djyaz1200

"It's the new smoking, an expensive/unhealthy pacifier for poor people."

by djyaz1200 62 days ago on: Facebook – cancer of our generation"

Twilio is wisely selling axes during the gold rush. Interesting article but I've bet my company and $50k that this is wrong. (I buy their stock on dips)

Rather than trying to deal with all the costs/conflicts and intricacies of selling their services directly to each client they are smart to empower others to handle that last mile for them. That's the true essence of a platform. When offering a platform like iOS you invite others to make money handling all the stuff that you aren't uniquely qualified to deal with and/or that isn't worth your time. I've talked to Google employees who consistently say if it's not a $100M/yr opportunity we won't even look at X.

You could argue, as I think this article does that Twilio is leaving billions of dollars on the table with this approach but they are getting something for that money... an ecosystem of fiercely loyal clients invested in their success (because companies like mine make money off of them).

Finally, does Twilio (or anyone) really know what the future of enterprise telephony will look like? I would argue they don't, and anyone with any technical experience knows how VERY dangerous + expensive it is to start building a client facing product without a clear vision for what it should be. Better that they provide the API and let other companies fight to figure out the rest... which of course we are happy to make money doing for them :)

Problem... this broadcast approach isn't particularly helpful unless all cars have it. So to add this TCAS style solution to all cars might cost what? $100/car in equipment alone? For all 263 million cars in the US that would be $26 billion. Seems pricy when Tesla has a system today that solves this problem without all that infrastructure, or the privacy concerns?

Big Auto Exec... "Hey we are years behind on self driving tech, what are we going to do about it? How can we catch up? We're going to end up having to license software from Tesla/Google?!"

Other Big Auto Exec... "Oh don't worry we'll just use our political influence to change the rules to dramatically simplify the problem."

Agree that's shitty. Suggest the female founders who dealt with McClure (including and especially those NOT funded) get together and file a class action lawsuit against the fund. Then they can own it, or at least a big piece of it. When women take action on that scale this kind of thing will be policed much more carefully... but it will take powerful people losing 8/9 figure money.

Tipping sucks because then the driver wants to build a relationship with me instead of letting me just zone out or check email or something. I don't want to have a single serving friend every time I need to go somewhere.

Some of the most successful people I know aren't on Facebook and I don't think that's a coincidence. It's the new smoking, an expensive/unhealthy pacifier for poor people.

Can someone please explain this to me in layman's terms?

First off any medical advice from Huffpost is bullshit. Second the author here and the doc cited are pompous idiots. ADHD is real in children and adults and evidence of it can be seen with brain imaging (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170216105919.h...). Maybe they should conduct their work with some hard science/evidence instead of a checklist based on opinion? Ooooh.... and cry me a river, some big pharma company paid for a vacation for you and then took something you said and bent it to sell some drugs. Wake up! They sell drugs and so do you doc! I have ADHD and meds are the difference between total personal ruin and successfully running a company for me... and many other people. Every one of these clickbait bullshit articles that descend into moral arguments about ADHD do real harm to actual people with a quantifiable disability. Rule 1 of being kind that you teach a child is not to pick on people for things they can't change. I can't change that I have ADHD, other people with it cannot change that. We live in a world made by people with what the book "Delivered from Distraction" called "Attention Surplus Disorder." Supposedly the people who aren't sick are the ones who can sit still at a desk and then a cubicle their whole life doing what they are told. If that's being well I'm so glad I'm "sick."

To whom it may concern at the FCC, As the head of an ISP I must tell you that I am entirely dissatisfied with the billions of dollars I make providing a mediocre utility service with near zero competition to customers who pay for that service. I see the billions of dollars being made by Facebook and Google through innovation and user consent and I want to take that money with political and regulatory force. I'll need you to first make it entirely legal for me to capture and sell all data about my users. Not because they consent, not because they want this but because I want a new cash cow to slaughter. I'm going to use this information to become an alternative provider of targeted ads to my customers. Next, I'll need you to allow me to throttle back the speed by which customers can access my competitors services because mine aren't as good. This isn't so much a toll road as a team of aggressive traffic cops, pulling over any business making too much money on my big dumb pipe to slow them down... fine them and then let them slowly attempt to carry on. I need this all because I don't innovate, I don't like my customers or give a shit what they want. I am simply used to using raw power and corrupt regulatory force to act as a parasite extracting the maximum tariff from productive businesses, people and entrepreneurs possible while keeping some of my hosts alive... but killing the smaller ones. I am big business. I am angry because I am losing. The actual free and open internet is allowing actual free market capitalism and user choice in too many things. I used to fight this kind of thing in back rooms quietly but this fight has escalated so now I must come out in the open and ask the government publicly to please take from the poor and give to me in new ways... because the poor keep innovating their way out of the traps I set. Finally, I disrespectfully request that the rules I propose be named the exact opposite of what they stand for, so it's clear this isn't a discussion with reasonable people but a raw show of force. -Old Rich Guy

A middle solution here is in order. If you buy a John Deere tractor or Cisco router you should be allowed to do whatever you want with it if you remove all of that companies branding from it. Leaving their brand on it confers a promise of a certain level of standardization/reliability compromised by DIY repairs/mods.

Having held my mothers hand as she received chemo for her Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma I can tell you this... if there is a even a tiny chance using Roundup increases the risk of the disease it isn't worth it.

I respect what you're doing here man, thoughtful and interesting!

This is THE BIGGEST MONEY MAKING IDEA IN TECHNOLOGY full stop. The money that will be made around this will make Adwords look like a cute hobby. Messaging on all channels needs to be assigned a variable cost. ...and this implementation is thoughtful/interesting, as is 21.co... Google, Facebook and Microsoft have understood this is coming for a long time. That's why Microsoft bought Linkedin, and FB bought Whatsapp. Companies are spending billions to prepare for this future, but I have yet to hear anyone elucidate how this paid communication future will actually work. Further, since the patent system has been eviscerated there isn't any incentive for an entrepreneur to solve the whole problem... and Google and many other tech companies only know how to copy good ideas... not generate their own. So your reward for starting a company that solves this will likely be lawsuits, poverty and personal and professional devastation. Who is gonna step up ;)

Related but not precisely on topic... When will a group of talented people with access to capital end the gross imbalance of power between landlords and tenants with technology? In just about every other area of the economy the customer has the power. To give the customer aka renter more power they need more information. Step 1 is having ratings for all landlords/properties. The landlords get your rating (your credit) but you don't get theirs. That asymmetry puts the renter at a disadvantage. There is also no price discovery mechanism. You only know the rate they quote you, no way to find out the actual price they are charging existing tenants. Payments in this industry are often still by check which is absurd in 2017. This is one of the last giant markets left for technology to disrupt but it's going to be a war. The landlord/tenant relationship is "where the rubber meets the road" in the struggle between the rich and the rest of us... so this isn't going to be easy. If someone took this on I'd be honored to be a part of it!

https://vimeo.com/user12087540/checkmeonce

Totally agree with advice above, this is the kind of issue the legal system is made for. Additionally I'd suggest you go file in small claims court today. Suspect they will settle just to avoid the hassle... and if you do it quick you might still get your apt. Good luck.

Until science has an effective solution for male pattern baldness I think the idea that we're going to be able to cheat death is premature. (...and please don't troll me and say Propecia or Rogaine, I used both and I'm still bald)

Does anyone know of a scraper with a simple UI that's usable by less technical people? Similar to Kimono (bought by Palantir and shut down). https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/15/palantir-acquires-kimono-l...

As a committed founder your entire life is wrapped up in your company, not just your career but to an extent your health, your relationships and your family all depend on this one bet paying off. ...and more frequently it's taking even the most successful startups nearly a decade to reach an IPO/liquidity. Talented employees hired at full market value have a lot less lock in/risk and a much lower switching cost than founders. Also investors place many bets and don't live and die with each of them. As the founder you have one big bet, and setting aside the wreckage that can create in a founders life... it also can encourage them to make overly cautious decisions that aren't aligned with the investor's and employee's long term interests. Taking a reasonable amount of money off the table to take care of your family and have some security is perfectly reasonable.

Agree

I think your perspective is valid/reasonable for most of us. ...but as a CEO of any company I believe that it's necessary you to hold yourself to a MUCH higher standard. In that role you represent the interests of a lot of other people, you're entrusted with investor's money, your employee's livelihood and the welfare of their families/kids and in this situation your drivers/contractors and their livelihood and families. With so much at stake I think part of what you give up as CEO is the right to just speak your mind and have an argument like a normal person might. Right or wrong I think he needs to make sure if there is news about him or Uber that it's good news... that's a big part of the job of CEO and it's 24/7/365.

The death spiral. I get it and I agree with your analysis that this has the potential to "break insurance." I don't think the direction insurers are headed in with this is good for society or even their own industry but the companies who do it first will get a huge benefit in lower risk pools... so absent legislation to prevent it this its is happening.

Interesting. Seems like the insurance industry will change dramatically with the introduction of more data and AI capabilities. Imagine if an insurer ran a search of social check ins at bars against their auto insurance customers. Seems like some people might be paying $2K/mo for car insurance while others pay $40/mo... since with more analysis it will become a lot easier to determine when those big loses are coming and exactly who from rather than guessing/averaging like they do now.

Agree, well said. I'd add that it's very time efficient. I'm trying to be as informed as possible in as little time as possible.

This communication would be protected under the first amendment if they addressed the recipient by name, used the senders name and had a mechanism for replying to a human being. That's one to one speech. If they failed to adhere to that standard it's likely their communication would be classified as one to many communication and therefore subject to TCPA and a host of other restrictions.

Is this click fraud or actual readership?

This is a big deal! ...although yes very late in the game. Like it or not corporate buyers like brand names. Back in the day the saying was "no gets fired for buying IBM." Blackberry has a brand in secure enterprise communication and this will sell.

What this really is that Amazon is boot stomping their competitors so hard that they are positioning for the government to step in and break up the fight.

Also good, thx :)

Thank you, very interesting essay.

"...I didn't realize you could write as candidly and informally as you would if you were writing to a friend..."