WorkInKarlsruhe

15년 전discuss

More precisely it is "economic opportunity". I've yet to see more than a handful of people search out places of opportunity targeted at raising flourishing children, as opposed to seeking out economic opportunity. Raising flourishing children requires a community with good social capital, amongst other things --- money is only one, small contribution, and it is possible to make flourishing communities and children without much money. When I saw the headline about a global kid, I at first thought along these lines, since American society sucks at the pursuit of happiness and human flourishing (despite the propaganda to the contrary) --- and so it makes sense to move to another country/culture for a better social fabric.

WorkInKarlsruhe

15년 전discuss

It is interesting that so many people think that Panos should have taken a hard line. Panos seems to have had few options (and I applaud the approach he ultimately chose for the reasons he gave), but that is only if you constrain yourself to the current system, which is grade based. Removing the grades from the system is an option, but few consider it, and there is much evidence from the people that have stopped using grades that it nets great results. My PhD experience, since it inherently was not graded, was a data point for myself --- everyday was a day of glory, pursuing my passions; and I could dive deeper into what a professor said, or ignore other things that I wasn't yet ready to hear, without a second thought about earning a grade. I learned a ton, more than at any period of my earlier life (now I learn, as in gaining understanding, more per day than during my PhD), and I attended some "good" schools. Using grades has poor psychological side effects, one of which is to groom people for employment, as opposed to preparing them to start companies; another is to drive self consciousness and fear of mistakes (which are horrible side effects to have associated with learning); competitiveness; and focus on pleasing others to the extent of deceiving them. I think many people in their 30s or 40s realize what a waste of life those years of earning grades was (but won't admit it) --- now they probably use the skills gained from passing tests more than they use the knowledge that they accumulated.

WorkInKarlsruhe

15년 전discuss

Ugh, what a rancid, judgmental article. His arguments about changing the world are stale. The problems of a Silicon Valley person are quite different from the problems of someone in an emerging market, such as rent of like $3000/month, and so it makes no sense for someone in Silicon Valley to address an emerging market that has no chance of covering costs of living back home. The people in the emerging markets are quite capable of helping themselves, and don't need privileged, naive Americans to step in and show them how backwards they are (ironically, most other societies are more socially advanced, even if they are technologically backwards, and could teach the Americans how to actually achieve quality of life without technology). [And if you are going to step in, please read Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful", and pay attention to his arguments for intermediate technology (i.e., you don't dump differential equations on someone still learning algebra).]

If showing someone how to best locate the nearest cupcake shop makes customers happy, then that is a virtuous reason for a startup to exist. It is silly and judgmental to say that people are wasting their talents because they focus on the materialistic first-world problems rather than desperate emerging-world problems. It is about making customers happy, employees (and founders) happy, and investors happy. The question should be: are the founders actually happy doing the work they have chosen? If not, then it is a mistake.

Perhaps what the author is really trying to say is that people are focused on getting rich quick off trivial business plans, which will be easily commodotized, or will have hardly any market, causing failure and loss of the investor's money. There is some merit to this sentiment given some of the examples he gave.

WorkInKarlsruhe

15년 전discuss

Any jobs in Karlsruhe, Germany? I'm sure there are --- the question is, why aren't they reading Hacker News? Someone in Karlsruhe poke your entrepreneurial friends to post their jobs here.

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