dharmon

19 ms·

151.
by dharmon 10y ago
I'm keeping an eye out for a La Marzocco espresso machine. I've seen a few through windows in Palo Alto that will probably be up for grabs before too long.
152.
by dharmon 10y ago
Definitely. With the recent oversupply of beef (as well as dairy products) and subsequent price drop, I would not be surprised to see this trend reverse.
153.
by dharmon 10y ago
I wonder what Bill Gates' pay per hour was for Microsoft's first month? ;) I totally am on board with back-of-the-envelope math, evaluating ROI, market size, etc. But come on. This was month #1, a good chunk of which was doing one
154.
by dharmon 10y ago
After reading this article I re-watched videos of Fred Rogers' speaking in front of the Senate committee (highly recommended watching), his lifetime emmy acceptance, and his brief appearance on Letterman. While watching them I was tryi
155.
by dharmon 10y ago
After the intro, I was hoping that this essay would take the turn, "Games are not art... and that's ok." Maybe where Ebert should have been engaged is not on quibbling over the definition of Art, but on his implicit claim tha
156.
by dharmon 10y ago
Good point. Lou Gerstner wasn't going to jump from IBM right when he was starting to reap the rewards of his work. The only case I can think of where execs jump around fairly quickly in "turnaround" situations are those who s
157.
by dharmon 10y ago
There's an important difference: compensation. If a losing team wants a winning coach, they will either have to settle for someone inexperienced, or pay up to get someone experienced in turnaround situations. Same with companies, excep
158.
by dharmon 10y ago
Maybe not, but in 2000 downloading JPGs of naked ladies required great patience, and now I can stream 4K video. Look at his predictions from the 1989 timeframe and count up how many were just extrapolating Moore's law and coming up wit
159.
by dharmon 10y ago
Here is an algorithm for making predictions that is as accurate as Kurzweil: 1) Choose a recent 5-year trend, preferably one increasing geometrically. 2) Extrapolate out this trend n years. 3) Your prediction is either the number from (2) a
160.
by dharmon 10y ago
Wasn't by me.
161.
by dharmon 10y ago
There's an instructive lesson here in how both valuation and annual run-rate are meaningless numbers without a sound fundamental business underneath. Beepi was valued at $500MM and had an almost $200MM annual run-rate, yet evaporated a
162.
by dharmon 10y ago
In fairness, he does state that this is just about his boredom. At the end of the day, its up to him and the YC stakeholders to decide how much his personal boredom is worth in terms of returns and missing The Next Big Thing. The danger is
163.
by dharmon 10y ago
I should have clarified that I didn't mean general tech, but specific tech products that are hyped. You're right about the serial entrepreneur aspect. But we're still talking about staggering sums.
164.
by dharmon 10y ago
Where was Apple hyping the iPhone before it came out? There were rumors for sure, but from what I remember, Apple was secretly plugging away during this time. (Please correct me if I am wrong)
165.
by dharmon 10y ago
Every time there is a post about Magic Leap, someone inevitably asks the question if there has ever been a case of a hyped-up tech actually living up to its claims. I've thought about this and I'll be damned if I can't think
166.
by dharmon 10y ago
One answer comes by looking at the 0-100 times instead of just 0-60. You can dig up lots of videos where they race Teslas against Lamborghinis and Ferraris. Up to 60 the supercar is barely hanging on, but at that point the Tesla is tapped o
167.
by dharmon 10y ago
I read The Most Powerful Idea in the World by William Rosen last year and really enjoyed it. Ostensibly its about the steam engine, but the idea referenced in the title is really patents.
168.
by dharmon 10y ago
Sometimes my wife and I will go for walks and I talk her through my thinking on whatever I'm currently looking at. Even though she's not a finance person, just sharing my thought process with a super smart person helps me identify
169.
by dharmon 10y ago
No, he means it "fucks with your intuition" in the same way as poker, but potentially more confusing because the probabilities are not known. For example, in poker you may call with pocket Kings and lose, yet with hindsight it is
170.
by dharmon 10y ago
Totally. Rather than a "nice to have", this might be an existential situation for Spotify. (I couldn't say confidently without seeing their financial statements)
171.
by dharmon 10y ago
I was thinking of that study where they basically showed that what was deemed popular was largely determined by availability. Spotify owns a powerful platform with tons of data about user preferences, they are not completely powerless to fl
172.
by dharmon 10y ago
This is what people thought about streaming video services for a while, until it turned out that was false. Remember when people used to (and still do sometimes) complain about Netflix not having some specific movie they wanted to watch at
173.
by dharmon 10y ago
Why has Spotify not pushed harder to own their own content a la Netflix? That's the only reliable way to both have some control over margins and offer a non-commoditized product. They have tons of data on user tastes, owning and operat
174.
by dharmon 10y ago
This is a useful insight, but with caveats. As an investor, my livelihood depends on my ability to consistently make sound decisions. And fortunately, decisions are not set in stone, so I have opportunities to negate poor ones. I have thoug
175.
by dharmon 10y ago
Bill Gates famously said that anyone who finished TAOCP should send him their resume, but to me, anyone who has read and done all the SICP exercises would be a good hire, and it is a far more achievable task. I had been programming for abou
176.
by dharmon 10y ago
The title is a little off-putting, but this guy was the most straight-shooting billionaire out there on what getting rich requires. This interview gives a flavor of the style: http://www.inc.com/articles/2008/07&#x
177.
by dharmon 10y ago
I worked with an Israeli company that had to do something like this. While in the country I was going to visit their office, but I couldn't find the address anywhere on the website, only their NY satellite office. I was later told this
178.
by dharmon 10y ago
Alice Schroeder did a small AMA on reddit years ago that is worth reading. When asked about their broken-off relationship, she says that they aren't unfriendly or anything, but that she is basically no longer in his inner circle. Her e
179.
by dharmon 10y ago
For those without a subscription: Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai criticized President Donald Trump’s immigration order in an email to staff late Friday, saying the U.S. ban on foreign nationals from seven countries affects at least 18
180.
by dharmon 10y ago
I wonder if the difference was that airlines took "thinking on the margin" to an extreme? They all know that the cost of filling one more seat is practically zero, so even if that flyer is only paying $50, it's a win. This le

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