rgifford

The machine building itself is end game. At that point you're suggesting singularity. I don't see how any profession survives that.

There's so much hype around AI right now, it's absolutely unhinged. Yes, we have semi-conversational AI. Yes, image detection is pretty good. It's all supervised.

Can we please touch grass?

I agree: Conflict resolution, public speaking, salesmanship -- they're all valuable. They make for better people in this world.

When it comes to how these traits translate to the success of leaders or companies? I have no idea. I'd guess causation there is noisy. I bet leaders get a lot of mileage out of bullshit like playing surreptitious games for social capital, managing risk in decision making by offloading it and/or shifting blame, carefully crafting turn-of-phrase to manipulate people against their own self-interest -- especially in favor of a compensation structure that has senior leadership making 300:1 versus their lowest paid workers.

In a modern secularized world corporate leaders of large companies seem to take on the role of psuedo-religious figureheads that grant absolution and purpose in the face of the unknown and rob workers blind in return. Like, why in the hell do we need company values? Never understood why workers collectively put up with that patronizing, condescending nonsense. But I guess they're there for some poor shmuck that doesn't know himself otherwise and will warp his identity to them and put in 15 extra hours per week for the privilege. You gotta feel for his wife and kids though, don't you?

It's all just soft skills though -- that's the differentiator, the secret sauce, what makes great leaders. So soft. So skilled. /s

You're missing what the previous commenter said.

There are a lot of ways in which companies can succeed simply by their timing, or a couple incredibly lucky early hires, or first mover advantage in a growing space, or the right VCs -- not because of good leadership but in spite of it. Leaders take credit regardless.

Often this is why technical folks deride soft skills. Folks that tout them sound like my friend who's "figured out slot machines." My response: "Dude, that's awesome!" I'm not about to burst his bubble on the random, ambivalent jitter of the universe. We all need our delusions, who am I to take his?

Oddly I quite like these people -- provided they're internally and externally consistent. It's refreshing to say, "you're being an asshole" and have a friend go, "oh my bad, I do that sometimes."

Most young folks can't imagine having been an asshole and they call themselves emotionally intelligent without realizing their feelings are a tyranny. They've unsubscribed from anything that ever brought them even minor discomfort. Their social contract basically amounts to "lie to me and I'll lie to you." They are huge wusses.

If a friend asks you if their hair looks nice, it's kinder to say, "your hair looks like my nana's and she's been dead for 10 years" then it is to let dozens of folks think the same thing of them. I have a couple friends who would tell me the first thing -- they're whose opinion I trust. If they told me that, I'd piss my self laughing even if I just paid $70 for the haircut. Modern day stoics IMO. They're smart enough to know how to be like-able, they understand the fluff-each-other's-shared-delusions game, they just don't want to play. When they tell you something kind, you know it was real.

Most of my friends who are brutally honest try to say the things they're thinking as much as possible. They want that from others too. It can be super off putting, especially if you need to believe certain things about yourself.

I don't own multifamily property in SF, so I'm not whining about my ability to do anything.

When tenants rights are restrictive enough property owners view tenants as a liability and that sets up perverse incentives that cause inefficient markets and underdevelopment. Occupied multifamily properties sell at steep discounts compared to their vacant counterparts. Property owners price in the potential longterm loss of use caused by a tenant. Do we want to heavily incentivize property owners to sell their properties without tenants? Do we want a housing market where multifamily properties sell for the same amount as much smaller single family homes? Do we want a development market where subdividing property is inadvisable and actually lowers property value?

At the end of the day, everyone deserves dignity. Part of that means acknowledging property owners take significant risk tenants do not and as such deserve fair use of their property. That means owners need to be able to give notice to end a tenancy amicably without eviction -- maybe that required notice is measured in years. That's plenty of time for any tenant to find another place. It means we need to stop conflating romantic ideals of "home" with actual ownership. If tenants watched themselves priced out over a decade, they're going to have a hard time. City programs should provide safety nets there, but it isn't their landlords burden to take carry them like a dependent. Tenancy is a very simple proposition: renters don't have to come up with downpayment, if the city goes to shit they can leave in a month, if the foundation gets water damage or an electrical fire breaks out they have no liability, their monthly payment is significantly less than a comparable mortgage payment. Tenants trade optionality for equity. As a tenant I never lost a single night of sleep worrying about electrical fires or new sewage pipes or the heater going out. I'd never have the gall to squat on a place for 10 years while paying inflation adjusted rent (far under market rate) and come out the other side with my hand held out for a tenant buy out. I would be absolutely ashamed of myself as a tenant in such a situation. If I'm being honest, I suppose I'd still do it and find ways to justify it. I'd tell myself it was after all "my home" and the landlord had more than one house so it was only fair. The story is just all too common in SF.

The vacancy rate doesn't tell the whole story. Short term rentals and self reporting likely mask the effect I've mentioned.

I generally agree, SFs problem is 100% supply. But I think that ends up being caused by slow approval processes and highly restrictive tenants rights. Why would you ever subdivide your property in SF to add another dwelling unit? You can't give a tenant any amount of notice to end a tenancy. You can't ever merge those units back together. SFs property market is really crazy in this regard: older buildings with lots of units are often worth less than large single family houses. Properties with tenants sell for 25-50% less than vacant comparables.

People buying a second home are not the problem. A healthy housing market needs rental housing stock. We have to have places for people in transitory phases of life, for people struggling, for retirees that want to live off the value of their house after downsizing or divorcees or folks trying the city on for size.

Supply is the problem and bad governance created it. Why do we keep turning it around on individuals that made rational investment decisions as though they've done something predatory? It seems absolutely backwards.

Build more housing stock. This is it. There's no bad guy, no magic bullet, no righteous fight. We just need to build more.

> the casual way you say "you could evict" makes me think you don't appreciate that that's someone's home...

It's their home and your property. I'm not advocating anything crazy. As that hypothetical landlord your tenants deserve dignity, but it's your property and that has to confer certain rights beyond their tenancy. Otherwise, you don't really own it. You should be able to ask your tenants to leave with some amount of notice. You should be able to plan on your parents living in that unit at some point. Make the amount of time and planning for that very large, say 2 or 3 or 4 years. Doesn't that seem pretty fair?

Restricting ending tenancy in good faith all together creates perverse incentives. It pits your interests as a landlord against your tenants. If you bought a duplex in SF today, it would be in your best interest to do everything you could not to rent out the other unit. That is the problem.

Why are these properties vacant?

I'm pretty familiar as a renter and property owner with tenants rights in SF. If I were to buy a duplex in the city I would never ever ever rent out the extra unit. I'd lie about tenancy, ask a friend to pretend to rent it, or pay this proposed tax rather than rent it out. I'd recommend the same to everyone.

Tenants are a liability for landlords in SF. You cannot end a tenancy, not with any amount of notice. That's a big deal and a huge policy mistake. Really messes up incentives. Let's say you and your partner have a duplex with two 2B/2BA units. You eventually decide to have kids and your parents are retiring. You want them to move into that unit so they can be near and babysit now and again. You could evict, but it's going to be costly and time consuming especially if the tenants are protected. Lawyers are going to tell you to buy the tenants out. Tenant buyouts in the city are usually mid five figures and they end up restricting some of your uses of the property forever. It will take months (maybe more than a year) and may end up creeping up towards six figures. You would've been better off never renting it out in the first place.

Landlords aren't idiots and they aren't evil, at least not more so than anyone else. Put yourself in their shoes and figure out how the incentives would cause you to act. IMO it's as simple as fixing the policy issue: Landlords can terminate tenancies in good faith with two years notice. Seems very fair for everyone and I bet you get reduced vacancies without needing to increasingly ratchet up heavy handed market interventions that are themselves prone to unintended consequence.