hype7

Yeah, except for the fact that there’s no one bbs “to rule them all”. The power these platforms have mean they’re up there in terms of influence of govt.

As I saw concisely said on Twitter: If you can silence a king, you are the king

You view this as a bad thing. As a consumer, I view it as a good thing. I’m not sure if folks remember what “apps on mobile” were like before Apple came along, but it was the goddamn Wild West. The fact that it’s walled in, that I’m not going to get pwned, that my parents won’t (and won’t be tempted to by the promise of an extra $0.99 saving) is to my mind, a good thing.

If all this competition that the article talked about was such a good thing, apps would be cheaper on Android, and I, as a consumer, would switch. Fact is, the fact that Tinder et al are now bypassing Google’s mechanisms isn’t a good thing to me at all. It’s more the reason to stay on iOS.

The article writer is pissed he can’t get access to me without paying Apple’s toll, but what he doesn’t understand is that I am like it like that.

Ahhh, but that’s the thing. They’re the same story

I’m far from the biggest fan of Facebook, but I’m absolutely a fan of playing devils advocate in an organization if for no other reason than to solicit reactions and get people engaged. As someone who will use this device sparingly when appropriate, that’s really what this post looked like to me (as opposed to someone who was in it to get terrorists signed up to fb... really?). I honestly feel sorry for the guy

An alternative approach I’ve long been fond of is to lengthen time horizons. In the long run, bad behavior is much more likely to come back and bite you. If you can get incentive structures on a longer term time horizon, you’re much less likely to engage in risky behavior that might have short term payoffs but sinks you in the long run.

Yes, everyone should decide what laws to follow. Ask rosa parks or any poor soul unfortunate enough to be a citizen of nazi Germany.

Herein lies the source of the disagreement.

We are all better off because uber willfully disregarded these laws and regulations. These laws once had a good reason, but are now still on the books only because incumbents have regulators in their pockets.

As for lobbying to have the laws changed, if you expect startups to be able to lobby in every jurisdiction to get the law changed against incumbents when the regulators often come from the industry the startup is disrupting, then I got a bridge to sell you.

Of course speaking to them isn't illegal.

Lying about it during a confirmation hearing? Now that's illegal.

This isn't the right answer. There are times when you need government intervention, and there are times when you don't. The trick is figuring out which is which.

As they often say, libertarians didn't defeat Nazism.

To reply to the people below as to why @themartorana might be against estate taxes: if the tax system does its job properly, death shouldn't be a taxable event. Treating capital gains as normal income, closing shitty loopholes etc - people are paying their fair share that way. Taxing at death would be double dipping. Instead, it's used as a way to claw back failed capital gains tax and it's an awful way to do it (making people sell property, etc)

This is complete bullshit. The number of famous artists/scientists/writers/etc that have been completely unpopular until after they died is staggering. Using $ as a basis for value is a completely flawed measure.

I loved the last one. The huge thing that's missing for me on this one is the ability to make the text smaller. You get way fewer tweets on any screen. Probably going to downgrade

In which an MBA dismisses MBAs. And pivots are dismissed by a fund that is pivoting.

small but annoying thing in the article: microsoft≠silicon valley

OK, I'm the article author, and I think that's great feedback. I didn't pick the title; originally it was "Rebuilding the Berlin Wall"… but editors will be editors :)

I was a little annoyed at the arbitrary change, but on the basis of your feedback, went back and asked the editor to change it. It's still not exactly what I wanted, but it does address some elements of what you've written above. The iPhone clickbait is out.

As a writer, honestly, it does get mighty exasperating when this happens. And, fwiw, you guys have all got insight into the messiness of the editorial/content process :)

-- james

I think it might be helpful to read the article: "But as any internet entrepreneur will tell you, relying entirely on people makes scaling difficult. Technology, on the other hand, makes it much easier. And that means that in many respects, what has emerged today is almost more pernicious; because that same technology has effectively turned not just some, but every single person you communicate with using technology — your acquaintances, your colleagues, your family and your friends — into those equivalent informants."

I did rtfa!

When you say "typical", you mean their actual english definitions? If he "meant" something else, he should have said something else!

If he is, it's only because he's managed to take that load of crap job posting and somehow turn it into an article advertising the fact on Quartz.

A bigger false dichotomy I have never seen in my life. Good vs nice, with some kind of implication that nice people cannot have integrity? It's the worst kind of these posts — just enough truth sprinkled in with the bullshit to make you think he's onto something.

Thank god someone else pointed that out. I stopped reading at your first warning sign — any doubt I had about Nicholas Carr being a complete dick just went up in a puff of smoke

ok sunshine. how about this. watch this video: http://www.peta.org/tv/videos/celebrities-skins/119802007000...

and tell me that it's "as far as you know" then.

WARNING: graphic. extremely graphic. i honestly don't understand how anyone could treat another living creature like that.

And it's also why we shouldn't just be focused on creating the technology, but we should be increasingly focused on the system (society) into which it is being placed.

They weren't recommending you get hitched early; the advice was more along the lines of "if you find someone that means something to you, don't deprioritize them just because you're busy at work".

I honestly think it's good advice. Too many of us think life can be run in sequence (hard slog at work > make money > do something I love doing, spend time with family, etc) when really, everything happens in parallel.

I agree with you that the tit-for-tat details don't matter; I don't agree with you that the only question is whether Tesla gave the reporter bad advice.

This is a textbook example of how not to solve a PR problem — to get in a public, internet-driven slanging match with a journalist. Instead of "publicly refuting", Musk should have called up and got a full account of what went wrong; put the journalist on side, and got an at least somewhat positive follow up account from the journalist saying "I spoke to Musk and he had some questions and we talked through it and we realize that rather than the car being at fault, a database with current locations of chargers hadn't been updated etc etc etc".

Right now, instead, Musk can't win. And he's drawing a HUGE amount of publicity to a fact that's already in the back of a lot of consumers minds — that these EVs aren't ready for primetime.

You might think it's odd, but it's exactly what Boeing had done in the past.

And if you think the 787's problems are confined to its batteries, please read this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21230940 "Keith Hayward, head of research at the Royal Aeronautical Society, said that if the issue is no longer about replacing a faulty battery, it raised the prospect of Boeing having to do a major re-design.

"I think people had their fingers crossed that it was a battery fault... it looks more systemic and serious to me. I suspect it could be difficult to identify the cause," he said."

(Disclosure: I'm the article's author)

Cheers

-- james

I did talk to people at Boeing. (And yes, I'm the article's author).

Thank god someone else picked up on this. I'm willing to take the article at face value in its description of the results of the research; but the analysis is all nut job territory.

The singles not caring about the future is one perfect example. If it were true, and it were only the regions with high concentrations of parents caring about the future, then you would see much stronger support for actions to prevent climate change in areas where there are higher birth rates. The thing is, you don't - it's the cities - the places that the author is bemoaning for the lack of kids (he even calls cities "pleasure centers") that are at the forefront of trying to fix the big problems. The areas with the high birth rates are the ones that seemingly don't care about the future.

So yeah, take every last bit of his analysis with a grain of salt. He strikes me as a "America has been going backwards since the 1950s" type and he's trying to back the data in to fit his preconceived notions of how the world should work.

You are promoting the economic equivalent of a Ponzi scheme that by its very definition is not sustainable.

If that's true, given that Apple felt it was being copied by Microsoft in the mid-1990s, took them to court, and lost — I'm not sure how much more "anti-patent" you can get for Apple than losing a case on its core product — then why did they bother to invest in creating all that stuff that's got them to where they did?

And, if an "anti-patent" causes companies not to invest, then how come, five years after the release of the iPhone, with it still not clear whether patents are being upheld or not (but not looking good in Apple's favor: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-09/samsung-wins-u-k-ap... ) then Apple continues to invest in the iPhone?

If that were true, then why is Apple copying Samsung? http://allthingsd.com/20120803/apples-eddy-cue-saw-market-fo...

There's never going to be a true counterfactual to whether Samsung would have innovated more or less if Apple hadn't come up with the iPhone. One thing that I will say: Samsung sure sell a lot of phone for a company that isn't innovative.