alexmayyasi

Author here. While having fun coming up with titles, other options included:

This French Guy Hated on Blogs Back in 1835

and

People Have Been Hating on Buzzfeed For 180 Years

(I thought I already nixed the linkbait title!)

I've had this conversation with a friend from Paris who made the same point.

The stats show that SF rents are as high as places like Paris and NYC, but it may be a comparison between a nice, new studio in SF and an ancient, tiny room that used to house a servant in Paris. It's another layer on top of the stats. (Or we need more stats for a full picture.)

Please use ctrl-f to skip to this part of the article:

"So if drivers disregard speed limits, why bother trying to set the “right” speed limit at all?"

Then let us know what you think.

This article on an urban planner's objection to suburbs on financial grounds (most succinctly put as suburbs are a ponzi scheme) is relevant for thinking about why this project is -- relative to a more suburban/sprawl alternative -- less costly than it seems:

http://time.com/3031079/suburbs-will-die-sprawl/

Here's an explanation of the move to data services and writing articles and blog posts.

http://priceonomics.com/introducing-the-priceonomics-busines...

I think it's been mine, but I don't have the monies to have gone to fancy hotels all over the world.

Where all have you found the expensive hotels to consistently have free wifi?

Seconded! Always fire back at people who try to look down at having a drink on the rocks!

I'm interested to hear people's reactions to the article and the Soros trade.

I'd also like to know what the HN crowd thinks about opinions like this recent New Yorker article that asks how hedge funds "get away" with charging such high fees without producing superior returns:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2014/05/ho...

Does anyone see a cow when they look at Clarus the dogcow? I see a dog all the way.

you're safe!

The original paper breaks down finance between 3-4 categories. (If you google the title you can find free pdfs.)

We combined them to make it more clear for the casual reader.

~priceonomicist

I would argue that the 10x engineer isn't a myth - the myth is that these 10x more productive employees are unique to engineering whereas they can really be found across industries.

My starting point is this study by biz school professors (unfortunately paywalled) about how power law distributions define employees in sales, scientific research, entertainment, and really much of skilled labor: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/peps.12054/abstra...

In effect, it's common for 20% of employees to be responsible for 80% of a company's productivity.

I'm a writer at Priceonomics, so you can read the blog post I wrote about the research and the topic here: http://priceonomics.com/whats-so-special-about-star-engineer.... I'd love to hear what HN thinks in the context of this thread.

It's a longread. I think the most important points are:

1) You find star performers in many industries

2) Star performers are not inherently more productive - context is important. They are talented but also benefit from the system supporting them. In one study, the performance of 10x Wall Street analysts crumbled when they switched employers if their team did not come with them.

3) If you get obsessed with 10x employees and A players - and lose sight of important points like the importance of team - you will become Enron. Really. Enron lived and breathed the A players motto until their idolizing of "talent" lost all connection to reality. You can find a link to a great Malcolm Gladwell article on the topic in my post.

do i use yahoo?

Author here. I originally had a pic of a regular old seat belt, but when I saw the Volvo meme I had to use it. Just fixed that.

Sorry for the confusion!

Author of the post here. I don't have any metrics like those up my sleeve, but I would encourage you to check out the Pew survey i mentioned which (in reference to print and tv) finds that:

"Nearly one-third of the respondents (31%) have deserted a news outlet because it no longer provides the news and information they had grown accustomed to."

http://stateofthemedia.org/