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It's nice to see some image reparation work going on for Jeff. I've been finding all of the pictures of him that are meant to evoke Voldemort quite irritating.

It's nice to see some image reparation work going on for Jeff. I've been finding all of the pictures of him that are meant to evoke Voldemort quite irritating. Aside from his decision to buy the WaPo, I think he's shown himself to be one of the few people who really understands long term bets. So while Google keeps trying to make Android devices sell for iPhone prices, Amazon just sold me a Kindle Fire for $25 that outperforms my Nexus 7. The impact of Bezos' infrastructure vision is likely to put Google and Apple out of business in the next few decades. He's playing a much more long-term strategy and he's not afraid to take big risks.

electrograv 9y ago
> I've been finding all of the pictures of him that are meant to evoke Voldemort quite irritating. This just made me wonder if there's any media or perceptive bias against bald people in leadership positions. It seems Steve Ballmer and Jeff Bezos for example are/were criticized disproportionately more than Elon Musk and Steve Jobs, for example, even though all of these people have plenty of reasons to be disliked.
- olfactory 9y ago
  > media or perceptive bias against bald people in leadership positions Great question. I think there must be. Musk has had substantial hair regrowth/replacement work done: https://www.quora.com/How-did-Elon-Musk-grow-his-hair-back https://www.quora.com/How-did-Elon-Musk-grow-his-hair-back
- Buldak 9y ago
  Was Steve Jobs not bald? A sorites paradox for tech magnates.
  - leggomylibro 9y ago
    Steve Jobs had the turtleneck, though. And spectacles.
  - electrograv 9y ago
    Even in the later stages of Steve Jobs' life, he was not fully "bald" (as is Bezos or Ballmer) even though he appeared to be losing his hair. For example: http://community.digitalmediaacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/steve-jobs-resigns-apple.jpeg http://community.digitalmediaacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/... And the Steve Jobs of early and mid Apple was definitely not even close to bald: http://www.designbolts.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/steve-jobs-in-suit1.jpg http://www.designbolts.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/steve-...
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- archagon 9y ago
  Lex Luthor did pretty well for himself!
- MarkMc 9y ago
  Well Steve Ballmer deserved to be more heavily criticized - any random MBA graduate would have produced as much value as Ballmer in the same position. That's not true of the others.
gnicholas 9y ago
How is the processor in the Kindle Fire these days? I bought one a couple years ago and found it to be very slow (the then-current Galaxy was 20x as fast for the JS that I was testing).
- PuffinBlue 9y ago
  Still terrible. Just bought two. Both are slow and absolutely riddled with software bugs. If I didn't get them on a deal day for £29 they'd be going back. Ive never seen so many bugs. Both pads suffer from things like kids profiles having to redownload (or do something) to every app everytime you open it. App crashes and slow launches every time it gets used (around 30 second launch times on both pads) Downloads simply do not get save to SD card despite clear settings saying otherwise. Accelerometer freezes. There's some kind of race condition in the app store so even though I've disabled it with parental controls sometimes you can get it to download an app without password. One nice bug is that if you set up a kid profile it wont show ads on the lock screen. A fun bug is that if you delete the kids profile, it'll not actually remove the profile data, it just stays on disc taking up space. You have to reset the device to factory settings, but if you dont and you just leave the kids profile deleted it still thinks ones on there and doesn't show ads. That's not all the stuff I've run into (initial setup had all sorts of other issues) but those are just of the top of my head.
  - olfactory 9y ago
    The one I got does not have a slot for an external SD card, so I'm not sure if we are using the same version. The one I bought (pre holiday sale for $25) is adequately fast. Launch times are a bit slow, but it was $25 and once an app, book, or web page is launched/loaded the scrolling and interactions work fine. The dropbox app, web browser, and chess apps I use all work nicely. I also use it for reading PDFs (articles, books) and books from the kindle store. I've noticed the kid profiles to be a bit buggy, but iOS and Android don't have comparable functionality, so I applaud Amazon for shipping what they have and continuing to iterate on it. Even with the bugs the experience of handing it to a kid is far better than Android or iOS. Mine installed several software updates in the first week after purchase, so it appears that there is active development going on. It's incredibly liberating when the device can be sold for such an aggressive price. I don't mind if a kid drops it on the floor, I carry it around in my pocket and don't worry about sitting on it, and when there is a faster hardware version I'll likely spring for a new one.
geofft 9y ago
> So while Google keeps trying to make Android devices sell for iPhone prices, Amazon just sold me a Kindle Fire for $25 that outperforms my Nexus 7. Isn't this being subsidized heavily by Amazon? Which might be your point about "long term bets," but I don't think it's unreasonable for Google's long-term bet to be that they want their hardware to be self-sustaining and not reliant on their other revenue (namely advertising). (Also, it looks like it's $50 on their website - did you get a refurbished one?)
- dmix 9y ago
  It's a common misperception for the general public to value lower prices for higher end products and disregard how margins works in practice for 99% of the products they buy. Meanwhile they think nothing of paying large margins on sub $20 products such as T-shirts. But the differences go well beyond that. Luxury pricing is partially psychological but there is also real value in having a high margin product, allowing the company the luxury of hiring the best talent in the world and get the best supply line in the world, etc. Most mid-tier competitors are just mimicking the talent of top tier brands (otherwise pure low-end markets tend to stagnate as we've seen in many Japanese markets absent 'innovation'), and lowest tier is doing the best with what they can with the lowest quality talent + parts/supplies. Even if Apple doesn't remain the #1 brand I still hope there remains a luxury brand that is pushing the envelope of the tech and software progress the way they (and Google Pixel recently) has been. It doesn't benefit anyone when the only services or products left are on a death spiral towards low prices. That's a symptom of either a dead product/market or economy. Not to mention the plenty of other factors (sometimes irrational) involved in non-low-end pricing strategies. I haven't even touched on the more primary influences of high prices on preventing shortages and meeting consumer demand (which in absence is often the death knell of price capping critical markets such as food in socialist countries like Venezula). I tell everyone to read this book before pricing their products and buying into the myth of 'success' by trying to low-ball your prices, it's both bad for your business and also bad for the industry if you're one of the few offering the product (because you'll likely die before it becomes sustainable): https://www.amazon.com/Pricing-Profit-Command-Products-Services/dp/0814433006/ https://www.amazon.com/Pricing-Profit-Command-Products-Servi... TLDR: ignore the average persons comments on pricing, the lowest possible prices are not always the best prices, certainly for the entrepreneur/industry but also notably for the consumer/general economy as well - often for non-obvious reasons

electrograv 9y ago

> I've been finding all of the pictures of him that are meant to evoke Voldemort quite irritating. This just made me wonder if there's any media or perceptive bias against bald people in leadership positions. It seems Steve Ballmer and Jeff Bezos for example are/were criticized disproportionately more than Elon Musk and Steve Jobs, for example, even though all of these people have plenty of reasons to be disliked.

olfactory 9y ago
> media or perceptive bias against bald people in leadership positions Great question. I think there must be. Musk has had substantial hair regrowth/replacement work done: https://www.quora.com/How-did-Elon-Musk-grow-his-hair-back https://www.quora.com/How-did-Elon-Musk-grow-his-hair-back
Buldak 9y ago
Was Steve Jobs not bald? A sorites paradox for tech magnates.
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  Steve Jobs had the turtleneck, though. And spectacles.
- electrograv 9y ago
  Even in the later stages of Steve Jobs' life, he was not fully "bald" (as is Bezos or Ballmer) even though he appeared to be losing his hair. For example: http://community.digitalmediaacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/steve-jobs-resigns-apple.jpeg http://community.digitalmediaacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/... And the Steve Jobs of early and mid Apple was definitely not even close to bald: http://www.designbolts.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/steve-jobs-in-suit1.jpg http://www.designbolts.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/steve-...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
archagon 9y ago
Lex Luthor did pretty well for himself!
MarkMc 9y ago
Well Steve Ballmer deserved to be more heavily criticized - any random MBA graduate would have produced as much value as Ballmer in the same position. That's not true of the others.

gnicholas 9y ago

How is the processor in the Kindle Fire these days? I bought one a couple years ago and found it to be very slow (the then-current Galaxy was 20x as fast for the JS that I was testing).

PuffinBlue 9y ago
Still terrible. Just bought two. Both are slow and absolutely riddled with software bugs. If I didn't get them on a deal day for £29 they'd be going back. Ive never seen so many bugs. Both pads suffer from things like kids profiles having to redownload (or do something) to every app everytime you open it. App crashes and slow launches every time it gets used (around 30 second launch times on both pads) Downloads simply do not get save to SD card despite clear settings saying otherwise. Accelerometer freezes. There's some kind of race condition in the app store so even though I've disabled it with parental controls sometimes you can get it to download an app without password. One nice bug is that if you set up a kid profile it wont show ads on the lock screen. A fun bug is that if you delete the kids profile, it'll not actually remove the profile data, it just stays on disc taking up space. You have to reset the device to factory settings, but if you dont and you just leave the kids profile deleted it still thinks ones on there and doesn't show ads. That's not all the stuff I've run into (initial setup had all sorts of other issues) but those are just of the top of my head.
- olfactory 9y ago
  The one I got does not have a slot for an external SD card, so I'm not sure if we are using the same version. The one I bought (pre holiday sale for $25) is adequately fast. Launch times are a bit slow, but it was $25 and once an app, book, or web page is launched/loaded the scrolling and interactions work fine. The dropbox app, web browser, and chess apps I use all work nicely. I also use it for reading PDFs (articles, books) and books from the kindle store. I've noticed the kid profiles to be a bit buggy, but iOS and Android don't have comparable functionality, so I applaud Amazon for shipping what they have and continuing to iterate on it. Even with the bugs the experience of handing it to a kid is far better than Android or iOS. Mine installed several software updates in the first week after purchase, so it appears that there is active development going on. It's incredibly liberating when the device can be sold for such an aggressive price. I don't mind if a kid drops it on the floor, I carry it around in my pocket and don't worry about sitting on it, and when there is a faster hardware version I'll likely spring for a new one.

geofft 9y ago

> So while Google keeps trying to make Android devices sell for iPhone prices, Amazon just sold me a Kindle Fire for $25 that outperforms my Nexus 7. Isn't this being subsidized heavily by Amazon? Which might be your point about "long term bets," but I don't think it's unreasonable for Google's long-term bet to be that they want their hardware to be self-sustaining and not reliant on their other revenue (namely advertising). (Also, it looks like it's $50 on their website - did you get a refurbished one?)

dmix 9y ago
It's a common misperception for the general public to value lower prices for higher end products and disregard how margins works in practice for 99% of the products they buy. Meanwhile they think nothing of paying large margins on sub $20 products such as T-shirts. But the differences go well beyond that. Luxury pricing is partially psychological but there is also real value in having a high margin product, allowing the company the luxury of hiring the best talent in the world and get the best supply line in the world, etc. Most mid-tier competitors are just mimicking the talent of top tier brands (otherwise pure low-end markets tend to stagnate as we've seen in many Japanese markets absent 'innovation'), and lowest tier is doing the best with what they can with the lowest quality talent + parts/supplies. Even if Apple doesn't remain the #1 brand I still hope there remains a luxury brand that is pushing the envelope of the tech and software progress the way they (and Google Pixel recently) has been. It doesn't benefit anyone when the only services or products left are on a death spiral towards low prices. That's a symptom of either a dead product/market or economy. Not to mention the plenty of other factors (sometimes irrational) involved in non-low-end pricing strategies. I haven't even touched on the more primary influences of high prices on preventing shortages and meeting consumer demand (which in absence is often the death knell of price capping critical markets such as food in socialist countries like Venezula). I tell everyone to read this book before pricing their products and buying into the myth of 'success' by trying to low-ball your prices, it's both bad for your business and also bad for the industry if you're one of the few offering the product (because you'll likely die before it becomes sustainable): https://www.amazon.com/Pricing-Profit-Command-Products-Services/dp/0814433006/ https://www.amazon.com/Pricing-Profit-Command-Products-Servi... TLDR: ignore the average persons comments on pricing, the lowest possible prices are not always the best prices, certainly for the entrepreneur/industry but also notably for the consumer/general economy as well - often for non-obvious reasons