mediaman

59 ms·

721.
by mediaman 13y ago
A lot of folks are making ad hominem arguments that because it is a VC arguing against crowd funding, he must be wrong because of who he is. Let's see if we can focus on the reasons why his arguments are wrong, not just that he is a VC
722.
by mediaman 13y ago
Assuming at least 20k shares, you made >$2.5mm off that investment, using $340k of capital? Not bad.
723.
by mediaman 13y ago
As an employer and owner, I don't have a problem with people moving around in their career. I expect it. I stay on great terms with them, give them flowers when they move on, wish them good luck, and invite them to stop by socially lat
724.
by mediaman 13y ago
Similar experience here. Initial schedule was a no-show, and further, nobody picked up the phone at Homejoy, and there was no way to contact the cleaner. It took them several hours to follow up on the voicemail that nobody made it. However
725.
by mediaman 13y ago
It is meant to influence a wider audience.
726.
by mediaman 13y ago
The light isn't being bent light-years away. It is being bent at the beginning of the atmosphere, resulting in the same degree of bending as the satellite has to deal with.
727.
by mediaman 13y ago
122k is probably the salary. Firms like this often pay discretionary bonuses that can range from 30-60% of base rate pay, often based on company profit sharing. If Booz had a good year and it was toward the upper end of that range, 200k is
728.
by mediaman 13y ago
You bring up a good point, in that knowing the software is no substitute for intellectual comprehension of the problem. An extremely capable engineer using outdated technology will often outperform less capable engineers using more modern t
729.
by mediaman 13y ago
This is a great point. Because software has near-zero replication costs, the "manufacturing" process has no good analog for software industry. The manufacturing industry is supported by an army of engineers in a wide variety of specialties.
730.
by mediaman 14y ago
I have a friend who works on some of those medical research studies. They are required to use Excel. It is a giant pain because it is difficult to share the spreadsheet, there's constantly different versions, and data corruption issues. All
731.
by mediaman 14y ago
Yes, remember we're not talking about web app developers here. Skills such as CNC programming, injection molding toolmakers, etc are quite abundant and easier to find than in the US. For manufacturing China has a satisfactory engineering sk
732.
by mediaman 14y ago
Gross margin is the dollar profit divided by sell price. So, (sale price - purchase price)/(sale price). You may be thinking of markup, which is the profit dollars as percentage of cost, and is often used in retail. A 100% markup results in
733.
by mediaman 14y ago
A lot of demand is transfer: due to shale extraction technology, the cost of US gas is significantly lower than the cost many consumers pay in other countries. Therefore, they can replace their current supply with US production at a lower c
734.
by mediaman 14y ago
It's inelastic in the short term, because there are limits to what people can do to change: they aren't necessarily able to immediately dump their existing car and trade up; they still have to commute to work; cargo still has to be transpor
735.
by mediaman 14y ago
Typically, the charge-off would be the difference between the original face value of the debt and the price it was sold to the debt collector. The debt collector's tax basis is the price they paid for the debt. If they fail to collect the d
736.
by mediaman 14y ago
Lenovo is probably doing this for a few reasons: * The corporate market often prioritizes speed and ease of doing business over the absolute rock-bottom cost. Local manufacturing offers advantages due to a much shortened supply chain. * The
737.
by mediaman 14y ago
There's a big difference in psychology. Although it's only a rule of thumb, the best VP of sales can be a bit more introverted and detail-oriented than the salespeople they manage, who can be more outgoing, high-perseverence, cold calling t
738.
by mediaman 15y ago
It wouldn't have to lock it. A simple warning LED located on the upper part of the door at eye-level that lights up and blinks when an oncoming cyclist from the rear is detected would prevent a lot of accidental injuries.
739.
by mediaman 15y ago
Great detail on the source of that stat. The use of that 90-95 percent metric is next to meaningless in defining failure rates of startups. There are tons of successful companies generating great returns who have not met the initial project
740.
by mediaman 15y ago
I doubt it's based on userbase expansion so much as it is a bet on massive monetization. Personally, with their existing model, I think that's tough. Unlike search, the monetization rates just won't be that high, since it's not a point wher
741.
by mediaman 15y ago
That's true of phones, but we haven't really seen anyone try that with traditional PCs. Even Apple hasn't achieved anything there. In a broader sense, there seems to be much more innovation in tablets and phones versus traditional PCs. Some
742.
by mediaman 15y ago
I agree, this is more likely given their behavior with AWS. They're happy to rent their IP and infrastructure to competitors.
743.
by mediaman 15y ago
Frequency and quality are negatively correlated when it comes to news. I would recommend Instapaper's curated list of articles, which tend to be long-form and more interesting than most, as well as The Browser ("Writing Worth Reading") for
744.
by mediaman 15y ago
You can complain about resource limitations on a free offering from a publicly traded company if you'd like. Or, if you'd like to be treated like an actual customer, you can become one, by paying for storage.
745.
by mediaman 15y ago
I don't know the answer. It might. In general, graphics have better CTR (at least in my industry, which is not as tech savvy), but you're correct that image blocking counteracts that to some degree. It's worth doing a trial and seeing which
746.
by mediaman 15y ago
As someone with a decent annual investment in salespeople and customer service staffers, this product looks incredibly valuable, and one of our marketing members is looking into becoming a subscriber because it solves an important hassle po
747.
by mediaman 15y ago
I agree, and this would be a very typical long-term move by Amazon: they systematically partner with existing incumbents, and then develop a business model that renders them redundant. Book publishing was the first example.
748.
by mediaman 15y ago
Great points. The company I work with operates production thermoforming machines to produce plastic containers. Each machine produces over 12,000 units every single hour, 24 hours a day -- that's over 2 million every week, with only one or
749.
by mediaman 15y ago
Maybe, but getting organizational buy-in -- and preemptively clearing potential political damage to the project -- is part of the job, especially for 'the boss'. The boss might not like it, but it's part of the job. And pretending that all
750.
by mediaman 15y ago
So what's the answer when jobs like this need to get done? It may not have to be J2EE, but there are plenty of corporate jobs that have to get done to help build big company infrastructure, and if much of the talent that was available now h

More ›