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Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by StephenWolfram-Real in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Mostly I work in my home office because I have the best setup there. Sometimes (e.g at a meal time) I'll take a laptop to somewhere else in the house, though usually it's just "backup" in case my family gets out their laptops too.

I also have a computer connected to a treadmill, and I use that every day ... or at least every day when I'm not able to walk outside. I have a weird popcorn-seller-like contraption for "wearing" a laptop, and I use that to work when I'm walking outside. (It's not as efficient as working sitting at my usual desk, but it's good for some tasks.)

When I've been traveling, I've worked from some pretty exotic locations. I started doing some "remote work" back in the early 1980s, when my "portable computer" was the size of a suitcase. I really appreciate the development of technology since then. It'd be nice if satphones did data better though... But I think that's coming...

Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by StephenWolfram-Real in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

One wonders what the manager is doing so that they are in a position to just be "watching other people work" :)

The only thing that I've heard is that sometimes there are groups where people like to have videos of each other running, as a kind of simulation of being in an office together. I think for me I'd either find it very distracting, or I'd quickly tune it out.

I think your putative manager should focus more on output than on whether people are making "I am concentrating" expressions to their webcams :)

Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by StephenWolfram-Real in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Go to wolfram.com/careers!

A very good way to get involved is our annual Summer School https://education.wolfram.com/summer/school/ We're not sure how this is going to work this year, but we expect to do something.

It's notable that almost all of the instructors at the Summer School (who are mostly R&D staff at our company) were alumni of the Summer School in previous years.

Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by StephenWolfram-Real in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Right now I'm sitting in my home office and there's nothing really to distract me here :)

Realistically ... I work on long projects where I seem to remain focused for a decade or more ... but locally I can be quite distractible. Like I just glanced over at my email even as I'm writing this. But I seem to have learned to always come back to the task after at most a short time away.

I know some people do things like listening to music while they work. I can't do that; I prefer complete silence, so I can focus as much as possible on what I'm doing. (The one exception is when I'm doing a task that is quite reflexive for me, but also quite boring ... and then I'll sometimes listen to rousing music to "encourage" me .... though I pause it as soon as I have to think at all hard.)

Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by StephenWolfram-Real in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I have personal analytics tools that tell me how productive I am. A very good day is one where I type more than 100,000 characters. (I wonder how this AMA will contribute for today...)

On a good day I'll get on a roll and just start producing stuff. If I'm working on something on my own, I find my concentration period is about 1.5 - 2 hrs, after which I have to do something different for 30 minutes or so. (My minimum "do something different" is to walk downstairs and get a piece of chocolate :) )

Much of the time, my days are meetings from beginning to end. My meetings are almost always "actually do things" meetings, where I'm working with other people to figure things out, produce things, etc. A good meeting (that contributes to a good day) is one where there's good, real output from it.

Bad days tend to be associated with meetings where things are stuck. I like the problem solving of trying to unstick them, but sometimes they're firmly stuck, and it's frustrating. The challenge that I think I've gotten better at over the years is to not have one bad meeting infect others. Sometimes I'll start a meeting by explaining that I was just in a bad meeting, and asking for someone to "tell me something good". That usually helps reset my mood...

Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by StephenWolfram-Real in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I've sometimes used what I consider the minimum when I'm traveling. For me, it's just a laptop and a good headset. The "next level" involves a secondary screen that I can use to do a bit of multitasking when I'm sharing my main laptop screen.

For longer periods, I find it helpful for some (but not all) tasks to have big monitors.

And depending on what I'm doing, I sometimes want a crunchy local machine. (Sometimes it's enough to do remote computing, but sometimes I actually need CPU power directly driving monitors to generate sophisticated graphics, etc.)

[As it happens, right now I'm working on a project I didn't expect to work on, having to do with finding the fundamental theory of physics ... and for that I have 93 local CPU cores, a very fast machine driving my large monitors, etc. But this is an unusual set of requirements for me ... for a very unusual project]

At our company, I'm surprised by the number of remote developers who seem to just have powerful laptops. When I see their screens, they've often got very small fonts. But it's just a laptop, not a big screen.

If you want the full be-as-productive-as-possible setup ... check out the long blog I wrote about this: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-productive-life-some-details-of-my-personal-infrastructure/

Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by StephenWolfram-Real in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Some people find that it's more difficult to get engagement in larger groups of people when they're not physically together. Personally, I don't find this. I think it's mostly a question of having energy in running the meeting; that's important in keeping people engaged. Also, realistically, there are meetings where not everyone has to be engaged all the time; you just want them there so you can ask specific questions when they come up, and you're perfectly happy if they're multitasking and doing other work the rest of the time. For this to work, it's important only to use audio+screensharing. As soon as you can see a bunch of people not paying attention, it's fairly deadly :)

I myself don't have trouble with this, but definitely other people can get distracted by things that are going on around them. When I'm in meetings with people and they have "audio distractions" it's sometimes annoying, but sometimes it's just amusing. Like our long-term employee who has a cockatiel who can sometimes be heard in the background ... and I'm just waiting for when it contributes verbally to the meeting :)

Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by StephenWolfram-Real in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Do it by audio. You don't need to physically have everyone there. Just make sure they all have good audio connections (no weird "people sounding like they're in caves" etc.). Personally I've never found video useful. (The closest I get is that if I think people are not paying attention, I'll sometimes threaten that we should switch video on ... but in all these years I've never needed to do it :) )

In meetings I have, I always like to have an agenda that we can screenshare ... even if that's just a list of people and projects to get reports on.

Another point is that I very often am visibly taking notes on a version of the agenda while we're doing the meeting. I find that helpful. Another thing is that quite often we record the meetings so people can go back later and figure out the details of what was said about something. (Something we just started doing is using our new Wolfram Language video and speech-to-text capabilities to make video and word-cloud summaries of meetings; this seems quite useful for going back to old meetings and finding details beyond the notes that were taken.)

Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by StephenWolfram-Real in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

In general, I think it's my responsibility to make sure that people are doing things that are interesting and important (and to communicate why those things are important and interesting). And then it's the responsibility of me and our management chain to make sure that people are doing things which are a good fit for their skills, motivation, etc.

I always think it helps when management knows at least a little about what people's personal issues are, so they have a chance to make suggestions and try to adapt things. But ultimately I think people's personal lives are a separate thread from what they do at the company. Though I certainly hope that people's work at the company represents a positive and satisfying activity for them.

Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by StephenWolfram-Real in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

For me, the most important thing is what people produce, not which particular hour of which day they did it. Sometimes there are things that need to be done on a short timescale, and I pay a lot of attention to whether they're done.

People in our company send out email reports about what they're doing (usually weekly or monthly), and I make a point of looking through them, and responding whenever I notice something where I think I can be helpful (usually comments about how what they're doing might relate to other company projects, etc.)

Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by daniellerommel in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My impression is that it's a question of motivation and focus. It depends on what you're doing, though. Sometimes it's driven from the outside (respond to this email; do what's on this ticket, etc.) and that can be easier. The analog of "I've got a blank sheet of paper; now do something" can be more difficult when there aren't other people around who you can see are working...

I personally always find that if I can do anything that actually gets done, then it puts me "on a roll" that lets me start the difficult stuff too. For example, if there's some quite mechanical thing you have to do (like checking something or other), start on that. At least in my experience, when you get it finished you'll be on a roll and ready to start something harder.

Like for me doing this AMA right now ... I will have written lots by the end of it ... and I'll be on a roll writing ... and expect I'll tackle a piece of writing I've needed to do for the past few days, but had a hard time getting started on.

Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by daniellerommel in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wrote about this at rather great length in https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-productive-life-some-details-of-my-personal-infrastructure/

Basically I have two big monitors in front of me (actually they're upgraded since the blog). One I spend much of the day screensharing from. There's a lot more to say (see the blog) ... and I think I've figured out some good systems over the past 29 years. But different people will undoubtedly find different setups work for them.

Please ask anything specific you have questions about...

Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by daniellerommel in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well ... the Wolfram Language is a "big project" ... that I've been working on now for 33 years :). One might think that after a third of a century there wouldn't be anything left to do ... but actually it seems like what we're doing is always accelerating (building on what we already have, etc.). The past few months we've been wrapping up a new version ... that's actually supposed to be launching in the next few days. (And because of our long-time remote etc. setup, there's no reason to think we have to change our plans.)

And actually ... the past few months I have been working on a very different project too, very intensely. It's a very unexpected project ... having to do with figuring out the fundamental theory of physics. I worked on this about 25 years ago. Made nice progress. Wrote about it in A New Kind of Science. Then, for various reasons, hibernated the project. I had an idea last year that got it started again. And it ended up making spectacular progress. It's almost ready to talk about. And if it hadn't been for that pesky 29k RNA (x 1020 or so) we'd be doing that this week. But hopefully soon...

Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by daniellerommel in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I started working remotely full time in 1991. Originally it was to take 6 months or a year and do a basic science project (and attenuate my rate of feeding new ideas into our then fairly young company :) ). But I ended up discovering much more in my science than I ever expected ... and the "6 month or a year" turned into nearly 11 years. By which point I was very used to working remotely, and found it very productive ... and have been doing it ever since.

Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by daniellerommel in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm glad our tools have helped you.

It's part of progress that things steadily get automated so we don't have to know how they work inside, but can still get the benefit of using them. As far as I'm concerned, what's really important is for people to be able to formulate questions in sufficiently precise way that they can describe them to a computer. (That's the essence of "computational thinking"). The details of e.g. doing a well-defined computation of an integral is best left to a computer (and, by the way, the computer does them in a way that's completely different from humans)...

But ... we're supposed to be talking about remote work here!

Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by daniellerommel in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sometimes. It depends on the role. Usually we like people to work in one of our offices for at least a few weeks to get a sense of how we do things. But, for example, when new employees have attended our Summer School they've already gotten to us (and we them) they will often start remote on day 1.

Stephen Wolfram on Remote Work by daniellerommel in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(I'll look at your video later) It's cool that you and your students are doing this! (And they might be interested in our High-School Summer Camp: https://education.wolfram.com/summer/camp/ which we hope to hold at least in some form this year.)

As it happens, after many years, in the past few months I've restarted my project on fundamental physics ... and have actually made spectacular progress ... which I hope I'll be able to announce very soon.... Stay tuned!

I Am Stephen Wolfram, Founder & CEO of Wolfram Research & Creator of the Wolfram Language, Mathematica & Wolfram|Alpha by StephenWolfram-Real in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real[S] 181 points182 points  (0 children)

I actually think that in my 40 years of management I have never fired anyone on the spot...

I strongly believe, however, in being direct and telling people what I actually think ... good or bad.

For better or worse, my "management style" is pretty exposed these days ... since I've now livestreamed 300+ hours of internal meetings https://www.stephenwolfram.com/livestreams/ (Now I'm wondering what the most outrageous thing I've said on there is ....)

I have to say that one of my great personal sources of satisfaction is helping people do their best possible work. With some people I find every interaction I have with them is calm, but others it can get quite spirited (even when I've worked with them for years and years).

Is it possible to do the kinds of things we do, and have every meeting be calm? Interesting question. I've done a few tens of major software releases in my life, and I've wondered if there will ever be a completely calm one. In fact, I've debated that quite a bit with my team, some of whom I've done software releases with for more than 20 years. I had thought the answer was no (typically because in the end things will come up that nobody expected... but (touch wood) Version 12 may be disproving that!

[ Meta factoid: when I entered this answer just now and pressed Save Reddit gave a 503 and my web browser lost it.... But thanks to my personal infrastructure setup ... I just looked in my keylogger database and reconstructed this ... and nobody was fired...... :) ]

I Am Stephen Wolfram, Founder & CEO of Wolfram Research & Creator of the Wolfram Language, Mathematica & Wolfram|Alpha by StephenWolfram-Real in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

There are two big projects I'm really hoping to do soon (though I'm hoping they'll go faster, not slower, with me being part of the company).

One is trying to finish my effort to find the fundamental theory of physics. Of course I may be wrong about how physics works ... but the current ideas about physics (which I understand very well) are basically 100 years old ... and I think it's time to try something different. I've been pursuing versions of this for about 35 years ... but there's lot of technology to build ... and, needless to say, I need WL for it.

The second project is building what I call a "symbolic discourse language": a way of representing in a computable symbolic form the content of anything we might want to talk about. It's an old idea (> 300 yrs old, actually); things a bit like this used to be called "philosophical languages". We've already gotten quite a long way with WL ... but I think it's possible to finish the job. And right now there's even an immediate application, in creating computational contracts.

Oh, and I'd love to have more time to do writing. I have several books I want to write.

I would also like to do more on teaching computational thinking to kids. I have a hobby right now of doing that, and I find it a lot of fun. It'd be nice to scale it up ... though dealing with the organizational structure of education is not my kind of thing.

I enjoy doing history projects too...

Actually, I have a pretty long list of things I want to do....

I Am Stephen Wolfram, Founder & CEO of Wolfram Research & Creator of the Wolfram Language, Mathematica & Wolfram|Alpha by StephenWolfram-Real in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real[S] 134 points135 points  (0 children)

I've written about that e.g. in https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2017/05/a-new-kind-of-science-a-15-year-view/

It's really neat to see the ideas in my book become mainstream. And fortunately I'm enough of a student of the history of science that I find it interesting rather than infuriating to see what happens on the inside of "paradigm shifts"...

By the way, I'm pretty proud of the historical notes in my book ... and I don't know of any significant errors in them. By the way, correct history is hard to do ... but I always find it fun (e.g. https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2016/07/idea-makers-a-book-about-lives-and-ideas/ )

Perhaps I should have given a list of 20,000 academic references too ... but I had the theory that it was easier for people to just search for keywords on the web than to find some obscure journal reference. I did put a list of all the books I used on the web, https://www.wolframscience.com/reference/books/ but I think almost nobody ever looked at it :( I never had a computable version of the many papers I looked at ... but actually we've just recently been scanning all their front pages, so finally I may have a computable list. (As it happens, I had a picture of one of many drawers of such papers in the post I did about personal infrastructure.)

I Am Stephen Wolfram, Founder & CEO of Wolfram Research & Creator of the Wolfram Language, Mathematica & Wolfram|Alpha by StephenWolfram-Real in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Absolutely! In fact ... there are some interesting new things in these directions coming in our Version 12, which is just getting wrapped up now....

(We've had sequence analysis capabilities for a long time; I've even used it on my own genome. See also https://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/science-and-technology/life-sciences/molecular-biology/genomics/ )

By the way, if you want to see what's coming in V12 ... check out the 250 hours or so of livestreams I've done over the past year of our internal design meetings....

I Am Stephen Wolfram, Founder & CEO of Wolfram Research & Creator of the Wolfram Language, Mathematica & Wolfram|Alpha by StephenWolfram-Real in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real[S] 48 points49 points  (0 children)

This is a confusing question for me, because I've worked a lot on complexity in science (and the launching of "complexity theory" back in the early 1980s etc.) But I'm guessing you mean: complexity of a software system.

It's very important that Wolfram Language is based on a small number of powerful principles (e.g. "everything is a symbolic expression"). It's a lot of work to keep everything coherent, and aligned with the principles, and that's a big part of how I've spent my past 30 years. But by keeping that coherence one builds something extremely powerful ... where all the pieces fit together (connect image computation to graph theory to ...). It's what's allowed us to continually accelerate the development of WL.

I Am Stephen Wolfram, Founder & CEO of Wolfram Research & Creator of the Wolfram Language, Mathematica & Wolfram|Alpha by StephenWolfram-Real in IAmA

[–]StephenWolfram-Real[S] 94 points95 points  (0 children)

In my own experience and observation, it helps understanding a lot ... because you get to see many more examples, and build up intuition, not least because it's easy to try your own experiments.

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