jasondelta

6 lat temudiscuss

I disagree. Garmin's high end watches are styled just the same as standard timepieces, but they just happen to be serious fitness trackers (in particular, see the Forerunner 945, Fenix series, and Marq series). Even with the standard wristband they generally fit in where any other timepiece would, and even more so if you pair it with a classic metal band (which is easily swapped in). Likewise, the watch face is customizable and subdued, unlike the glaringly bright screen of an Apple Watch. It's hard to pass off an Apple Watch as anything but obvious, chintzy tech gear.

jasondelta

6 lat temudiscuss

The reason people almost never mention the ethnic homogeneity is because it comes across incredibly bigoted. Put another way, it's basically saying that a strong social welfare state isn't possible in the US because it happens to have minorities - if only they could just get rid of them, there'd be no more obstacles!

jasondelta

6 lat temudiscuss

What difference is it to you how someone chooses to live their life? I don't understand how this is an argument for anything except to prove your own intolerance.

jasondelta

6 lat temudiscuss

Or one should never exercise at all until an acquisition or an IPO happens.

I've seen too many people exercise stock options trying to minimize tax implications down the road, only to see them eventually leave the company for any number of reasons and they end up get heavily diluted to almost nothing in future rounds. All that money basically down the drain trying to chase long term capital gains vs regular income tax rates when the likelihood that they'll make anything is extremely low.

Everyone's risk posture is different, but considering how few startups are actually successful, I would argue it's better to just assume the options are worthless and just deal with the regular income tax situation if you get lucky enough to be around during an IPO or acquisition.

jasondelta

6 lat temudiscuss

I think they're referring to Rock Creek Park, which runs down the middle of DC in the north and is run by the National Park Service.

jasondelta

6 lat temudiscuss

Where's the Infrastructure Fund? The Education Fund? I thought a16z was all about "It's Time to Build" now. https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/

I guess even they couldn't convince themselves to want to build things. I suppose that hollow rhetoric was for everyone else and not them?

jasondelta

7 lat temudiscuss

The acquisition scenarios are definitely misleading. Employees love to take future acquisition values and multiply it by their current equity stake, but it's just 100% incorrect because it ignores future dilution from subsequent rounds of investment, liquid preferences by investors, settlement of outstanding debts, etc which will absolutely reduce their cut.

Now it's one thing for employees to personally delude themselves, but it's just flat out wrong for the company to tell its employees what they can expect to make in different exit scenarios. The company is definitely opening itself up to litigation when, say, Employee 12 (0.5% equity currently) only gets something like $1M after a $600M acquisition, instead of the $3M you promised.

jasondelta

7 lat temudiscuss

First off, congrats on the launch and for tackling an underappreciated problem with EVs.

I'm excited about the concept, because it has the elements of something great. But I'm skeptical about the "sharing economy" approach of renting out time on home chargers. Like others have mentioned, the real problem is affordable, available chargers at the user's residence, rather than trying to make more chargers available in residential neighborhoods.

But the other problem that EV users have, especially users that aren't simple there-and-back commuters, is that they need predictable and dependable charging while away from home.

I own an EV myself, and I can't tell you how many times I've made a trip somewhere during the day, expecting to have a charger available, only to find that they're all taken when I arrive. This is somewhat alleviated by networked chargers, where you can see whether they're available beforehand, but there's been many occasions where the charger is snagged by someone else while I'm driving there. Because of this I'm extremely cautious about driving too far in a given day, and in fact, end up using a regular gasoline car if I know I have to drive beyond the range of my EV, since it's too hard to tell if and when I'll be able to charge along the way.

So where your concept comes in is the ability to reserve chargers. That means I can actually plan my day, plan a road trip, etc. And ideally the chargers will be in the same places I actually want to go - along freeways, in shopping centers, downtown, etc (i.e. not far off in residential areas).

I could definitely see this as a service that could plug into existing networks (e.g. EVGo, Blink, Chargepoint, etc), although getting them all to play nice together is difficult. But I would heartily applaud someone who could organize and simplify EV charging away from home and make it dependable and predictable. Good luck!

jasondelta

7 lat temudiscuss

There are any number of reasons why someone is unable to install a charger at home. Highest on the list is that many people rent, and therefore aren't in a position to install, either because the landlord won't allow it, apartment doesn't have parking, or installing is not affordable/practical.

The other issue that comes up is that anyone with an older home most likely won't have the electrical infrastructure to support a Level 2 EV charger, either because of the existing wiring or because the home is served by a <100A panel.

So that's why many can't make the investment you take for granted.

jasondelta

10 lat temudiscuss

www.phasefour.io | Electrical Engineer | Full-time | Los Angeles | ONSITE

Who we are Phase Four is a space technology startup developing next-generation plasma propulsion technologies to advance space missions through unprecedented innovation and cost effectiveness. We are venture-backed and currently under contract with DARPA to deliver spaceflight hardware in 2016.

Who we’re looking for A talented electrical engineer with a diverse skill set, ideally with experience in power electronics and RF circuit design. The job will include everything from high level board design, production, testing and iterating, to fundamental spacecraft hardware layout and manufacturing. We're only seven people currently, so the EE will work closely with everyone on many aspects of the project. Help us further enable the development and exploration of space.

Qualifications Design, assembly, and qualification of surface mount/solid state DC-to-RF circuits (MOSFETs) Rapid turnaround and iteration on prototype circuits, from design through laboratory testing Mastery of PCB layout and assembly techniques Entrepreneurial mindset and desire to work in a hands-on, intense, and dynamic work environment

To apply Email us a resume and a cover letter with a description of relevant electrical engineering design projects to [email protected]

NOTE: Must be a US citizen or permanent US resident (green card holder) to apply, since we work with export controlled technology (ITAR).

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