kyro

It's not amazing. Technology has never been a prerequisite to business success and it certainly isn't one today. Does technical literacy help? Absolutely. But it's by no means necessary, and I'd say the majority of industries today don't require any of it. All you really need is an ability to build relationships and have something valuable to offer. If you've got those two down, you can very easily put yourself in a place where you can hire someone else to take care of the tech stuff.

I know doctors, real estate agents, lawyers, consultants, and a few successful CEOs who are very averse to using anything tech, and they're all raking it in just fine.

The most impressive things are often the hardest to appreciate because they seem so effortless and don't stand in the way of an overall experience.

Apologies will go around, investors won't be held accountable, employees will be fired to feign action, company culture won't change, and they'll all end up rich(er), more influential, and praised by this very community at the end of it all. Such is life, sadly.

I've been a loyal Uber customer for some time, and have defended them in the past, but there's an undeniable pattern that's emerged indicating a company culture I'd rather not support any longer.

Bringing on a VC is such a huge commitment and with capital becoming easier and easier to come by, I'm often baffled by why there's currently no place online to openly talk about investors and others' experiences with them.

It seems terribly one-sided that investors demand company financials, founder profiles, go through the entire due diligence process, while the community is relatively hush-hush about openly discussing bad experiences and shitty investors.

This is a reality that most do not want to accept. Is it just? Probably not.

I've often viewed this as Thinkers vs. Workers. Society places a high value on Thinkers, those who make decisions, strategize, make connections, build relationships, etc. Those who fall in this camp are doctors, lawyers, consultants, CEOs, etc. The Workers -- programmers, engineers, designers -- are often fungible. They are in a competitive market of manual laborers that has driven down the price of labor to levels that, for many, increase the opportunity cost of learning the tech yourself. Over time, Thinkers accumulate social capital that can be leveraged to gain benefits, both related and unrelated to their profession -- e.g. a doctor being given preferential treatment by a restaurant host. Workers accumulate labor capital; they're more efficient at their work, can develop more creative solutions. But put a 50yr old coder up against a 50yr old lawyer/doctor/banker and the latter will be given more praise, more money, more influence 9 times out of 10.

Even Workers eventually outsource their labor once they're in a position to become a Thinker. Few successful startup CEOs and execs are actually coding themselves. Their roles shift to strategy, operations, so on and and so forth, for that's where they're valued and will be rewarded the most.

And getting a graduate degree is often the ticket to be considered a Thinker, whether MD, MBA, JD, PhD.

That's the game, whether you like it or not, and it certainly won't be changing anytime soon. If money is a priority, becoming a Thinker might be in your best interest.

Twitter is terrible for meaningful conversation and debate. And I say that as an avid user.

Networking, sharing links, tidbits of insight, short messages, and Q&As all work really well. I've learned quite a bit from the curated articles and reports tweeted by those I follow. And if you follow the right people and engage appropriately, Twitter can open up a lot of opportunities. But anything beyond that is a waste of time, and can border damaging.

In fact, for all the good Twitter has facilitated (protests, revolutions, etc), I think it's having some negative impact. It is by far the most popular platform where individuals of all backgrounds, beliefs, and opinions congregate and interact, but it's built in a way where it is absolutely not conducive to meaningful debate, and so when the huge opinionated masses clash, the bite-sized arguments volleyed by either side are taken without context and nuance, further igniting and polarizing people. I'm seeing this happen with issues like feminism and Islam, where someone will tweet a very distilled version of a larger and more thorough opinion, it will be taken at face-value, someone will retweet it with a snarky comment, it snowballs into a food fight with enraged people retweeting/replying, and the original tweeter trying to add context but not being able to keep up with the reactionary domino effect. And because Twitter has almost become the official sounding board for many people, their tweets and reactions to those tweets contribute to their public image, reputation, and online presence, all damaged by death threats, accusations of sexism, bigotry, racism, etc, often thrown around unwarranted by people taking things out of context and who feel antagonized or polarized because of the way Twitter is structured.

And that's why I avoid tweeting about religion, politics, and databases.

I would be hesitant to purchase another Fitbit device. As someone who was a hugely loyal fan of theirs, they've repeatedly dropped the ball.

I've had to replace multiple devices for loss of functionality, poor quality of the Flex band, and wrist rashes. To their credit, they've been more than responsive and replaced my products no questions asked, but it's all left me with a sour taste. Their simplistic app, confusing calorie tracking and refusal to integrate HealthKit doesn't help.

Fitbit was on top a few years back when the wearables game was still young, so a slip up here and there was acceptable, but now there are a ton of competitors with great products, so research your options.

Lots of things make me regret not studying engineering, but this certainly takes the cake and the entire bakery.