jrbapna

While the analysis is fine, the conclusion is almost certainly false. At Google's scale, nearly any iteration made on core products is backed by an immense understanding of their end users and a near unlimited supply of user data.

But it's somewhat probable that they could (given their mission), and that's what makes this risky.

And even if they don't do it themselves, I imagine that uber will eventually release an API of sorts, allowing anyone to tap into their logistical network.

The food delivery startups faced similar risks, it'll be interesting to see how they fare now that uber eats is gaining momentum

Agree with this premise, Users will not necessarily appreciate simplicity over functionality.

It's also worth noting that Facebook, Craigslist, Photoshop, etc are not necessarily optimizing their UI for new users, but rather those users who have been using their software for a while. I imagine that one's design considerations will change based on the prototype of the typical user.

I don't think it's that simple. There are few more factors at play:

For one, the markets are risky. Let's not forget that just a few years ago, bonds which were supposedly rated AAA were nothing but air. The entire economic system collapsed quite literally overnight. Many people lost faith in the "system". Currently our debt levels are higher than any economist is comfortable with, and just like in the case with the subprime mortgages, there is huge political pressure to keep the government's AAA rating, whether deserved or not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_governme...

Additionally, over the past decade we've seen an huge rise in the number of startups, and the number of companies looking to "disrupt" entire industries. In 2016, it's not completely unreasonable that a billion dollar company could go bankrupt within a few years due to whatever disruption comes from left field. Hoarding cash is a hedge against this type of risk, as it allows large companies to be flexible, acquire smaller, potential threats, or go on the offensive if/when it becomes necessary. i.e. Facebook's acquisition of Whatsapp for 19B

Was I the only one who assumed the DOJ could unlock the phone for a while now, but instead chose to legally force Apple to do it to set a precedence? This news almost seems like a win for Apple; if there was a good chance that the DOJ would have won the case, they probably would have pursued it till the end.

Exactly. I've spoken to a number of people at large co's in non tech roles that use it daily. Apparently the feed is great for keeping up with what's going on in your industry, and what your coworkers are reading / liking / commenting on. One person I spoke to said she pretty much always has LinkedIn open as a tab during work hours.

it exists! https://atom.io/packages/ask-stack

Is there an atom extension for searching stack overflow snippets? if not, let's build one!

Similar experiences here. GT is very underrated outside of the southeast corridor. I'm hoping this will get better with time.

I'm having trouble believing network latency would be the bottleneck here. Just ping google.com and you'll see ~25ms latency which is a lot less than the half second delay described in the article.

Now, having the server actually process the information, and return a response that then must then be vocalized may take much longer, but that's a different issue than "network latency".

Not to mention when people interact, they often use filler words when collecting thoughts... "um...", "uh...", "hmmm..", "yeah...". there's your half second delay

I like Wget's option to continue a file download if it gets interrupted. I believe you can achieve the same thing in curl but its not as simple as just setting a flag (-c).

For a startup still trying to find product-market fit and not building anything intensive (ie mobile games), webview apps are the way to go. Build, test, iterate quickly and fix bugs on the fly.

Utility isn't necessarily correlated with profitability. Craigslist/wikipedia being obvious examples. Apple's good at making products that people will pay a premium for.

On the positive side, a quicker upgrade curve helps developers iterate faster, and improves software quality as a whole. Our team is much more effective when we know we only have to support the latest 2-3 releases of our app, and we can simply prompt anyone using anything older to upgrade.

How will this impact page-speed?

I recall switching the product pages of an e-comm site, which had up to 50 small images per page, from https to http and the change very significantly increased page load speed for the end user

as somebody who hasn't been following this at all, can someone please explain all of the hostility toward fb? I get that what fb is offering is far from ideal, but isn't it slightly better than the status quo of no internet for a large amount of people? and as Facebook is a business, not a charity, shouldn't they be able to recoup money on their investment? I imagine giving free internet access, albeit limited, to the world's soon to be largest population doesn't come cheap

This only applies to the stations, not the actual trains. The great majority of my commute time is spent on the train, not in the station (where you can often get LTE anyway).

The housing shortage in SF is a citywide problem that goes far beyond airbnb. Removing airbnb listings would barely make a dent in the extreme housing problem that we have in San Francisco.

The few times I've used airbnb they were always much better than comparatively priced hotels in the area.

Anybody have a link to the actual talk?

A good workout at the gym could have similar effects and is a much healthier alternative.

You need to make yourself more vulnerable. You're not relateable to most people because 1) they're slightly intimidated by you: you've accomplished something that they've only ever dreamt of. And 2) you're not on their radar: they don't see you at work during the day, happy hour after work, or the football game on the weekends. Why? Well because you're working obviously.

Share your challenges and be completely open and transparent. Use social media to stay relevant and on people's radar. Show people you're just as human as they are.

I'm on the same boat. Achieved financial independence in college. Experienced the highs of having a ton of friends in university and my first job to the lows of not being able to make any good friends as an independent worker.

This seems to be working for me.

Agreed

This might be a bit impersonal, but why exactly could this person not get a job? If he/she were previously consulting for over 100k a year, surely this person would have some skills that would make them employable?

What's interesting is that it's very common for wealthy Chinese to invest in / move their families and their money into the States. Just look at places like Seattle, where around one-third of all $1+ homes are purchased by foreign Chinese, and according to this NYT article, three-quarters of their purchases are all cash. *

* http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/business/in-suburban-seatt...

Not to mention the most popular email and maps

The big box retailers want this because it will hurt the small, independent online businesses. This has nothing to do with generating more tax revenue, this is about controlling competition.