Non24Throw

This is such an accurate and profound statement.

And now that I think about it, one trait that I’ve witnessed in CEOs and successful entrepreneurs again and again is an almost inhuman ease with initiating and engaging in uncomfortable conversations. They don’t hesitate with them either.

I always assumed it was just something they all naturally develop as a consequence of being bombarded and put upon constantly, but maybe there’s more to it than that.

Your perception of the risks associated with providing that feedback isn’t the same as everyone else’s.

When you’re young, and especially if you come from a lower income background (where authority is treated as an absolute, and abuse of authority is generally more common and accepted), it can seem very risky and feel very unacceptable to give this kind of feedback to your manager.

It’s easy for me to agree with you now, but there are very different feelings about this across different backgrounds and cultures, and there are plenty of managers who would react harshly to this.

Early in my career, a manager once had me repeat to him that I would be terminated if I failed to do X, like I was a 5-year-old.

X was referring to a technical implementation detail that he had zero understanding of. He read something in a blog post I guess.

My reaction was to act like it was a fun joke or something. But inside, I absolutely loathed him every second of every day until I quit, and now I take great satisfaction knowing that I’ve surpassed him and would never do a thing to help his stagnating career. (In other words, I’m holding an extremely petty and lasting grudge.)

But my point is, he probably thought I was fine with all his joking. I always laughed.

To expand on the article’s point, I think the biggest thing young managers don’t understand is that people are going to be insincere to you as a basic showing of respect and a basic desire for career preservation. They’re going to smile and appear to enjoy you and laugh at your jokes and seem ok with everything, much moreso than they otherwise would. So don’t make the mistake of using their reactions to define your boundaries of what’s acceptable or what’s funny, because it’s not a typical relationship, and you will invariably believe that you are funnier than you are and that a wider range of unacceptable behaviors are acceptable.

The issue aside, you’re simply chastising a straw man that you’ve constructed by assuming the worst possible interpretation of every aspect of your opponent’s position, seemingly without ever having spoken to one of them. This is not an effective way to communicate.

It’s just sanctimonious grandstanding. This is how you get lots of internet points while even further exacerbating the very same problem you’re railing against.

And that’s coming from someone who agrees with you.

Advertising isn’t just about getting the audience to purchase the product. Convincing young people that a product confers high status will increase the perceived value of that product for every potential buyer whether they listen to rap or not.

And these aren’t impulse purchases. Nobody buys a Lamborghini the same week that they’re playing with Hot Wheels, but many will a few decades later.

There’s also indirect demand through rentals. Anyone with a credit card can rent a Lamborghini for a weekend. Most of the luxury cars you see on the roads in Miami are rentals, for example.

I have a theory about this. I think the song format is conforming to the needs of advertisers.

That’s why every top song is just a person talking over a beat, usually with the same kind of vocal style, usually the same kind of beat.

It’s really hard to sing the word “Lamborghini” and have that fit into the lyrics and be heard clearly and have the brand image positioned correctly.

It’s also a waste of advertising space to have any duration of a song not include clearly spoken lyrics.

Taking this example, DaBaby’s “Rockstar” sounds basically identical to hundreds of other recent songs that follow the same format of a person talking repetitively over a simple beat (every Drake song for example). Five possible instances of integrated advertising in the lyrics: Lamborghini, Chevrolet Suburban, Maybach, Glock, and Apple FaceTime. 2 of them in the chorus.

So what kind of music will people accept, that maximizes spoken word duration, speaks those words clearly, provides brand image maneuverability within the lyrics, doesn’t distract from the lyrics, and won’t have a fatal loss of integrity as a result of obvious product placements?

That list of requirements leaves us with basically one style of one genre, and it’s this style of rap / hip hop. To any extent that a song deviates, it becomes less effective as a channel for advertising.

I think the most convincing piece of evidence in support of this is this lack of differentiation among artists, even in terms of vocal style. In ‘90s hip hop every artist had a completely unique style, all present-day hip hop fans love all of those legendary artists... and yet, every modern artist is just mimicking the exact same cadence as Drake or Kendrick Lamar.

None of this can be reconciled with the notion that songs becomes popular purely because people like them.

It’s amazing to me how different the reality of that era is from depictions of it in entertainment.

For example, I recently read that wars during that time were fought mostly by peasant hordes, and they didn’t have the resources to train and equip them, so mostly they all just beat each other to death with wooden clubs or whatever blunt object happened to be available.

Thousands of starving and diseased peasants covered in dirt and potato sacks clubbing each other to death with sticks isn’t exactly the story we want to see or read about, though.

We want skillful knights with swords, archers and trebuchets, chainmail and plate helmets, etc. But most of the violence was peasants, and most of the wars were won by peasants.

And somewhat ironically, a lot of the shiny equipment and weaponry we love served its most significant role in allowing the ruling class to subjugate their peasant hordes into fighting those wars for them (knowing that an even worse fate awaits them back at home if they refuse to fight)...

Peasants were then mostly written out of history, one common exception being peasant revolts, presumably because stories of revolt are more sympathetic to the ruling class than stories about peasants winning all of their wars for them...

I’m writing this because I think it’s interesting, but also because you seem like you might know whether it’s true or not haha. Do you think what I read is mostly true, or is it more theory/fantasy?

I think this is an overly cynical take on things.

Consider the fact that if Ammon had fully considered this rollout, it would be very obvious to him that this would be the response. The legal ramifications would also have been obvious.

I think the only reasonable explanation is that it wasn’t fully thought through. I think his business being hit hard by the pandemic is a reasonable explanation for that. There’s no way TripleByte isn’t hit hard by this. Rushing a major feature out is exactly the kind of thing he’s supposed to be doing right now. It seems he just thought too much on making the business and tech side of the feature successful, and didn’t give enough time to the human and legal side of it.

Personally I thought his email was way more introspective and revealing than it even needed to be, and I think he’s being genuine.

Succeeding despite a lack of education, or despite significantly disadvantaged birth circumstances, will always be the most impressive quality I find in a young person.

In terms of things you can actually apply without having said disadvantages, I would say anything that displays a kind of economic maturity, or a bias for long-term thinking. These are very rare and valuable qualities in all age groups, but are especially rare in younger people.

You can display that conversationally, by for example asking pointed questions about a company (or any kind of system) and its relevant external factors, and then extrapolating to possible future directions and outcomes. Or you can do any project that interests you for its long-term implications, and talk about future outcomes, anticipated success or failure scenarios, the potential impact of known unknowns, etc.

Unrelated but I really struggle with this kind of double and triple negative wording.

It WOULD seem UNLIKELY that he WOULD NOT have the proper advice to make a deal like this AND NOT be ripped off.

“He probably has good advisors that made sure he wasn’t being ripped off.”

It honestly took me 5 minutes to figure out what you were saying. I feel like I uniquely struggle with this, like I have some kind of undiscovered form of dyslexia. Maybe it’s just late.

Even if this decision is cited as case law in another case (i.e. somebody leverages the precedent) and a judgment is made, that judgment can be appealed arguing that the lower court was wrong in this instance, and then it would be up to the 9th Circuit to decide.

After the 9th Circuit makes their decision, it could still be appealed to the Supreme Court (which I think is the country’s overall direction the root commenter was referring to).

This kind of issue will come up very frequently in court because everyone has a phone, and it’s very easy for a lock screen to contain incriminating notifications. That kind of evidence is often decisive in court, which makes it an attractive/persuasive argument for appeals. Very likely this will end up in Supreme Court, which means decisions in lower courts are less consequential. The lower courts aren’t going to get to decide this one.