It's done bad things for Minneapolis too? Or are you suggesting that we should keep destroying the Amazon so the fine people of MN can have some more Teslas?
1,085 karma · joined May 19, 2017
While there are some egregious examples, the rate at which a sales interaction is based on outright fraud is thankfully very small.
As for focusing on customer solution generation, I would highly recommend you spend more time working with customers before setting others up for that sort of torture.
I am personally uncomfortable with the idea of renting clothing, and don't like the idea of renting a bed or furniture, but am a big fan of renting a car (Zipcar) and will probably rent ski gear for next years season.
Like most things, some people go all in, and decide to rent everything. But my hunch would be that most people will find 1-2 things they don't want to necessarily shell out full price for, and will rent for a bit, before probably buying the gear themselves at some point.
Happiness is an eternal conflict between what we have, what we think we should have and what we see others having. Even if you're at the top of the totem pole, happiness isn't guaranteed - where's the joy of having everything, only to see others struggling?
Basically the polar opposite of our modern society & every message we're sold. Christianity/ Atheism/ consumerism - whatever belief system you subscribe to has an arm that basically boils down to "do what makes you happy."
I'm not trying to get down on our current generation. If this truth was summed up in the Bible (regardless of your thoughts on the book), it's clearly a deeper reflection of human behavior. Happiness is hard.
I studied marketing (which I don't regret), but that is not an expensive class to teach! You need some books, some computers and a lecturer and a TA. That's about it.
Studying something like Biology or Engineering or Comp Sci where you're actually consuming resources as you learn (be it dissecting frogs or cloud computing or 3d printing equipment), so you'd expect that there's a cost that business, law and arts courses don't really have.
But one thing I like about rating things is that it gives you a way to flag things that go badly. That's what sucked so much about taxis - you'd be ripped off, forced to pay cash, order a car only to wait (and then it not arrive), or wait out for 30 minutes to flag one down. Drivers would be rude, they'd talk on their phones, they'd drive dangerously. And you'd have to grin and bear it (I've experienced all of the above).
I agree that the rating system is stupid, but also that there's a position of power that comes with being a rider. Assuming you had a safe, pleasant journey, it should be a 5 star journey. If the driver was objectively rude, the car dirty, or you felt unsafe, then obviously that's a good case to rate someone lower.
Client/customer concentration is something that every business needs to be watching as a matter of critical importance.
The big boys will always play rough and negotiate things on their terms when they can get away with it - be it the Government, Apple, Walmart or Amazon.
I have sympathy for the companies that are about to be put under immense stress, but it should also be something that every business has already planned for.
No one has any idea how long this cycle can go. Australia hasn’t had a recession in 28 years. The rule of thumb is that unless you predicted the expansion would last this long you don’t get to predict when or how it will end. Which means basically no one gets to predict when or how it will end.
It's not just one thing, but rather a ton of things - for example, there is social media which is a great way to see which of your 500 friends is currently on vacation right.this.second (and someone always is). While in some senses there's more opportunity than ever before for some groups (e.g. minorities / women) in the workplace, there's also more competition than ever before as more people go for these jobs.
Baby boomers and to a lesser extent, Gen X don't really understand that the economy is different for young people, in that everything that was cheap for them (housing, healthcare and education) is now grossly unaffordable, but the things that were the domain of the rich now cost next to nothing (international travel, cellphones, computers etc).
I make a lot of money (I'm 26) compared to most my age. But like most young people in San Francisco, I have a roommate. I couldn't buy a house on my own. But I could fly anywhere in the world with no worries. The housing situation will be fucked in California for the foreseeable future because politicians don't care about the poor and the vulnerable.
We look at business efficiency as a good thing (and it broadly is), but I think we don't fully account for the costs, in the inherent stress it places on us all. So we now all need a college degree to get an entry level job. That's led to a bifurcation of the economy, between those with a credential and those without.
The climate thing is tricky. I think we'll sort it out, but it is a big problem.
It's already more difficult, expensive and time consuming to get a Greencard vs. permanent residency in comparable Western nations. My Greencard will take 18+ months, $15k and a very flexible employer and I'm walking into the system with a lot of advantages. I feel for Indians and Chinese people in the system.
I had a good discussion with one of my dad's friends recently (who is a realtor), and mentioned that one of the biggest costs we never talk about is the cost of compliance.
Basically, his argument is that the cost of existing housing is driven by the cost of building new housing, of which places like San Francisco have been very effective at limiting! But as well as that, what are the development fees for example?
When politicians virtue signal about what percentage of a housing development will be below market rate for example, you have to remember that this sort of thing will be factored into the price you pay. Or the endless studies that city governments (again looking square at you San Francisco) commission. The buyer and the renter pay for these.
America actually has relatively cheap housing across the vast majority of the country, so it's not as if the buildings themselves are the major factor in jacking up the prices.