mediaman

82 ms·

901.
by mediaman 17y ago
Thank you -- I see a lot of people thinking 'banking' is all about your personal small loan from the neighborhood bank. That's like a tiny slice of the tip of the iceberg. Most banking takes place in volume, it is done through personal cont
902.
by mediaman 17y ago
Because you're attacking an HN regular for trying and failing, when he already admits he has a lot to learn (and failing teaches you a lot) and just wants to make something useful for people. It's not kind to attack people for failing and g
903.
by mediaman 17y ago
One important way referenced in the article is to evaluate failures as well as successes for the likelihood of a trait: for example Jim Collins describes certain features that successful companies have, but does not evaluate the pool of los
904.
by mediaman 17y ago
Jason, this was a great piece and more should do themselves a service by reading it. It's one reason to pursue 'smaller' opportunities with lower variance of return expectations but higher median returns -- for example many niche businesses
905.
by mediaman 17y ago
I don't believe you are making genuine, thoughtful statements here. Apple has made real, substantive progress in design. There was nothing like the iPhone when it was brought to market. Nothing even similar. Their aluminum notebooks use a m
906.
by mediaman 17y ago
The easy way around that is to repurchase stock to hold in the treasury. Returns cash to the investors through a higher stock price and eliminates the tax delta.
907.
by mediaman 17y ago
I understand and appreciate that you don't find value in their products. That's your call and not anyone else's to make. But where you're making a mistake is assuming that value in the market is tied to Apple's internal costs of making a pr
908.
by mediaman 17y ago
I disagree that the institution becomes the enemy: what is really happening is that a portion of the fee Mint earns from a referral is being given the consumer, in the form of higher interest or some other perk. By grouping multiple custome
909.
by mediaman 17y ago
Interesting experience. I've sold big packages to big pharma and our experience was different: we could game the scheduling of payments over the life of the contract, but they refused cash up front payment. However, given your experience an
910.
by mediaman 17y ago
#6 no credit -> agreed 100% That's crazy. Ever sell to big business? Anything that costs over $50k? What are you going to do, demand up front cash payments in lieu of terms? Big business does terms, if you want their business you give
911.
by mediaman 17y ago
Yes. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky were the first to demonstrate this behavior. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science, 211, 453-458. However, I don't know enough to answer
912.
by mediaman 17y ago
Daimler's stake would not affect sales numbers. Deposit money itself would not significantly affect sales numbers either (it might a little depending on recognition policy). The sales may be booked as a function of the rate of completion of
913.
by mediaman 17y ago
It's already pretty bad -- one firm I talked to was planning an IPO last October, which they pulled after the markets sank. Prior to pulling, they had to spend $2.5mm preparing for the IPO in legal and regulatory fees (not including bank's
914.
by mediaman 17y ago
I think you nailed it there: the median age is still high. Also consider that the gender gap will likely not disappear for a long time, if ever. Many extremely smart, well-educated women leave the workforce for a period of time because they
915.
by mediaman 17y ago
I had this exact same thought. It turns out that they destroy the cars that are turned in. So really, it's a program to destroy functioning assets. Perhaps we can also pay people to break their windows.
916.
by mediaman 17y ago
I think Silicon Valley, Boston, Seattle, and NYC are in the top four. Except for the Valley, people argue about which city is in which spot for 2-4 (they all have their niches), but it seems unlikely that Portland -- although it's a wonderf
917.
by mediaman 17y ago
This seems to be a common experience. Felix Dennis mentioned the same thing in his book - earlier on in his career, he'd just 'flip out' and go somewhere remote for a couple weeks, without even telling people ahead of time (more quirky and
918.
by mediaman 17y ago
I agree -- and I've personally tried to create those incentives, whereby those people who have gone out of their way to improve things get the promotions and raises, and I make sure everyone knows why they're getting paid more. They see it
919.
by mediaman 17y ago
Great comment. I often wonder why my own employees frequently don't do something like this. I can think of many examples where one of our reasonably intelligent employees could get way ahead by just asking me for more responsibility in some
920.
by mediaman 17y ago
I agree completely with ghshepard. Presuming it's not some sort of consumer play, if one of the founders is not good at sales, you'd sure as hell better (1) learn to sell and/or (2) bring in sales talent. Preferably #1 before #2. The absolu
921.
by mediaman 17y ago
Google sells attention to advertisers via its distribution channels. Their search engine is certainly the most successful distribution channel, and they have (with somewhat less success) added other distribution channels such as AdSense, wh
922.
by mediaman 17y ago
The problem facing the newspaper industry is a similar problem facing the airline industry. It is one reason why the airline industry has had terrible economics since Kitty Hawk. At first, the newspaper business model was this: there were m
923.
by mediaman 17y ago
You're right about him preferring a Cauchy distribution vs. a leptokurtotic distribution, I was mistaken. Taleb argues that these tools aren't being used in the real world, but all the evidence in places like the options market seems to ind
924.
by mediaman 17y ago
The excerpt you provide from his paper is mathematically expressed as a leptokurtotic probability curve and data with high heteroskedasticity. Do you think he's the first guy to figure out that insufficient sample data in the tails of a lep
925.
by mediaman 17y ago
Taleb acts as though the finance community doesn't know what a fat tail is, or how to model it. Yes, there are idiotic statistical practices used in the business world (VAR comes to mind) but the best hedge funds employ the types of top mat
926.
by mediaman 17y ago
Taleb is not a good modern thinker. He takes existing, well-known mathematical principles, rewrites them without citation or reference for the layman, and then disparages the people whose work he took and other financial professionals who a
927.
by mediaman 17y ago
Zappos has negative working capital? Are their inventory turns that fast? I'd be interested in your source, if available, just out of curiosity. Getting negative WC for a retailer is pretty impressive, although credit cards certainly help.
928.
by mediaman 17y ago
My understanding is that this was the case. I've seen some articles indicating that Zappos has struggled to meet the short-term financial goals of some of the investors, while staying aligned to its long-term objectives. So somebody was wan
929.
by mediaman 17y ago
When a company is struggling, reversing the trend through sales growth is usually not the answer. That's certainly an important component after the emergency turnaround stage, but you have to get the business on a stable cash flow footing
930.
by mediaman 17y ago
He's saying it's borderline irresponsible because Neil is publishing correlations--which he actually calls predictors --that in no way have any statistical validity, and further causes baseless damage by reinforcing negative stereotypes th

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