868 karma · joined May 14, 2013
This is only even a perception in the Silicon Valley echo chamber, and it's not even true there. I worked at a contracting firm that did apps last year and we never once wrote one in JS.
And it's also hilarious and a perfect example of why Twitter is a perfect example of the tech bubble. Twitter is not going to grow in value sevenfold: in ten years they have not even broken even yet.
I'm part of Boeing now? This is great news! When do I get my first paycheck?
> Do the shoot, tell the story, wrap.
Okay, so don't edit it so much that it's incredibly distracting.
> There is no pleasing some people
Meh, in the end I liked the video, but that doesn't mean we have to pretend the video was edited well.
It's probable that you're speaking metaphorically here, but your metaphor is abstract enough as to not communicate any meaning. It's clear that you think someone is demanding growth. Who is demanding growth? When you figure that out it will be much clearer to you what's going on here.
Scientific ideas are not discussed freely. They are driven by funding, which is disproportionally awarded to novel results. Non-novel results or failures to reproduce are overly ignored and under-funded.
This is a fascinating observation, and given the information they had at the time, I can see where Locher is coming from. Given two possibilities, one involving absolutely enormous stars and one involving a earth that circled the sun, both extraordinary claims, and no sure way (yet) to evaluate which was true, it's human that he supported the more comfortable hypothesis, and he wasn't provably wrong given the information they had.
> That is unfortunate for science, because today the opponents of science make use of that caricature. Those who insist that the Apollo missions were faked, that vaccines are harmful, or even that the world is flat – whose voices are now loud enough for the ‘War on Science’ to be a National Geographic cover story and for the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to address even their most bizarre claims – do not reject the scientific process per se. Rather, they wrap themselves in the mantle of Galileo, standing (supposedly) against a (supposedly) corrupted science produced by the ‘Scientific Establishment’.
The problem with this is that it conflates the public social debate with an internal scientific debate. Galileo vs. Pope Paul V is not the same debate as Galileo vs. Locher. The former is a debate driven by social needs that tries to drive opinion starting from what the pope wanted rather than observation (which is in fact a rejection of scientific process). The latter is two competing scientific hypotheses.
Likewise, picking one of the example debates (do vaccines cause autism?) there are two possible debates. The public debate is driven by social needs--mostly people trying to find meaning in the suffering caused by their child's autism, and people trying to take advantage of that need. This is absolutely a rejection of scientific process: scientific process attempts to explain phenomena, not find explanations that make people feel better. The internal scientific debate is largely not a debate, because the evidence that vaccines don't cause autism is, at this point, so overwhelming.
"Wrapping oneself in the mantle of Galileo" IS inherently an unscientific position: being pro- or anti-establishment is irrelevant to scientific process. The fact that Galileo happened to be anti-establishment at the time is irrelevant to the fact that ultimately his hypotheses were proven correct.
The real problem here is that a large part of the scientific community doesn't recognize that the social debate and the scientific debate are two different debates. Scientific evidence which is persuasive in a scientific context (studies have shown no correlation between vaccines and autism) does not persuade everyone in a public social context. Emotional approaches are also necessary (would you rather your child died of whooping cough? Or as one person with autism said, "It's painful that some people would rather have a dead child than a child like me.").
They are different business models in the sense that Disney has a business model and Twitter doesn't.
> Twitter has tremendous value and with the right product changes, some rollbacks, I think it can become very powerful and in as much widespread use as Facebook, etc. The problem is is getting someone in the driver's seat who understands what Twitter's place (differentiation, offering) is and then getting that driving.
The problem isn't anything so vague. The problem is that Twitter hasn't ever made a profit and a this point probably won't ever make a profit. And I suspect that this refutes your assertion that "Twitter has tremendous value".
Twitter isn't a media company. They don't sell media, and in fact they don't sell enough of anything to make a profit.
That's not necessarily true. Remember that Musk started with $165 million from sale of shares of PayPal when it was bought by eBay, so he could afford to wait a while for his companies to take off. When you have a large amount of money to invest and you're young, it makes sense to invest in things with a high up-front cost and long wait before you get a payoff--most companies aren't willing to take a risk on that kind of investment, and once it pays off, you own something with little competition and a long head start on your competitors.
And, incidentally, it puts Musk in the position of Silicon Valley's golden boy--which has numerous business advantages.
Agreed.
> 2. The companies are tackling some of the hardest problems and I think purely to make money he would have picked other easier problems to solve.
That's not necessarily true. Remember that Musk started with $165 million from sale of shares of PayPal when it was bought by eBay, so he could afford to wait a while for his companies to take off. When you have a large amount of money to invest and you're young, it makes sense to invest in things with a high up-front cost and long wait before you get a payoff--most companies aren't willing to take a risk on that kind of investment, and once it pays off, you own something with little competition and a long head start on your competitors.
And, incidentally, it puts Musk in the position of Silicon Valley's golden boy--which has numerous business advantages.
> 3. It is shortsighted to not embrace anyone pushing and striving for the important goals for humanity. Energy, transportation, space travel.
I agree, but we shouldn't do that naively. If we see Musk as being inherently good instead of as who he is, someone trying to make money, we'll be more likely to compromise our ethics because we view him as good.
Imagine a future where SpaceX sets up mines on the moon. This creates a situation where SpaceX has unprecedented control over a subset of its employees--they literally will die without the company's resources, because there aren't other options on the moon. If we naively trust Musk's intentions, we might let this happen without regulation and only add regulation after abuses for profit are discovered--which may be decades too late for the victims of the abuse. But if we realize that Musk is not ethically different from any other CEO, we will have the wisdom to preempt these kinds of problems with oversight.
Are we really so naive that we're just parroting whatever Musk's PR team says? Musk isn't doing this to further the human race, he's doing it to make money.
It's my default position that my boss doesn't trust me. As you yourself earlier said, "I agree there should be no trust here, but we are conditioned to think that there should be." So, the answer is don't do that. Don't give in to the conditioning.
> Maybe he needs to close a deal with an external customer, and he doesn't have enough time to train up another person to take care of your job responsibilities, and he really needs to close that round of funding.
It's relatively clear when this is happening, though, because it's hard to hide when your replacement has been hired. If you can see this happening up front, you can leverage this to counter the counteroffer by offering to delay starting at the new place for increased pay (with your new employer's consent of course).
> Maybe his hiring pipeline is dry, either because your skills are hard to find, or maybe because candidates picked up on his managerial faults.
This sounds like an excellent situation to be in as an employee, as it means you have found a local minima in the supply-to-demand ratio.
> Maybe he needs time to vet external consultants to take over your job, and needs you to stick around to train them, stick around longer than 2 weeks or however long you gave notice for.
Again, it's relatively clear when this is happening, and in this case you may be able to work out a deal.
> All these situations are the worst. He thinks he needs you, but doesn't really want you around. That way you stick around in an environment where management doesn't like you, and whenever there is a viable alternative, they'll dump you for the alternative.
This sounds like literally every job ever.
Let's be clear here: at every job you've ever worked at, you're a cost center, and if you've worked yourself into a high-paying position, you're one of the largest cost centers. If your value ceases to be worth the money you're being paid they will get rid of you regardless of how they feel about you: it's hard to make feelings outweigh numbers. The problem isn't that a counteroffer has changed the situation--the situation has not changed. The problem is that you didn't understand that was the situation until you received the counteroffer.
If you're looking to be friends with your boss, I suppose that's a bad situation in that this might ruin your friendship with your boss. But if you're looking to be friends with your boss, that's going to significantly limit your career in more ways than just this. Your boss is not your friend.
It can't work worse than operating at a loss until they go out of business, which is Twitter's current trajectory.
I've said before[1] that Twitter is the poster child for the tech bubble and that people's opinion of Twitter is a good litmus test for people's understanding of the industry. It sounds like Twitter's management understands their position and is looking to get out while there are still people who think Twitter has value.
The problem is, it's also up to the programmers who worked on my codebase before I did. I would never write that atrocity, but I've come across that atrocity quite a few times in code I needed to modify.
Why would someone who takes my looking for other jobs as a personal affront make a counteroffer?
That's very good of you.
> Play devils advocate and see how a "mega corp" runs things. If you could pay everyone discretionally (ie decided by mid level manager) you'd be out of business tomorrow. Those companies keep cost controls just because they are so large.
This is true, and a clear indictment of large corporations. Unsuprisingly, this logic only applies to the lower end of the pyramid, however--upper-level management rarely chooses to put cost controls on their own pay.
1. Species Preference
2. Protecting Passengers (Passengers > Pedestrians)
3. Saving More Lives
4. Upholding The Law
5. Avoiding Intervention
6. Age Preference
7. Fitness Preference
8. Social Value Preference
9. Gender Preference
"Avoiding Intervention" is an interesting one, because basically after that one, you've given up the opportunity to affect outcomes. I can certainly prioritize after that, but as a car maker, I couldn't do anything about my prioritization without breaking my avoiding intervention choice.
There's also some complication around prioritization of "Species Preference". I chose to put that first because it captures my intent best--I want human lives always prioritized over pet lives, i.e. this situation[1]. But it gets a bit complicated with the interaction of "Saving More Lives" and 4/5. I'd avoid intervention and uphold the law without regard saving more lives if those lives are pets (I'd go straight here[2]) but I'd always save more human lives without regard to pet lives, upholding the law, or avoiding intervention (swerve here[3]) and I'd always save more lives without regard to upholding the law or avoiding intervention if those lives are not mixed human/pet groups (swerve here[4] and here[5]). This makes sense if you look at this as 3/4/5 applied to human lives are prioritized as a group before 3/4/5 applied to pet lives.
[1] http://moralmachine.mit.edu/browse/-685441648
[2] http://moralmachine.mit.edu/browse/-1848192482
[3] http://moralmachine.mit.edu/browse/-194950738
Yes, most of my examples aren't global, but that's largely a function of regulation: the US is the only country with permissive enough economic policy to allow spontaneous monopolies and a large enough economy to be worth creating a monopoly in.
As for historical monopolies on the order of millennia: the modern corporation hasn't existed for millennia and indeed societal, technological, and infrastructural advancement was necessary before we could reach a point where a large scale monopoly was possible. It's hard to run a monopoly by carrier pigeon.
>> What makes you think that a large company will not create high barriers to entry in their field? When a company reaches a size where they can lobby the government successfully the field ceases to be an even playing field.
> So what you're saying is that non-natural Monopolies are the end state of government intervention.
It's ironic that in your excitement when you thought you had caught me in a mistake, you simply missed my point and failed to respond to it.
Given your general tactics in this debate have been rude and childish, I'm not going to continue debating with you further, but here's a question for you to ponder: in your hypothetical unregulated corporate free market, what prevents large corporations from changing the market so that it's no longer a free market?
It's additionally worth noting that a) there is not a consensus, and b) consensus is not part of the scientific method.
Yeah, but Google isn't representative of the industry as a whole.
> I'm not making an argument.
You said, "Counteroffers are poison for both the employee and the company." That's a very strong position you're taking.
> I'm saying that trust (rightly or wrongly) sometimes seems like something that should be expected (to those who haven't been working for a while especially) and can be used to guilt people into acting in not their own best interests, or to act in a retaliatory way against employees.
This is true, but inapplicable to the decision of whether to take a counteroffer. If you're the employee, "I might be being guilted into not acting in self-interest" is a concern that doesn't really support OR oppose taking counteroffers in general, it's just a general consideration (and the answer is basically to recognize that most companies only care about you as much as you can produce value for them). And while certainly some employers are prone to acting in a retaliatory way toward employees who look elsewhere, making a counteroffer is exactly the opposite of retaliatory behavior--it's recognizing that the loyalty ploy didn't work, and renegotiating.
When Uber first released, my guess is they probably couldn't do most of what you list above. But it didn't matter, because they had one compelling feature: they routed around regulation. This allowed them to pay drivers more and charge riders less than traditional taxis, while taking a cut for themselves. This is a clearly profitable position to be in, which means that they have the money to bring in capable business analysts and programmers, and the rest of what you say above will happen naturally.
The taxi apps before Uber didn't recognize that the killer feature was routing around regulation, and the taxi apps after that didn't do it first.
Sure, I can't write Uber in its current state in a weekend, but I could absolutely write Uber's minimum viable product in a few days. The problem is having the right combination of a good idea, the correct understanding of why it's a good idea, and the expertise to execute it (not just technical expertise).
This is because of government intervention (it's illegal for Christ's sake).
> Neither has wheat, sugar, electricity production, coal, iron, or copper.
Wheat has been regulated forever.
Sugar--are you not aware of the corn lobby?
Electricity production: this is pretty well monopolized regionally.
Coal: not yet.
Iron: USS wasn't a good enough a monopoly for you?
> A natural monopoly only exists in the face of high barriers to entry. Those barriers may be natural, or they may be political, but either way they must be high. Some may be high enough to only have a few competitors, but compete they must do. Collusion is mathematically and empirically unstable. In fact, the economic criteria for cartel success is a) how much profits increase, and b) how long they last. There would be no need for `b` as a success criteria if they were stable.
What makes you think that a large company will not create high barriers to entry in their field? When a company reaches a size where they can lobby the government successfully the field ceases to be an even playing field.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair