Fatih Kurtoglu

EngM @Scale_ai · prev: @Google, @Oracle, @SASsoftware

[Fatih Kurtoglu @fatihkurtoglu]

@GergelyOrosz This is simply not true.. and not so hard to verify before posting

[John Ling @jhnling]

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[Alexandr Wang @alexandr_wang]

Today we’ve formalized an important hiring policy at Scale. We hire for MEI: merit, excellence, and intelligence.

This is the email I’ve shared with our @scale_AI team.

———————————————————

MERITOCRACY AT SCALE

In the wake of our fundraise, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about talent. All of our external success—powering breakthroughs in L4 autonomy, partnering with OpenAI on RLHF going back to GPT-2, supporting the DoD and every major AI lab, and the recent $1bn financing transaction—all of it is downstream from us hiring the best people for the job. Talent is our #1 input metric.

Because of this, I spend a lot of my time on recruiting. I either personally interview every hire or sign off on every candidate packet. It’s the thing I spend the plurality of my time on, easily. But everyone can and should contribute to this effort. There are almost a thousand of us now, and it takes a lot to hire quickly while maintaining, and continuing to raise, our bar for quality.

That’s why this is the time to codify a hiring principle that I consider crucial to our success:
Scale is a meritocracy, and we must always remain one.

Hiring on merit will be a permanent policy at Scale.

It’s a big deal whenever we invite someone to join our mission, and those decisions have never been swayed by orthodoxy or virtue signaling or whatever the current thing is. I think of our guiding principle as MEI: merit, excellence, and intelligence.

That means we hire only the best person for the job, we seek out and demand excellence, and we unapologetically prefer people who are very smart.

We treat everyone as an individual. We do not unfairly stereotype, tokenize, or otherwise treat anyone as a member of a demographic group rather than as an individual.

We believe that people should be judged by the content of their character — and, as colleagues, be additionally judged by their talent, skills, and work ethic.

There is a mistaken belief that meritocracy somehow conflicts with diversity. I strongly disagree. No group has a monopoly on excellence. A hiring process based on merit will naturally yield a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and ideas. Achieving this requires casting a wide net for talent and then objectively selecting the best, without bias in any direction. We will not pick winners and losers based on someone being the “right” or “wrong” race, gender, and so on. It should be needless to say, and yet it needs saying: doing so would be racist and sexist, not to mention illegal.

Upholding meritocracy is good for business and is the right thing to do. This approach not only results in the strongest possible team, but also ensures we’re treating our colleagues with fairness and respect.

As a result, everyone who joins Scale can be confident that they were chosen for their outstanding talent, not any other reasons.

MEI has gotten us to where we are today. And it’s the same thing that’ll get us where we’re going, as we embark on our next chapter focusing on data abundance, frontier data, and reliable measurement to accelerate the development and adoption of AI models.

Alex

[Scale AI @scale_AI]

Today, we’re announcing that Scale has closed a $1B financing transaction at a $13.8B valuation, led by @Accel.

Read the full announcement: https://t.co/2lpLTHxjBp

[Fatih Kurtoglu @fatihkurtoglu]

@hsavas Menton'a kalbimizi bıraktık bu yaz 💛🍋

[Fatih Kurtoglu @fatihkurtoglu]

@AysellAydinn @atarikguney Bir yazıda okumak gercekten güzel olur. Aklıma çalıştığım şirketin kurucusunun bu notunu getirdi: "Hire people who give a shit"
https://t.co/CanlGvgTOW

[World of Engineering @engineers_feed]

Solve carefully…

25 - 55 + (85 + 65) =

You probably won't believe it, but this equals 5!

[Fatih Kurtoglu @fatihkurtoglu]

@ayasophia @YouTube Çarşamba konserine gittik, piano keman amelie vs beklerken, tamamen dj gibi elektronik müzik yapıp ve kliptekine benzer görsel performanslar sergiledi. Yanlış beklentiyle gidenler için hüsrandı diyebilirim :)

[Fatih Kurtoglu @fatihkurtoglu]

@atkoksal USPS, Christmas döneminde, Santa Barbara'dan küçücük bir paketi Hawaii'den doğru bir haftada zoe getirmişti. Santa Barbara buraya araçla 4 saat, Hawaii uçakla 5 saat mesafede :)

[Fatih Kurtoglu @fatihkurtoglu]

@atkoksal Emperyal emperyal problemler

[Fatih Kurtoglu @fatihkurtoglu]

@vkirtok LinkedIn'de Stealth ve Stealth Startup isimli iki sirket var, bu şekilde çalışanlar genelde o sirketleri isaretliyorlar bio larina, job postlar da o şirketler de çıkıyor. Hepsi tek çatı altında gibi;) Arada girip networkumden kimler bu tarz projelerde çalışıyor diye bakıyorum :)

[Fatih Kurtoglu @fatihkurtoglu]

@hsavas https://t.co/UpRfwAnt42 var bu konulardan bazılarına çözüm oluyor bildiğim kadarıyla. @sahin kurucusu.

[Jared Palmer @jaredpalmer]

🤯 Life altering @code trick: keyboard mapping Emmet inward and outward html/jsx selection

[Jane Manchun Wong @wongmjane]

Clubhouse announces “Clubhouse Creator First”, an accelerator program for creators to support them on building up shows

https://t.co/HBYIlr7mTQ

[Nathan Latka @NathanLatka]

Private SaaS valuations are a tricky thing…

Why does 1 company with $5m in revenue get 3x, while another gets 20x?

Is profit or growth more important?

A thread

[Cristian Strat @cgst]

Here's one thing they don't tell you about perf reviews, career ladders, promos, etc.

Do everything by the book, tie yourself in knots to get the work done _and_ check all the boxes, and all you get is a marginal increase in comp.

[Fatih Kurtoglu @fatihkurtoglu]

Interesting use case for @joinClubhouse : Live hiring! 👀
@christianbdata has announced a job post first on CH and as the hiring manager, he's answering people's questions. #futureofhiring :)

[Ricardo Ferreira @riferrei]

Developers commenting their code

[Fatih Kurtoglu @fatihkurtoglu]

@atarikguney Platon'un Mağara Alegorisi buna güzel bir yaklaşım sergiliyor. Burda güzel kısa özet bir Türkçe seslendirmesi var: https://t.co/yYBfOhDUyw

[Fatih Kurtoglu @fatihkurtoglu]

@atarikguney Gerçekten harika bir kitap. Kitapla ilgili magazinsel bir yazıyı da ekleyeyim: https://t.co/CBnOYdDrhO

Yazari kitapla ilgili tum satışları, gelir bilgilerini vs paylaşıp analiz etmiş.