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Oppenheimer once wrote a letter of recommendation for Richard Feynman and called him: "a second Dirac, only this time human."

Submarine article?

I really liked the old Qwest Ride the Light ads for the same reason. Here's the jukebox one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdq_kH9mgS4

I don't think it's a particularly active community but http://thefunded.com/ started offering this in the mid 2000s

I'd suggest asking what is uniquely beneficial about Tallinn that will make your business more likely to succeed. Lots of places are cheap and the two exceptions you identify, talent and capital, are absolutely critical to the success of high-growth tech companies.

I believe you independently derived a very old, but lurcrative, idea. Kontera started off back in 2003 although I don't recall when they actually got to double-underline links. Viglink has been doing this more subtly as a commercial service since 2009, and AOL actually had a flavor of this built into Instant Messenger. There were also a number of affiliate networks that built this infrastructure to parse the Commission Junction offers database and update their networks with match/near-match products & services.

I think these are all excellent points but may suggest that you would not be an ideal customer for an early stage company. On the other hand, painless mutual disqualification as fast as possible is a win for both parties.

May I ask what you find compelling about Sunshine? I really, really wanted to love the film and I did for the first 2/3. But it felt like the final act lost its way.

Maybe I just like Garland's films but not his signature. If you have other recommendations I'd be interested.

I don't have high hopes for historical accuracy but i'm excited to see The Current War which puts some of these topics to film:https://youtu.be/wMECv6yLOFM

oh, that's really interesting!

Actually there are three criteria: 1) Information is material 2) Information is not public 3) Breach of duty through the "trust and confidence" clause.

It would be highly unusual for the CFO not to have the burden of confidence but even for a division president it's not clear they'd have corporate officer responsibilities.

During compliance training in my old life they covered the classic "overheard in a coffee shop" example as a way to highlight that a barista does not owe confidentiality to a random public company. However, I don't think it's ethical behavior regardless of whether it'd result in a conviction.

While possible this doesn't feel likely to me (not that my feelings have any bearing on what actually happened). It would be a breach of fiduciary duty, or at least compromised advice if the advisor wasn't a fiduciary.

Read with a critical eye as I, obviously, wasn't present: in this case it seems likely the Financial Advisor screwed up or simply misunderstood the industry. "Shopping the deal" is only anathema if you've signed a term sheet. Many companies receive/solicit multiple term sheets and accept their favorite.

you only have one credit-card

nothing inherently wrong with that. You won't have maximum access to credit and multiple bank relationships but those consequences may not be relevant to you.

you make sure you don't overspend

That's great, but not related to the number of credit cards someone has.

never paid attention to how many points you accumulate.

Some people obsess with points but there's a difference between not accumulating optimally and not accumulating at all. It's incredibly simple to get a 1-2% discount on all money you spend by using credit cards. But, again, that opportunity cost may not be relevant to you.

Do you mean generally positive for [the stock price] or [potential earnings]? Seems like while layoff announcements generally would improve earnings they hurt stock prices. It may be related to the perception that layoffs are often reactive to worsening conditions rather than proactive right-sizings of the business.

I'm not sure I fully understand, this would be pay walls on everything wouldn't it? If so, I agree it greatly increases pricing clarity but I'm not convinced it's an improvement necessarily.

I'd also mention that many freemium businesses actually introduce paid models to control costs rather than improve profitability - particularly true for streaming media companies.

You forgot the largest plus: Ads pay for many useful and enjoyable services that are free for the consumer (or cheaper). Things like broadcast television, local news, most of the internet, games, concerts....

I don't disagree that there are many cons, but it's disingenuous not to include the services they power as one of the pluses.

Full disclosure: My career involves ads.

The key is that you need to align incentives for employees, investors, etc by demonstrating a long-term commitment to the company. Lots of more nuanced discussions of this topic exist but here's one I have at hand: http://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec18/

Yes, completely tiny, but great if you'd like to rent a Cessna for a few hours. I'm sure the extra detail helped a few people :)

Correct... but there was also a bad joke in there.

Fair enough, as long as you don't tag us SQL :)

It's probably surprising because most companies design compensation programs that are normalized on [talent and geography] rather than talent alone. Sounds like your company has a more holistic approach and that's likely a strategic advantage for hiring.

Side note: SFO is the airport, SF is the city.

Well, to be fair the stuff that generates 90% of their revenue IS what's pushing organic results further down the page.

R&D costs are, by definition, operating expenses and thus should NOT be subtracted from gross margins. The opinion piece you link states:

"Gross margin is generally considered the incremental profit margin delivered by the sale of a product"

This is not remotely correct. The author is confusing Gross Margin with marginal profit, sometimes referred to as variable margin.

This isn't an apology. At best it's a promise to do better in the future.

For the love of all that's holy, my local pizza shop does NOT need a secure password. They don't even store my credit card. I honestly do not care if someone logs in and see's my favorite order.

This chart is comparing dollars (CD sales) to units (digital singles, which probably avg less than $1.29 each). So at their peak CD sales were worth >10x what digital singles sales are now. It's not even close, and if this chart were inflation-adjusted the difference would be much larger.

Forgetting about the Musician's share, all the streaming/satellite radio revenue collectively wouldn't cover the shortfall (terrestrial radio doesn't pay).

I can't comment on public performance but it's certainly become the definitive way musicians make money now and their share has always been high in this category.

So your argument is that the artist's slice of the pie is larger than it once was? That may be true, I don't have an informed perspective. However, for the industry, my original points stand.

Yes. Netflix is causing a similar shrinking to the RENTAL market that Craigslist did to classifieds, albeit less severe. However, the SALES of Physical Media (DVDs/Blu-Rays) are down huge over the last ten years and there hasn't been anything to replace that revenue. Essentially selling 30 DVDs to you and all your friends was replaced by selling 1 DVD to Netflix.

One more piece of history that you may already know: in the prime days of the rental market companies like Blockbuster paid ~$100 per movie and had access to the titles before a consumer could purchase them. Netflix didn't play ball, rather than pay those prices they'd wait until the DVDs were generally available and buy at consumer/bulk prices.

I wouldn't shed any tears for the industry though, they'll survive. Besides, just to be clear, I love Netflix, they're great.

More info: http://press.ihs.com/press-release/technology/spending-movie...

We agree. It's more possible than ever to succeed without a label or big company behind you. That doesn't mean there's more money in selling music media.