PyTorch Eng Director: Promo Hacking, Industry Shifts, Regrets | John Myles White

John Myles White recently left his role as a director of engineering at Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) so we spoke freely about promo culture, how big tech has changed, and how his career grew.
𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀:
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/aPfnP4iAIH8
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835
• Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/msl-eng-director-promo-hacking-industry
𝗕𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝘆:
• Cursor 3: a unified workspace for building software with agents, check it out at https://cursor.com/
• My ergonomic keyboard project, you can follow along here: https://read.compose.llc/
𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀:
0:00 - Intro
0:54 - Is he bullish on MSL
5:23 - Running promotions at Meta
15:15 - Growing at Meta
22:22 - Julia core language contributor
29:24 - Academics failing into industry
31:48 - Stats book recommendations
38:02 - Biggest career regret
41:05 - Advice for his younger self
42:46 - Outro
𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-myles-white-115697180/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/johnmyleswhite
• Personal Website: https://www.johnmyleswhite.com/
• Github: https://github.com/johnmyleswhite
𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝘆𝗮𝗻:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman
𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲:
• Evaluating the design of the R language - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240040602_Evaluating_the_Design_of_the_R_Language
• Stats book he mentioned (not affiliate link) - https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Agnostic-Statistics-Peter-Aronow/dp/1316631141
• Stats book he mentioned (not affiliate link) - https://www.amazon.com/All-Statistics-Statistical-Inference-Springer/dp/0387402721