bjacokes

12 ms·

61.
by bjacokes 8y ago
While I love reading about logical fallacies, I don't see how I've committed one. I never said building infrastructure would convince everyone to bike. Rather, the government can (and often does) move society as a whole in one dir
62.
by bjacokes 8y ago
Do you have a citation for 50% of the SFMTA budget going to cycling infrastructure? This sounds demonstrably incorrect given the fact that they run the bus and LRV systems. (Also incorrect is that people "don't want to cycle to wo
63.
by bjacokes 9y ago
Another acquisition model is what Goose Island did when they sold to ABI. As I understand it, they outsourced production of their less differentiated offerings like Honkers Ale and 312, but continue to run their brewpub and make their Bourb
64.
by bjacokes 9y ago
Did she bother changing her voice on the phone vs. when she met Mary in person? For familiar voices, it's often pretty easy to know who's speaking even when they change their pitch or accent, but maybe it was practical to assume t
65.
by bjacokes 9y ago
As others have pointed out, the rideshares are subsidized in many ways. Monetarily, not just by VCs, but also by drivers who don't get benefits or salary guarantees. Road infrastructure provided by the city that isn't fully suppor
66.
by bjacokes 9y ago
The small student population at Olin affects the founder rate in a more pertinent way than sample variance: because they only need to admit 100 students, this group of students can be of a higher average quality than if they needed to accep
67.
by bjacokes 9y ago
Here are some of the positive qualities I would expect from a competitive programmer compared to the general CS population early in their career : - knowledgeable at algorithms and data structures - good at analyzing correctness and edge c
68.
by bjacokes 9y ago
It seems irrational that people are hung up on the time spent shopping, but not time spent cooking. When I tried Blue Apron, I spent an hour cooking a meal for two. That's 30 minutes of work per serving. When I cook with my own ingredi
69.
by bjacokes 10y ago
Note that Google and Facebook have effectively the same level of founder control, albeit with different implementation details. Google even had to issue a new share class in 2014 so that the company could issue more shares without the found
70.
by bjacokes 10y ago
One phrase that I've noticed (over)used in NFL broadcasts is "give credit". After a win, a star player will often "give credit" to the other team, their defense, lesser-known players, etc. It seems to be a decent wa
71.
by bjacokes 10y ago
Check out https://github.com/pkg/errors
72.
by bjacokes 10y ago
Assuming a robust job market, you won't have much exposure to a company's success/failure other than through equity, so I don't think diversification makes sense as a reason to avoid equity compensation. I could see th
73.
by bjacokes 10y ago
A corollary to your 20-30% "uncertainty discount" is that the expected value of a pre-IPO offer should be higher than an offer from a publicly traded company. It's the same reason that there is an excess return or risk prem
74.
by bjacokes 10y ago
Someone buying a $1.5m condo only has to put up $300k for the mortgage, so it's not correct to say that the alternative is to just put $1.5m into the stock market: the buyer often doesn't have that much. Also, it's more preci
75.
by bjacokes 10y ago
Maybe this is a better way to look at it. Candidate: "We're going to build a wall between us and Mexico. It'll cost us $7 billion." Electorate: "Umm. That's a lot of money. Let's do something else with it.
76.
by bjacokes 10y ago
This falls prey to the same fallacious thinking as gambling with the house's money. Assuming we can extort billions of dollars from Mexico, that's money we could be spending on anything – why is a wall the best use for it? And if
77.
by bjacokes 10y ago
Cool, I'll have to give this a try sometime. I've only tasted one wine that retails for over $100/bottle, so I'd be hard pressed to guess that any wine I'm trying costs that much! I'm curious how the other va
78.
by bjacokes 10y ago
I'm not sure blind tastings with relative newbies gives the best signal here. If you give someone cocktails for the first time they'll probably like screwdrivers the most; if you let kids choose between doritos and oysters they&#x
79.
by bjacokes 10y ago
The tax rate on capital gains is the same as the tax on qualified dividends. It's the timing of the taxation that differs. With dividends you pay tax now, with capital gains you pay when you sell the stock. Distributing cash via divide
80.
by bjacokes 10y ago
Seems more like: "next time, how can I not have to throw the first one away?" Maybe you never get to that point, but you could at least have to throw away less, or be closer to a final version the first time around.
81.
by bjacokes 10y ago
I get that this is dry subject matter and some humor helps to lighten it up, but I found the writing style distracting. Some paragraphs are dense with algorithm details, others just have a picture of a tech office, a story about running int
82.
by bjacokes 10y ago
It's hard to have a reasoned discussion about cities because there's so much ego tied up in your decision of where to live. People don't want to feel like they've made the wrong decision, so they'll say bad things a
83.
by bjacokes 10y ago
That's mostly true with growth stocks. If you buy Amazon trading at 300x earnings with the expectation that earnings will grow 50% per year over the next five years, then it's tough to say whether the price will be higher or lower
84.
by bjacokes 10y ago
You're misunderstanding how taxes are calculated. If they could deduct the writeoff, they'd make back their marginal tax rate times the purchase price, so they'd still lose around $2B. (Similarly, when people deduct their mor
85.
by bjacokes 10y ago
I'm by no means a chess expert, but from commentary I've read on games between grandmasters, e4 is considered aggressive and d4 is considered conservative. Or rather, e4 leads to more tactical and exciting games (e.g. Sicilian) an
86.
by bjacokes 10y ago
That's not true, the ISO option spread at exercise is taxed via AMT [1]. In general you shouldn't give out tax advice, and if you do at least make sure you have your facts straight. Plenty of early employees have been bitten by th
87.
by bjacokes 10y ago
Right: startups give out options, and those options are likely to be worthless. Your previous comment, however, was also suggesting causation: startups give out options because they are likely to be worthless. That's certainly not th
88.
by bjacokes 10y ago
The main reason that options are handed out is to compensate for below-market salaries, and the main reason salaries are below market is that the company wants to increase its runway. Some specific valuations or offers warrant cynicism, but
89.
by bjacokes 10y ago
Secondary offerings don't significantly affect the stock price and research notes don't make the bank much money, so the outrage is a bit misplaced. If a bank wanted to make money by breaking the rules, they'd have M&A ta
90.
by bjacokes 10y ago
That's not a productive attitude. (1) There will be another boom, (2) with more affordable housing, you could stabilize the population during pullbacks instead of people moving out.

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