gist

Saying a market is X is not lying. Saying you have X revenue is lying. Saying you have a contract with XYZ company is lying.

Under the idea that 'you can make numbers say anything you want' you could very easily justify almost any number as a potential market as long as you include the conditions or stated it in a way to be circumspect.

> a hat larger than the 2023 US GDP

Would be more accurate to mention the entire world GDP to support that argument. Then the issue is raised as far as what time period they are referring to. Current year? Future years?

My thought is that this doesn't shift the burden to those that can afford to pay (and choose to tip) it shifts the burden to many of those who (for a lack of a better way to put it) don't have the money but feel bad if they don't tip. Also I fully understand why businesses do this but it creates a negative feeling at the point of purchase in terms of rejecting and not tipping.

> People are increasingly getting fed up with slops like this -- you can see comments in HN discussions.

Why claim 'people' (plenty of people get value from satisficing) and even try to use 'see comments in HN discussions' as if there is something that actually documents that ie 'we all think it'.

I skimmed it and even skimming it I got value from (what some others here) call 'slop'. (The value was basically it gave me an idea of something I could implement and again I didn't have to study it or even understand everything (or agree) just seeing someone did that made me think about something I might want to do.

He's a partner at Union Square Ventures

> That's why I think few politicians currently understand how to convert between wealth and income taxes. You can tell from the way they talk about the subject that they don't understand the momentousness of what they're proposing. But I'm optimistic that we can teach them. The answer's not hard to understand, once you realize the question exists.

What a pompous and uninformed "I am smarter than others" way to think. And very 'parental' (ie 'we can teach them').

Note that Politicians (in order to remain in their job) need to think in terms of the people they represent and getting re-elected by those people. You may not like it it may not be good for you but understand that in the position they are in why they do it.

> In the median case, US state politicians talking about adding a "mere 1%" wealth tax are talking about causing the residents of their state to have the highest taxes in the world. That's not the sort of decision you make lightly.

The missed point is that a 1% wealth tax 'only for a select group' can easily become later a 1% (or higher) wealth tax 'for a less select group'.

> It's clear that politicians don't get this from the way they talk about a "mere 1%" wealth tax. None of them would speak of adding a "mere 20%" to the income tax rate, even though that's mathematically the same thing. [2]

I am fully against any wealth tax but 'Don't get this'?

Who says they don't get it. It doesn't serve their purpose so of course (like anyone selling) they are not going to disclose it.

> It is a pity we don't hear more about the truly brilliant researchers.

Reason? What is the value of that other than entertainment? And it's not in the interest of companies to make celebrities that then are poach targets (if they can avoid they would yes there are exceptions as noted elsewhere in this thread).

And if you did 'hear' (via articles) to what extent what was said even be correct vs. a writer just fluffing things up to the max.

Tech is not sports where you can actually see the superlatives and know that the person who praise is being lavished on actually won or threw or caught and so on. (Or even music where you can hear it and see the stadium that is packed with fans..)

This is exactly true. Very similar reactions when in the mid 80's in typesetting the purists said also it's not real. (I was in the business back then and remember it well. Anyway a few things happened. End users (not everyone but many many) liked it enough to replace professionals. AND it got better than the initial version which people were evaluating.

For one thing comments here appear to apply to the quality and issues today not potentially going forward. Quality will change quicker than anyone expects. I am wondering how many people at HN remember when the first Mac came out with Mac Paint and then Pagemaker or Quark. That didn't evolve anywhere nearly as quickly as AI appears to be.

Also I am not seeing how anyone is considering that what a programmer considers quality and what 'gets the job done' (as mentioned in the article) matters in any business. (Example with typesetting is original laser printers were only 300dpi but after a short period became 1200dpi 'good enough' for camera ready copy).