eldavido

84 ms·

721.
by eldavido 11y ago
Re (1), I agree there are desirable properties of a less-concentrated economy where every industry isn't controlled by 4 companies and the entire Internet doesn't run on AWS, I just don't see that as the future. If you agree
722.
by eldavido 11y ago
This is a great idea. Stuff like the sugar tariff [1] are a perfect example of what you're talking about, a well-organized but tiny minority using the political process to affect an outcome that's bad for people as a whole. I woul
723.
by eldavido 11y ago
I think the way the code is implemented and managed plays as a big a part as the code itself. Look at how many large-scale breaches are caused by weak wifi passwords and other dumb, correctable things. I made a comment to the same effect, I
724.
by eldavido 11y ago
I agree. For how much scientific education many software developers have, it's fascinating how little we actually understand about defect rates, productivity, and a whole host of other issues.
725.
by eldavido 11y ago
I've never understood "urban agriculture". Cities have one of the highest land prices due to their proximity to people/commercial centers, I don't know why turning that into a farm, which takes tons of land, makes s
726.
by eldavido 11y ago
(1) A detailed study of cost in the (building) construction industry. (a) What are the components of cost? What is their relative size? Labor, land, materials, permitting, architecture/engineering, regulatory compliance, (b) The housin
727.
by eldavido 11y ago
> The concept of savings or retirement for millennial might as well not even exist. Probably not a popular view, but I think there's some truth to it. Check out the Harvard JCHS article [1], more households are paying 30, 40, and ev
728.
by eldavido 11y ago
For employees: salary/responsibility growth, bigger impact more quickly You might be right about the customer side, that non-"startups" are more likely to be around in 5-10 years, which makes a difference when investing in a
729.
by eldavido 11y ago
I think the endgame of SV is to become more like Hollywood. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. Typical startup raises a $500k seed round and is two founders + 2 senior engineers building the v1. If founders want Google-caliber pe
730.
by eldavido 11y ago
Yeah well, that depends on whether you're used to working on a mature project with lots of structure and process (and usually, customers) or something newer where you're more in POC mode. I'd favor someone who could do either
731.
by eldavido 11y ago
I'd be really interested to know the rough details of your work situation. Sounds like you've got a pretty good thing going.
732.
by eldavido 11y ago
I've written a lot of code in both Ruby and C#. Like a parent, I love both of them for completely different reasons. From a pure language standpoint, Java and C# are _really_ well-designed tools. I call them "Cathedral Languages&q
733.
by eldavido 11y ago
Have also experienced this. More of a "blue collar" feel of "it's just a job", rather than all this loaded mission/passion/vision BS that seems to accompany many white-collar jobs. I also find it refreshin
734.
by eldavido 11y ago
I spend approximately 5 minutes per month on payroll - Gusto user (former Microsoft officemate/friend is eng hire #2 there). There may be better tools than Gusto, but it's good enough that I don't think about it. Another poin
735.
by eldavido 11y ago
Current job: leading four-person, client-focused software development/design company. I'm the "managing partner" and spend ~80% of my time writing code/technical architecture and 20% on personnel/payroll/a
736.
by eldavido 11y ago
Incorrect. The law varies state-by-state but the actual process is closer to the following: (1) Company agrees to file for bankruptcy, usually because they feel it's in the owners' (shareholders) best interest to do so, in terms o
737.
by eldavido 11y ago
I very much believe that housing and education are necessities, and that builders and colleges, if the screws were turned to them more, would find ways to cut costs and make things more broadly affordable. I don't think throwing tons o
738.
by eldavido 11y ago
For an apt comparison, take 9 of your friends out to dinner and agree upfront that everyone will split the bill proportionally 1/10th. Watch how people think about spending, it really changes their utility calculus, from "Is this
739.
by eldavido 11y ago
Agree that American business culture is too short-sighted. The question is size is far from decided, though. Though these Japanese firms may survive long-term, they often aren't good stewards of shareholder capital as measured by ret
740.
by eldavido 11y ago
Guess it all depends on how you measure your life. Literature is filled with ample anecdotes of members of the WW2 French resistance, prisoners, and other persecuted minorities holding their tongue until the time was right. Sometimes you ha
741.
by eldavido 11y ago
hi jorge I'd actually applied to work at stripe about two years ago, you guys turned me down ;) I was responsible for ops at a billion-device-scale mobile analytics company for about 1.5 years. Your tooling is far superior to anything
742.
by eldavido 11y ago
Small nitpick, the word "civil" is important here. If you're convicted of a crime, there is nothing "civil" about it, you're tried opposing a public official (district attorney -- not a private party) and convi
743.
by eldavido 11y ago
I had this thought too. I'm actually surprised it was something this simple for an engineering org as competent and storied as Stripe, guess it proves Murphy gets all of us at one point or another. The issue IMO is splitting an otherwi
744.
by eldavido 11y ago
Civil asset forfeiture is horrible and we should get rid of it. On a different note, my takeaway from this story: pick your battles. Sure, you can go into an airport with $11k in cash. Maybe you're a Sikh and you want to carry a kirp
745.
by eldavido 11y ago
"Not an issue with bitcoin" = you have no recourse, as a buyer, if you get ripped off by an unscrupulous seller. You make some good points about cash back and gas, but you can't deny there's value in the extra layer of p
746.
by eldavido 11y ago
I don't know exact figures but the treasury security market is widely considered the most liquid market for anything, anywhere, ever (apart from perhaps physical notes in your wallet) so I can't imagine it would be large at all.
747.
by eldavido 11y ago
This reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of finance and capital structure. Anyone operating a business has to have assets. In order to fund those assets, you issue a claim to either equity holders (your "owners" in the traditi
748.
by eldavido 11y ago
Believe me, I want you to be right (I'm currently writing a settlement system for Visa/MC txns for a SF-based hotel chain) but I just don't see a world where those economics work long-term. Stripe is an expensive acquirer. I&
749.
by eldavido 11y ago
Incidentally, I think this is the biggest reason bitcoin is going to fail. The demand for money changes, so you either have to pick between a fixed supply, in which case prices will oscillate wildly, or a supply managed by some kind of cent
750.
by eldavido 11y ago
Investment is just a nice word for gambling; there's always risk. I agree that there are required levels of prudence in banking and investment management more generally, but don't pretend there's a well-defined brightline bet

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