HN user
I had the same feeling the first time I went. Seeing the amazing costumes people had spent hours putting together made me want to develop my own style and kicked my creativity into high gear. Sure, strangeness is encouraged, but since most people take that in a personal direction I don't think of it as another type of conformity.
They are a private company owned by the Newhouse family. They can do what they want.
Bear Stearns loved to hire autodidact college dropouts.
"Under Greenberg’s control, Bear’s profits grew quickly. At its peak it employed almost 15,000 people. While most Wall Street firms preferred to hire Ivy Leaguers, Greenberg looked for people with “PSD” degrees, by which he meant “poor, smart and a deep desire to become rich.”"
As the article states these funds were largely raised in 2006 and 2007.
That's only because they waited to do so as a last-ditch effort after their market share cratered. At that point the cheaper alternatives were only purchased by the existing Mac faithful.
I don't know what the probability of "drug addicted transients" moving into a foreclosed suburban house is, but I do know that people aren't going to be strongly incentivized to keep up maintenance on a house they will be vacating soon.
Exactly the kind of the logic that people use to justify going into the corporate world instead of a startup. For people serious about building a successful startup the possibility of going back to a cushy corporate job if things don't work out should be the last thing on their mind.
How could the app store not be profitable? They are getting at least 30 cents of every dollar at almost zero marginal cost.
No they are just clueless, Bebo was purchased for cash.
A friend told me his kids now try to use iphone hand motions on other screens they encounter and are surprised when they don't work. Same age group.
I personally don't see any harm in asking the question "How much value does my job create?" While finance is an exciting field that does provide significant benefit in certain areas (i.e., liquidity, efficient pricing) the majority of the field is engaged in enormous zero-sum games, much like a casino. I think it's no wonder so many people get burned out in finance while entrepreneurs stay active and excited in what they are doing.
I understand how you are defining value. I am just rejecting that definition because it is both different from how people typically define the term and not particularly useful. For instance you are claiming that software has no value, only the consumer end-products you create with it. Most people would say software has value equal to the increased efficiency it gives you. In that same vein I am claiming liquidity has value equal to the increased optionality it gives you. How does your definition help me better understand the world?
Good question, sounds like value is being defined way too narrowly here. The value of farm equipment isn't the intrinsic or salvage value of the metal and other raw materials it is made out of, the value is equal to (value of crops yielded with the use of equipment) - (value of crops yielded without use of equipment). Just like the value of liquidity is clearly evident by the liquidity preference in debt markets. An upward sloping yield curve means investors demand higher rates of interest for longer tenor debt http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/rates/index.html Same situation applies to equity markets and is one of the reasons VC investments require higher discount rates than equity investments in public companies.
Companies are much better managed now than they were a few decades ago. Think about the fact that corporate raiders were able to buy large companies in the 80's, split them apart and sell their constituent lines of business for more than the companies were previously worth.
CEO pay has simply increased in line with the market capitalization of the largest public companies.
Profit margin is the important metric to look at in the context of moving to a socialized system. The stats in the linked article say that even if a public entity could run as efficiently as a private insurer there is only 3.7% surplus value to capture.