baguasquirrel

I couldn't disagree more. I moved back to NYC because after six years in the Valley, I thought I needed some change. I have two major gripes with the Valley.

The first is that it is a bubble chamber. People there follow their passions. This is a good thing but I believe they are out of touch with the common folk.

The second is what I perceive to be a general, blatant disregard for non-engineering and non-data-driven approaches to startups. I remember when I was figuring out my own project, I had wanted to take a more design-oriented approach to it, and one well-meaning friend suggested I create a "contest" to attract designers (i.e. get them to do some work for free). At least he didn't flick off the idea of making design of central importance, on par with engineering. I mean, what gives, right? Designers are makers too.

Make no mistake, now that I'm here, I don't think it's going to be easy or pretty here. The blatant disregard goes the other way around here. I can't shake the feeling that tech is regarded as second best, that people are cynically passion-impaired, and that good engineering is simply not appreciated outside of a few top shops like Jane St. Most of the startup engineers I meet are strangely risk-averse and used to working for MBAs, practically to the point that they seem defensive when introduced to someone who isn't. Chances are, I will probably end up back in the Valley at some point.

But to think that the Valley is invincible is wrong. The success of Twitter, Tumblr, Etsy and FourSquare are ample cues to the weaknesses of the Valley. These are not edge cases. They are a pattern. And this is fine. I think the two can coexist and learn from each other. If anything, going between the two makes you realize how arrogant each of their cultures are about themselves.

Make NCAs illegal. Make it so your employer doesn't own what you do in your spare time. A truly nuclear option is to bar discrimination based on previous employment history.

One major peril for erstwhile startup founders is that if you fail while bootstrapping, it can be hard to get a job because people, for some stupid reason or another, consider you to be unemployed. That problem is a non-issue in the valley but I do wonder if it will have to be solved by brute force elsewhere.

I wonder how much of this is due to Facebook deciding that location check-ins aren't that big a deal. Most of my friends still don't "get" what is the big deal with this.

Well that's not much different from how we play right? Make the future happen, literally. But they ultimately have to face what we will face. The markets may not buy. All that real estate stock for example.

I don't think the military shot anyone. There is a paradox here and it's that the military response would put the republic in danger if it indeed turned violent. But the mere presence of the military put the riots down. As others have pointed out in this thread, the rioters are largely opportunists. They won't stand up to the army, but it is regrettable to society at large that the army had to be deployed to begin with.

I was pointing out why people think the way they do. No need to get condescending or shoot the messenger here. More than that, you are merely being pedantic.

It makes little difference that Hollywood made it when it was people who made a cult out of it.

Whatever dude. Just ask anyone who grew up in anything resembling a ghetto. There's lots of us who begin to think that shooting rioters on sight is not a bad idea. Where do you think Boondock Saints came from? Honestly, at some point, you just get sick of the shit and you want it to stop, and solutions like the military become appealing.

And therein lies the problem. We know it's inhumane. We know it degrades us further to succumb to that shoot-the-fuckers mentality. It is understood then, that for riots like this to happen at all, we've already lost. That there are scarcely any viable solutions merely brings to surface the existing societal decay.

The point then, is not that you are right and he is wrong or vice versa. The point is that ultimately, the military is brought in for riots of LA-scale intensity because the people want them to be brought in, because in a lose-lose situation, you'd prefer the choice that affords peace.

p.s. It is interesting then, that folks like Jefferson were against standing armies because they were only necessary for oppressing the populace.

p.p.s. Looks like people can't handle the notion that society can slide into nihilism. =P

What is the state of patent law, especially regarding software patents, across the world? If patents really are going to be a murder on innovation, then the least broken system should enjoy an advantage, no?

I can't shake the feeling that it's because they didn't want to play the bad guy. Sun was hemorrhaging money. Layoffs were going to have to happen.

Maybe it would've been nicer if we just said "deep shit" instead of "default." When you owe the bank a million dollars, the bank owns you, but when you owe the bank a trillion dollars, you own the bank.

Greece knows that there are lots of important people who are overexposed. It knows that if it does the wrong thing, it could trigger a run on its creditors that is akin to what happened to Lehman. It doesn't want to be the bad guy necessarily, who does? But its finances are untenable.

"30 years, and accept a modest coupon of 4.5%", I rest my case. This is comical.

Even if it does get repaid over a longer period, this more or less means those bonds are shot as an investment. Moreover, this means that no one is going to lend the Greek gov't any more money. I didn't see any terms in the agreement where they said they'd be lending the Greeks more money. That means the government is going to stop working. Or Greece will exit the Eurozone. The Greek gov't could of course cut all the way back, but that means a depression, which also means the money won't be paid back.