I was in college, and attended a career fair for Amazon back in 2002. I was not in my last year so I really went just for free food. It was quite sparse, and after a while one guy with a friendly smile just walked up to me and said "Hi, I'm Larry". We talked a little bit about my background, about Amazon and opportunities there. I felt like I was a hotshot at the time, and quite frankly didn't. Only after I went back to my dorm and looked him up did I realize who I was talking to.
He was super humble, super nice. I acted like a jerk, thinking I was hot stuff and everybody was there to court me and was there just for free pizza. Despite being infinitely more accomplished than I could ever be, he was nice, engaging and never treated me in kind.
Every so often I think back to that time and kick myself at the lost opportunity to have a conversation with one of the legends of Silicon Valley.
Does anyone know if there is a material difference between the MAX-8 and the MAX-9? All the banning seems to be specifically for the MAX-8, but should they consider banning all MAX series aircraft? I realize the crashes themselves were MAX-8, but the difference between them seems not significant?
> While I don't disagree, people said the same thing about Amazon.
The difference to me is that Amazon competed aggressively on price and selection. You could get books or items which you just couldn't get in a local Borders. You could also get the same item significantly cheaper than a Borders or Barnes and Noble.
Blue Aprons value lies in the recipe and the convenience of having all the ingredients picked out for you, but charges a significant premium. I would like this as a way to try new recipes or expand my range (e.g. I don't stock ingredients/spices etc at home for Chinese food), but not as my go-to option for daily meals.
It may not be as easy for someone like whole-foods or Safeway to generate recipes, efficiently package/put-together ingredients etc, but I also feel the value addition is much less than someone like Amazon's was: More items and much cheaper.
I don't know why you got downvoted, but you're right. The author seems to claim that Google should know someone searching for collision strategies shouldn't search for bra's or for Michelle Branch on Instagram. Or even suggest that its not possible for one person (male or female) to be interested in both topics.
> Is this your own set of insecurities being projected on others? I never got that sense in SV...
I am not the OP, but I share his/her views. To the above point, maybe?
I used to perceive NY/Wall-Street as all about image, and SF/tech-scene to be much more down-to-earth and friendly. I don't find that anymore. Taking Caltrain, I see people wearing Google/FB/Twitter/XXX t-shirts, sweatshirts, jackets, bags etc. Company badges are displayed prominently, and its easy to recognize companies from the badge. YC t-shirts, sweatshirts are also common. If not company t-shirts, then I see tons of MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Harvard t-shirts, sweatshirts etc. I rarely saw any company or university branded apparel in NYC.
The prominence of these in SV seems like a way to showcase an elite status.
To be fair, he's wrong and you're wrong. It's not about what he wants to see or not see. He says homelessness is bad because it affects him and his lifestyle. To couch this problem in such a narcissistic way leads to solutions like Super Bowl city (a solution he mentions and actively endorses). It leads to solutions to just resolve the rich lifestyles, and not actually help the homeless. His letter doesn't highlight the problem (like so many commenters here are saying), but just highlights the impact it has to his lifestyle.
I loved Click and Clack. Their laughter and enthusiasm was always infectious. No matter how down I was, listening to Car Talk always lifted me up.
Though they were exceedingly smart and good at what they do, their self-deprecating attitude humanized them, and really instilled the lesson of humility.
> Now, white well educated people with well-padded resumes will probably have easier access to venture capital, but that brings me to my next point.
Isn't this really the key here? I agree with your other arguments about ultimately needing to have fluid intelligence etc. But assuming two people (one white, one black) have the same amount of intelligence, smarts etc, but one raises $10 million from Sequoia and the other doesn't.
That pretty much makes the difference between succeeding and failing.
There are ideas which are so world-changing or brilliant that the market and VC's just can't ignore their eventual prominence (Google maybe?). There are other ideas which need lots of capital and talent injection in order to nurture them to the point where they are big.
The middle group as mentioned is a mix of linebackers, tight-ends and also running backs.
> That middle ground is probably not best suited for any role
Modern NFL is very specialized. You have linebackers of various sizes who are used in situational conditions (passing vs running downs), and also vary in size/height based on the defensive scheme. e.g. A linebacker in a Cover-2 based defense is probably lighter/faster vs a larger linebacker used in a 3-4 defense.
There was also a hidden camera operation which interviewed quite a few of the perpetrators who were leaders of VHP and Bajrang Dal (A few of the right-wing Hindu organizations). A bunch of them claim Modi's explicit approval for the riots.
The comments and the interviews are disturbing to say the least.
And your point is what? That demonstrating outrage here is in some way invalid since similar outrage was not demonstrated in every other similar situation? Do I have no moral authority to speak up in this situation if I have not before?
Maybe we should boycott Amazon. Not boycotting Dropbox because we didn't do the same for Amazon doesn't get us anywhere.
> but I don't see why "not liking the gays" or whatever should have any influence at all on whether or not he's suitable to run a tech company.
If a person in a position of power over others (hiring/firing/promoting) has openly held views of discrimination against a certain group of people, it is a problem. It doesn't matter if he's the president, or a CEO of a tech company.
Of course, its entirely possible that he doesn't let his views impact his work or the way he treats his employees.
Coin actually seems like it would be a pain from a usability stand-point. Say I actually put in lots of my cards in there. Now, I go to Safeway, I need to first keep clicking until I reach my rewards card. Then, I need to keep clicking again until I reach my credit card. If I accidentally click ahead, I'd need to loop over all my cards again.
Maybe I'm old, but I'm still struggling to figure out if Twitter is a short-term fad, or a serious here-to-stay concept (and thus a company) in our lives. I like to imagine say a 10-15 year time frame, and if I think the company will still be around then.
Netflix, for example, at least has a business model which I see becoming pervasive 15 years down the line (on-demand entertainment over the internet). Of course I don't know if Netflix will be the company to dominate that business model 15 years down the line.
With Twitter, I am not yet convinced this has long-term value here, but maybe I don't get the value it has in other's minds.
I find it quite incredible that these days a company can go from a position of almost unassailable strength to total collapse in a few years. That too in a market that is booming rather than falling. Blackberry had over 50% market share back in the mid to late 2000's, and now is defunct. In India back in 2008 Nokia was king. Pretty much every phone was a Nokia phone, and now Nokia too is trying to claw back.
Now that the smartphone market seems to have matured, do we expect to see the current market situation to remain relatively stable over the next decade or so?
Something like a Yelp or Tripadvisor seemingly has made it seem possible for restaurants (or hotels) to not advertise anymore. If you provide good food and good service, your restaurant/coffee-shop should bubble up to the top and be seen consistently by a lot of people. This is a simplistic take on the restaurant business of which I know nothing about, but at least that seems like a plausible scenario.
Three of the largest, most influential and defining technology companies of our lifetime (Google, Facebook, Twitter) make money pretty much solely through advertising. Is there no other way companies can use this data to generate revenue other than to sell ads?
I don't have anything against ads, but I'm just trying to understand how (if at all) this could change in the near future. What is the future of advertising? Will it continue to remain relevant 10 or 20 years down the line in its current form, allowing so many massive companies to be built on its back?
He was super humble, super nice. I acted like a jerk, thinking I was hot stuff and everybody was there to court me and was there just for free pizza. Despite being infinitely more accomplished than I could ever be, he was nice, engaging and never treated me in kind.
Every so often I think back to that time and kick myself at the lost opportunity to have a conversation with one of the legends of Silicon Valley.
Thank you Larry.