WisNorCan

14 ms·

91.
by WisNorCan 8y ago
In a company approaching a million employees, someone is doing something illegal/unethical every day. At that scale it doesn’t say anything about the culture as you are observing the outer ranges of a distribution.
92.
by WisNorCan 8y ago
That is a really strange theory. It is also demonstrably false. Many of the founders of the top unicorns have MBAs (Grab, StitchFix, CloudFlare, etc) [1] Also, I wouldn't categorize building AWS from scratch as a "peacetime CEO&qu
93.
by WisNorCan 8y ago
The CEOs of Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services all have MBAs. There are also lots of examples of MBA founders. This has happened despite the fact that historically most MBAs have gone to banking and consulting. With MBA grads
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
This should not surprise anyone. As the price of a service decreases, consumption increases. So, we should expect that more people are taking taxi rides that would otherwise commute in different ways (e.g. walking or taking the bus). If we
95.
by WisNorCan 8y ago
Amazon stands out among the tech giants with the most distinctive behavioral values (LPs*). They are used for both recruiting, decision making and career advancements. Amazon provides a strong counter example to the thesis of this article.
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
You are attacking a position that I am not advocating. I am not suggesting government run transportation. I am suggesting that government ensure that the private market remains competitive with multiple players by allocating capacity. In an
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
VCs would not be giving billion $ valuations if they thought this will be a highly competitive market with many players. Everyone is betting on a winner takes most market.
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
I generally away from regulation, but let me articulate the pro-regulation argument. Markets that are important (like transportation) and have network effects need to be regulated. A monopoly with Uber and/or Lyft dominating local tran
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
This company reached out to me about their services two years ago. A quick search convinced me that the ethical practices of the CEO should cause anyone to question working with him. “Samal was sentenced to 90 days of home confinement with
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
Meanwhile, someone steps into an empty jet, decides to take off, does loops over Seattle and final crashes into a nearby island. Security theater. https://www.newsweek.com/ground-service-suicide-horizon-air-...
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
AMZN’s current valuation does not assume 0% future growth. It already assumes exceptional growth and expanding margins. Amazon has to do better than that for the valuation to increase.
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
Higher multiples and preference means that you have less downside and higher upside in the investment -> higher valuation.
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
Liquidation multiples and preference gives the investor protection when things go bad (and also a kicker when it goes well). Let’s say you put in $100M and have a 2x liquidation multiple at a $4B valuation. Even if the company falls apart a
104.
by WisNorCan 8y ago
The valuation increase in the FAANGs are a historical anomaly. I’ll bet you that Amazon will not 6.5x in the next 5 years. I am not saying that Amazon is a bad company, or working there is a bad idea. Just that reversion to the mean is a po
105.
by WisNorCan 8y ago
This is why the best time to join a startup is increasingly at the post $1B mark. Significantly derisked with product and economics proven, solid comp, crazy upside. The unicorn is a silly designation, but it also isn’t. There are exception
106.
by WisNorCan 8y ago
It is worth separating out the (less interesting) legal argument around the 1st amendment from the practical reality. The reality is that private companies like Google, Twitter, etc. have more power than the government to restrict speech. I
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
From a career perspective, I think this fits into the classic “make lots of money before the bubble bursts, by lending my name to a company and doing little work”
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
The only thing that made less sense than Uber focusing on trucks (Uber Freight, AV Trucks) is Uber Elevate (flying cars). The days of Uber testing crazy, new ideas is over. The downside is that some of them actually worked. I can't see
109.
by WisNorCan 8y ago
I particularly like that he is signaling publicly that the clear priority for the company is cars. They could have done this silently (to save face), but this has the benefit of making clear to the employees & investors that cars are #1
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Anthony Levandowski is back with a new self driving startup(techcrunch.com)
3 points by WisNorCan 8y ago|0 comments
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
Exciting to see an elegant algorithm proposed for a complicated real-world political problem.
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Self-Driving Cars Are Headed Toward an AI Roadblock(theverge.com)
4 points by WisNorCan 8y ago|0 comments
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
I used to be an independent having voted for both Republicans and Democrats. I have given up on the Republicans (Trump, Cruz, Ryan). I will vote non-Republican up and down the ballot. Hopefully, the policies will be reversible. I’ll be inte
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Why Are Dutch-Americans So Different from the Dutch?(economist.com)
2 points by WisNorCan 8y ago|0 comments
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
Profits in this case are one-time gains from exiting some of the largest markets in the world. From a better article (1): “But there’s a big caveat with that figure. Uber gained $2.9 billion after it merged its businesses in Russia and Sout
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
This is far beyond Telcos. Lots of apps are selling location data to data intermediaries (e.g. GroundTruth and FourSquare) without user awareness or consent.
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
Snap, Twitter and Uber have all had unprecedented amount of turmoil in the executive ranks of the company. Snap and Twitter's stock are both trading below IPO. Uber is not public yet. It makes me wonder about the deeper causality. Do e
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
IE, Messenger, Hotmail, Windows, Skype are all examples of products in the #1 position that Microsoft mismanaged and lost. Microsoft’s success in coming from behind is even worse: Windows Phone, Zune, Spaces (!) There are minor exceptions.
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
Answering the phone is very different than operating a local physical products company. Mechanical failures, repairs, accidents, charging the vehicles, vandalism, etc. etc. Think about how hard it is for consumer companies to sell to enterp
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by WisNorCan 8y ago
The bigger picture is that Waymo is now the most interesting company in self-driving technology. If you want to do real work that is the place to be. I hear that people are also leaving Uber's efforts. I expect them to absorb the best

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