holidayacct

He's not saying venture capital is starting to do more harm, he's addressing where and how venture capital is being expended. He actually has a good point regarding funding of small to medium sized business with strong business models that emphasize being cash flow positive. Venture capital cannot do harm, most people don't know this but small businesses need the protection via social connections that a venture capital provides. If you don't believe that try running an independent small business and see how exhausting it is when you run into problems and don't have the backing of a VC. I grew up with people who did this and they get burned out when they don't have a larger investor who is connected enough to solve what seem like small problems. Everyone thinks they are better off being completely independent as a small business, that is always a bad idea.

There are certain types of businesses that are difficult to grow due to either legal hurdles or local protectionist tactics, I've seen this growing up in different states. If you start a business in the wrong place and don't have the right connections your business is never going to succeed, it doesn't matter what your business model is. In certain states they simply do not want large multi-national corporations, interstate corporations or franchises. If you succeed on a small scale and decide to expand you're going to run into all kinds of problems because people are going to come out of the woodwork trying to slow down your expansion (yes, this is a real thing it caught me off guard when I first found out there are people who do this).

There are also some types of businesses (particularly in the financial industry) that when implemented on a large scale are a nightmare to understand because there are so many rules and regulations. No one has a clue what is happening and it is easier to have hundreds of medium sized businesses with narrow focus that anyone can understand easily. Funding these types of businesses because everyone wants some sort of large IPO just makes the problem worse.

Ignore open IP over VHF/UHF if anyone wants a challenge I found out recently that...

People have been able to eavesdrop on homes by targeting pretty much anything containing metal coils (including appliances) with advanced HAM radio equipment since the early 1970s.

Just because there is no privacy does not mean we should give away our privacy easily.

This has never been difficult to achieve, why is this a big deal? Privacy never existed in the first place. People have been able to eavesdrop on homes by targeting pretty much anything containing metal coils (including appliances) with advanced HAM radio equipment since the early 1970s. We need to stop pretending there is such a thing as privacy and start actually looking at where scientific progress is at right now. If you actually get a basic grasp of physics, radio theory and electrical engineering you're going to find out exactly how little privacy we have.

That's good for their sysadmins and softwar engineers. They love to raise anxiety levels and create ambiguity interpeters (people who start believing there is meaning in people and objects around them) in NYC. Yes, this is a real thing... Don't ask for details, the short story is someone discovered they could exploit people with genes for paranoid schizophrenia to make them anxious and afraid to the point they look for meaning in things around them.

If you have to lie to announce bad news either you're too hypersensitive or your team members are too hypersensitive. People need to grow up and accept that working for any company isn't all sunshine and roses.

On a related topic, for those of you who maybe unemployed or know someone who is unemployed.

Beware of rumor spreading when you are looking for work there are companies that are setup for a single purpose. They keep track of the recently unemployed and specialize in spreading rumors at every and any company that you interview at (They masquerade as in-person advertisers or MLM companies). They do this to keep you unemployed long enough so that they can force you into certain places at ridiculously low salaries, they then keep you in debt slavery to force you to purchase from certain places that landlords or shop owners benefit from. This happens all over the country and these vultures are taking advantage of people all over the place.

I'd love to hear about Avi Bryant's time at Etsy. I'm sure he has some interesting stories.

I hope shopify understands the extremely long history of how walmart has dealt with their corporate partners in the past. Walmart typically extends a friendly hug and then slowly squeezes their corporate partners to death. They had better be ready to unravel the relationship at any sign of trouble and be working on a parallel plan to replace walmart. It seems like an unnecessary shorcut that may backfire.

If you want to be able to tell if a story is conspiracy or not ignore the messenger of the theory. Integrate knowledge of psychology, behavioral biology and basic physics. You're going to find that a lot of conspiracy theories are easy to prove or disprove.

I'm not criticizing. I've actually used kubernetes and read the source code. It's a good tool, I just think its too much mental overhead for most companies since they won't use most of what it provides. If you're working on a large team with responsible parties who have a clearly defined roles it is a great tool but I've seen two person projects with startup infrastructure waste obscene amounts of time learning Kubernetes when they could have just stood up something basic with configuration management to get started and migrate to Kubernetes when it was reasonable to do so. People need to start with a goal and then ask what tool meets the objectives of their goal. In a lot of cases people complain about the tool they are using because they start with Kubernetes and then try to figure out how they can use it on the job.

Because Google is an advertising company, their search engine controls what people believe in and they also have some good engineers but they are probably not well known. There is very little they couldn't advertise into popularity. Whenever you see overcomplicated software or infrastructure its always a way to waste executive function, create frustration and create unnecessary mental overhead. If the technology you're using isn't making it easier for you to run your infrastructure from memory, reduce the use of executive function and decrease frustration then you should ignore it. Don't fall for the fashion trends.

The open office plan is only there so that employers can control their employees. There is literally no other reason for it, it removes psychological safety which most people need in order to think while they are working. It allows obnoxious employees to create distractions in order to slow productive employees down. It allows clever employees to waste the executive function of people they don't like by flooding them with behavioral cues, gestures and body languages that has inherent meaning (This is particularly dangerous and devastating if done in a targeted fashion). I'm sure if you talked to a psychologist they could give you a million more fun games you can play with people in open office environments. They were never good for people to begin with or for getting work done. In small startups they are perfectly fine but in medium to large sized corporations they are only abused.

(BTW, none of the above bothers me in particular but I know this happens on all the time and I've watched people in large corporations play psychological games with extremely good employees just to make them miserable in open office environments.)

I wonder when Etsy will stop firing employees without severance packages and blackballing them in technology for months to years because they ask too many questions.

It's pointless, here is why:

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/fyrqi2/til_that...