Recent submissions

Comment · 11 years ago
Looks like the Amazon price is $16.79, and this customer chose to pay the full MSRP of $27.95 to buy from another store.
Comment · 11 years ago
Market cap implies public company because by definition private companies are not traded publicly on a market. It's the same way start ups have "valuations" and not "market caps".
Comment · 11 years ago
Seems like the math portion is becoming less about math and more like an MBA reading comprehension test.
Comment · 11 years ago
I don't think GoPro went down because of the threat of the patent. Rather, investors are afraid Apple will start to compete against GoPro. People are seeing the patent as a possible product roadmap not a legal threat.
Comment · 11 years ago
Honestly, it sounds like traditional enterprise software and should be valued similarly. Software like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Electronic Health Record (EHR) always require very expensive integration/training/support. The contracts take forever to negotiate but are very lucrative with a huge lock in and expensive support contracts.
Comment · 12 years ago
Agreed. I also wouldn't be surprised if he got paid >100X the average programmer with Oculus in the end as well.
Comment · 12 years ago
1) Some programmers really are worth orders of magnitude more than others. Really great programmers will help drive product decisions that can change direction of the company and the ultimate success/failure. The more responsibility a programmer has over product/quality/cost/delivery schedule, the more they can be worth a huge amount. 10X is probably a more common variance, but I'm sure there are single developers building the right thing that are worth more than 1,000 crap developers getting bogged down in product management BS.

The thing is that communication/management gets harder the more people there are, so crap developers have very little value (and maybe even negative marginal value in certain cases). IE a developer that's 10X better than another developer can actually be worth 1000X because you can't just hire a 10 mediocre developers and have them be worth the same as a single great developer.

2) Really great developers are really paid a lot more than less good ones (but not their full value). Smart developers with no experience are paid more than what he suggests. A smart college grad can get paid 6 figures without any experience in the right job (not ~50K). People who prove their worth can ultimately get paid a lot more. However, they're pay will usually be increased above their peers outside of salary using RSUs/options that will be very valuable but vest over time. It is true that great developers often have to either co-found their own companies or take high level management roles to get 100X pay of an average developer. That said most companies don't pay programmers their true value, and it often takes a long time for a developer to fully demonstrate their value and develop a name for themselves.

edit: TBC, I'm not arguing anything about immigration or the OP as a whole. I just take issue with the idea that there is little variance in value between programmers.

Comment · 12 years ago
Galleries want a 50% cut from every sale of new art. He's getting a discount by buying in bulk and going straight to the artist.

Edit: TBC, I don't think there's anything wrong with what he's doing, but he's clearly making some enemies

Comment · 12 years ago
Are they trying to deter non-serious students in order to inflate their pass rate?

If they want people to take their certificates seriously, I guess it would be important for people to trust that the person listed actually earned it. The documentation may also improve later conversion to paid products as well avoid the same person passing the course multiple times with multiple AWS accounts to get more AWS credit.

Comment · 12 years ago
She's not really the highest paid. Most of it was a 10 year grant that finally vested. If you amortize the money over the 10 years, she's not paid more than other presidents. If anything having the pay as a retention package was probably smart and a better deal for the university.
Comment · 12 years ago
And averaged 1% return a day!
Comment · 12 years ago
This video may be a better introduction to Boosted boards, but it's an old vid that lacks all the news I got from the posted one: new models/software/pricing/potential future products.
Comment · 12 years ago
The companies taking advantage rely on their marks/employees being naive, so you'll be fine once you know to be careful:

1) Get direct employment with a reputable US company instead of via a contracting company.

2) Don't sign any contracts that have any penalty for quitting. You may want to hire a lawyer to review any contracts.

3) If you are in a bad contract and your employer sues you, make sure you hire a decent lawyer. The biggest victims were those that ignored the suits or tried to represent themselves and lost their cases by default.

Comment · 12 years ago
The Krstic article is an explanation of the short squeeze that happened near the end. This is just a small part of the Priceonomics article. The Priceonomics article includes a lot more history about the companies and people involved as well as the German politics protecting VW. The Krstic article doesn't even include the twist ending where VW buys Porsche.
Comment · 12 years ago
I believe the first sentence is talking about SpaceX's "largest single contract" not NASA's largest contract.

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