0zymandias

Yes. The police in the US explicitly reject people with high IQs. It has been challenged in court but upheld.

https://www.kake.com/story/32508747/court-oks-barring-high-i...

Another tactic that Amazon recruiters use a lot to convince you to take a shitty role:

"You are coming in at level X, but this role is actually scoped at level X+1."

In reality, it means nothing and you can get promoted in lots of different ways. It is just a trick that unethical recruiters and managers play.

I might be missing something with your comment, but there are obviously animals that live in and around oceans.

So "just" flying at super sonic speeds over oceans seems like it could be a disaster for marine life. The disruption to whales from noise pollution comes to mind

"One former partner called the settlement hugely significant because it shatters the distance that McKinsey — which argues that it only makes recommendations — puts between its advice and its clients’ actions."

So their defense was that they only recommended a way to destroy the lives of millions of people through drug addiction, but someone else did the implementation.

Sickening ...

The takeover of tech by MBAs continues. It has now happened at the top 4 largest tech companies in the US.

We will have Apple (Tim Cook), Amazon (Andy Jassy), Alphabet (Sundar Pichai), Microsoft (Satya Nadella & Steve Ballmer) all taking over from non-MBA founders. Facebook is next in size and has Sheryl Sandberg as COO but don't know if Mark Zuckerberg would ever hand over the reins.

Why don't non-MBAs manage to get to the top?

Imagine a market where there is one food delivery company rather than ten:

a) at a restaurant, rather than having ten different delivery people pickup, One person can pickup ten orders.

b) 10x more consumers means that the average distance between deliveries shortens.

It’s not going to be quite this efficient but directionally more scale means more efficiency.

In addition, less competition means that Uber can charge more for their services.

I am bullish on this as a recent shareholder. We are now in the consolidation phase of delivery service where fewer companies mean less competition, more efficiency and better economics.

This is where Dara’s strength is. He has a history of great dealmaking and acquisitions. I expect Uber to thrive as the industry consolidates.

I am not a fan of Facebook and have deleted my account. But Zuck is right in trying to avoid policing political content. It just won’t work.

Twitter’s attempts, although idealistic, are a complete failure. Some tweets that are sanctioned are far less harmful than others that aren’t. Some tweets that are allowed are outright lies. Inserting Jack and his buddies as the arbiters of truth is not going to work. And frankly, I don’t want the Twitter exec team to tell me what I should believe or see.

I understand that there is more pressure on Zuck to follow. And he may very well have to bend to the outrage of people even though it makes no sense.

It seems like people from other ethnicities/countries have done well in Silicon Valley, e.g. India, China, Iran. Notably, CEOs of Google, Microsoft, Uber and others are brown-skinned.

Would they have done even better without the racism? Or what accounts for the difference?

About 60 minutes

"A16z has $12 billion in assets under management across its funds, so a $2.2 million fund is not groundbreaking from a monetary perspective"

The math comes out to 0.018%.

I trust Firefox as well. It was my second choice. I had two reasons for not switching to Firefox.

1. Firefox used a lot more memory & CPU on my MBP. Maybe that is fixed now. I remember reading that they worked on the footprint.

2. The large majority of Firefox's revenue is (indirectly) driven by ads from Google. I just wanted to get out of the ad swamp once and for all.

This is why I gave up on Chrome and Android even though I loved both products.

I don't know if this complaint is valid and what the exact scope is. However, since switching to Safari and iPhone, I no longer constantly need to be on the alert about my privacy.

I strongly believe that Google's business model will always push them to exploit my privacy if there is an extra buck to be made.

Social media is a dead end. The results are depression and misinformation.

Unless you believe truth can easily be determined, there is no tweak that Zuck and Jack can do to fix their platforms. At least Zuck is honest about it.

2800% is a much bigger number than 83%. But if you do the math using your numbers, you see that GE substantially underperformed the S&P since 1981:

GE = (1+2800%)*(1-83%) = 4.93 = 393% appreciation since 1981.

S&P = S&P has appreciated 2000% since 1981.

GE << S&P

I didn't come up with it. It is the yardstick that he suggested we use to measure his performance :)

And it's a well-known issue with executive compensation that CEOs will juice numbers in the short-term to get their payouts which is likely why he proposed this as a measure of his performance.

Jack Welch retired in 2001 after twenty years as CEO. "Upon his retirement from GE, Welch had stated that his effectiveness as its CEO for two decades would be measured by the company's performance for a comparable period under his successors"

If we use the long-term yardstick that Jack Welch suggested we use, he does not come out looking good. We are now at roughly the two-decade mark and GE is trading at the same price that it did in 1992 and 80% below where it was when he retired.

It looks like Dara is executing the Jack Welch & General Electric playbook [1]. Essentially, it comes down to "Be the #1 or #2 company in the market or exit"

You can debate whether it was successful at GE. The criticism of Jack Welch was that his approach improved short-term financials, but he left a hollowed-out company to his successor that became irrelevant and lost value relative to the S&P.

The way I see this playing out at Uber is rapidly exiting categories like Scooters, Freight, Works, and AV. And doubling down on Ride Share and Eats with acquisitions in geographies where they have a leading position. I worry the most about Scooters and AV as those are arguably core to urban mobility.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welch

The title underplays it. It’s more than just membership in a despicable organization. He has actively participated in violent hate crimes. Specifically, he was involved in a drive-by shooting at a synagogue.

This is not the kind of background I would want for an employee (or CEO) of a surveillance company with sensitive and private data about US citizens.

https://onezero.medium.com/ceo-of-surveillance-firm-banjo-on...

Both these things are true. 1. A line in the sand is arbitrary. 2. There are huge differences in the ethical behavior of companies (as there are among people)

2 is the one that is important to recognize and where we in tech should have conversations. 1 is a semantic distraction and an excuse to avoid responsibility.

No. Don’t fall for this. Just because every company has some aspect that is bad, it doesn’t mean they are the same.

You can differentiate. It is not hard. Some extremes: Patagonia vs. Outbrain. Gates Foundaton vs. Juul. Same?

By that same rationale all humans are evil, so there is no point in differentiating.

Wow. What a mess. Telling people giant cuts are coming with no further details is a failure. Uber had as much time as every other company. I wonder what went wrong. This can't have been the plan.

Interesting contrast in style with AirBnB's announcement today. Empathy & details.

https://news.airbnb.com/a-message-from-co-founder-and-ceo-br...

Many engineers would benefit from spending a year in sales and a year in marketing.

There is a whole other way to look at products like this that is often missed if you haven’t done the time.

There seem to be two types of people debating with each other in this thread.

1. Some people that have real-world experience with raising money and term sheets. They understand what the norms and expectations are in addition to understanding the legal aspects.

2. Other people that lack the real-world experience and are just speculating without understanding the norms. They are only referring to the legal aspects.

The lesson for any potential employee is to stay far away from any company funded by SoftBank.

The inflated value may help the CEO get a big payout (like WeWork) or help the company raise lots of capital (like Uber & Paytm).

However, you are probably joining a company with an unrealistic valuation like Uber, WeWork, Wag or Paytm. If you have options, you will always be underwater. If you have RSUs, they may never appreciate.

What I hear from Amazonians in Seattle is that the culture is markedly different today than it was 5-10 years ago.

That shouldn’t be surprising. Things are slower now and layered. VPs report to VPs who report to VPs. More politics. More focus on competitors. Less belief in the upside.

Using Jeff’s words: We are well into Day 2. As a result, great people are leaving in droves.

Satya managed an incredible cultural and business turnaround of Microsoft after it stagnated. Who will do this at Amazon?

The majority of sexual assaults are not reported. The true number is likely 10,000+ sexual assaults based on ratios that are used for reporting rates.

* https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-compassion-chron...

Travis was deeply flawed as the CEO of Uber. It was clearly beyond any scale he had ever operated at. But he was also a force of nature and willed a new industry into existence.

Since Travis left, Uber has stopped innovating. Dara was a safe bet but perhaps too safe. Uber is about as exciting as Expedia now.

I am not surprised that Travis is having another huge success. Hopefully, he has learned a lot from his experience at Uber.

Uber is a huge mess because the narrative is not credible. Dara is trying to tell a story about fast grow + profitability.

The reality is that they have three types of businesses. 1. Businesses that are slowing down dramatically, e.g. Ride Share. As they raise price it may have negative growth. 2. Businesses that are growing by unsustainable subsidy, e.g. Eats, Freight. 3. New business that are purely speculative. Uber Money, Autonomous, Flying Taxis.

They have no businesses that fit the fast growth + profitability. Dara is trying to balance the three categories above to pretend that it is happening.

Other investors have been saying that SoftBank has been overpaying for years. It looks like they were right and you need to discount any SoftBank valuation by about 50%.

The SoftBank playbook has an even bigger negative impact on employees. They are granted options at an inflated price. When the stock collapses (Uber, WeWork, Wag) they lose more than others because most of the comp is in equity.

As an employee, I would stay far away from any SoftBank funded company.