catothedev

Archive: https://archive.ph/2025.04.07-072352/https://www.foreignaffa...

Bear in mind that your life expectancy is higher as you get older. E.g. the life expectancy for a 72 yr old is not 73, its higher. But I agree with the general point about an age cap.

The other element at play is that if the EU fines become so egregious that US companies pull out of offering certain products in the EU, then what would fill the vacuum? Answer: Chinese tech companies with CCP control - essentially building a direct pipeline of EU personal data that CCP can weaponize.

Honestly, these multibillion dollar fines from the EU against US tech companies always have an air of 'Since we don't really have a domestic tech industry, these judgements don't really set a precedence for domestic companies, therefore let's just systematically use fines to collect cash'. An extra tax for big US tech companies doing business in Europe. Is there some truth to this?

Back in the aughts I thought Vice felt legitimately edgy, surprising, adventurous. Then, they realized they could get boatloads of money from 'traditional' media companies, that desperately wanted to look not-traditional and thats when the character changed IMO. Then numerous sexual misconduct cases, key leaders replaced, and it was dead.

Derivatives would make what youre talking about not work. Or lead to very convoluted rules which is bad.

It would really turn the energy around to cut the bloat, bring in Helgason as CEO w $1 salary but boatload of call options, have him explain a model that encourages indie devs while milking cash from gaming giants, and works towards a sustainable income statement for Unity.

My old high school friends put noisy exhaust systems on because the unrestricted systems promised to increase the hp of their 100hp honda civics by 5-10hp. BMW actually used to play fake engine noises through the speakers bc they were afraid the cars had become to quiet. Harley Davidsons whole reason for existence is to be noisy. Wankers everywhere.

Am I an "extractive industries" "affiliate" if I just fueled my hatchback up with fresh tank of gasoline?

In many major Chinese cities you literally cannot see the sun bc of air pollution. No major city in VN is this bad. Will it get worse? Maybe but I wouldn't necessarily expect it. VN people actually do get quite concerned about the quality of their food and, if air pollution started to become a visible problem, in places like HCMC, I doubt people (govt officials included) would be OK with that. The drive for money is hard but not quite as no-holds-barred as PRC.

If you want dense/affordable/good-public-transportation and you like east asia, I'd recommend Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Kaosiung.

You can live in those places with far less political, language, thought-police concerns than mainland China.

I've spent years in both China and Vietnam.

I also used to believe the common phrase that Vietnam was a "mini China". Reality is different. It's no where near as repressive.

Real Christianity & Buddhism is all over the place.

Everyday people don't speak with the self-censorship I've seen in China (and I don't certainly don't censor myself the way I felt forced to in China).

The internet is no where near as censored (or softly censored) as in China! This is a night-and-day level of difference.

Ironically, in some regards, VN is more capitalist than the USA. Just go down any average street in Saigon and see how many entrepreneurs you find. And never saw 'chengguan' bossing people around in VN. Part of the reality is that communist policies failed so hard in VN after the communist takeover, many people had no choice but to stand-up-against-policy and be entrepreneurs regardless of official laws and that is baked into the culture now.

Part of the reason VN's communist party isn't as powerful as China's communist party is because it does not have as much resources. But I would argue that part of the reason is the government really doesn't have the desire to be anywhere near as heavy-handed as the CCP. At some level, Vietnam seems to me like 'one big family' with a certain level of warmth to it, whereas China is just too big with too many intra-China conflicts for Chinese people to extend trust to other Chinese people. In my experience, there is a much further sense of distance in relations with PRC Chinese people (not e.g. Taiwan Chinese) that is difficult to overcome.

People in the US/Europe forget that Vietnam had a border conflict with China following the France/VN US/VN conflicts -- the difference about the China conflict is that China truly does want to take over some of Vietnam's land for keeps -- this is understandably ingrained in everyday Vietnamese people's minds.

Everyday VN people are commonly quite welcoming to visually-obvious-foreigners, whereas everyday PRC Chinese people are often times quite wary.

Vietnam also operates within ASEAN. Singapore/Malaysia/Thailand/Indonesia/Philippines political opinions and security concerns impact Vietnam.

I would say things in VN have changed a bit since Nguyen Phu Trong's leadership and Covid (globally democracy on average has taken a step back during this timeframe), but I've come to realize that calling Vietnam a "mini China" misses many important points.

It gets you a really sophisticated 'auto-complete' feature

The problem is republican lawmakers don't like writing laws interfering with businesses + democrat lawmakers benefit from Apple's politics.

Example: sell attractively priced insurance against a 100-year-flood. You make money for 20 years, but then a crazy big flood bankrupts your insurance company. Who would have thought that would happen?! Options (and other things) can be structured to create 'catastrophic insurance like' outcomes.

True. In fact, at my last interview they looked hard at my resume and then asked, "And so why should we hire you?".

I snapped off my sunglasses and, trying to contain my annoyance, said, "Guys, I solve problems and create systems."

After a long moment of silence, they looked at each other and nodded in approval. The boss reached out his hand to shake mine. I was hired.

Upvote for 30 years. Try it for a while, if creative industries aren't meaningfully damaged by the reduced IP rights, then maybe even take it down lower to like 25 or even 20 years.

They can hire bankers to try and find an investor who is 'management friendly'. Although, honestly, I can't see why any investor would really respect them given TWTR's performance.

Making a DCF analysis for education is going to be extremely murky.

That said, since it was done in spreadsheet, it would be easy for a relatively non-technical person to tweak the numbers to refute the author's argument (sidenote: only in the world of hacker news would people think python is more accessible).

I think the lack of interest in reviewing the spreadsheet reflects how people with education department degrees protect their jobs and win public policy arguments: they prefer to argue that ROI is not a relevant concept for education investment (even if it is at the core of virtually every other type of investment analysis).

It's also useful for negotiating rates. Saying you want a rate to be .2% lower is awkward and wordy. Saying 'can we take it down 20 bips?' sounds much more pro ;).

The oddity to me is that this has been going on for at least 40+ years and people still seem surprised when something like the Arm situation occurs. Great, humorous book written a long time ago on this subject is Mr.China.

Dealing with China requires multilateral agreements to make sure companies and executives don't sell-out at the expense of the democratic open societies.

As a financial buyer there are only 3 ways to make money: 1) higher multiple (buy low, sell high), 2) improve cash flow, or 3) lever-it-up with debt (like when you buy a house with a big mortgage). #2 is the only method that really changes the operations and probably the majority of financial buyers are too busy/lazy to be bothered with it. OTOH, some might hire a new CEO 'with something to prove' give him a lot of options/equity and who know what that person will do. But, basically, if the CEO doesnt change, and the CEOs compensation scheme doesnt dramatically change, and no mergers occur, then the company probably wont change.