I think it’s a material different for SMEs, especially bootstrapped firms small consultancies. But you’re right, I think some skepticism is warranted since there’s a lot of factors depressing the tech sector rn.
This is an excellent writeup. Even though I come with a bias against MS, I did some work on the .NET framework and was just blown away with how great the dev experience is. Maybe I’m overselling it but I wouldn’t consider any other platform (except that it’s managed by MS). The old school win32 api is surprisingly powerful too.
Then looking at the spider web of new technologies they’ve released, half-released, and half-deprecated it makes me seriously doubt the future of MS. I mean they’ll always be a profitable, popular company just not whose tools I want to be locked into.
Working in the SharePoint ecosystem, for example, was totally miserable and I’ll never do it again if I can avoid it. Still love C# though.
- extreme survivorship bias in the tech and startup world distorts your expectations
- most startups fail, most businesses do not see exceptional returns
- intelligence is necessary (in most cases) but not sufficient for getting wealthy
- If you work in big tech with an MBA you’re probably much wealthier than the median USian.
- I suspect that lifestyle creep/peer comparison is distorting your view of your own personal wealth.
So yeah, there’s a number of cognitive biases that are distorting your ability to assess yourself here. What level of wealth are you aiming for? It would be easier to work backward from that number and try to model what you’d need to do to hit it.
I've tried this but never got the PyInstaller deployment process down smooth enough for my taste. Even for small apps, I end up rewriting in C# to compile executables with if I need to deploy to people who don't use code. With PyInstaller, since you have to package the Python interpreter the .exe always ends up too large and slow for my taste (especially since I usually compile with --onefile. I'm wondering how you do it, if you use onefile or have some better way to run PyInstaller so the final exe is smaller or faster.
C has a really solid community and (imo) the best online content of any programming language. It’s the Python Effect but in reverse now: every Python video on YouTube is now clickbait about elementary pandas functions while C videos are made by extremely talented programmers (Tsoding, Jonas Birch).
Yeah ironically enough I think what’s cutting edge about LLMs is their ability to let you spend more time in the command line and less in the gui. With AI writing the time cost/opportunity cist of writing shell scripts is so low, even if you find yourself working on a machine you’re not used to (e.g. Windows for linux users).
F# sounds fun, I’ve been goofing off with Haskell in my spare time and really liking how it handles parsing problems. I’d think F# would be elegant for AOC too
Wow that is unbelievably user-hostile design. I'm not able to recreate this behavior on my Mac (Ventura 13.6.3) or Chrome (Version 130.0.6723.117). Are you running a different OS/version of Chrome?
Anyway if I can get it to trigger the unmute I think I'd try the following:
> userscript in Chrome that blocks access to system settings
> userscript that automatically mutes volume when new page is loaded
> (lame GUI way) check system settings in mac for app restrictions
> (super hacky) write a bash script that perpetually mutes volume
This is a bit of a tangent but it's odd you're having this problem since Mac's tend to be pretty locked down with 3rd party permissions. I'm having trouble write now writing a bash script just to toggle the natural scrolling setting on a mouse.
You’ll face a high regulatory and liability burden, but neither of those are insurmountable (note that I am not a lawyer or financial advisor and this is not legal or financial advice). Liquor license to serve drinks is the first that comes to mind. Then there’s the risk factor that running a bar involves dealing with unsavory people (people who start fights, harass, other levels of petty crime and violence). You also need to screen guests for valid IDs.
You need a rent-a-bouncer service for your hosts, too at the very least.
Again, not impossible but difficult (and solving the difficulty is the whole value prop of a business). Consider synergies with other event organizers, especially in the music scene.
This is a weird post, I can’t help but feel you’re indirectly advertising for ChatPDF. Coursera has a native ai tool you can use to ask questions and summarize videos and articles. I feel like you would know that if you were seriously using Coursera.
Thanks I appreciate the clarification. You're referring to a leaseback, right? From the research I've done, I've mostly seen it happen in the context of real estate, e.g. with Darden when Starboard Value took over [0]. I think the rebuttals to management on slide 38.
What I wonder about this is in cases where the real estate is spun off into a REIT, does the original company keep shares in the REIT, or are transactions like this purely for one-time raising capital?
I'm curious how this actually works. If it were that easy to buy a company, bankrupt it, and somehow make money selling it off again why wouldn't everyone do that instead of going through the trouble of operating the business? It doesn't make sense why selling capital equipment would pay for the acquisition, when almost every business trades over book value. Loading it with debt and paying the PE firm a fee doesn't sound like it would cover the cost of acquisition, either.
A lot is said on the internet of the practice of loading companies with debt, but done within reason this is the financially responsible thing to do. There's even a financial theory that debt provides a disciplining effect on management[0], meaning that the management of companies with reasonable debt levels are less likely to take on unfavorable risks and more likely to find returns above the WACC.
The point of leverage is that it increases returns. Here's a really good example of that in the context of real estate, where leverage almost doubles the IRR. [1]
Sadly there’s a bias against customer service as a functional group in most tech (and non-tech) companies. It’s a function that is normally offshored and/or outsourced, and it is extremely rare for leadership to be hired out of service orgs. This is a shame when you think of how natural a transition from service to an account manager role would be. Management doesn’t see service source of revenue.
This is different in other industries, like in the auto industry where service is a considerable source of revenue and where CEOs like Sloan started. Software service groups really don’t have organizational prestige or influence, in contrast.
This means service groups get the last pickings in budget and talent. Most software companies are trying to do the bare minimum with service, and anything of import (or revenue potential) gets escalated to the account manager or product manager.
Tl;dr you need to whine to your AM if you want anything done.
What language would help you the most in your current role? The best projects are ones you actually need, and building scripts for work will teach you more than building a generic crud app.
I think the most important thing is to pick one language and stick to it (and only it) for as long as possible. Say 3 years. Don’t learn a second until you can do everything in your first with total fluency. Don’t be a dilettante or a framework hopper. Better to learn 1 thing well than 10 things poorly.
Last piece of advice (and there’s tons of arguments against this, so just my opinion) but pick a scripting language first, either python or js. After mastering it, then pick a statically typed enterprise lang like c#, go, or java. You’ll go very far very fast with js or python, and once you finally hit mastery in those languages you’ll start to feel their limitations and the need for static types will be apparent.
Tech pump & dump in a nutshell --> find trend/exciting tech, make it user friendly/tailor it to niche, sell.
It adds value -- OpenAI isn't going to bother making special AI chatbots for car dealerships or whatever. These companies aren't going to hire coders since that's not their main line of businesses. So someone has to come in and middleman.
Maybe calling it a pump & dump is unfair, but there's no denying that the core technology is not in the hands of these startups. These small companies get decimated once the big companies see enough $ in their niche (which is what happened in the early days of the net, too). Fortunes will be made and lost. It's the American dream.
These apps are pretty straightjacketed. When there’s a simply gui option to drag-and-drop it works like a charm. When you have to do anything in DAX life gets significantly worse. I’d rather be able to do data modeling in Python. But the point is pretty graphics so not a big deal. I wouldn’t look for a competitive edge in the analytics side.
For me the real issue is data engineering. I spend much more time changing data sources manually than I do making fancy analytics. I’m not sure if that sells software though! Execs want analytics that increase revenue or decrease costs. There may not be value in improving the weak points in this software even though it would make a better product for its users.
Better as in less spammy, less scammy, and less bots? That’s pretty hard to do at scale. But there’s functionality in LinkedIn that you could break out and do better.
For example, it’s not a great job board, but it does recommend jobs based on your experience. A cool tool (not sure if it exists) would be to upload a resume to a site and have it return job listings, sorted by compatibility. LinkedIn does this to an extent but it could be done much better. Another cool feature would be something that compares your resume to a listing and points out the experience you’re missing.
Not that that really matters. The real way LinkedIn makes its money is B2B sales and marketing. The job board & social media features are just a veneer to attract users.
This is a super interesting question and a problem I’m struggling with too. Really excited to see how others answer but I’ll give my 2¢.
To get people to agree to projects, you need to couch its goals in terms that management & other ICs care about. So for some groups, that will mean increasing revenue, or improving margins, or reducing latency, or automating manual work. But sometimes groups inside companies aren’t aligned with the overall strategic objective of the company: ie a company needs to improve its ROI, but its marketing group is working on increasing its revenue (if you’re not profitable, this could literally destroy your company if marketing does its job too well, even though that’s what marketing ~should~ be doing is increasing growth/sales).
So you need to know how to align your group with corporate strategy. What do your top execs want? One of the best ways to figure this out is to listen to/read your company’s earnings calls. These will tell you what shareholders and management cares about. Read between the lines. What business lines are the analysts asking about? Which are they ignoring? If you’re in a group they never mention, you probably don’t matter too much… The business lines they’re asking about are the important ones.
I write software in support of supply chain and operations, so the book I read about this was “Operations, Strategy, and Technology: Pursuing the Competitive Edge“ by Hayes et al. I’d also recommend the McKinsey Valuation book for understanding what’s motivating your management, shareholders, and company.
Basically you’ve got to learn how to speak MBA and put your technical projects in that context. If your company cares about scaling growth in ecommerce, and your project works on customer journeys—translate your project into $$ made for the company.
That’s what I’ve learned so far, hope to hear discussion on this.