The idea that uber will replace public transit in NYC is laughable. Sure, there is a group of rich yuppies (and their parents) that will gladly give uber their business, but NYC's transit system serves a much, much broader demographic of customers that cannot and/or will not to pay ten dollars or more every time they want to get around the city.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."
I always describe this to "non-mathy" people when they ask what could possibly be fascinating/beautiful/etc about math. I'd like to think I've changed at least a mind or two.
I cringe to bring up such a trivial example, but it would seem like it's this easy to expose how ludicrous this opinion is...in whose ambulance, on whose roads, and in whose building would you receive treatment for any kind of medical emergency?
Those fly-by-night establishments are what keep a neighborhood vibrant at night, though. I understand that's not what everyone is looking for, but all else being equal, a populated neighborhood is safer than an empty one.
Sure, but coding doesn't apply to the position you applied for. Fermi questions are a good way of determining cognitive ability and problem solving, especially when coding or algorithmic questions aren't appropriate. I've gone through both PM and SWE interviews at Google, and am currently a SWE and interviewer. My PM interview had a Fermi question, and thought it was enjoyable and appropriate for the position.
I'm not an academic so I won't profess to be an expert about papers, but it struck me as odd that it was written in the first person. Felt like a blog post with lipstick.
I'm under qualified to address the paper itself, but it was an interesting read.
Echoing other comments here, I think college towns make excellent startup founding locations. They often have plenty of access to graduating talent, and many have thriving tech scenes to begin with. Ann Arbor, Boulder, Waterloo, Champaign, Boston, and many other towns avoid the costs of SV while still allowing plenty of access to technical and financial resources. While markets in these towns might not perfectly mimic the larger national market, they have a similarly young-and-technically-proficient subset of the population as larger tech hubs, both in terms of talent and users.
This isn't a question I have an answer to, but isn't it likely that users relinquish their right to data privacy when they sign a privacy policy and/or terms of use?