Lack of any obvious vision or ideas: a safe pair of hands. The similarities are there, and not just Sundar/Ballmer but Sundar/Ballmer/Cook. It seems visionary CEOs like to appoint non-visionary successors. Someone who won't make big changes to their baby.
This is often inherent in the organizational structure of big companies. To the extent that there are visionaries in a big company, they're usually not anywhere on the executive team, or even anywhere that the CEO comes in direct contact with. If they were, they'd clash with the CEO's vision, which first of all would be confusing and inefficient for the organization and second is a power contest the CEO would win. So if the board wants to appoint a visionary from within, they usually need to reach several levels down in the org hierarchy, to someone who's run an innovative division semi-independently but been protected from overall company politics. If they elevate this person to CEO, everyone above them in the org chart will quit, as they've now been passed over for the top job.
Enterprises like these are free to make whatever decisions they want and I don't think it's fair to evaluate them with morals that seem to imply they are evil. What I mean is : this enterprise is not a monopoly, and there is competition, and it is free to fail ( unlike some banks lets say). If some other tax website provides better value, people are free to move to that.
I agree people are too quick to reach for labels like evil when the reality is that systems create incentives and groups of people follow incentives (basically don’t hate the player hate the game) and do an amazing job at rationalizing their actions as good (we’re all the protagonist of our own stories).
However we don’t have to throw in the towel and let these things run wild. If TurboTax exists by the grace of rent seeking and fixing tax filing at the federal level increases our overall productivity/happiness then we should try to change the system.
If you disagree with this view that is not a reason to down vote. If you think the point I am making is irrelevant or insulting or a bunch of other reasons which are not addressing the topic at hand, then that is a reason to down vote. I will continue to argue that it's ok that a tax firm like Intuit can operate with profit being it's main motive
You don't have the whole picture from what you have seen. Have you been to SF? Have you been to LA. Have you seen problems caused by drugs in US? Every country has problems
When US was spending billions on Minuteman and Apollo missions, there were many problems in America, including poverty. Not sure? ask the African Americans in the south from that time. However, very little energy was spent on questioning whether spending in space was right thing to do.
If developing countries spend a miniscule of their budget ( ISRO budget less than 2%), there is cynicism. I think what India is doing is great and is great for improving India's technical abilities and India doesn't need to answer what it chooses to do with its money.
>However, very little energy was spent on questioning whether spending in space was right thing to do.
That's not true. Public opinion about the moon missions was divided throughout the whole program, and a lot of effort was spent debating it. It is only in retrospect that it seems like a no-brainer, because everyone who was against it has been forgotten and we know it was a success.
That is great. However did you guys have a debate about US poverty after every Apollo mission? What about after you buy every F35? The cost of this Indian mission is about the cost of 1 F35.
BTW, many decades back Indians also deliberated, and only then established ISRO.
Also, frankly, that's a question for Indians to debate and not a big fan of NY times casually questioning the judgement of that spending without giving it an elaborate treatment. I have seen this multiple times. India launched Mars craft, but there is poverty. India launches 100+ satellites in one mission, but there is poverty. Its irrelevant at that instant and seems only to diminish India's aspirations.
May be some of this journalists can take a look at Indian Budget, study it deeply, and find where the government can spend more wisely. I bet they will find more wasteful spending than the investment in ISRO and that may be helpful for the public to know.
Completely coincidently I've heard it today first time starting with Angel-dust and flowing with YouTube's suggested. I'm completing my GSH education as we speak.
>However, very little energy was spent on questioning whether spending in space was right thing to do.
There was considerable energy spent questioning it and the project was almost scrapped numerous times. It also never had the support of the majority of Americans at any point until the actual launch itself:
>When US was spending billions on Minuteman and Apollo missions, there were many problems in America, including poverty. Not sure? ask the African Americans in the south from that time. However, very little energy was spent on questioning whether spending in space was right thing to do.
Well, more energy should have been spent in that line of questioning.
But there was nationalism at play, and the race to compete with the USSR.
But there was nationalism at play,
and the race to compete with the USSR.
Oh, nationalism is for sure at play here, and proving itself as a country that can get to space is definitely demonstrating that they are just as good as any other nuclear superpower.
Agreed. And the elephant in the room: All major space programs worldwide are an integral part of their respective country’s defense program. And were from inception.
India lives in a dangerous neighborhood, and protecting its citizens is by far the #1 priority of its government. The space program will always be well funded as a result.
I think Sikhs are great, they are hard-working people. But, how are they transforming the trucking industry though? It seems to me that the ethnicity of labor force in this industry has changed like how it has happened in multiple other industries at least in the USA. Earlier in the west coast, the east Asians did construction, now it's Mexicans. It seems like that is what happened in trucking- Sikhs form the labor force now for many reasons, and that is not a new trend.
The real transformation is coming soon I think and that will be with self driving trucks.
Speaking as a truck-driver (not over-the-road, I drive a septic tank truck), I find it shocking that so much is poured into the self-driving movement and not invested into changing the infrastructure to require fewer transports in the first place.
Self-driving is a win for corporations in that it saves them money in the long run, and it would offer higher throughput as the trucks could run 24/7 with no need for breaks. Refueling could happen while they're being loaded/unloaded by warehouse personnel, as could general maintenance such as changing tires etc. so you would have a small fleet of truck operating nearly continuously which would be a huge economic win for these companies.
But why isn't more money spent trying to change the transportation sector? Why are trucks running across the US instead of high-capacity trains? One train could easily swallow 50 trucks worth of goods if the infrastructure was built to accommodate it. Why are things shipped so far instead of produced and sold more locally? There's capacity to produce food much closer to where people live, so 'fresh' actually means fresh, and it travels at most double-digit miles before it hits the store instead of quadruple-digit miles or more.
By all means push for self-driving, but for the environment we need to push for no driving.
Why are trucks running across the
US instead of high-capacity trains?
Imagine a country where every company and family follows the rule "Make the investments that, without anyone else changing anything, will pay back my investment fastest"
To use the jargon of game theory they are unable to coordinate; when faced with a stag hunt [1] they will always choose to pursue hares alone instead of pursuing a stag as a team.
In this country, 50 families will buy £10,000 SUVs to deal with a potholed road, as any family resurfacing it alone would spend £100,000, and pooling £2,000 each isn't an option.
Likewise, a trucking company can buy an battery electric truck or a self-driving truck without anyone else changing anything - it can run on the roads that already exist.
Do you suppose such a country would ever end up with trains, or busses, or overhead power cables for electric vehicles?
I know why, on a practical and political level, why things are the way they are. I'm questioning the status quo: I think policies should be implemented and government funds should be allocated such that we change the current status quo.
I am very much not a believer in the supremacy of the free market.
>I'm questioning the status quo: I think policies should be implemented and government funds should be allocated such that we change the current status quo.
Americans don't believe in this; they believe in the status quo which is not spending anything on infrastructure and letting it decay. Look at who they vote for, and the infrastructural policies they push.
Agreed, but politically it's near impossible at this point. One person expressed the effort required to change how we interact with the environment quite well: on the country-level, it's like the US mobilization for WW2. After decades of government intervention being framed as diabolic, and the issue of environment being turned into a partisan issue, I don't see any way this can happen in US at this time.
Moon shot. Arguably the right mix of political PR (charismatic leadership, cohesive message) and some sense of large enough external threat. Climate change is already right there as not just a huge external threat, but an existential threat. Politicians have just yet to mobilize the American political machinery necessary to properly react to it. A few good speeches from the right leader could do magic, at least so history tells us.
(It may not be possible in the age of Fox News to rally enough people to the smart causes. But the treasons of that Australian institution against the World are still left to be prosecuted.)
Lots of goods are shipped via train. It's very cheap. But it is slower, and you still need trucks for last mile delivery... Or in lots of cases, last 100 miles delivery.
This is in large part due to BNSF, UP and other US railways spinning off or closing all the unprofitable short rail lines that used to go to local warehouses, industrial and commercial districts, resulting in many decrepit, barely usable rail lines.
Trucks are the only option when your local rail operator shuts down or doesn't have the capacity to service your business. This chronic underinvestment in vital infrastructure is hurting the economies of smaller towns, making any business that needs cheap transport to thrive less competitive.
Not nearly enough are shipped via train, and infrastructure could be changed and improved to reduce the need for last-mile delivery (particularly, remove the need for last-100-mile deliveries).
If all we needed were short-haul last mile deliveries we'd eliminate millions of truck miles per year (huge economic and environmental win), move those trucks to green propulsion and it's even better.
This can't happen with how the infrastructure looks today though. Which is why I question the money spent on self-driving instead of fixing the whole transport sector. It's bailing water faster in a sinking boat while ignoring the gaping hole in the bottom.
Maybe the difference is that the Sikh community is much tighter knit than most immigrant communities. We're probably overlooking that the East Asian and Mexican communities that predominate in certain industries are often sub-communities that are tighter knit than they seem--e.g. Jalisco emigrants in some parts of the Bay Area--but even so I wouldn't be surprised if the Sikh community is especially close.
The tighter knit the community the more they can act deliberately to quickly and/or comprehensively achieve some goal. An obvious contemporary example are the Patel families in the hotel industry. Both the Patels and Sikhs have long-existed as distinct socio-economic groups in India. Sikhs are arguably a nation, although that cuts both ways in terms of how relatively tight-knit they may be.
Self-driving trucks may be coming but don't discount the long-tail of traditional trucking business that we'll see. Declining industries can be extremely profitable, especially with enough focus. Mustering the capital to keep investing in the best opportunities can be difficult because the future growth isn't there. Tight-knit communities are particularly well suited to exploit those opportunities precisely because of their funding networks and labor specialization.
I think this guy wrote a great article. However I don’t know if I agree with his conclusion of him not being a good web developer.
I would bet that most great developers have googled often enough. In their defense googling is a more efficient tool than pouring through manpages all the time that have poor search indexes.
Also, in this developer’s blog, there is no reference to the fact that his code is buggy or less maintainable, or plethora of other reasons that categorically make him a bad developer.
I think it’s ok, to use help from google or stack overflow to do a good job at your task and that doesn’t make you a bad programmer.
While Amazon’s work culture doesn’t surprise me(similar experiences from multiple sources), while I feel sympathetic to the author’s struggles, I do feel the author went a bit too far with his invectives against his previous manager. The reason I say that is, we don’t know the manager’s side of the story and may be it wasn’t exactly like how this guy characterizes it.
While people working on visas don’t have as much freedom as people who don’t need sponsorship, I don’t think this problem is present in every company that has lot of immigrants. Part of the problem is Amazon’s culture and I think this problem is trickled top down.
It seems like people at the top management of amazon work hard and there is probably better than linear returns for their extra efforts. But it seems like they push that even on the lower rungs where it seems like it is not justified.
I think subtle racism is a big problem. It can be felt without being verbally communicated to you, the actions from the perpetrators are frustrating and you feel helpless. The perpetrators would not be corrected because they said nothing wrong. Worst of all is that you don’t get a fair shake, and you might be dismissed at the slightest hint of incoherence and sometimes you feel like the perpetrators are waiting for you to fail.
May be. However lawmakers don’t roast oil execs. It seems to me like there is a lot of kabuki theater here and if law makers want to do something to improve social media, there are better ways to get Zuckerberg to co-operate than this method
IMHO the situation where a whole country, let alone the rest of the world, even needs Mr Zuckerberg's cooperation to keep functioning in a democratic way, is in itself the problem. I want him and his company in a position where his cooperation/non-cooperation are a nuisance at most, irrelevant at best.
I don’t think the requirement that the CEO appear in a public deposition is part regulatory compliance( usually good faith). If Facebook is not in regulatory compliance, I am sure they will be fined millions.
I think the additional value the newer iphone provides i.e face id and better screens doesn’t warrant the increased price tag. Ideally the price should also be falling like it did for PCs in the 90s.
