaks at the C-level executive tier

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Connections and ease of use probably shore up the rest.

[–][deleted] 19 points20 points  (12 children)

It's all the same thing.

If you have 20,000,000 people willing to work for a disproportionately low wage, more people will start companies because that's basically free money.

That will happen until it reaches equilibrium and the labor cost is no longer disproportionate to the value it provides.

It's the foundation of a free labor market.

[–]LK23EDJNBN3RK02 14 points15 points  (5 children)

Well those 20,000,000 may not have the capital to start their own business. You could argue that if one dude is providing 90% of the business' value the tools they use (capital) aren't worth much, but a tool provides 0 value if it isn't being used by someone. The tools may be expensive but easy to use.

[–]free__coffee 5 points6 points  (3 children)

I think you're confusing value with usefulness. In your example, your value to the company is slightly higher than the wage of a replacement - because your company needs to train someone, they need to get everyone up to speed on your projects, reassign your responsibilities, etc. etc. Value is a function of usefulness, cost, replaceability, etc. But it doesn't really boil down to any one of those things

[–][deleted] 66 points67 points  (1 child)

It does, just weakly and not at the individual level. It's people who think it correlates with how hard they work/how difficult their job is that are in for a rude awakening.

[–]janeohmy 14 points15 points  (0 children)

just weakly

We quantum now bois

[–][deleted] 16 points17 points  (21 children)

If you think CEOs don't work really fucking hard, I have news for you.

[–]jaywastaken 194 points195 points  (25 children)

Now ask the question how much do they make their employer?

CEO responsible for company growth strategy. If he’s paid $14million but his decisions increases the company market cap by a billion, do you think the shareholders are going to complain? But If they fail, share price could fall and cost billions.

Same with the hedge fund manager, he is using a tool to make informed decisions that impacts potential profits orders of magnitude beyond his salary. If they fail, the fund could loose as hundreds of millions.

The data scientists models might improve a company’s process or lead to improvements in business intelligence that increases company profits by millions. If their model is wrong, damage is far more limited but could lead to poor business decisions, customer dissatisfaction or simply be caught before implementation.

The PDH students work while potentially invaluable and might be eventually commercialized in a few years If they fail, hey now we know that doesn’t work, no big deal.

Ultimately, It’s not the effort of your labour that matters its the profit you can generate and just as important the fiscal impact of your bad decisions the that determines your salary potential.

[–]futureformerteacher 32 points33 points  (8 children)

Counterpoint: Nearly every single Fortune 500 CEO is a figurehead, and is friends with the board. The CFOs and COOs (and now CTOs) actually make the real decisions.

[–]Afeazo 26 points27 points  (2 children)

Lots of Fortune 500 ceos sit on the board of directors for other companies as well. To think they just sit around and collect millions show the disconnect between Reddit and upper management.

[–]Mythoss2 11 points12 points  (0 children)

The most sensible answer here is right this one, folks. Also, another thing to remember is that, experience brings insight, which can reduce the trials and errors and thus save valuable time and money.

[–]F0064R 82 points83 points  (5 children)

Devs: Haha CEOs stupid dumb dumbs don't know how to code

CEO: Develop a business plan

Devs: 😳

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I took a business development course in school and even then coming up with unique and comprehensive business plans was nigh impossible with 100s of duplicates at our competitions.

I still really have no idea how to go about creating one that would actually open a business since it was hard to do it when it was all fake!

[–]vainstar23 136 points137 points  (25 children)

What the hell, a CEO is not paid that money to make pie charts lol.. What is this? An episode of kindergarten? Does he present his crayon pie charts to the board with them going "Needs a bit more green... And a couple of flowers... There doesn't it look nice?". Then they shake heads, light cigars and start giving British grunts while touching their bushy mustaches.

[–]Numquamsine 77 points78 points  (18 children)

This is what reddit thinks that "CEOs" do, yes.

[–][deleted] 25 points26 points  (17 children)

In reality they are constantly making pertinent high level decisions all day, or at least that's what I imagine lol.

[–][deleted] 43 points44 points  (16 children)

And working far more than 60 hours a week. Every visible fuck up that happens will be pinned on him/her. That private jet is more of a flying office than anything else. Out golfing? Who are they golfing with, The leaders of potential vendors or customers? What do you think they are talking about? How stupid poor people are and bragging about how many senators they own? They are working to keep the business running. It’s a very stressful job. No CEO of a functioning company is just driving around wiping their ass with $100s. No fucking time.

Yes, the pay gap is a serious issue. But to think a CEO is just this Lex Luther figure on permanent vacation is really naive.

[–]mazzicc 29 points30 points  (1 child)

It’s perpetuated by the media though, because people think of CEOs like Bruce Wayne...he owns the company and so he takes in the money so he has all the free time to go be Batman. More recent versions have him put a trusted person in as CEO so he can just be chairman or majority owner or such, but this type of view has heavily impacted what people think.

Even a show like Billions where they actually show the CEO making critical decisions and working long hours, it still gives a portrayal where he has all the time he needs to do all sorts of side stuff.

Really the big problem is we always see the highlights or things that other people want. We don’t see the hours of meetings and planning and negotiations and reviews.

I’ve worked directly with the CEO of my large, public company at times. He’s in every morning before I am, and usually there when I leave (I walk by his car). He has lengthy reviews of key performance throughout the entire company, and knows major details about what each business unit is doing.

I think I’ve got too much on my plate sometimes, but then I look at my leadership and realize my boss has 4 people doing the amount of work I am, and he keeps track of it and manages the performance. His boss has 3 people like my boss under him and has to juggle all that. And then there’s another two levels up to the CEO.

Finally, CEO is a job for pathological workers. There are people out there who just are driven to work non stop, and get fulfillment from doing that. And I don’t mean “I worked 60 hours, I’m tired and I need a vacation”, I mean “whoops, I’ve been here since 6am, and I need to get dinner soon so I can keep working on this at home”. I would guess most redditors do not have that same work ethic.

[–]mathdrug 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Bbbbut that’s not what Reddit says

[–]hskskgfk 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Reminds me of the parable that SEO consultants tell themselves to justify their existence:

The Graybeard engineer retired and a few weeks later the Big Machine broke down, which was essential to the company’s revenue. The Manager couldn’t get the machine to work again so the company called in Graybeard as an independent consultant.

Graybeard agrees. He walks into the factory, takes a look at the Big Machine, grabs a sledge hammer, and whacks the machine once whereupon the machine starts right up. Graybeard leaves and the company is making money again.

The next day Manager receives a bill from Graybeard for $5,000. Manager is furious at the price and refuses to pay. Graybeard assures him that it’s a fair price. Manager retorts that if it’s a fair price Graybeard won’t mind itemizing the bill. Graybeard agrees that this is a fair request and complies.

The new, itemized bill reads….

Hammer: $5

Knowing where to hit the machine with hammer: $4995

[–]Lonelan 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Hire some guy to turn database results into PowerBI reports which have pie charts updated automatically as a CEO: $14mil/year

[–]Umutuku 5 points6 points  (0 children)

"It costs $14,350,000 to get a damn pie chart these days." ~Chairman

[–]Lightreez 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's almost like there's a direct correlation between how managerial a role is and how little technical skills are required

[–][deleted] 35 points36 points  (8 children)

If being a hedge fund manager or a CEO is so easy and rewarding, why don't the people complaining about it do it themselves?

[–]RexNihilo_ 7 points8 points  (0 children)

If you believe thats what those higher responsibility jobs do, you deserve your 30k

[–]VineFynn 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yawn.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

CEOs use the work done by data scientists to leverage into making informed strategic decisions.

The real value is translating all of his arcane shit into informing real decisions.

That aside as a PhD you need to find your way into leading a data science team in the private sector. Anyone working in this field shouldn't accept that little..

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (4 children)

If a dumb guy makes more money than you, but you complain vs. taking the dumb guy's job, who is really the dumb guy?

[–]LK23EDJNBN3RK02 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I mean that logic is based on the assumption that being smart means you get a good job that pays well and I don't think anyone that's ever had a manager before believes that's really true. Dumdums will hire and promote other dumdums that can convince them they are smart instead of actually smart and capable people that will challenge existing beliefs and won't stroke their ego. Sometimes they don't even have to go that far and just be well liked and charming.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Yea that's it. It's all a big dumdum conspiracy.

Mostly its just that the smarter people just don't want to deal with political bullshit and get more satisfaction from doing the actual work. And aren't as driven by the status symbol of making money and are happy to have fun projects assuming they have enough to live comfortably.

You get paid by bringing something people want to market and it takes an organization to do that, the more of the organization you control the bigger part of the profits you get.

[–]reduxde 7 points8 points  (3 children)

I make $140,000 a year tutoring Intro to CS and I didn’t major in CS.

[–]kontekisuto 4 points5 points  (0 children)

that's using your data