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mrgordonon Apple blocks Facebook update that called out 30-percent App Store ‘tax’

Don’t they charge the same 30% for Oculus apps?

Its not conjecture. Here are the numbers from their S-1 which apparently you did not read:

1. "We generated $742.6 million in revenue in 2019"

2. "The total remaining deal value of the contracts that we had been awarded by government agencies in the United States and allied countries around the world, including existing contractual obligations and contractual options available to those government agencies, was $1.2 billion"

3. "We do not include government contracts totaling $2.6 billion, as of June 30, 2020, that we have been awarded where the funding of such contracts — also known as indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (“IDIQ”) contracts — has not yet been determined."

So they have 1.62 years of committed revenue from governments and 5.12 years of revenue including the IDIQ contracts. Even assuming the contracts are spread over five years, which seems to be their long term contract length, it indicates their revenue is overwhelmingly from the government.

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As for Palantir Gotham being for government agencies, here is the language from their S-1:

1. "We built Gotham, our first platform, for government operatives in the defense and intelligence sectors...Gotham is now used broadly across government functions."

2. "Gotham enables users to identify patterns hidden deep within datasets, ranging from signals intelligence sources to reports from confidential informants, and helps U.S. and allied military personnel find what they are looking for. We later found that the challenges faced by commercial institutions when it came to working with data were fundamentally similar. Companies routinely struggle to manage let alone make sense of the data involved in large projects. Foundry was built for them."

See how it says Foundry was built for commercial and Gotham for "government agencies"?

mrgordonon Palantir S-1

Great info

mrgordonon Palantir S-1

Palantir develops many of the tools which implies they’ve run them themselves also. For example, they have tools for scraping social media platforms to build profiles of people. You don’t build those tools without running them along the way. They just make their clients run them most of the time for liability reasons (it’s a lot harder to prosecute the CIA for spying)

mrgordonon Palantir S-1

They’re a famously shadowy secretive spying company and nowhere do I see a terms of service that says they don’t collect data on me. They’ve previously discussed their tools for spying on Facebook and other “public” sites and it seems clear they must have run them at some point. They come in and modify their software to work especially for a customers needs.

Are you familiar with Project Maven? They gather drone data and have humans label it so they can plan drone strikes and other intelligence efforts.

mrgordonon Palantir S-1

Saying their early investor was the CIA isn’t exactly controversial. It’s cited in almost every article about the company. When something is that widely known, it’s usually not cited.

But since you asked, here is an old article about it: https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/09/15/cia-back...

Title: CIA-backed Palantir adds $50M to its war chest

“Palantir's backers include the CIA's In-Q-Tel venture fund and Thiel's Founders Fund. Its customers include government intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency.”

Google In-Q-Tel and Palantir and you’ll find 100 other articles about it.

mrgordonon Palantir S-1

Well yeah I agree it’s aspirational but just because they want to do security work for Apple doesn’t mean their current customer base isn’t governments.

Their largest project is Palantir Gotham which is exclusively for government agencies (federal, state, ICE, and by Project Maven after the tech companies abandoned it due to ethics concerns!)

You’re talking primarily about Palantir Metropolis which is used by hedge funds. Not exactly some beneficial use of technology to counterweight working with ICE to separate children from their families.

They don’t list their top customers because they are top secret government agencies but if you look at their customers then it’s clear that the ones paying them the most are secretive government agencies and it’s been that way since day 1

mrgordonon Luminar Plans $3.4B Reverse-Merger IPO

This is a copycat move following Velodyne going public in a reverse merger with GRAF

I think Velodyne will do better as they have a larger market share and the first mover advantage

mrgordonon Palantir S-1

Well sure they point to a theoretical market that’s big but it isn’t where their revenue comes from now

> The company’s top three customers — which aren’t disclosed — together represented 28% of the company’s revenue for 2019. Its top twenty customers represented 67% of total revenues, with each one of those customers averaging $24.8 million in revenue.

They admit they count every single government sub-agency as a different customer (their example is NIH and the CDC would count separately despite the same parent organization) so the top 25 is basically just governments. There is incredible revenue concentration there.

mrgordonon Palantir S-1

If your stock options were exercised, you now are a shareholder and you pay taxes in the state of residence at the time of sale. If you don’t live in California (for real) then they aren’t going to be able to tax you on the sale.

RSUs with a double trigger on IPO will still be taxed on vesting as if you were in CA.

mrgordonon Palantir S-1

Their early investors were the CIA. I know the point you’re trying to make but Palantir isn’t really in the gray when they have been basically a branch of the spy agencies since the beginning

mrgordonon Palantir S-1

They brag repeatedly about their “data collection” methods although of course details are hard to find. I’m not convinced they just make the tool and have no access to the data.

mrgordonon Luminar to go public in $3.4B merger

Seems like the entire space has decided now is a good time to go public with Tesla at all time highs. Velodyne also went public recently under the symbol GRAF and has done well which is why Luminar quickly followed with a merger to go public. Seems like more of the electric vehicle startups like Fisker (symbol SPAQ) seem to be using Velodyne over Luminar.

Good to see a lot of enthusiasm for imaging and autonomous vehicles! I like the potential smart city applications

mrgordonon Snowflake S-1

No this section is about the rules on selling for current shareholders.

mrgordonon Apple says Epic is ‘putting the entire App Store model at risk’

Of course Google also kicked them out of their store for the same reason...

mrgordonon Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

Piperade is a destination for Basque food

mrgordonon Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

Really not sure what your point is here. Name cities in North America that have 10+ legitimate Burmese restaurants. If you want to try good Burmese food, it really helps to have local Burmese restaurants. The last time I was at a Burmese restaurant in San Francisco, the waitress told me a lot of the staff was in Burma for the month finding new flavors and ideas for recipes. In most cities there is no chance that the wait staff at your local ethnic restaurant is actively going back to Burma every year to get new recipes and ingredients.

Since you mentioned Vancouver, I searched for Burmese food on Yelp. Only 7 restaurants total come back total.

2 are "Burmese / Thai / Malaysian" Asian fusion places Three of 3 are a generic Asian chain called Noodlebox that has one item called "Burmese naan" 1 is a Thai restaurant with one "Burmese curry" dish 1 is a Vietnamese restaurant that mentions its near one of the Burmese / Thai / Malaysian fusion restaurants

So Yelp has 7 total Burmese restaurants in Vancouver, not one of them is actually Burmese, and almost all of them don't even have Burmese dishes (where is the tea leaf salad? Burmese naan doesn't count)

So you can act like San Francisco is just known for having a food scene, but when you don't even have access to many of the same world cuisines in other cities it is hard for me to take you seriously when you say its not a place for people who like "good food."

You know the majority of American produce is grown in California? Do the vegetables get better when they're shipped for a few days to the east coast?

mrgordonon Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

Once again, the Japanese know very well that a nice polished sake like a Junmai Daiginjo will be served cold.

https://boutiquejapan.com/sake101/#:~:text=At%20the%20risk%2...

"At the risk of overgeneralizing, many sake experts say that ginjo and daiginjo sakes are usually best not warmed (since being served chilled enhances their flavors and aromas)"

It is bizarre you go on these rants about how people on Hacker News aren't cultured like you after all your time in foreign cities, but you didn't visit the main neighborhoods, chose a few bad restaurants on Yelp, and clearly don't know how the locals prefer to drink their sake even after bragging about all your experience. Since you don't even drink, maybe you should listen to the people who do and who have toured the sake factories.

Way to be totally obnoxious and ruin the normally polite discourse here. You're posting on a brand new account and already getting flagged for abusive posting. You're not even trying to have a productive conversation. Go argue with people on Reddit.

mrgordonon Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

If you're going to call out people for "bullshit" when they post facts you could easily Google, then you could at least apologize after you were shown to be both wrong and rude.

mrgordonon Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

Its a matter of intent. If I've caught you trying to subvert the rules, then I have no reason to think you won't abuse them again. It is reasonable someone wouldn't want a frequent abuser to be able to submit new apps via their SDK. In the extreme case, I could submit a new app every minute just to waste their reviewers' time.

mrgordonon Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

Partially but it affirms my point that you disagreed with. My point from the beginning was that “nice” sake that was polished more and costs a lot (a Junmai Ginjo or Junmai Daiginjo for example) will be served cold. Many of the more alcoholic sake styles and cheaper sakes will be served hot or cold. The heat can help hide impurities but it can also play down (or change) the heavier alcohol flavors.

So yes I agree certain styles will be served warm and might have different and interesting taste profiles depending on temperature like your whisky example. But ultimately, warming the sake will tend to hide the subtle flavors that the sake maker did all the extra rice polishing to achieve, so it wouldn’t be recommended for a nice Junmai Daiginjo. The poster I replied to tried to falsely claim that hot sake would better pull out these subtle flavors, which I cannot find any reference for and does not agree with my experience drinking and reading about sake.

mrgordonon Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

According to the law, the best course of action is not to break the law to prove you don't like the law. While the Terms of Service are not the law, you agree to follow them when signing up and the terms didn't change after Epic signed up.

Practically, you may be correct that this is the most expedient way to try to fix the problem but you can get burned as Epic has in the short term with a sharp drop in revenue as Apple & Google have both booted them and may refuse to work with them in the future.

mrgordonon Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

Yeah to be honest while I think Apple clearly has monopoly power here that should be reined in, I also get the feeling that Epic will have a pretty weak argument for why they purposely violated the Terms of Service and then expect to continue using the SDK tools.

mrgordonon Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

Actually no one in this thread agreed with you on that. And if you'd bothered to visit the Mission or Divisadero or the other main centers of walking life then you wouldn't think people just go from restaurant to restaurant in Ubers

mrgordonon Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

Well you called bullshit and the number is 56.7% per the article the other user helpfully linked. This is why "California cuisine" has been farm to table for so long and why it is more affordable to eat fresh, tasty, in-season produce there.

mrgordonon Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

https://boutiquejapan.com/sake101/#:~:text=At%20the%20risk%2...

"At the risk of overgeneralizing, many sake experts say that ginjo and daiginjo sakes are usually best not warmed (since being served chilled enhances their flavors and aromas), while many junmai and honjozo sakes do well either way (since warming these types of sakes tends to draw out their complex flavors and smooth them out a bit)."

mrgordonon NYC is dead forever – here's why

Yes same! Where is it?!

mrgordonon Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

Good points. And interesting you see it on the lower end, since I think the conventional wisdom is the high end might crash first.

I personally do think because of the eviction moratorium that we will see bigger decreases to come, but I also think it will rebound hard in main areas as you say because everyone always wants to be in the Village

mrgordonon Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

San Francisco has functional public transit which escapes almost every American city and the cool neighborhoods are in fact quite dense, like the Mission. This is why people view it as one of the most walkable cities in America even though it may not be a compact area built around a train station like much of Europe, for example. I would like that, but that’s not how any of America is.

You went to a few sushi roll places and now you want to demean the quality compared to Tokyo? Give me a break. I’ve spent months in both and you’re not painting a very fair picture. Tokyo is the sushi capital of the world. No one would dispute that the Japanese have the widest variety of amazing sushi. But San Francisco is way up there and if anything the problem is there are too many unaffordable omakase menus with the best fish from Tsukiji market in Tokyo or from Monterey Bay. There are places that sell California rolls to tourists like everywhere, but San Francisco has so much actual Japanese food and so much omakase that I find it absurd that you characterize it that way. There is no way Chicago can go toe to toe on Japanese restaurants and you know it.

As for drinking sake cold, if you spent much time in Japan you’d know they typically serve crappy sake warm to disguise the impurities of not having polished the rice enough before making it. A good Junmai Ginjo will be served cold. You are welcome to have sake however you want, but don’t blame San Francisco for knowing how to drink sake properly. In fact, San Francisco has the only sake store in America (True Sake) because there are so many Japanese people and it’s so popular.

mrgordonon Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

Most cities are known for sprawl here. It’s not my fault.

Sure I could compare to Portland but it’s small and honestly not that different from SF in terms of the kind of farm to table food and wine that’s served

What are the numerous cities I am missing that have better food and are more walkable than SF and not counting NY? I honesty haven’t found them