eldavido

64 ms·

571.
by eldavido 10y ago
"Loss" is the wrong word for this. We need better terminology. A more accurate statement would be something like, "The tangible value of the company's assets, as far as anyone can reasonably ascertain with any degree of
572.
by eldavido 10y ago
This is an incredibly short-sighted comment. Two CEOs sit down, culture had better be the #1 thing they discuss before one writes a check to the other for the better part of half a billion dollars. Good M&A adds tons of value by combini
573.
by eldavido 10y ago
I'm using Python and Google Sheets to manage my wedding invitation list. Lob for cards, google contacts for contact data, gsheets is the main db. It works well.
574.
by eldavido 10y ago
This is a very thoughtful comment. Thank you. To expand a bit, I see business success as balancing the needs of four groups, whose needs are naturally in tension: (1) Employees, who want the best pay, work conditions, job satisfaction, etc.
575.
by eldavido 10y ago
I've noticed this and I think it's an expression of a more general human urge to feel more important / significant than you really are. It's the same urge that makes us all think we're better drivers than average, b
576.
by eldavido 10y ago
My fiancee and brother are both architects. I'm quite familiar with this career. I work as a professional software dev in the Bay Area. One thing you'll find really quickly: there's not nearly as much focus on credentialing
577.
by eldavido 10y ago
I'm working on a greenfield project at a hotel where we've had to interface with a Mitel PBX over RS-232. I was shocked how literally the ASCII codes were followed by the PBX. It sent an "ENQ" before each command, we had
578.
by eldavido 10y ago
Just want to go on-record as saying I stridently disagree. There are too many rich text formats. Many are undocumented, proprietary, or otherwise not well-supported. They're hard to revision control, which means harder to sync across c
579.
by eldavido 10y ago
> From a skills perspective, I think doing a SaaS as a solo founder is only practical if you have extremely broad skillsets I think this is what's changed from a few years ago. Expectations of usability, design, support, number of p
580.
by eldavido 10y ago
Anil - not sure you're still reading here but the civility with which you've handled a lot of criticism really impresses me.
581.
by eldavido 10y ago
So, two things. I used to really respect Joel Spolsky. I've read all of his stuff and really liked it. But I can't help thinking that Fog Creek just isn't that important of a company. As a decidedly "technical" pers
582.
by eldavido 10y ago
A lot of hedge fund and private equity guys make money by doing necessary things management is unwilling, or politically incapable, of doing. Unprofitable businesses, by definition, destroy their owner's wealth. Saying an unprofitabl
583.
by eldavido 10y ago
"Reputationism" might be a good way to describe a system with "no skin in the game". I agree that a world where nobody has skin in the game is bad. And yet, who do we admire in Silicon Valley? "Thought leaders"
584.
by eldavido 10y ago
I think it's an issue of industry maturity, too. Let's say you want to open a restaurant. Now sure, you could go out, start a farm, open a steel mill and a mine to make all your knives and cutlery yourself, cut down timber and con
585.
by eldavido 10y ago
I know he did. Apart from the whole business luminary/billionaire thing, I think Zuck is a pretty cool and insightful guy. I like both the idea of having a "challenge", as well as the specific ones he's done: running, me
586.
by eldavido 10y ago
DC's household median income is 75k. [1] Your "unaffordable" condo is 4x the household median income. In SF, the median household income is 84k. [2] The median 1br sale in SF was for 827k. [3] I'm willing to debate what
587.
by eldavido 10y ago
No kidding. I find it impressive both that he put aside (not found , this had to be a very deliberate decision given the demands on his time) 100 hours to do this, AND that he got all of it done in 100 hours. Is there anything written abou
588.
by eldavido 10y ago
Am I the only one who hates how it's become received wisdom that, to quote the article, "A skyrocketing real estate market, fueled in large part by the tech industry" is the main culprit for this? What about height and floor
589.
by eldavido 10y ago
Unequivocal +1. It's notable that he's getting better over time. I started listening to the more recent ones, then went back and listened to the old ones, and they were quite a lot worse. Off the top of my head, my favorites have
590.
by eldavido 10y ago
This surprised me. Microsoft was started in the mid-70s. I'm in my early 30s and wasn't aware software was getting used in business much until the late 70s/early 80s. I guess there were mainframes and not minicomputers? Still
591.
by eldavido 10y ago
This may have been true in 2005. It is emphatically not true today. The biggest story in computing today is mobile and Microsoft has nothing there. Zilch. Nada. They've officially ended development of Windows Phone, they have no OS, an
592.
by eldavido 10y ago
I read the book. You'd be surprised at how readable it is. Piketty says in the opening that his purpose is as much "contributing to the historical record", as it is making an economics argument. Probably half the book is hist
593.
by eldavido 10y ago
I'm tempted to blame ultra-loose monetary policy, but I'm not so sure. I live in the Bay Area where house prices are also out of control, but I'm not sure why we focus on prices (rather than monthly debt payments) since what,
594.
by eldavido 10y ago
Read their SEC filings: https://investor.twitterinc.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=15645... If you've never read one of these, you might be surprised how much is disclosed, and in great detail to boot.
595.
by eldavido 10y ago
Arrogant but necessary. That it's tolerated by investors should give you a sense of how urgent/dire things are.
596.
by eldavido 10y ago
Interesting how this is an example of "societies crumble when their elites want to go in different directions". I agree that lack of focus is a big problem and wonder what those competing 2-3 visions are. I think Jack came back be
597.
by eldavido 10y ago
I couldn't agree more and I'm glad someone is talking about this. I also read SEC reports (Ks and Qs) and I'm appalled at what I'm seeing. I actually think it's bigger, though. Look at the original ethos of Silicon
598.
by eldavido 10y ago
Reading between the lines here, I suspect there might be language in a buyout/severance agreement some of the employees are party to that might have sensitive terms, like anti-disparagement or other stuff, and they don't want to l
599.
by eldavido 10y ago
SF-based dev here. This behavior (OP) doesn't come off as unprofessional at all. You have nothing to worry about. I get that you might feel upset if this was posted without your consent, but tech is becoming hollywood and there are ple
600.
by eldavido 10y ago
Buffet wouldn't have gotten rich in today's environment. When he was growing up, the stock market was a plaything of the rich. Valuations were lower across the board, markets weren't nearly as efficient (in the technical sens

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