Something to watch out for - the first time I tried a ketogenic diet, I developed a terrible rash on my torso after three weeks. After a few fruitless trips to the dermatologist, I found that it was very possibly something called prurigo pigmentosa, a rash that tends to occur in people fasting or in ketosis. Someone even set up a website about it - www.theketorash.com. It's unfortunate, as I had been successfully losing weight. No one really knows how to treat it, except for, well, eating more carbs.
My point, which mirrored the point of the post to which I responded, wasn't that Vicodin wasn't useful in some cases. It was that it was overprescribed relative to the amount of pain of the particular procedure.
In a similar vein, I got an entire bottle of vicodin prescribed to me after having Lasik surgery. There was virtually no pain, merely discomfort similar to having a dirty contact lens in your eye, which went away after a day. I never used any of the vicodin.
The reason Apple's sales in China are slowing is not because of local favoritism. It has more to do with new iPhones being not much different than older models, much more expensive than similar hardware with Android, and competition (like Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, Samsung) catching up.
We have also the red queen problem of responding to increased capabilities by adding additional complexities. For example: faster processors and more memory haven't made computing incredibly fast because we add more features or simply more bloat. See also legal contracts, which before the days of word processing, were no more than a couple of pages, and now even simple contracts can be tens of pages and complex agreements can be hundreds of pages long.
Uber drivers get paid an amount based on a subsidy multiplier of the ride value, and they are highly sensitive to these multipliers. According to a driver I talked with recently, Uber takes 20% of the fare, but is currently giving drivers a bonus of about 2.5x. So if a fare is 10 rmb, Uber takes 2 rmb, then pays out 8 * 2.5 = 20rmb. Driving costs these drivers roughly 1-2 rmb/km, and if the subsidy ever fell below 1.3x, the drivers would lose money (these are for People's Uber level of cars, which is the lowest level). Unless the subsidy can ever drop below 1.25x, Uber will be paying for every ride. And if it does, drivers will be parking their cars or switching to another service.
Uber also lost a lot of money through a couple of vulnerabilities that have since been, I believe, patched. Some people were able to figure a way to create fake rides through the app, allowing drivers to get paid without ever driving anyone. They previously also allowed riders to link up Alipay accounts to their Uber accounts, but Uber had no way to ensure the Alipay accounts had funds. So people would take Uber with an empty account, and Uber would have to pay drivers without receiving any money from the riders.
Another side note: there was recently a publicity campaign with some well-known celebrities that had very explicit nationalistic messages encouraging Chinese citizens to use their local service and not the services of an outsider.
I'm on the ground here in China. Uber's used their tactic of going head-on against government and regulation when they started out here, and it didn't work. I think they underestimated the speed and ferocity of local competitors, and didn't put enough emphasis on the political savvy needed to get popular and government support. They've recently made some well-connected hires and partnered with some powerful allies like their investors here, but they are now playing catchup. I'd also be concerned that their connections are of the mercenary type, and would be less likely to take up Uber's cause at the expense of heightened political risk, if it came down to it.
He is talking about companies that enjoy monopoly profits because of superior products: "I'm not interested in illegal bullies or government favorites: By "monopoly," I mean the kind of company that is so good at what it does that no other firm can offer a close substitute."
Distinguishing between "good" and "bad" monopolies is sufficiently complex to deserve more in-depth exploration. Thiel is smart enough to realize that which is why I consider his point to be misquoted. Unfortunately, his view is oversimplified so as to be readily consumed and debated.
He lists characteristics of a monopoly in his book: proprietary tech, network effects, economies of scale, and branding. First mover advantage is mentioned as a "tactic, not a goal" - a chapter is even called "Last Mover Advantage." Google, for one, was clearly not a first mover in the search space.
His point about monopolies is widely misquoted and causing a lot of confusion. I think he should have been clearer about distinguishing creative monopolies and what we commonly consider monopolies, in the negative sense. There are nefarious monopolies like Comcast that are insulated from competition because of an unfair advantage. A more nuanced position should entail something like the following:
- We want competition because it allows nefarious monopolies (and other companies) to be overtaken by better companies.
- We don't want to discourage companies from attempting to obtain monopolies in their markets, since this gives them to opportunity to capture monopoly profits. Monopoly profits are not inherently bad. If a company becomes a monopoly, we want them to be a creative monopoly.
- A competitive market in the sense of having low profit margins is very different from a competitive market in the sense of whether or not new entrants can come in and compete.
- It is a bad thing if a company has monopoly power through something other than being a superior company, is capable of preventing new entrants, and is uncreative. We want to preserve the ability of new entrants to come into the market with superior products and overtake monopolies.
I'll second this sentiment. Balaji's class goes into real-world implementation and if you learn everything packed into the dense curriculum, you'll come out much more powerful and capable. This new class seems only to extend upon the theory of the original CS183.
This would almost certainly fall under the definition of security under the '33 Act.
Besides this, the questionable practice of calling this coin "equity" and representing that it entitles holders that gives them some kind of ownership stake in companies funded with this coin on the website, while putting the disclaimers within another document, creates the impression that the issuers want people to think this is equity so they can raise BTC. As the founder has said in a comment, the majority of the swarm consists of non-native speakers at the moment, so this distinction would be lost on them. There seems to be demand for something like this, but the lack of details or research into relevant laws give me plenty of pause.
Can the founder (Joel) clarify his affiliation as well? His swarm bio at http://swarmcorp.com/team.html lists "#Harvard #Brown #Penn" but his LinkedIn profile seems to indicate that he did not actually get a degree from all of these institutions.