I recently took a trip to Asia where capital is hard to come by and startup valuations are much lower. It seems that if VCs are having trouble finding return, they might be well served by investing in global expertise.
Are the consumer markets so much better in America that it's worth paying 4x valuation and competing with lots of other VCs for deals? The answer may be "yes", but it doesn't seem obvious to me.
The original works of Seneca and Epictetus are also surprisingly applicable to modern life, and their problems are surprisingly relatable. I recommend Seneca's "On the Shortness of Life" and Epictetus's handbook in modern translation.
I hope those guys do something interesting with their billions. But so far the only billionaires that realize the power of a billion dollars in personal capital seem to be Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.
I can't help out a lot. But I did accidentally order a pretty nice Christmas present that it turns out I don't need. Drop me an email with your address and I'll forward it for the kids.
It's worth remembering that both California senators Feinstein and Boxer were cosponsors of PIPA. They are no fans of tech. I'm waiting for a tech movement to realize that they are giving their money and votes to the enemy.
If someone does a bad job on a campaign, he gets fired and replaced with someone that can do the job better. Campaigns run on a limited budget - they don't have all the money in the world. They have a well defined goal and strict timeline.
PPC has better features than BTC, but people haven't heard of it yet[1]. That said, BTC may win by being "good enough" and having a strong network effect.
Wake Forest class of 2005 here, now working in the Valley. I can't help but be jealous of my college friends when I go back home and see their humane cost of living. Everybody I know in NC owns a home that would cost seven figures in Mountain View, CA. Everybody I know in California rents and lives dorm-style with roommates.
Making a Silicon Valley salary remotely in Winston-Salem would let you live like a king.
Besides, the Carolina skies are just breathtaking, and not available at any price. I recently visited Winston with my California native girlfriend, and we were both charmed by the beauty and open space of Carolina.
And why is it that whenever I see a list of the "top 10 most important problems" to solve, this isn't on it? Most educated people take the veracity of published science as given, and we clearly know that's a false assumption.
I know we need more transparency in science - sharing of data and code, and negative results. But institutionally, I don't know how we get there with the tools we have.
Part of the reason the current system stays in place, despite failing at its charter mission, is billions of dollars of annual subsidies. Changing the way research dollars are allocated would change the structure of the academic enterprise, but that is incredibly hard to do. Few systems have as much momentum.
The more you learn about economics, the less you will trust economists. They have trouble predicting economic growth one quarter ahead[1] and there are tons of competing schools and models on the macro level that endlessly bicker without coming to agreement (not one of which is very good at predicting the future). They have like, degrees and shit, so the world considers them experts. But take them with a grain of salt.
Bitcoin starts with 1 (mining rewards) and then moves onto 2 (transaction fees) for long-term stability. I think this is dumb if your goal is widespread adoption because it taxes the activity that causes network effects to grow (transactions).
PPC sticks with 1 for the lifetime of the system (through a slow-growing monetary base), strengthening my belief that PPC is a strictly better design than bitcoin.
I still wonder why people aren't paying more attention to Peer-to-Peer Coin (PPC), which uses a blockchain-growing algorithm that depends on the age of the coins you own rather than than the amount of work you do[1]. It's far better for the planet and far more resilient against an attacker with more resources (like the NSA).
Protip: get earmuffs. The kind that construction workers use. They're about $20 on Amazon. If you combine them with earbuds, you literally can't hear a conversation right next to you.
This is the setup that pro Starcraft tournaments use so that players can't hear the announcers and crowd.