If someone could magically build a system that allows for the communication to be eavesdropped only by the allowed government agency, my objections would be dramatically reduced. But that's not the way tech works. Building one backdoor makes the entire system, and all users, vulnerable to a whole host of other malicious actors, including hostile foreign nations and unscrupulous hackers. We live in a world today where anyone can be hacked, even major institutions and corporations like NYTimes, Yahoo and Sony. We desperately need systems that are more secure, not less.
I'm not surprised that there are vast numbers of latent low-probability race conditions in the linux kernel or any major software project. Having seen the testing process in both hardware and software projects, the two are not even comparable. The testing process in most software projects is dominated by fully deterministic unit tests that are very simple in nature, and make large numbers of assumptions about the behaviors and interactions with other components. Low-probability race conditions between different components is exactly the outcome I would expect from this testing process.
We're conflating different things here. The point we're discussing is that investment-income should be treated the same as labor-income. From your last comment, you presumably agree that labor is also a good thing that should be encouraged, so I don't see why investment-income should be taxed so much lower than labor-income.
You've already been taxed on the investment principal. Not the returns that you're getting on the investment. By your logic, the capital-gains-tax should be eliminated entirely because its double taxation, which is a ridiculous idea.
The main problem seems to be that startup employees are being asked to pay taxes simply to exercise their options, even though the stock they now own is extremely illiquid. This problem exists here in America too. The best solution in both countries would be for employees to be taxed only for cash income/dividends, or when there is a liquidity event such as IPO or acquisition.
I highly recommend doing away with the lower capital-gains tax entirely and treating investment income the same as labor income. However, it seems ridiculous to ask someone to pay taxes when they literally don't have the money to do so.
> If this is the intention of any of my candidates coming in and they call this "real commitment" to work for my company they would not pass the phone interview
There is a very easy way to filter out candidates who want to leave in 1-2 years. Structure your equity vesting so that there's minimal vesting for the first 2-3 years, with a sizable severance package to protect against involuntary termination. I don't understand why you would give someone 30% equity after 2 years, if you're then going to begrudge them leaving.
The guy was perfectly willing to stay for the long-haul.
> weeks of remote work without formal agreement
Taking people at their word is "entitled"?
> a quick cash out over adding value to the company
The guy was faithfully performing all the duties assigned to him. Is he drinking the company kool-aid and devoting his life to his company? Thankfully no. Your employer is not your family, nor is it a cult.
Is the author naive? Maybe. Opinionated? Definitely but with good reason - the director was later fired, how often does that happen. Entitled? I see nothing of the sort.
> In the video, the protester who was shot is first seen joining a black-clad mob of people who chase a riot officer and tackle him to the ground. They kick him and beat him with what appear to be metal pipes.
> At one point, the protester approaches a second police officer who is standing nearby with a handgun drawn. Just after the protester hits the officer with the pipe, the officer fires at the man at point-blank range.
I'm just as pro-democracy as the next guy, but I can hardly fault a police officer for shooting someone in the shoulder when they are being hit with a metal pipe.
I hope the pro-democracy movement in HK returns to its origins of peaceful demonstrations. I don't think its good for the movement's long-term sustainability to turn violent.
This is a conflict of interest, which should erode the trust that anyone would have on twitter. The man is simultaneously responsible for editorial decisions, while also serving in a brigade that "uses social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook ... to wage what the head of the UK military describes as “information warfare”.
Imagine finding out that the executive in charge of editorial decisions for Twitter in Hong Kong, is also serving in the Chinese military's department of "information warfare". As a Hong Konger, you'd have to be an idiot to continue trusting twitter at that point. The fact that Twitter is well aware of this, and didn't see a conflict of interest, makes me question their neutrality and effectiveness as a platform for online discussion.
I had a unicorn's VP-operations try to convince me that my job-offer isn't below market - I should be valuing their stock at 10-100x the valuation used in their most recent round (a few months ago), because this company is sure to become the next big thing.
> Randolph writes that he'd been closely watching Antioco during this conversation. Throughout, the Blockbuster CEO appeared as a polished professional, leaning in and nodding and giving every indication of someone who was listening attentively. Now Randolph observed as an odd expression crossed Antioco's face, turning up the corner of his mouth. It lasted only a moment, he writes. "But as soon as I saw it, I knew what was happening: John Antioco was struggling not to laugh."
Great article but it seems unnecessary to accuse Antioco of being arrogant just because he turned up the corner of his mouth for a moment. There are tons of investors who pass up on great investment opportunities every year. Most of them aren't arrogant, they are simply normal people who don't have the benefit of perfect hindsight.
The argument made by most economists and Bill Gates is that divestment does not drive down the stock price, unless it is practiced by a overwhelming majority of all investors. The reasoning is that anyone not participating in the divestment scheme will simply bid the share price back up to near the market value.
If divestment did indeed drive down share price, it would succeed in hurting the company. The company would have to issue more shares when raising capital in future. It would also have to issue its employees more shares to remain competitive in compensation.
The article is disappointingly misleading and buries one of the key details
"Amazon’s lawyers rejected the overt addition of contribution profit into the algorithm...
They turned to the metrics Amazon uses to test the algorithm’s success in reaching certain business objectives, said the people who worked on the project.
When engineers test new variables in the algorithm, Amazon gauges the results against a handful of metrics. Among these metrics: unit sales of listings and the dollar value of orders for listings. Positive results for the metrics correlated with high customer satisfaction and helped determine the ranking of listings a search presented to the customer.
Now, engineers would need to consider another metric—improving profitability—said the people who worked on the project. Variables added to the algorithm would essentially become what one of these people called “proxies” for profit: The variables would correlate with improved profitability for Amazon, but an outside observer might not be able to tell that. The variables could also inherently be good for the customer."
Tldr: some people in Amazon wanted to give a boost to Amazon-products. The search team fought them vociferously and refused to budge. The lawyers came out against it as well. Amazon's internal A/B testing framework measures a number of metrics, including both revenue and profit, when determining whether a specific feature/change should be deployed.
The fact that the A/B testing framework measures the profit impact of any change, is hardly earth shattering. This is one of the core features that any A/B testing framework attempts to accomplish.
This also doesn't tell you anything about what the search algorithm is actually doing. An A/B testing framework can only help you evaluate the relative effectiveness of different algorithms. It doesn't actually create/influence the algorithm in any way. As WSJ themselves reported, Amazon's search algorithm does not take profitability as an input.
WSJ has done a fantastic job in unearthing this very interesting internal-debate that's happening in Amazon. But they have reported it in a way that is very misleading and gives laypeople the impression that they have a smoking gun. In reality, the only thing they have produced is the fact that Amazon's A/B testing framework is profit-aware.