orzig

I'm definitely open to more models for funding, but it didn't seem like Kickstarter really worked even for what should have been its sweet spot. Definitely tell me if I'm wrong, but the fact that they had to put out this blog post suggested that the dynamics of its usage never really fit:

https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-not-a-store

Not a job board, but it sounds like you would resonate with http://parttimetech.io

Did anybody else seem to get better after COVID forced a work from home?

I did not think of my commute as especially bad, nor any other part of being in the office, but the timing is pretty coincidental

One big open question for me is what my body counts as stress. I have had short, objectively stressful situations, which had no impact. My longer-term stresses feel like they are more of the style “it’s a job, that is why they pay you“ but switching jobs might have helped? It’s not like I can do that enough to get statistical significance. And I don’t think an outside observer would consider my new job definitely less stressful than my old one, but there might be some dimension, which is really important to some subconscious part of me. And I don’t think an outside observer would consider my new job definitely less stressful than my old one, but there might be some dimension which is really important to some subconscious part of me.

That’s part of the reason that I resisted the stress explanation for so long: even if you accept it in general, it’s very unclear what to do about it, so I wanted to keep exploring more tangible causes

I am about five years out from a similar situation, so let me give you a glimmer of hope: I did get better, very slowly. I wish I could say why, I’ve obviously tried all sorts of things and also a lot of life has happened between then and now, but _don’t give up hope_

And best of luck, I suspect you really helped some patients at your former job relative to someone who would have been less conscientious. Maybe even me, we’ll never know!

I’m very thankful to people who write these things, because they helped me recognize burn out and address it when I was early in my career. I would not have handled it at all well without the pattern matching

Saving a click, because this basically invalidates the NYT headline:

> In the NYT today, Cade Metz implies that I left Google so that I could criticize Google. Actually, I left so that I could talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google. Google has acted very responsibly.

You're allowed to have your workflow, but I'll add my n=1 that I want the exact opposite behavior, and I suspect I'm in the majority there

Look at the plots, there is one huge outlier in the small number of overall samples which is driving a lot of the results. I don’t even disagree with the conclusions, but this is not strong evidence for it.

I was terrified when my company was bought by PE in a very hostile way (founding CEO forced out, immediate layoffs, etc).

But honestly things got better, and the employee experience was at least as good as it had been during the “oh shoot we’re not growing anymore” crisis which attracted PE attention in the first place. They also returned us to growth and gave us a nice payout on the magical mystery tokens which had replaced our equity.

As someone who tries to be intellectually honest: I was wrong, and across the 100s of such deals each year there is variation between in employee outcomes.

I’ve done consulting; you have control about how you write your contract. If they want to lock you up for a long period they should be willing to pay for it.

You’re not wrong on the facts, but if you’re implying that we should not feel good about this story, I disagree.

One crab has managed to climb out of the bucket. The rest of us should celebrate for a minute and then redouble our efforts to get everyone to the same place, leveraging the lessons he’s passed on. Upwards!

Sounds like you have a strong opinion. Good news: You can now put your (fake) money where your mouth is: https://manifold.markets/Shai/will-the-new-york-times-be-ver...

Got it, I stand corrected (and better informed). Thank you, too few internet conversations are this constructive.

> Minimal fraud

You’re going to have to be more specific or offer some evidence, because a cursory search suggests there was massive fraud.

To take the least sensationalized source: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-takes-acti...

They’re estimating more than half a billion dollars and are just getting started.

I don’t live there, but as a general rule, people overestimate the probability of “collapse“. Things can be declining for a long time without the dramatic acceleration that merits that term.

Thank you for this! I’ve fortunately never been in that spot but knowing how that plays out helps reduce my concern about new deals outside my social group

I moved to the suburbs, but that’s probably not what you mean.

A coworker lives on several acres in rural Georgia. It sounds like it has all of the ups and downs that you might imagine: his house is absolutely gorgeous, and he got to design and have it built himself. he uses a chainsaw several times per year, and now has strong opinions about chainsaw maintenance. But he hast to hire a tutor for his kids, because the local school is some combination of too far away and not good enough for the future he wants for them. Getting them socialized is an effortful thing. I haven’t heard him talk about good friends in the area, though there have been some colorful characters.

Does your company offer phone/video therapy/counseling? I procrastinated on trying it through my company for many months because it felt like “going to a therapist“ was some high bar. But I think that what you are dealing with is very easily worth a call, and just talking things out can be hugely helpful. They probably won’t even have a deep inside, but verbalizing it will help, and it’s amazing how convenient it can be to have that to turn to once you realize how easy it can be.

I’m 3 for 3 on terrible tax professionals. Maybe just bad luck - how would you find a good one? What cost is expected? I obviously value my own time as a solo consultant, but some of the tax firms I have seen blow that calculation out of the water. I’m not a cheapskate: I paid $700 last year for someone recommended by a friend, and still got a significant error.

Any guidance would be fantastic!

When I pay for one artist’s output, there likely were nine others who tried and failed in a similar style.

It’s like how drug companies have to try nine different drugs (actually many more) before the stars align around one which is safe and effective. For the business model to work, someone has to pay for those other nine.

In pharma, it is the patients (through high prices on successful drugs). In creative industries, it is the failed artists who put in a huge amount of work with essentially no compensation. It was totally their choice, but I can understand the frustration.

I do wonder about the moral culpability of art schools, though…

This feels like the endless debate about whether America is forever tainted by the sins of its founding fathers.

I’m pro-American because I believe in its stated values. Moreover, I believe that despite original and continuing failures to perfectly reflect those values, there is large and concrete progress in aggregate.

I feel the same way about EA: I aspire to their ideals (including the continued discussion and reconsideration of those ideals) and believe the weight of thousands of people quietly moving concretely in the right direction far exceeds the damage of bad actors (who would have twisted any ideology they were immersed in).

So the bad actors should be punished. The parts of the community system which failed should be changed. AND the many others who are earnestly trying to live according to these values should be judged according to their _own_ impact.

This is a great example of a concrete use case. It is well known that tutors are far more effective than generalized learning, and everybody’s anecdotal experience is that immersion is the best way to learn a language (suggesting that the interactive effect of tutors is at least as strong in this domain)

A quick Duck Duck Go search suggests that capturing just a fraction of this market is worth >>$1B. To me that feels categorically different than crypto, even if a few grifters are also adding froth to the space.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/257656/size-of-the-globa...

Try to think about less like self promotion, and more like ensuring the users who would benefit from your work know that it exists.

Huge improvement in my marriage.

Thank goodness I started on it before 2020 because we about to go through a lot of challenges together!

Everything else for the manager might prioritize culturally, like getting the team to move to a new tech, integrating across geographies, or hitting some big corporate level goal

Yes but my manager makes it an absolute top priority. It takes a lot of work and other managers who were basically OK but balancing priorities ultimately let that safety get off the rails.

I will just throw in some counter anecdata: in my little corner of the US, people are at least as nice as they were before.

I've been blessedly free of chronic illness myself, and found The Deep Places to be a good window into the shortfalls of the medical response (including being written off as nuts), even by someone who should have a tremendous amount of privilege (White male New York Times columnist)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57341765-the-deep-places...

> "He's self interested"

OK, but is he right?