rl1987 6 hours ago

See: https://old.reddit.com/r/mit/comments/1m2ewe5/what_standing_...

TL;DR: He is officially listed on MIT site as research scientist, has research published in association with MIT and also did some teaching. However, he does not have any prominence in campus beyond being a media personality and his connection to MIT, while real, is generally considered to be oversold for what it is. Furthermore, Fridman's alma mater is Drexel, not MIT.

ComplexSystems 14 hours ago

He taught classes and and was in charge of their online deep learning materials for a while at deeplearning.mit.edu, back when the idea of universities putting materials online was still very new and cutting edge. A lot of his video lectures are still on his channel.

  • chirau 14 hours ago

    Ah good to know. Is he permanent staff or he did this as a guest lecturer or something?

    • fandorin 12 hours ago

      no, Lex has barely any connection to MIT. He taught (only once) a January community class, that’s all. If you want to get the full picture, I recommend watching this video: https://youtu.be/Z1Ua1hVRtdE

      • VirusNewbie 12 hours ago

        This is not accurate, you can look up the fact that he was a paid research scientist. Why are you using a poorly sourced youtube video to inform an opinion that you then repeat without doing any research?

        Don't people feel embarrassed by being this easily swayed?

thorin 6 hours ago

Lex gets a lot of hate, probably mainly for political reasons and the way he manages his public persona. However not many people can argue with the fact he has probably the best collection of programmer interview/podcasts out there. If that's what you're into you probably won't find anything better:

e.g.

Carmack Brian Kernighan Gosling Guido DHH Demis Bjarne

List it endless, and something to be celebrated I think.