netcan

124 ms·

901.
by netcan 6y ago
When it comes to these kinds of basket case occurrences, it's a bad idea to try and tweak them to be less bad. There is a reason they occur, and it's not "compliance" or whatnot. The ratings agencies are an obvious examp
902.
by netcan 6y ago
This is one of those points that gets misrepresented and then straw manned way more often than not... like fiduciary duty to shareholders. Economists don't think people are always rational or logical.
903.
by netcan 6y ago
There were economists in the middle ages. Ibn Khaldun, Maimonides.... Even before then. I believe Rome hanged (or crucified maybe) a whole generation of them during the crisis of the third century.
904.
by netcan 6y ago
The thing is, it works sometimes. Facebook IPOed without a business model. Their ad platform was crap, attracting generic banner ad prices. They launched all the targeting tools pretty quick, so Zuck obviously had a a plan... but public inv
905.
by netcan 6y ago
Uber is very vulnerable. They still make a large loss every year. Cash is not as bad, because (a) half the loss is in the form of "stock-based-compensation" and (b) they've been growing, which improves cash flows. Stock pri
906.
by netcan 6y ago
My mistake.
907.
by netcan 6y ago
I disagree, kinda. There are lots of possible reasons for progress, or lack thereof. Political will is the easy answer, but it's not always true... or the biggest factor. Space programs did get a ton of funding for the few short years
908.
by netcan 6y ago
You don't need to have been very long lived to see that. My grandfather was born in 1914. Cars existed, but most people hadn't seen one yet. The Wright brothers' maiden flight was 10 years prior. He went to med school before
909.
by netcan 6y ago
You have the perfect name for someone making emotive machines. Would you do demos for well known speeches/texts? It'd be easier to put this into context that way.
910.
by netcan 6y ago
Got a link for the taleb commentary?
911.
by netcan 6y ago
Europe had many more dialects and languages than now... Some of extinction stories are genocidal as well. We have to assume a lot about what happened as Rome colonised southern europe, for example, but much of it probably rhymes what happen
912.
by netcan 6y ago
IMO, trying to understand historical processes in terms of political theories is more noise than signal. Medieval english king alfred kept a chronicle of his time. Viking invasions such. His "political theories" were religious: ri
913.
by netcan 6y ago
amuses?
914.
Ask HN: IP ownership on a startup while working full time
2 points by netcan 6y ago|1 comments
915.
by netcan 6y ago
It is pondersome. I think I disagree though. I don't think it's replaceable, unless we're replacing work. With remote work we'll be replacing office culture with online office culture, not hobbies. I suspect they'll
916.
by netcan 6y ago
Even so, I'll point out that this elite sports teams pay more than just 2X-3X more than average ones. For all the talk of "talent" in this industry, it doesn't work like a talent industry. Where engineers do earn major s
917.
by netcan 6y ago
I'm not sure we disagree all that significantly. ;) I didn't mean to imply that we don't work in, join or even thrive in "teams." I meant the elite sports team analogy is a bad idea, usually. That's the ana
918.
by netcan 6y ago
There's something unsustainable about a "team" analogy... just as there is in a family one. Netflix may be the rare example where an elite sports team analogy applies, but... That can't be more than a rare exception. Ult
919.
by netcan 6y ago
Well... "team" isn't even an analogy. It literally means a group working together. Sports teams are an instance. OTOH... our gut-definition of teams is a pretty tight group working very cooperatively. It definitely doesn&#x27
920.
by netcan 6y ago
> "For me too many companies use the "family" aspect of things too much. " I'm not sure if I'm in total agreement or in total opposition. Family is an analogy... At the scale of many of our workplaces "
921.
by netcan 6y ago
..probably, unless by accident. They lose when a defendant shows up because they're not prepared to win a contested case.
922.
by netcan 6y ago
Exactly the point. To win, they need to cross all the Ts you mention. OTOH, they can also win if the defendant no-shows. At the bottom end of the debt collection pool, one strategy is to buy debt with a high chance of no-show and win cases
923.
by netcan 6y ago
I'm not thinking about this as an individual case, or debating an individual case. I'm talking about a business model whereby an agency systematically buys "no show debt" at a tiny fraction of face and mass produces pers
924.
by netcan 6y ago
I'd like us to be more forward looking, ambitious and experimental with our cities as well, especially in the west. But... I think there's an institutional aspect here that needs resolution before we can. The internet is worryingl
925.
by netcan 6y ago
This isn't a case where a guy didn't pay his builder and then no-shows at court. These are debts sold at >10% of face, often smallish debts that have accrued massive interest. Some agencies specialise in persistent calling. So
926.
by netcan 6y ago
No. This isn't a rhetorical example. Most defendants don't know anything about the case. They've been avoiding collection calls for years as agencies sell and resell their debt. Piles of unopened mail, etc. For their part, th
927.
by netcan 6y ago
There have been journalists & researchers who covered these debt collectors at court. When defendants showed up, organised, they usually won. The debt collectors' lawyers didn't arrive prepared to win, because most people didn
928.
by netcan 6y ago
This sort of problem (or its opposite) is inevitable with our internet circa 2020. Maybe wikipedia is too narrow. Maybe it's too broad. These things don't have singular, indisputable answers... The problem is that we have an int
929.
by netcan 6y ago
>> from what I have read that Amazon was a sweat shop. It depends where you read. HN, and a lot of places that might be reporting/commenting on amazon normally comment on tech companies. Amazon runs warehouses alongside a tech sh
930.
by netcan 6y ago
eh... In enterprise/saas... you eventually always have a solution looking for a problem. You have a salesforce or whatnot, and you have to sell it.

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