I guess this is a little off the normal topic you see on this discussion forums, but I was wondering if anyone had seen any bit of news relating to this matter. I definitely understand importing a work force from inland to meet the iphone5 demand, but how is it justified to be forcing university students to do this kind of labor? Is there more to this story that I am missing? Would love to hear others' opinions.
I don't think "jerk" is exactly the way to put it. I think people who are more aggressive and have a "killer instinct" get ahead. I'm not an expert, but it just seems that jerks and people with said killer instinct often overlap, but that doesn't have to be the case. Gates and had a somewhat successful career in Microsoft and is running the largest charity of all time, but no one has calls him a "jerk." John Wodden, the most successful NCAA coach of all time once said that there's nothing in the world more powerful that "gentleness."
It would depend on how often you are charging a customer. If you have several customers everyday, you might want to consider that since it might be a pain point for your customer. But since most "freelance" work takes a little time and you are limited by the number of personal hours in a day, I don't think it would matter too much if you only accepted checks.
On the other hand, Square is extremely convenient and free to use (other than a per transaction percentage charge).
I agree with with philmv on the point that the rate at which "immensely large companies" are being created has slowed down, but I also think that's just a natural filling up of the silicon valley pyramid. However, considering the rate at which startups are still being created, the middle and lower end of the sv pyramid still leaves plenty of room before we reach saturation. In fact, I'm more inclined to agree with Andresseen on that human creativity is an infinite resource.