crdb

72 ms·

481.
by crdb 11y ago
I second this anecdotal evidence. It's a very tight real estate market but somehow, cheap compared to salaries, with high quality options and a high quality of life. Thanks to EasyJet, Swiss (the airline), and the always great Swiss pu
482.
by crdb 11y ago
I'll give some reasons from personal experience (and I think it's a global thing, not just European). I pitched a partially remote team to a previous employer in Singapore and they were reluctant to try it initially. First, they d
483.
by crdb 11y ago
Yes. That. Bond was a bit of a "rebel" and he would signal it by being contrarian. Ordering vodka instead of gin would also signal "I'm an alcoholic, I'm not ashamed of it, I don't care for taste" (as vodk
484.
by crdb 11y ago
And it's already pretty large: 3.3 million legal workers at or below minimum wage [1] vs 12 million illegals in the United States. That's almost 80% of low wage workers. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimu
485.
by crdb 11y ago
Right, but the difference is that their monopoly was in a created market, vs Slim's which is the definition of a bad monopoly (sole supplier of a utility). Their margin was the reward for the creation of something new, not taking a cut
486.
by crdb 11y ago
It depends on the location. Here's a different point of view: Carlos Slim has so far been relatively unable to compete in the US. Some people argue that he does well in countries like Mexico because in those places, he can run a monopo
487.
by crdb 11y ago
Did you also have the "ticket racket"? This is when the CTO sets up some kind of ticketing system, and uses the increasing number of breakdowns (and useless "fixes" that break again with the next build) as a KPI to justi
488.
by crdb 11y ago
Oh, I agree with you entirely. Let me reword/summarize my comment: there's r-strategists and K-strategists. It's usually better in most relationships to be with K-strategists. Where I disagree with Djisktra is in the idea of
489.
by crdb 11y ago
Yes, but when this happens, the company can usually afford to hire thousands of engineers and brute force the issue, or the product is unpopular and in the process of disappearing. Exceptions (like Whatsapp) are legendary for the concentrat
490.
by crdb 11y ago
I'm not sure one could describe Microsoft as "fast and dirty". Gates' BASIC interpreter is a famous example of technical ability...
491.
by crdb 11y ago
I disagree. There's a realm of fields to which software engineering applies. There's fields where correctness, elegance and formal methods definitely matter; those involve complex products like airplanes (RIP, A400 victims...) or
492.
by crdb 11y ago
Then the good developers responsible for most of the codebase leave for somewhere else using their experience as CV points, and the firm rotates through large numbers of inexperienced or incompetent engineers (who can't get a better jo
493.
by crdb 11y ago
The downside of bootstrapping is that it takes longer (as covered in PG's various "money" essays). Money isn't the only currency, time is another, and what VCs REALLY offer is a change to speed up time to market and prof
494.
by crdb 11y ago
I've had one client that was a serial founder, I think 3 companies already sold. It was really different from working for "normal" first timers. He was much faster, more responsive and more likely to understand things like sc
495.
by crdb 11y ago
It's not a new phenomenon - successive managements go through a cycle where they think ELINT and COMINT can make HUMINT obsolete, and then some bad thing happens and they realize they were wrong (but never admit it). The theory is that
496.
by crdb 11y ago
You're not really challenged until the growth rate of their Excel monster outpaces the rate at which you automate the existing stuff... thankfully Excel has a 1 million row limit, and it always takes them time to figure out how to sh
497.
by crdb 11y ago
Oh, that's always the case unfortunately. Doing things "properly" means you can't do them "tomorrow" or even better, "yesterday". It's funny to hear the same story everywhere - including on somet
498.
by crdb 11y ago
Wait... a POWER PLANT?! I undertand relying on piles of crappy Excel models built by underpaid, skill-lacking interns in cash-strapped e-commerce companies where investors don't really care about the real profit margin, but... I mean,
499.
by crdb 11y ago
I'm sure there's automated ways of doing it within the Microsoft ecosystem... it's just not a specialty I want to acquire!
500.
by crdb 11y ago
Yes. Yes. Yes! Omg. Yes. The worst I have seen was a team of several hundred people who, on $200 half-broken laptops, were running - in parallel - 500MB Excel files for hours every day, which basically did a few linear operations on about 3
501.
by crdb 11y ago
As a subset of 1), don't forget: cost of buying it from the French who have a nice surplus thanks to their massive nuclear capability (as the British already do [1]). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_Cross-Cha
502.
by crdb 11y ago
I know where you're coming from but I think this advice ignores the truth of such positions: that they are prestigious/well-paying/otherwise attractive enough to cause candidates to invest time and money into pursuing them. F
503.
by crdb 11y ago
Various pieces are on YouTube, I think PTJ's life was relatively sober compared to what's going on in Stamford/Greenwich, CT or London these days let alone Dubai or Asia... But yes. The 2 of the 2 and 20 is there because no f
504.
by crdb 11y ago
Look at finance for more data. I personally know many successful traders and managers who live very quiet, middle class lives despite having the means to do much more (usually because they get their kicks off business success, not consumpti
505.
by crdb 11y ago
You might want to look at the YC-backed company Semantics3, which has indexed 60 million unique products and over 4 billion URLs... all their data is available as APIs with pricing proportional to the number of API calls: https:/&#x2F
506.
by crdb 11y ago
This kind of thinking is appealing on the surface. It's what drove me to spend some time working for an Indian MNC in Mumbai. We were trying to sell internally to what is known as "bottom of the pyramid" markets - the large p
507.
by crdb 11y ago
Two reasons are generally put forward. The argument put forward by Lee Kuan Yew (RIP) for exiling communists was that Maoist China was aggressively attempting to expand into the region. For example, see the Hong Kong bombing campaign of 196
508.
by crdb 11y ago
As little as I can get away with. I read too much (probably around 100 books/year) to be able to accumulate the physical volume and electronic formats are just much more convenient. Usually, it's long tail (specialist), older book
509.
by crdb 11y ago
I read it differently. There's two ways to deal with trust: 1. you can try and hedge yourself against employees doing bad things. Like quitting for the competition or passing information. In this model, employees are paid mercenaries a
510.
by crdb 11y ago
In a couple of years, your conversation will sound like this: You: so, what are you doing these days? MBA: well, I've been at McBainCitiGold for a couple years, but I'm getting bored, I'd like to start up! You: oh really? Go

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