Recent submissions

Comment · 5 years ago
As far I know there is current shortage in the new GPU market. High prices has nothing to do with tariff.
Comment · 6 years ago
Can we stop posting twitter treats?
Comment · 6 years ago
See a lot of criticism here. For a math new grad who wants to break in software development, what similar guide would HN recommend? I'm specially interested in backed.

I prefer the guide to be extensive like this one because it give me a sense of what I know and don't know.

Comment · 6 years ago
Do you have any sources?
Comment · 6 years ago
Thank you Lex. I think your podcast are the most interesting in the internet. But...

Readings books is awesome because you are getting the condensed knowledge that someone have spend maybe decades of their lives to compile. When I listen to a podcast the same applies to a lesser extend. The problem is Lex does not ask interesting questions. He dwells into philosophical and common questions i.e "What is the meaning of life", "is math invented or discovered". This questions are interesting but are not in the guest field of expertise which in turn causes them to give a generic response. This devalues the quality of the podcast.

Comment · 6 years ago
Comment · 7 years ago
The other day I brought a large furniture and no other option but to transported with the trunk of my car open. The car has "protective" beep system whenever the car drives with the trunk open or with seabelt off. So my car was beeping the trip...it almost drived me insane.

It is so sad that I can no longer control what my own car does. This is only about to get worse as tech improves.

Heck our phones and computers are probably sending thousand of telemetric information right now and we don't know or control. It just a matter of time until cars do that to, and we cant not longer control who to utilize our own cars.

Comment · 7 years ago
Yeah, when threadripper came out I believe it offered the same performance as intel I9 for about half the price. Why did AMD choose such aggressive pricing? Because they have the desire to grow. If Intel and AMD had the same market it would not make sense to put out a product for half the price as your competitor. So if Intel and AMD had the same share, we would probably still paying 1000+ dollars for intels I9.
Comment · 7 years ago
I don't think that's the heart of the question. My question is is better for innovation if two companies have equal market share or if one has a smaller market share? I trying to argue that it is better if one company has a smaller market share.

Case 1: Netflix. Netflix caused innovation in the movie rental industry. But when Netflix first began it had much smaller market share compared to blockbuster. Would Netflix innovate again? Sure, but I doubt it would do anything revolutionary again. Most likely it would grow stagnant, once the new market stabilizes between hulu, HBO, disney, amazon etc.

Case 2: Apple. Apple was the underdog in early 2000s and that caused then to innovate, while Microsoft had grown stagnant. Today both Apple and Microsoft sort of have similar market shared and they don't really compete with each anymore. Microsoft shifted to cloud, and dropped windows phone. Apple keeps doing what they are doing with marginal upgrades to iphones, and mac. I don't really expected to come up with another "iphone" level innovation any time soon.

Case 3: Amazon. No big company is really trying to compete with amazon this days. I don't see Google or Facebook coming up with own online stores. It just not worth it to compete. While they are a lot of smaller online stores.

Case 4: Automobile industry. Sure they are new car models each year...but it is nothing revolutionary. Simple marginal upgrades over last year model. It was not until an underdog (tesla) tried to gain market share that we have seen any sort of innovation from them.

Most of the innovation today happens at smaller companies, and they eventually either succeed and become the next Apple and Google, fail and go out of business, or they get bough by the big companies.

Comment · 7 years ago
I think a clearer is example would be with telecom companies. Say A and B, are telecom with equal market share. A, could "compete" in an attempt to gain market share and install a gigabit bandwidth, but this will only cause cause company B to retaliate and instant gigabit bandwidth as well. Therefore the market share and revenue will fluctuate back to equal. But both companies would have lose the money involved in installing the higher bandwidth. Therefore if the market share is equal the best strategy would be "tic for tac" i.e wait until you opponent does something. Which has two equilibrium either constant tic for tact. Or waiting for the opponent does a move.

In the case when one company's market share is smaller than the other it is always better to "invest" or compete.

Comment · 7 years ago
Comment · 7 years ago
Consider two company A and B. A has market share 'a' and B has b. n is the total market. Then a + b = n.

A's reward for competing will be n - a = b.

A's risk for competing will be a, (it's remaining market share).

A's will compete as long as the reward is greater than risk.

This will reach an equilibrium at a = b.

Comment · 7 years ago
From the game theorist point of view I think its better if one company is the underdog. Think about it, if one company is the underdog, one company has a lot to gain by competing, while the other has a lot to lose if they don't compete. Therefore we get competition. Now, the more equal the market share of the companies the grater the risk and less the reward for competition... A better strategy would be not to undercut your competitor and instead divide the market share. Which leads to stagnation.

Do people here think it sound reasonable?

Edit: Mathematically the argument would be as follows:

Consider two company A and B. A has market share 'a' and B has b. n is the total market. Then a + b = n.

A's reward for competing will be n - a = b.

A's risk for competing will be a, (it's remaining market share).

A's will compete as long as the reward is greater than risk.

This will reach an equilibrium at a = b.

Comment · 7 years ago
I study at FIU... I just don't see the point this bridge. Why would you spend 10+ million dollars on a bridge to cross a street, when the same problem can be solved by a simple crosswalk? We already have one of these bridges... and the majority of people don't bother to use it and simple take the cross walk. It just such a waste of money.
Comment · 7 years ago
Why do say that Linux will only ever support Level 3? Is there some fundamental limitation?

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