origami777

I think the lesson here is that kickstarting new markets (entering new countries) is not easy. They basically have a local or regional team that needs to find a way to drive user adoption. They also spend a lot of money on promotions to change user and driver behavior.

IMO it doesn't do them just when we say "it's just an app". It's a complex operation that they've simplified to appear as that way.

To really dispute GP's claim you'd need to make a claim that GE has innovated in new categories under Immelt. The fact it paid out $15 in dividends might only support GP's (and the Forbes article) claim that Immelt has optimized for better selling what currently exists.

This is the same thing that happened to MSFT under Ballmer. MSFT stocked performed well, but they missed the biggest opportunity of the post-PC era (mobile), were late to the cloud game, and probably missed some other opportunities I can't think of.

This is my kind of strategy. If you could get one you'd be just fine. If you get two you've now developed a skill out of it. Sky is the limit from there. And you can walk down the street freely.

Did I strike a nerve or something? The personal insult makes you look defensive.

And no, that's not what I'm saying.

What I am saying is self evident. Large companies have more resources to spend, and they do. Smaller companies have less to spend, which results in experiences like OP's, as they have to pick and chose their battles more selectively. MSFT has laid off more sales staff in the last year than Twilio employs.

It's really interesting to hear you say that. I'm in sales and have to make decisions like this all the time. On our side we're constantly making calculations about which accounts to invest our resources in. It's really hard! There are so many variables. We're acting on imperfect information. We're considering the other accounts we're working on, and doing a cost benefit analysis.

Bigger companies like MSFT and Oracle are usually better at this because a) they've been doing it longer, b) they have more resources to burn. If they throw 10 people on a large deal and it doesn't go through the company itself typically isn't hurt that much (the reps, that's a different story).

The decision to put that many resources on an account that may or may not bring in revenue in the short-term is an enormous decision for a company like Twilio. This is the hard part that they have to go through. Trying to place the right bets on the right accounts. Sounds like they may have gotten your account wrong, unfortunately.

Ah I didn't see that article. Only saw the techcrunch one.

I agree with your sentiment (could've been worded better). Without clarification it seems like people are assuming the worst. Given Dave's reputation that doesn't seem fair. Hopefully the community will get some clarification so that those who work(ed) with Dave can make an informed judgement call for themselves about how to proceed with their relationship.

Edit: added parenthesis to first sentence.

Wasn't that written by Chris Sacca, not Dave?

<insert "when you're a hammer..." joke here>

Not to be a jerk, but, running Facebook over AWS is not a CDN problem. That's crazy talk. There are far more Facebook requirements that AWS can meet that Akamai cannot. You have to look beyond their content delivery reqs.

Also, they could absolutely have 800k servers. I don't think comparing their size to Akamai is fair. The requirements of each company are drastically different.

Do I think the 830k is accurate? No, but only because these estimates are usually wrong (unless informed by an inside source).

At a certain point it becomes a national security risk. And we have to choose, money or security. Until our overall cybersecuirty improves I vote against the profit incentive. And I say we don't leave that decision to shareholders because they don't act with our nations best interest in mind all the time.

I could get on board with that if that's the way it worked. Here's hoping to that becoming the reality!

It may be reasonable, but it's not a good idea. We shouldn't trust Russsians, and they shouldn't trust us. I'd rather the US companies be forced not to sell if those are the terms. It exposes US companies even more than they are. The Russians should find another product if they aren't happy with it.

I'm not an expert in this field and am open minded about it if you have some evidence to share. I did a quick Google search and it looks like this is at the very least a disputed topic. Some research shows that there are some (albeit minimal) health benefits to organic food. Saying it is a gimmick seems wrong.

And I don't think anyone on the chain is arguing to abolish chemical fertilizers. We're talking about the health benefits of the food sold at Whole Foods, which may or may not be organic and/or contain certain additives.

I think it's much simpler than that. People that have the money to buy healthy food simply like to buy healthy food.

The food there is excellent. I'm not rich by any standard and I love shopping there because to me it is high quality. Go to a typical large grocery store deli, then go to Whole Foods deli, you can easily see which one is better.

I'm not sure where you came up with the "I feel guilty about the money I have so I'm going to spend it on foods that are healthy (or claim to be healthy, I'm not sure if you're making that connection or not)" construct. Seems like a reach.

Some comments on your points. I know you didn't ask but couldn't help myself.

Withdrawn from the tpp / Agreed. Seemed like an overall bad deal for the US. TBD on what overall impact will be. This was going to make the US have better economic ties to other Asian countries. Now they're turning to China even more. Seems like if we don't put something like this in place then we will lose more in the long run.

Renegotiating nafta / We'll have to wait and see what happens. He hasn't been able to get anything through that requires collaboration with other parts of government.

Mattis is an excellent choice / Sure, why not.

Tillerson is an excellent choice / Seems like a massive conflict of interest considering the massive web that surrounds him and Russia. He's inexperienced and looks like he's getting pushed around out there. And is it not apparent that his sole job is to help that oil deal with Russia sealed!

Is supporting Saudi Arabias "Vision 2030" plan / Seriously? Saudi basically created muslim extremists. They've been building schools that export extremist views for decades (google saudi arabia exporting wahhabism). They're also on a war path. How the hell are they going to create peace in the region? I guess they could kill everyone that opposes them, that'd probably be their best shot.

Draining the swamp / What? How? You mean firing government employees and replacing them with inexperienced yes men? He's refilling the swamp with something just as bad. All the lobbyists are there. All the career politicians are there. All the money flowing in is still happening. I fail to see the benefit with his version of draining the swamp.

I've made and realized a shit ton of money off the stock market / You could've made more money on the stock market under Obama's first 100 days (2nd term; not his first term he saved the country from one of its worst recessions): http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-trumps-stock-market-ran...

Obamacare is gone / Not quite. Remember he hasn't been able to get agreement on anything. Healthcare was harder than anyone thought!

Jobs are coming back / Where is your evidence that they are coming back because of Trump? I know a few corps announced their "plans" to bring jobs back. Many of those are shady. Job growth seems like a continuation of what was happening under Obama (yes, Obama had tremendous job growth numbers).

He supports laws and law enforcement / Everyone supports this. Cops are still getting killed under Trump. There is still civil unrest, perhaps more now that he has empowered white supremacists. I fail to see what's changed.

What exactly do you like about his performance so far? It seems like it's a slow motion train wreck. But I'm curious what his supporters like about his work so far.

That's a best case scenario way to look at this. I agree with you on how this looks to his base, and what it gives other Republicans. We all know his base will support him on anything so that isn't saying much. And the Republican party is going to ride this train to get as much as they can until it crashes.

I'm not so sure how it helps him with Europe and China. What are your thoughts there?

IMO his foreign relations have been a disaster. I think the only country he has good relations with is Russia. Everyone else is laughing at him.

This also continues the polarization of the nation, which, I guess can be good for him but that's still TBD. And only someone with a gold fish's memory would let this distract them from the Russian thing.

I tend to cringe whenever intelligence is assigned to the man, but I know that's wrong and I should be more open minded.

Good luck! I hope everything goes well

It's more taxpayer money used to kill more people. The Israelis are our frenemies. Plenty of examples of them not acting in our interests. Funds the suppression of the Palestinians. There's a lot not to like about how that is used. Yes we get a partner in the Middle East that helps us fight more wars. Is that really a good thing?

>> job re-training, which will be a big part of the shift.

To me there's no other way to look at this other than having faith in our ability to find work to do. Wherever there is deficiency in technology, humans will find a way to fill in. Now the question is whether this will be at the same scale, and will there always be gaps to fill in. No one knows. We never have known. We've just blindly innovated and had faith. It's worked so far. Until it doesn't we will probably just continue doing it.

In other words, this is and has always been unplannable. An example. When DARPA invented the internet, no one explicitly said "We're going to put a bunch of mail staff, brick and mortar commerce employees, etc, out of work so we better ensure we train programmers to help fill the void."

I'm with you though; it concerns me.

They don't allow that because it's easy for employees to come across tone deaf, kind of like you. You may not realize it but making comments on here like this can actually hurt the Google cloud brand. All it takes is one decision maker to think you sound too cocky to work with and you're out of a deal.

What's funny is that the core of your offering is copied/inspired from AWS.

You're right; they didn't get anything for free. They gave up access to their logo and the story for discounts. That's how the game is played. And there's no problem with that! Both sides win.

I just thought it was funny that they mentioned the donuts at all. Sales/solution teams bring stuff like that all the time. It's totally irrelevant, until you realize that the original article was a puff piece.

I'm sure that had nothing to do with it. Free donuts. That's how you influence and win enterprise accounts.

Your bill won't change. It's the companies that want to offer things on the internet that will have to pay a premium. The cable companies can now tax every little startup as well as big companies. It means only well funded companies will be able to offer things online.

Actually kind of! Been traveling a lot this last week and working odd hours. But what's probably a bigger factor is that I don't know how these things work. You make it sound simple, which confuses me because the issue isn't resolved yet.

And I don't know the answer to your question.

I dislike Trump. But more than seeing him lose, I want to see justice prevail. If it's within his power to do this, so be it. But if it isn't, I hope this binds the rest of us together to deliver a significant defeat to him. It's great to see our justice system work together to challenge this order.

without knowing what's in the contract there is at least one way I can think. Make a statement saying all new workloads are being deployed elsewhere. Lots of ways to play the game.

Officially? My medical opinion is that she collapsed.

Yes, I do think Google's biggest customer leaving their platform vocally would be more impactful than Google promoting/defending itself.

If Snap threatened to leave I'd wager that even the CEO of Google would get involved to keep their biggest cloud customer. Snap's revenue and brand name have enormous value to Google. There simply aren't that many $2 billion dollar cloud customers right now.