I think there is near 100% chance that humans will destroy the planet, or more accurately we'll destroy humankind - the planet will long outlive humans and will probably "heal" itself to some degree after we're gone. The idea that we'll solve climate change seems like such an improbable long shot.
I've tried the various flavors of self-driving in my Tesla over the past several years, and essentially it came down to a three-strikes rule for me - after the third time that car jerkily exited the self-driving mode on it own (the third time being in a slight bend on the highway at night) and spiked my heart rate to must have been an all-time high as I manually corrected in time to avoid disaster.. I said "nope, this is a decent electric car but I'm driving it myself from now on."
Waymo on the other hand, I trust it with my life on a weekly basis and have never had cause for concern (fingers crossed I didn't just jinx it).
Aaron Levie strikes me as one of the sharpest and most prescient people in SV. I think you must be 100% correct that he's a true nerd about this stuff, or else he could have gone on to a thousand different things outside of Box by now.. he would probably be an incredible VC (I think I recall he was one of the first seed investors in Stripe as a result of cornering Patrick Collison at a house party, talking his ear off, and thoroughly impressing Collison).
The property tax is calculated based on the last transaction price of the home, so despite it being estimated at $15m today, the owner would be paying tax on a much lower value (assuming they purchased it many years ago).
The means of suicide are probably too much for the average person to succumb to even in the face of a very hard life. The fact that assisted suicide is broadly illegal in the US is something that I've always found ridiculous. No one asked to be brought into the world, and we should be able to check out on our own terms (in planned, thoughtful, assisted way) without resorting to painful/tragic means.
I've been seriously considering neon for a new application. This definitely gives me pause... maybe plain ol' Postgres is going to be the winner for me again.
The solution lies in eliminating the entire concept of investment properties, and to classify single-homes as purely places to live. You do realize that part of "not enough" houses is due to corporate entities / investment vehicles / investors owning many properties.
And the types of cities (dense, highly-desirable urban cities like SF, London, Paris) where the NIMBY people complain most often also happen to be the most common markets for these investors to purchase/own multiple homes.
If a government truly wanted to fix a housing "crisis", wouldn't a ban on any type of corporate entity from buying single-family homes be an efficient solution? E.g., LLC's can no longer purchase single-family homes. Only real, live human individuals can purchase single-family homes. They could also try to implement some type of ban on any single individual person from purchasing more than 1 (or choose a number) single-family home.
I bought my house (in CA) in 2019, and my property tax bill is ~$30k/yr. My literal nextdoor neighbor's property tax bill is less than $1k/yr (it last sold in the 1960s and has been passed down within the same family).
I just recently spent some time in Japan (Kyoto), and I frequently travel to Tokyo. It always interests me to see these Japanese birthrate articles because anecdotally you might never know it while walking around the cities - you'll see so many young parents with babies strapped to their chests / in strollers / on bicycles.
I'm not a researcher or academic, but when I think of roughly how long it takes me to do meaningful deep work and produce a project of any significance, I'm struck by the fact that his 800 papers isn't a red flag? Even if you allocate ~3 months per paper, that's over 200 years of work. Is it common for academics to produce research papers in a matter of days?
From the article:
Masliah appeared an ideal selection. The physician and neuropathologist conducted research at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) for decades, and his drive, curiosity, and productivity propelled him into the top ranks of scholars on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. His roughly 800 research papers, many on how those conditions damage synapses, the junctions between neurons, have made him one of the most cited scientists in his field.
The fact that the MrBeast YT channel has over 300 million subscribers, and has such a profound grip on youth attention, is something that I occasionally wonder about (in terms of what it says about culture, youth, etc). From my perspective as a 35+ yr old male in the US, everything about it screams idiocracy.
You don't have to look too hard to find examples of fully-remote (from day 1) startups succeeding (e.g., Redpanda eating Confluent's lunch). If your company is struggling to succeed then your product(s) simply isn't good enough, and thinking that having more butts in seats inside of a big office building is going to change that is wishful thinking by the people who don't actually build the products.