HN user
I was there around the same time and I took a discrete math course he taught.
I wasn't a math major and had no idea who he was, but I remember some students mentioning that he was a well-regarded mathematician. He was a good teacher as well.
Fan, who was also Ron's wife, has a webpage about him: http://www.math.ucsd.edu/~fan/ron/
Certainly, the salaries are a bit of an illusion when you take the insane housing costs of the Bay Area into account.
If breaking up the American tech companies helped disperse jobs outside of Silicon Valley, that would be a good thing.
Many companies across many industries vertically integrate. Should they all be broken up?
“Shady data practices” is hand-wavey and non-specific. What do you mean? Many companies today (again, across All industries) have had issues with keeping user data secure, selling it to untrustworthy third parties, not giving users transparency or controls in what information is shared, etc. Google’s track record in these areas is far better than most. How does this necessitate a breakup?
Concentrating industry through M&A is a legitimate issue, in my opinion, but it’s also probably the easiest to regulate.
Our tech companies are the most competitive in the world, bar none. I’m not sure that cutting them off at the knees will help with that. ”We did it before,” isn’t a convincing argument that we should do it now, under much different circumstances.
Has Europe’s pro-union climate led to more competitive software companies, or better pay and benefits for its software engineers?
Every European engineer I talk to seems either amazed or resentful about American software engineers’ salaries and benefits. How have the unions helped you in this regard? How have they helped your tech companies be more competitive in the global economy?
What is the corporate abuse here that necessitates a breakup?
Yeah, I think you are in agreement.
It’s worse than that though, because I’d be afraid to say anything contrary to the activist’s opinions. I don’t want to be stalked or harassed. The company is extremely tolerant of what employees say, the activists not so much.
The mental gymnastics some of us are using to justify the bad actions of these employees are astounding.
Making documents and calendars accessible is one example of Google’s “open culture.” When these features are abused in an attempt to strong arm a company or coworkers into kowtowing to each of your demands, that’s sabotage of the company’s culture at the expense of tens of thousands of your coworkers who may not share your political views on every issue. Say your piece, keep saying it if you feel so compelled, but don’t cross the line into unethical behavior and cry “retaliation!” when you’re caught.
I think there’s an uptick at the moment of paid online services. We’re getting four models:
1. Free commercial services supported by advertising.
2. Ad-free commercial services supported by subscriptions.
3. Open-source distributed services.
Arguably there’s a fourth category: free, ad-free commercial services supported by VC money to grow until reaches critical mass and pivots into a paid/advertising model.
The second option caters to a smaller crowd who are willing to pay for a better experience, but a “smaller crowd” defies conventional wisdom about social network effects. It’s an interesting experiment though. There are now dozens of news aggregators, streaming media services, gaming platforms, etc., competing for our monthly disposable income, so it may be a tough sell.
The NYT covered the shift towards subscription services recently: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/13/magazine/inte...
the only people who the company encouraged socializing with.
This is not my experience at all. Work-life balance there was way ahead of other tech companies I’ve worked for. Most people show up, work reasonable hours, and go home. Evenings and weekends are yours.
In my experience, Bay Area startups are way more guilty of trying to exploit young people with a sense of that the startup is your family. Eat, work, play, and socialize with your team, 24/7. Some people enjoy that, and sometimes these same startups go belly up, and your social network is lost.
I have no idea where your rhetoric comes from, though.
That's not an actual quote, FYI. They peddled something called "community-adjusted EBITDA."
"Now the problem is "Productivity" is stagnating since the 80's"
This is the exact opposite of what your chart shows. Productivity, in the economic sense, is growing since the 1980s. It's wages that have stagnated. The wealth generated by increased productivity is all flowing to top.
Dalio recognizes this: "Increased productivity will also substantially increase the wealth gap." He knows this trend is not sustainable.
I've been dealing with a hormonal issue that's been negatively impacting my deep sleep for almost two years.
Also, not getting enough sleep can wreak havoc on your hormones.
"Men who sleep 5 hours a night have significantly smaller testicles than men who sleep 7 hours or more. Men who routinely sleep 4-5 hours a night will have a level of testosterone of someone 10 years their senior."
It’s unfortunate that the batteries in these things wear out so quickly. And the battery is glued inside, making them $200+ disposable headphones.
But even so, AirPods are one of my favorite products I’ve bought in years.
Most people understood the intent of the question exactly, and still found the answer unintuitive.
This is probably the clearest explanation, sorry you were downvoted.
Evidence why people should value their stock at zero.
"none of the younger team members knew how to relate with them which made day to day interactions a lot more awkward than they would have been otherwise."
If they're out of school and in the workforce, and they don't know how to interact with people older than themselves, that's honestly kind of pathetic.
The article never refers to a "neurodiverse person". It does refer to groups: neurodiverse workers, neurodiverse employees, neurodiverse staff, neurodiverse colleagues, and neurodiverse voices. But not "neurodiverse person."
Some had frat house vibes, some didn't.
In any case, I think I'm pleasant and easy-going at work, and I do a good job, which makes other peoples' job easier. If someone would become "miserable" because I was hired... well, OK, but that might say more about their personality than mine.
I can certainly relate to coming off as weird or socially awkward or unintentionally rude, and it has affected my job interview performance. People diagnosed with ADD/Asperger's don't really have a monopoly on that.
I haven't had heard it in interviews, but I've been asked several times by former managers in performance reviews.
Do they want the truth? "I'd like to be managing you."
I had the opposite experience. I don't have Asperger's or ADD, but I'm shy and struggle with eye contact and small talk. I interviewed at about ten startups, and despite doing well on the technical questions, I got rejected every time. I began to suspect it was because of "culture fit" -- will this 35 year old introvert fit in at our frat house/office?
I was getting pretty depressed after all that rejection, but I got a random call from a recruiter at a big-N company, and figured why not give it a shot. The interview ended up being more professional, and at the same time the interviewers seemed friendlier and less antagonistic. And I ended up getting an offer.
In any case, I'm mentioning this because I went in expecting what you described -- that startups would be easier for me, as a socially-awkward person -- but that's not always the case.
When I'm crossing a street and a car flies through the intersection nearly hitting me, it's usually an Uber driver. Were taxi drivers so desperate to speed through cities and reach their next fare as quickly as possible?
I made the switch on all my devices about 6 weeks ago. I lasted 5 weeks. At least for quickly finding relevant programming documentation, I didn't think the results were on par with Google.
What about chronic fatigue syndrome? Is there some relation to too much exercise? Will it kill you?
The last time I made my case for a promotion, the director said "Sorry, no promotions right now, there's nothing I can do."
A couple months later, a coworker gets a job offer elsewhere and threatens to leave, and he's immediately promoted. He happens to be the least experienced engineer, and now he's leading the team.
This sends everybody scrambling for job offers, since that's what gets rewarded. Half the engineers have left already, and with any luck, I'll be next out the door.