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TL;DR: My advice to you is to get out fast. As more people leave, the further behind the company will get, and the more pressure and blame will be placed upon those who stay.

This is sounds suspiciously like my last employer (before I started my own business). I had started in November, and just a couple of days before Christmas, management announced all Christmas vacations were cancelled, and we were expected to be at work on Christmas Day. They relented after every single person under the CIO (including Jewish, Islamic, and Hindu faiths--hey, company paid vacations unify world religions!) said the company would have their resignations within minutes unless they reversed their decision. They did.

But within the next couple of months, they started having rounds of layoffs. First, senior management (including CIO). Then down the line. Unbeknownst to everyone, the owner had put the company up for sale, and the Christmas thing was to try to get people to quit in order to avoid unemployment tax hikes.

I don't. I've first hand experience with groups which have "clandestine" agendas, both in the private sector and in government. And I don't mean UFO agendas, but money and financial oriented agendas. So it's not a big leap for me to accept that they exist for UFOs, or what "they" want us to believe are UFOs.

You have to determine who your market is. Some potential clients may not be in your market--whether too small or too big--and you pass on them. If there's a demand from those market segments, someone will pick up on it.

I only do fixed bid projects (plus expenses). In my experience, clients want to know up front what they'll be paying (or a very tight range, with expenses). Hourly, they get nervous they'll end up with The Never-ending Project, it's impact on their budget, and start haggling over hourly rate vs project value.

This movie is an example of what happens when Boeing's Marketing department and USAF recruiting (with assistance from SAF/FMP) team up.

Here's food for thought.

Does this happen with experienced positions open in other departments?

Are experienced CPAs interviewing for the new position in Accounting required to balance an example set of books?

Are experienced Sales interviewees expected to go out and sell a sample product before being hired?

A lawyer for Legal expected to write a sample brief or appear before the court in a sample trial?

HR expected to do sample HR things?

Think about it.

That's incorrect about the Constitution. While it does not lay down specifics, it does give Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce. Known as the Commerce Clause, it's Article I, Section 8, Clause 3: "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;"

This isn't happening in only SF, or only in tech. It's happening all over, and across the spectrum of ideas.

Is the argument that social media is tearing apart our society correct? I think it goes deeper than that, and that it's tech in general. We've grown impatient with right-swipe, immediate communication (whether through texting or calling on a cell phone; remember when you had to find a phone, or wait until you got to home/work?), immediate gratification. No time or desire to think things through, just react.

The happiest time in the past 25 years was the first half of 2016, when I swore off almost all tech for 7 months, road tripped, and visited with people--strangers--and learned what made them tick. Guess what--not technology. And I was relaxed, happy, free.

Technology isn't the cause of a toxic society, but it definitely is a/the catalyst.

Just saw this.

As my late dad and other old timers said a few years ago, the price of land is tied to the price of corn. Land values (both purchase and cash rent) have fallen the past year or two from their high, slowly but steadily. From a pure numbers standpoint, land prices are still high relative to corn prices, I'd say about 2x as high as some historical years at this corn price (plus historical inflation). I'd like to see it down around $5K/acre in my area.

But there are other factors in the cost too, and that is how much people are willing to pay for land. And guys are still willing to pay for it at this level, although not as many as before. There's still profitability, if you play your cards right. But that's a whole other analysis.

There has been some land in Iowa which has still sold for $9-10K/acre this year. Very good CSR. But it's definitely not the norm anymore. $7-8.5k/acre seems to be the range.

Wow! I wish I could have gotten that price for my corn last year.

You quoted the price for beans, not corn. Corn averaged 3.40 over the year (currently, around $3.05 cash, not CBOT). That means it was about $640/acre for income. And that's assuming 203 bushels for all farmland. 180 is a better rule of thumb.

Of course, when a bag of seed corn is selling for $275-300+...not to mention input costs of equipment, fuel, fertilizer, labor (including yours), land (purchase or rent), etc...

I'm guessing you didn't grow up on a farm.

There will always be some farmland effectively for sale; but there will also be other farmland which will never be for sale, no matter what the cost. The latter are generally "homeplaces", which have been in the family for generations. Heritage, blood, sweat, and years of hard work bind you to the soil, the land. It's more than an emotional attachment--it's almost spiritual, almost core identity.

It's an essential part of you and who you are.

I'm going to address how to handle the employee who came to you in confidence.

You need to sit down with her--before you do anything--and inform her you need to do something and why. Tell her you understand she came to you in confidence, but this behavior can not be tolerated. She might be able to brush it off, but the next employee the biz dev person harasses might not be so understanding and file a sexual harassment lawsuit against the company.

And if it's discovered YOU knew of his behavior and did nothing.....

I'm guessing power constraints. More flash you have, more power you'll require. Even increasing power consumption deltas minimally may impact battery longevity between charges on mobile devices enough to make it unfeasible with current battery tech.

"Power is an important consideration because the design of flash memories is closely tied to the power budget within which they are allowed to operate." http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/users/swanson/papers/TransOnCAD2013.p...

The question isn't how big the farms are. The question is how are those who are "using" Farmlogs, using FarmLogs. Are they active? Are they using just the basic functionality, or are they using more advanced features?

I'm still involved in farming, and the guys I know who are "using" it, just are using the basic functionality.

Unless they have partnerships, FarmLogs is going to have a difficult time competing with Deere, Case/IH, other equipment manufacturers who are developing their own built-in products with similar feature sets and deeper pockets. Not to mention the local cooperative monopolies, seed companies, etc who are also in the game.

Always a tough choice. And only one you can make.

Here's my thoughts:

1) People/teammates make all the difference in the world. You love working with your current team; you've enjoyed working with the Other Company's (OC) IT Director before. But will you like the OC's team you'll be working with? Will you be seen by them as capable, or as a buddy being brought in to shove "architecture" down their throats?

2) Vacation. This is a negotiation. Tell them you have three weeks now (and have proof) and tell them you want the match. That shouldn't be too difficult, but I've actually seen companies balk and walk away over this (Even as far as telling senior people with X weeks vacation they'll be treated like entry-level and start with none for the first six months, etc). Sure sign of bureaucracy, and being tied to processes.

3) WFH. Kind of unclear. I'm assuming you can WFH pretty regularly now, and with OC you'll lose a lot of that. Again, negotiate. If most of OC team is in another city, what difference does it make if you're in the office, or at home on the corporate VPN--like they are.

4) Commute. WFH could make a lot of difference here too. But adding 15 minutes each way is 30 minutes a day, 2.5 hours a week, 10 hours a month, 120 a year. What could you do with that spare time if you didn't have the commute? Not to mention costs in gas, mileage on tires and car, etc.

5) Boredom. You're bored in your current job, which is never a good thing. But are you relevant? Meaning, are you doing useful things, listened to, etc? If you jump over to OC, will you still be relevant? Or will remote team ignore you and do their own things? Irrelevance and boredom are never good apart, and torture together.

Geez, what a yawner. This has been either assumed or an open secret for decades.

It's like the old real estate mantra goes: "It's all about location, location, location."

There will be some metros where no one cares; they're so short-handed and the tech market so hot, they won't care and will hire you. Other metros which are more sedate, with few companies and therefore over-saturated with techs and H1Bs will look at you and laugh.

I agree with this statement. I lived in the Twin Cities for a decade and worked for four (4) different companies--the last three of which recruited me away from my then-current position.

As another responder said, the Twin Cities is very tech centric. While there are quite a few enterprise jobs, there are plenty of opportunities across the corporate-size spectrum--from startups (a large startup community exists there) to global Fortune 50 companies.

It truly is analogous to Silicon Valley.

Let's examine this law via the perspective of speed limits.

In the US, most interstate highway systems have a speed limit of 70 miles/hour (around 112-113 km/hour). If you go over 70 mph and run into a police officer having a bad day, you'll get a ticket.

Say you're on a particular stretch of interstate which is populated by officers with a reputation of consistently coming after drivers traveling even 1 mph over the limit (eg 71 mph).

So, to err on the side of caution, you limit your driving to between 65 and 69 mph.

You're driving along at 65-69 mph thinking all is well in the world, when the flashing lights appear behind you. You pull over, the officer comes up, and The Question comes out: "Is there a problem officer?"

The officer looks you over and asks "Do you know how fast you were going?"

You get a puzzled look on your face. "Well, I couldn't have been speeding. I know you guys are pretty strict about speeding around here, so I set the cruise control right at 67 mph."

"So you know that speeding around here will get you a ticket, and you intentionally kept your speed below the speed limit?"

"Yes sir."

"Well, I'll need you to step out of the car please."

"Um sure, but why?"

"We have an anti-evasion law around here which makes it illegal for you to knowingly and intentionally go below the speed limit in order to avoid the possibility of going over and getting a ticket. The penalty is 30 days in jail vs the $100 speeding ticket. Since you admitted to intentionally going under the speed limit, I'm placing you under arrest."

Insanity, I tell you.

-Work to live, not live to work.

-Time is your most valuable and most finite resource. Don't waste it on working 24x7 for companies who will take advantage of your desire to do so.

-Ask yourself if what you're doing will matter to anyone in 10 years, 5 years, tomorrow. Especially in a corporate environment.

-Never sacrifice friends or family for work. There will always be work; you will lose (in some way, drifting or death) persons, and regret the couldas.

-There's always a shiny new gadget, and they repeat every decade or so.

-Set aside the computer/smartphone and do something without it a couple of hours a day. Woodworking. Cooking. Trainsets or scale models.

-Exercise a couple of hours a day.

And finally:

-Never, ever move to Des Moines. Unless you're an actuary.

Reading this brought back fond memories. Or nightmares. Sometimes it's difficult to distinguish between the two.

Thanks.

I associate typewriters with a different era, which really wasn't that long ago. An era where we weren't (all) slaves to our work. You worked hard during the day, and went home to a life at night or on weekends. And by life, I mean getting away from work and anything to do with it.

Today--with laptops, tablets, smartphones--that's nearly impossible. And not just for technologists either; business people are just as bad.

It's not regret to see the passage of typewriters, but of the era they represent.

All Hell wouldn't break loose, because FarmLogs isn't unique. Deere and Monsanto each have their own "cloud-based" farm management products: Deere with myjohndeere.com, and Monsanto with the Climate Corp umbrella (including Precision Planting, FieldScripts, etc).

A couple weeks ago, I had some paperwork to do at a county Recorder's office. As I'm standing there writing, I heard the rough sound of gears turning 3 times, and a chunk-chunk-chunk. Sounds at once both familiar yet distant in memory. Sounds which were so common yesterday--if yesterday was 20 years ago--now almost shocking to hear.Without looking, I knew an IBM Selectric was being used to fill out a form.

I stopped writing and just listened for a bit, letting the keystrokes, the ball strikes, and the platen and roller movements take me back in time.

"...We don't have ulterior motives with regard to using farmer data. We help them use it to be more profitable and that is all."

Until the investors/board say otherwise. :)

Been there. Experienced it. Resigned rather than comply.

Understand FarmLogs is the whipping boy here because you're the thread's subject (and your TOS clause 7 really is scary), but my concerns are also with the others, including for example Deere.

And as your TOS are updated, things might want to consider:

1) Who owns the data--the landowner or the tenant? Which data specifically? Who can order it removed? 2) What happens when a farm changes owners and the new owner wants all data regarding his land removed? 3) What happens when the data is subpeonaed in a clean water lawsuit for agricultural nitrate runoff?

There are desktop-based farm management solutions out there from companies like Ag Leader, John Deere, Trimble/Farm Works, and others. Some of these interact with smartphones or tablets (sync on LAN, maybe Internet).

Many of these companies are also moving towards cloud/SaaS-based solutions and developing private networks to facilitate real-time data ingestion from their equipment (tractors, combines, planters, sprayers, irrigation systems, wagons, etc).

So there are local solutions, and they're installs like any other software.

The problem with FarmLogs is the same problem with anyone wanting to provide cloud-based services to agriculture: who owns the data? And specifically, FarmLogs Terms of Service clause 7 "Content" does not leave one feeling warm and fuzzy on this topic.

This has become more of an issue with farmers over the past year, as they realize their data is a commodity just like what they raise--whether crops or livestock. How much of an issue? Two examples.

First, the Iowa Power Farming show was last week. One of the largest ag shows in the nation, and the back of the program had an advertisement from Ag Leader which started with the line: "Settling for a precision farming partner that wants control of your data just doesn't cut it." Additionally, several vendors in the precision ag and sensor/drone areas were stating similar lines. Whether BS or not, they wouldn't be saying it if there wasn't a need for them to.

Second, the January 17, 2015, edition of Iowa Farmer Today also addressed this issue in their editorial page article "Who own precision technology data?".

It's not that I'm against using technology for ag. It's I'm against others using my data about my farming operations AND MY LAND and making money off of it without cutting me in--or selling/providing it (raw or as a "derivative work") to other entities I may not want to have it.

That's not entirely correct. Accounting and non-trial legal positions can be outsourced overseas (cf, http://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/article/10741227/what-tax-... ), or H-1Bed. Most of the other positions can have the "cheap labor" come here (eg, legal or illegal aliens). Most of the billable rates don't go to the workers of companies which do this though.

But this digresses from my original point. There are independent business owners who do charge the same or more than IT workers on a per hour basis. They know the value of their work (customers either don't know how to do it, or don't want to), and charge accordingly.

Anyone who thinks $140/hr (or whatever per project rate is) is too high, consider the following.

My CPA in a Midwest/Great Plains rural town of 10K people charges $175/hour. Her firm has 5 other CPAs. The town has around 20 CPAs total.

My attorney charges $90/hour for advice only. Nothing else. $90/hour just to discuss a problem (pro rated per minute) or BS. If there's real work to be done (contract creation/review, legal issues, etc), it's more. He's in a town of 2K people.

Auto dealers in towns/cities ranging from 5K to 200K population are charging between $90-120/hour for mechanic's labor. Not including parts/supplies. Oil changes at many dealerships range from $45 to $70. (Oil changes at mom and pops run $25-30.)

Dentists? I just saw an ad for a newly opened dental office in a metro area. Special for cleaning, x-rays and such was like $75 from a regular rate of around $350.

Electricians? $80-100+/hr easily for a good journeyman or master. Not including service call charge. That was in 2011. ( A good electrician rate thread from 2009: http://www.electriciantalk.com/f15/when-did-you-last-raise-y... )

$40-75 to mow your lawn. $40-50 to clean snow from your driveway.

Technologists make things which can bring in (or save) hundreds of thousands to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, but seem to consistently undervalue their worth.