codex

26 ms·

691.
by codex 13y ago
This might have been true in the past, but companies like Google and Facebook are now run like a conglomeration of small startups--in part to retain talent. Google's 20 percent time is a good example.
692.
by codex 13y ago
For comparison: Sequoia Capital estimates that 19% of the NASDAQ's value is made up of firms that they have invested in. If you apply the same ridiculous, super sloppy accounting used here to Sequoia, it has contributed over one trillion d
693.
by codex 13y ago
This analysis doesn't seem to account for the investments in and opportunity costs of, YC failures. Example: a company that takes $10m over three rounds and then dies. Also, it seems to assume that without YC investment none of these comp
694.
by codex 13y ago
My god, look at the execution here. The CEO, David Thompson, is a visionary. Is there nothing he cannot do? Truly, I worship the ground he walks on.
695.
by codex 13y ago
To this I say--hooray for pervasive video surveillance. The surveillance (sousveillance?) state is here. Imagine the deterrent that continuous, complete video surveillance would have to all crimes in public (and private) spaces. Simply use
696.
by codex 13y ago
One flaw with AWS-like businesses is lack of lock-in because of customer churn. Web site popularity on the Internet obeys a power law distribution--the top sites take the lion's share of traffic and money from the Internet. AWS will never s
697.
by codex 13y ago
If you can prototype something in one day, that version is so brain dead as to not be any benefit as far as lessons leaned. That said, the "prototype" will still have promotional value.
698.
by codex 13y ago
Yelling "PUT DOWN THE CRACK PIPES!", while effective perhaps the first time, is not a sustainable means of interacting with people, even problematic people. Once you've done something like this a few times, people will begin to associate y
699.
by codex 13y ago
In this case, the vendor should just increase their prices to reflect the interest on the credit that they're extending Amazon for those twenty days. This is equivalent to Amazon borrowing from a bank for those 20 days, but perhaps for som
700.
by codex 13y ago
It's possible that Walmart just repects their customers a bit more.
701.
by codex 13y ago
Deflation also requires more collateral, because in case of default, the bank won't be able to sell the collateral for the value it had when the loan was made, which risks insolvency and the loss of depositors' funds.
702.
by codex 13y ago
Kind of like human sacrifice, rain dancing, the application of leeches to cure disease, etc? Yes, truly the ancients knew best.
703.
by codex 13y ago
Before the modern era, economies were quite fragile, falling into crisis frequently and severely (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Unemployment_1800-1890.... ). The one saving grace was that in those times most people were farmers
704.
by codex 13y ago
TL;DR Bitcoin mimicks the gold standard, so you'll see the problems with the gold standard play out all over again.
705.
Krugman on Bitcoin's problems with deflation (2011)(krugman.blogs.nytimes.com)
23 points by codex 13y ago|61 comments
706.
by codex 13y ago
Amazon can't really avoid doing stuff like this, because their business model (retail) sucks, and makes very little money due to razor thin margins. So they trot out every trick in the book.
707.
by codex 13y ago
If you don't get bored doing the same thing, you haven't mastered it. In all professions, one must level up to keep things interesting. Unfortunately, for software developers (and mathematicians) leveling up starts to become difficult as t
708.
by codex 13y ago
I disagree: the number of cabs in circulation is a complex function of the market, but the ideal number of cabs is straightforward to calculate but won't be found by the market. Why not? Given the choice between an optimal number of cabs (
709.
by codex 13y ago
I can't speak for all medallion programs, but NYC medallions were created to solve a surplus of taxis and associated congestion, low wages, and poor service, at least according to the NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/11/nyregion/med
710.
by codex 13y ago
The idea is not to reduce cab counts to the point where people call towncars instead; that's likely a worse outcome, because the towncar spends only ~1/3 of it's time full: the other 2/3rds are spent driving to and from the towncar's parkin
711.
by codex 13y ago
Simple: the number of cabs at which taxi driving is no longer profitable is far, far more than the optimal number of cabs. The optimal number of cabs balances cab availability with traffic such that the time taken to go from point A to poin
712.
by codex 13y ago
Medallions exist for a very good reason: they prevent a tragedy of the commons from creating gridlock and pollution in major cities by limiting the number of cars circling around doing nothing on city streets. Most of the time, cabs just dr
713.
by codex 13y ago
Interesting--can you elaborate as to how a Google engineer could subvert peer review and the revision control history?
714.
by codex 13y ago
You spin a good yarn, and maybe your theories do apply to someone, somewhere (and maybe to yourself, possibly only in your own head, as your ego attempts to reconcile congnitive dissonance), but in my own observations at Google, I have not
715.
by codex 13y ago
If there was a PIP involved, you were likely not meeting expectations, and either the new team didn't want the liability, or the transfer was killed by HR to prevent under performers from avoiding a PEP by continually transferring to a new
716.
by codex 13y ago
These ranks are so high that any metric based on them must surely have a lot of noise. I guess that doesn't prevent dmor's voting ring from surfacing this post, though.
717.
by codex 14y ago
While there are few billionaires, which is a big part of the story, I would argue that there are plenty of Elon Musks out there, but only a finite capacity of humans and media to idolize. There is only so much attention to go around. Ther
718.
by codex 14y ago
Do you think you would get a similar volume of emails if you posted a list of VCs selected at random? I suspect so. Many are called but few are chosen.
719.
by codex 14y ago
This post goes to show why journalistic standards exist, and that bloggers are not journalists.
720.
by codex 14y ago
If an algorithm stops performing after hours or days, it's likely you haven't discovered anything, but are simply seeing the effects of random noise on your hundreds, thousands, or millions of signal possibilities.

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