MarkMc

A few years ago YC tried making part of it's program remote. It wasn't successful so they switched back to being fully in-person.

This time they were forced to go 'all in' on remote and the result is, ”this will rank as one of the best batches we have ever funded"

So what is the lesson here?

The data in that article only goes up to 2018. It will be interesting to see if that 27% figure is now higher.

It's pretty clear what is happening: Online dating has become the main way romantic partners meet online [1] and the average man finds it far more difficult to find a partner than, say, in a bar or the workplace [2]

[1] https://news.stanford.edu/2019/08/21/online-dating-popular-w...

[2] https://qz.com/1051462/these-statistics-show-why-its-so-hard...

> consider that we live in a monogamous culture, and so the 20 percent of men who are regarded as attractive can only be in committed relationships with at most 20 percent of women. We may just as well pity the rest of the women, who are destined to be in committed relationships, if they pursue a relationship at all, with someone who they regard as unattractive

This discounts other outcomes, such as (a) men who lie to their romantic partners about being monogamous; (b) 'serial monogamist' men who will dump a woman then quickly find another partner; (c) relationships where the status is not explicitly defined and where the woman thinks 'it's serious' while the man thinks 'it's casual'.

Ah so this is why Twitter stock has been on a rocketship recently.

This seems like a pretty good business move. Substack and Patreon have proved that people will pay to support their favourite content producers, and Twitter had the large user base to avoid the chicken-and-egg problem

This is what worries me about Bitcoin. Right now total exposure to Bitcoin is a tiny fraction of the exposure to derivatives in 2008, but that could change as Bitcoin mania grows. Eventually a sudden drop in the price of Bitcoin could trigger a general economic collapse like in 2008

It's also ironic that the center-right government is picking which projects to fund in order to reduce carbon emissions, instead of a market-based emissions trading scheme

This 'bug' actually makes it more interesting and engaging

Without that 4% Facebook runs the risk that users migrate to another social media platform, which could have a huge impact.

Milk might only account for 4% of a supermarket's sales, but a supermarket that doesn't sell milk is at a huge disadvantage to one that does.

According to the Australian government, the problem is that it benefits Facebook too much and doesn't benefit the news websites enough.

An analogy might be to minimum wage laws: a laissez-faire market would result in an unfair distribution of benefits, so the government steps in.

I'm a skeptic, as I would certainly prefer to hold $10,000 of FB shares than $10,000 worth of Bitcoin.

The problem is that Bitcoin is not productive, so it only makes sense to own it if someone will pay more for it in future. But how do I estimate that without any long-term price history? I can see that the demand for gold increased in, say, 7 of the last 10 decades so that would give me some confidence about demand over the next decade.

So to answer your question: the only thing I can see that will change my opinion of Bitcoin is if demand generally increases over many decades.

OK but won't Facebook need an algorithm to determine which posts do not comply with their EULA?

Interestingly, Google and Facebook seem to disagree on whether an algorithm can determine what content is 'news':

Google says: "There seems to be no clear or obvious distinction between news and non-news content, and the way that Google works, there is no algorithm that could navigate such a vague and broad definition." [0]

But Facebook says: "Assuming this draft code becomes law, we will reluctantly stop allowing publishers and people in Australia from sharing local and international news" [1]

So who is right?

[0] https://about.google/google-in-australia/an-open-letter/

[1] https://about.fb.com/news/2020/08/changes-to-facebooks-servi...

Wow that's awful. At least on Android I could create a new user profile with zero contacts, but not sure if there's a similar workaround on iPhone

This is the main reason I sold my Facebook shares about a year ago. It's clear that FB will not be able to repeat their Instagram trick in future

Related: https://austenallred.com/reading

I'm going to repost a comment I made a couple years ago because it's still 100% relevant:

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Incredible that Google has been able to sustain almost 20% revenue growth for so long - much longer than most people expected. For the past 6 or 7 years people have been predicting that Google's growth would soon slow because:

(a) The number of ads on a search result page had reached saturation point

(b) The percentage of people using the internet in rich countries had reached saturation point

Although real, these effects have proved to be outweighed by other, less limited factors of growth; in particular Google's ability improve the quality of match between advertiser and user. Even now I think there is significant room for Google to improve this matching - eg. when I put an iPad Pro in my online shopping basket at apple.com but don't buy it, why don't I then see iPad ads on YouTube? When I give Tesla $1,000 to reserve but not buy a Model 3, why don't I then see Model 3 ads reading The New York Times? Apple and Tesla are leaving money on the table, and when they wake up Google will make even more money

It's not just end users who would have to switch to Bing - the advertisers would also have to switch, and Google probably has better return on each advertising dollar spent on its platform.

I wonder whether Google might withdraw their service for a day or even just a few hours, to apply pressure on the government.

I read that by having such notable speakers, hedge funds can invite and impress wealthy clients to what is essentially a big sales pitch. If you're trying to get 20 people to each give you $50 million, then speaker fees of $2 million is just part of the marketing budget.

Thanks - I'll check it out although it seems to only use one microphone.

By 'transactions sense' I think Yellen means using cryptocurrency to buy and sell goods and services. The Chainalysis figure seems to include people simply swapping USD for Bitcoin. So in that sense Yellen may be correct

Why has it been so difficult for the Fed to increase inflation? Couldn't it have just printed more money?

I wonder if there's an underlying connection here with studies showing that Black teachers improve outcomes for Black students: https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2018-11-...

My comment wasn't meant to be 'dismissive'. The idea that Black doctors provide a better standard of care for Black babies is a reasonable explanation for the data - perhaps even the most likely. I just thought other explanations should also be considered.

That's a fair point, but I think it depends on whether someone is clearly inciting violence. In the case of Trump's Twitter ban I would agree with you - it will enrage Trump supporters and cause them to disengage from constructive debate. And Trump's tweets aren't really examples of 'inciting violence'.

But in this case some Parler users are saying, "They should have burnt down Nanci Pelosi's house with her inside" and "That cop should have been shot and bleed out". This is clearly encouraging acts of violence, and the costs of giving such people a megaphone outweigh the benefits of engaged debate. So Apple is right to insist that Parler moderate such speech.

In Australia for decades we've had laws that prevent one person from owning a majority of newspapers and TV stations in a city. It was supported by many left-wing people because it prevented Rupert Murdoch from dominating the media landscape.

Now days such people defend the dominance of Twitter because it is using its power in a way that they agree with. Is that a double-standard?

Mastery in any field involves 4 components: Accumulation of knowledge, conceptual understanding, judgement and skill

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That's a good point - for example, the smartphone was a hardware improvement which led to a Cambrian explosion of software products.

Regarding the question about making sure it happens in the U.S.: A big factor would be increasing skilled immigration. eg. Currently there are Chinese students getting STEM PhDs at Ivy-league universities who will be forced to return to China after graduation - that is madness.

Here's interesting observation by by Nobel prize-winners Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo:

"We have already seen, in the previous chapter, another example of people who had lucrative opportunities to save but did not use them: the fruit vendors from Chennai, who borrowed about 1,000 rupees ($45.75 USD PPP) each morning at the rate of 4.69 percent per day. Suppose that the vendors decided to drink two fewer cups of tea for three days. This would save them 5 rupees a day, which could be used to cut down on the amount they would have to borrow. After the first day with less tea, they would have to borrow 5 rupees less. This means that at the end of the second day, they would have to repay 5.23 rupees less (the 5 rupees they did not borrow, plus 23 paisas in interest), which, when added to the 5 rupees they saved that second day by again drinking less tea, would allow them to borrow 10.23 rupees less. By the same logic, by the fourth day, they would have 15.71 rupees that they could use for buying fruit instead of borrowing. Now, say they go back to drinking their two cups more tea but continue to plough the 15.71 rupees they had saved from three days of not drinking so much tea back into the business (that is, borrowing that much less). That accumulated amount continues to grow (just as the 10 rupees had turned into 10.71 after two days) and after exactly ninety days, they would be completely debt-free. They would save 40 rupees a day, which is the equivalent of about half a day’s wages. All just for the price of six cups of tea! The point is that these vendors are sitting under what appears to be as close to a money tree as we are likely to find anywhere. Why don’t they shake it a bit more?"

From "Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty"

https://www.amazon.com.au/Poor-Economics-Radical-Rethinking-...

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