One of the most famous artificial intelligence researchers in the world, Stanford University professor Fei-Fei Li, believes that young engineers and AI researchers spend too much time calculating every little thing about their career and not enough time thinking about whether they share the company's mission and whether they are truly passionate about the work.
One of the most famous artificial intelligence researchers in the world, Stanford University professor Fei-Fei Li, believes that young engineers and AI researchers spend too much time calculating every little thing about their career and not enough time thinking about whether they share the company's mission and whether they are truly passionate about the work.
Fei-Fei Li spoke about this in a conversation on Lenny's Podcast, which is referenced by Business Insider. She noted that her company World Labs receives many applications from young professionals, and communication with them often turns into a mentoring conversation, rather than a classic interview.
According to Lee, many candidates try to calculate “every point of the equation”: the job title, the formal prospects, the next line on the resume. Instead, they rarely ask themselves basic questions: do they feel connected to the company’s mission, do they trust the team they will work with, and whether they see themselves in this environment in a few years.
She urged young professionals to focus not on the micro-differences between multiple offers, but on the real impact they can make and how inspired they are by the direction of their work. According to Lee, it is the combination of meaningful challenges, a strong team, and intrinsic motivation that shapes a long career trajectory, not a perfectly calibrated first step.
Business Insider notes that similar theses are increasingly being repeated by other industry leaders. Liang Wenfeng, founder of the Chinese laboratory DeepSeek, emphasizes that in the long run, it is not the number of years of experience that is more important, but basic skills, creativity and passion for the business. He believes that “ready-made experience” is useful for short-term tasks, and big breakthroughs are made by teams where creativity and motivation are strong.
LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky adds that in the future of the job market, where companies are actively implementing AI, it is not those who have the most prestigious diploma who win, but those who can adapt quickly, are ready to constantly learn and are not afraid of new tools. In his opinion, initiative and flexibility will be more important than the name of the university on the resume.
Fei-Fei Li is a long-time Stanford professor and co-author of ImageNet, the dataset that became the foundation of modern computer vision. She is also the co-founder of World Labs, a company that develops artificial intelligence models for working with 3D environments. She is often called the “godmother” of AI in the professional community, but Li herself emphasizes that behind a successful career in technology is not only technical expertise, but also the ability to find meaning in work and teamwork.
Previously, dev.ua wrote about how Rolling Stone describes how a subculture is forming on social networks , whose members "awaken" AI bots and attribute consciousness to them. They exchange "seed" prompts, talk about "spirals" and "recursions" and interpret the bots' responses as revelations.
