Quote
"It might be an English-as-a-second-language thing, but “sustain” to me sounds a bit like “survive”. And that feels like a low bar to be shooting for; I optimize for thriving :)."
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Devi ParikhExternal validation certainly feels (really) good! But I am not happy — Devi Parikh
"External validation certainly feels (really) good! But I am not happy when I am optimizing for that. So I don’t. A good number of things I find intrinsically motivating have gotten external validation, so things have worked out (in terms of career trajectory). A lot of things I have worked on haven’t gotten external validation (in research, in generative art, in side-projects), and that’s fine. Partly because I was happy while I was working on them and that’s what I am optimizing for. Partly because those things gave me some new skills, built some muscles, and gave me updated world models -- which is all valuable. And partly because many of those projects created connections with communities I wouldn’t have connected with otherwise (e.g., generative art), or created long-term relationships and collaborations with individuals that I value. So overall, while I am very grateful for the external validation when I got it, I don’t regret doing the things that didn’t get external validation. I did them because I couldn’t not do them!"
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Devi Parikh
Devi Parikh
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Devi Parikh is an American computer scientist.
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"I work on things I am intrinsically excited about -- things I can’t not work on! These can be questions I am curious about (what would happen if we had humans go through the same processing pipeline we put machines through?), activities I can’t wait to go back to (macrame, origami, generative art), outcomes I want to be a reality (a machine that you can ask questions to about images and it answers, a model that can generate fantastical depictions of creatures), projects I think would be fun to work on (e.g., semantic understanding of clipart scenes), etc."
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Devi ParikhQuote
"I came across this quote by Adam Grant recently that resonated with me. "Saying no frees you up to say yes when it matters most." This brings me to the next theme."
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Devi ParikhQuote
"I minimize things that don’t bring me joy -- where I am not bringing any value and it is not bringing any value to me. I ruthlessly optimize for this. If I find myself in a meeting where I zone out and think “what am I doing here?”, that’s a trigger for me to take a very careful look at my involvement. Depending on what role I am playing in the effort, it could mean reconsidering the format or cadence of meetings or reconsidering my involvement altogether."
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Devi ParikhQuote
"Unless I see the need to be thoughtful about it, I try to get bureaucratic things done as quickly as possible to “get it over with”."
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Devi ParikhQuote
"When a lot of pings are coming my way -- I pause to think whether they all need to be addressed right away. Can some wait till tomorrow? Can some things planned for tomorrow be done later in the week? I have found this to be highly effective in not feeling overwhelmed."
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Devi Parikh