Overcoming Contempt Prior to Investigation

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation." -Attributed to Herbert Spencer but most likely a derivative quote from William Paley.

I have experienced this contempt prior to investigation many times in life, but I learned a great deal from three specific instances: 1) Picking my advisor in graduate school. 2) Not getting a job at Google in 2014. 3) Working on the Apple Watch. I thought I would share these experiences if they might help anyone else deal with being too contemptuous in their work life.

1) Graduate School

I felt very unsure of myself in grad school. I had done very well prior but I had switched to computer science from electrical engineering, so I had impostor syndrome for a good while. 

I was dead sure who I wanted to advise me. I loved his research, the connection to computer vision, and I was extremely impressed by the future opportunities. Before I started, I was told he wasn’t accepting new grad students, so I had to be open to other research options. 

After a discussion about my desire to work with him, a fellow grad student on the verge of finishing his PhD pointed out a master’s thesis defense hanging on the wall. He told me this particular student had taken two extra years to finish mainly because this advisor. I didn’t particularly want to stay in grad school forever. The real moment of clarity was finding out this professor didn’t get tenure, so he was leaving within a year. Not only was what I wanted not a choice anymore, but it wasn’t even what I wanted anymore. 

 Luckily, I had kept my options opened and tried to stay opened minded about the whole thing which lead me to asking Pat Flynn to advise me. I was then in a computer vision lab with people of more similar backgrounds, and I knew I had made the right choice. 

2) Not getting a job at Google

When Google opened their office in Pittsburgh, I was excited I might be able to work there if they had some computer vision work. A recruiter reached out in 2013, and I started down the interview path. It was longer than normal, but it was for a biometrics job. I felt more confident than other jobs in Pittsburgh because at the time, many companies would rather hire fresh out of school than someone with a few years experience. 

For me though, the job was less about what I would work on but the prestige of working at Google, feeling like I had made it. It was close to my house, or closer than DC, and they had a cool office setup. I prepared more for these interviews than others. I practiced writing code on a whiteboard, brushed up on basic computer science concepts, and studied my grad algorithm notes.

I ended up going through two phone interviews and two in person interviews over six months. I had to wait a month after my last interview to get a final decision.

I didn’t get the job. They didn’t say why, and I felt really confident about all of my interviews. I suspect it is because they had one position to fill, and they filled it with someone else before my interview process was done. I did notice the day of the interview, the job posting was gone, which seems strange. 

I found out on my way back from a work trip to DC on the Megabus, and I cried for awhile. Little did I know I would move in two months to California to work at Apple. While I saw it as a crushing blow to my ego, I reoriented my perspective so I wouldn’t put so much reliance on something outside of my control. 

3) Apple Watch

When I applied to Apple, I was aiming for a computer vision job. Suddenly, I was I interviewing for a group who seemed far and away from imaging. I was intrigued even though they couldn’t tell me what the project was. I moved out before my family, so I was alone for three months. I was homesick, and my initial reaction to my work on the Watch wasn’t that “this is my life’s work” even though it became such. 

However, I had this quote about contempt prior to investigation on the top of my mind. I knew Apple made a lot of cool stuff, and people bought a ton of their stuff. They must know something, and I was sure if I set my ego aside, I would learn far more. I did feel that impostor syndrome again because I was working on one dimensional signals which seemed beneath my prior work, but I made a conscious effort to withhold judgement. My aim was for at least at year. 

My attitude that year turned out to be key. I was not disappointed in the ride and the experience. Suddenly, Apple wasn’t just a name on my resume, but the user experience started underwriting all that I’ve done at Apple. I stopped caring about the prestige of Apple on my resume and more about enriching people’s lives. I also discovered one-dimensional signal processing is hard! There were some heavy constraints on the signals we were using, and we had to extract as much information as possible to make Wrist Detection a reality. 

As a result of these experiences and more, I strive to withhold judgement in life. I don’t want the answer immediately nor do I want to believe with so much certainty that I am right or wrong. It is quite possible that I don’t fully know what I want or what I will want once I get where I'm going. Apparently, I am not the center of the universe, and while that is not a novel concept, that realization has greatly improved my enjoyment in work and life.