"US statistics are bracing. A nation with 318 million people accounting for just 4.5% of world population consumes more energy for air conditioning than the rest of the world combined. It uses more electricity for cooling than Africa, population 1.1 billion, uses for everything."
I'd love to see some charts that break this down visually (energy consumption by region/type).
I’ve noticed the same thing. Have you found any good writing on this topic and how the American approach differs from the Canadian approach? I’ve been fascinated by this dynamic after spending most of my working life in the USA then returning to Canada, and just feeling like something is “off” whenever I talk to Canadian startups, and it feels like a lot of the time it comes down to the way the flow of investment differs here (especially in the R&D space).
I am an engineer passively looking for interesting opportunities. Primary motivated by challenge. Scattered interests but enjoy becoming obsessive, but in a healthy way(!) when focused on a single project.
I'd recommend following AgFunder News: https://agfundernews.com (RSS, Twitter, whatever you like). I find that they cover the industry fairly well (or at least link to enough interesting things to get you a foothold). You're totally right that this is an overlooked industry, though make no mistake, many of the big players (your John Deeres and such) have very sophisticated R&D and engineering initiatives pursuing market opportunities in a variety of ag tech realms.
I'm pretty sure this describes exactly what went wrong for me. I worked in an open plan office for 6 years and then for a variety of reasons fled for a WFH arrangement for 2 years with the same company (under the guise of moving to a different city where an office didn't exist). I think in the end I liked being in the office much more than WFH but that what it really represented was a private workspace for the deep no-interuption work. However, I missed being near my co-workers so much that I eventually gave up on it. There's no doubt that I would have never left had I had a private office at the main office instead.
Does anyone have a list of smart career options and career advice for people that fall in to this camp (or resources that help navigate)? It's really really hard to chart courses that don't seem to eventually bump up against the accumulate power or falter hurdle.
Though I agree that there's a reductionist aspect to this declutter thinking, I've always thought the answer to this question is "an ordered mind", which is very different from an empty mind of course.
That makes me feel better. Joining an AI startup is exactly what I ended up doing, so it's good to have someone in a similar situation to end up with the same answer!
I both agree with the general sentiment of this piece and the backlash in the comments against its overly optimistic view. My gut sense as a newcomer to Toronto is that the _trajectory_ looks amazing, but there's simply no doubt that any comparison to the tech super clusters like Bay Area and NYC is totally disingenuous right now.
I'd love to get some advice from fellow tech migrants like myself that have moved from one of those places (NYC in my case) to a less vibrant but still honestly quite exciting environment like Toronto. Accepting a giant pay cut while still tying myself to a corporate 9-5 here is a depressing thought, and I'm not yet convinced that I feel right simply working remotely for US based companies, even if compensation opportunity is on average 1.5-2x better. Has anyone found a good balance between those worlds? Something that gives back to the local tech ecosystem but also taps in to the the better market potential to the south? I suppose building a business here and selling to the US, but trying to stay headquartered in Toronto is one way to do that, but any other thoughts?
I think this is still a super under appreciated point. The focus is often on full autonomy, but we don't need full autonomy in complex city driving environments to unlock a potential sea change in behavior. Imagine the impact of simply being able to trust your vehicle to do the heavy lifting for an hour to get you from, say, Sacramento to San Francisco, only needing to take control at the highway end points for 30 minutes on each end.
The sentiments in this thread are surely one of the major driving factors behind techies being some of the most enthusiastic in the FIRE movement (financial independence, retire early). I often wonder why true lifelong career planning isn't part of formal secondary education programs. I've noticed a trend where especially in the software dev world, the reality seems to hit people like a ton of bricks in their mid to late thirties, seemingly with very little reflection on the likely paths earlier on, and FIRE seems like it is sometimes as much about saving face as it is about career and financial planning. Is it part of our inward nature spending much of our time trying to get in to a flow state to solve difficult problems that causes us to push away the messy and more difficult, human cantered, and politically loaded long term career development stuff in those early career years until that avoidance bites back?
"US statistics are bracing. A nation with 318 million people accounting for just 4.5% of world population consumes more energy for air conditioning than the rest of the world combined. It uses more electricity for cooling than Africa, population 1.1 billion, uses for everything."
I'd love to see some charts that break this down visually (energy consumption by region/type).