The problem is market maturity. If Uber is currently facing a quickly maturing market, the upside is limited. Investing in growth is much different than investing in diversification. For example, Google's ad-click market is completely mature, there is very little new growth there. So all their investments are in something new to add to their revenue pipeline, whether that will be AR or autonomous technologies. The fact that Uber is already seeing a loss of market share indicates that market maturity is fast approaching. How much of their investment is simply protectionism to maintain market share rather than growth?
I'd rather see the connection between happiness and self-sufficiency, because ultimately, isn't happiness what we all want? Whether through intelligence, social connections or religion, achieving that elusive sense of peace and happiness is what drives people's ambitions.
Tim Cook has always been an efficiency expert. He is the master of supply chain management and logistics. He is perfect for operations and everything related to cost management. However, do his skills translate to the visionary tasks expected of the CEO? I understand he's delegated these tasks to others, but ultimately, these delegates have failed. Either Cook needs to find better visionaries, or step down, because Apple is completely rudderless as a purveyor of EXCITING consumer products. It's becoming more like LG, Samsung and Lenovo - a boring derivative consumer electronics product company.
1. Guitar player in a band, either rhythm or lead
2. Study and compose (not lyricist!)
I can spend all day playing my guitar and jamming with other passionate musicians from all walks of life. I would love to take the time to explore jazz, blues and classic rock. I have guitars and I just don't seem to make enough time for them.
Unfortunately, I don't believe I'll make any real money in this space, so my assumption is that food and board is paid for by a patron so I can play music publicly in return.
The response to this trend has always been the continued niche usage of Linux OS outside of server environments. Based on the quality of software applications, Professionals really have only two alternatives: Windows and Mac. I've always went with Windows because I don't engage as heavily in the creative process (music, video, design, etc.) that would benefit from a Mac. At worst for Apple, Professionals return to Windows laptops (Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, etc.) - that's a loss of 5%, maybe?
The issues of worker dissatisfaction in the U.S. is very similar to the ones in China, which was ironically built on economic equality.China, like Sweden and Norway, is ethnically homogeneous, but unlike Scandinavia its population is quite large. The larger the population, the more difficult it is to administer equal access to economic prosperity. China's revenues are technically built on capitalist models to maximize productivity, and it uses socialist ideals to do what it can with wealth redistribution, and yet is failing miserably. Socialism falls apart when the population far exceeds its ability to manage monetary policy. The U.S. is in a similar quandary without the socialist infrastructure; if China cannot do it, what are the chances the U.S. can?
The U.S. must innovate a different approach built to scale and support a population of 1 billion people. It's like management 101: managing a workforce of 20 to prosperity is much different than managing a workforce of 10,000.
It really does depend on the organizational structure of the company, and whether they appreciate how difficult it is to replace programmers with an equally competent one. Most non-tech managers don't understand the intangible costs of replacing programmers, but that's never stopped them treating programmers like interchangeable cogs. If you work for a Fortune 500 non-technical company, I don't believe this strategy works to well.
Contracting trades (electrician, plumbing, HVAC, etc.) make great money. I helped a few friends get in the business; they couldn't find jobs with their ITT tech degrees, so I hooked them up with a few general contractors to make ends meet. Fast forward 10 years, and all three of them run their own crews (HVAC mostly) and easily make $200,000 each. They do work hard, 7 days per week, but love their job and take 30 days off between jobs during peak summer. Hanging around their group, I realize that those who succeed in this area have one thing in common: total commitment to hardwork. Very simple, and something many people have in spades but are applying it in dead end desk jobs.
Surround him with like minded kids, for example:
1. Well sorted family
2. Ambitious, hardworking
3. Creative, but not crazy self-destructive
He's not going to be successful flying solo, the question is, who will be his peers? For example, if he's that gifted, get him ready to attend a school like Phillips-Exeter where his connections set him up for the future.
A combination of the following reasons:
1. Consumption Mismatch: men have an endless thirst for new sexual trists whereas women can be sexually fulfilled by a single partner every few years. Because of this consumption mismatch, a site like AM clearly seeks to address the consumption habits of men, but does not address the pairing habits of women.
2. Average looking women and above have no shortage of interested men showering attention - why join AM when there are easier ways? The path of least resistance.
3. Women do not solve their "mid life crisis" issues with an affair, but instead turn to self-help, yoga, group therapy, etc. Men predictably buy sports cars, climb mountains, sky dive and have affairs.
So let's say the above generalizations are 80/20 accurate at best. It still significantly skews the gender ratio on a site that's soooo clearly focused on addressing the unique mating habits of men (which any sociologist and psychologist will confirm are different than women) rather than women. Tinder, although not perfectly aligned with women, is still better than AM for women. The best platforms for women are ones that allow for more deeply layered and nuanced interactions that may lead to relationships/sex rather than built specifically for an easy hookup (Tinder, AM). As others have observed, women would rather hookup through meetings on WoW, EverQuest, etc. than meat markets like OKCupd, Match, Tinder, etc.
Wonderful argument by the way. But the fly in the ointment here is the following analogies:
1. Human evolution never meant for man to fly, but human ingenuity figured out a way to circumvent these biologic limitations.
2. Man was never meant to go faster than 20MPH in a sprint, but here we are regularly traveling 80MPH on freeways.
Similarly, your argument holds true until man's ingenuity circumvents these limitations, such as transposing mental/emotional state onto a cybernetic machine that can be indefinitely updated/fixed for as long as the materials are available to do so. We may not be there now, but in 100 years?
Re-posting a response to that article:
Auditioning actors are a terrible analogy. You seriously want to compare your hiring protocol to the film industry which has a surplus of good looking qualified actors ready to work for sex? You do understand that there is a shortage of decent programmers in technology. So what your process ends up doing is alienating the best ones and attracting the mediocre/inexperienced/desperate ones who'll do anything for a job. Great. Exactly the kind of screening tool I want (I'm the product officer and hiring lead for my startup).
Imagine how ridiculous it sounds to "audition" a marketing executive: "Ok, so we have a problem with expansion in South America. This is what we've been doing in the last 18 months. Please read this 5 page summary and spend the next 48 hours to come up with your best answer, prepared on our cloud hosted marketing platform."
I understand your reasoning (as an employer, can empathize), but this whole auditioning process as you've described is completely stacked against the interests of the developer. Auditioning is fine if you can address the following issues:
Protect the candidates: be their advocate and share their problem solving tasks (open source their solution? make it available to all employer members on your internal Git?) so that other employers can benefit from the "audition". Just like a recorded audition can be shared with prospective movie producers and directors to demonstrate an actor's range, the same should be allowed in your audition. This solves the biggest fear of developers: you are not exploiting them; by sharing the "auditions" that a candidate has completed over the course of five interviews, the candidate now has a strong portfolio that future employers can review without having to ask much more of the candidate. You have an "us versus them" mentality; employers do not want to have a confrontational relationship from day one where I have to justify and convince the candidate (who has three other offers on the table, because he's awesome) to go through this time consuming process.
Remember, your value as a tool to employers (like me) comes about because there are thousands of programmers signed up to "audition" their skills on your platform; so the golden egg is not me (the employer) but the programmers themselves. Focus on the programmers, they will love that you help solve their problem, and employers will see the value because candidates love flowing through you. LinkedIn is precious because there are millions of active candidates posting their information; use this analogy, not the audition/film industry.
Africa: is it possible he's walking miles to school because either his parents can't read or they don't have time to teach him?
There is nothing "elitist" about choosing what's best for your children. I went through public school, and looking back, it was a sorry affair. Math teachers were terrible. Science teacher had no clue. English teacher assigned comic books to make sure the slow kids didn't feel bad. Despite all these obstacles, I had a deep love for reading and spent about 2 hours a day after school at the library, going through everything that caught my fancy (my version of unschooling). However, the one redeeming value of my public school experience was the immense amount of open play given to me. Formal education sucked, but between recess and after school explorations with my friends, I learned soft skills that I still used today. Unfortunately, today's public school has eliminated recess; furthermore, parents are so paranoid that they no longer allow their children to be outside after school. There is a reason why the Finnish system focuses on open play rather than homework in the first 9 years of child hood. There is nothing elitist about demanding what's best for your children.
When innovation is not a driving force in the economy, it makes sense that the platform which protects and incentivizes innovation is not taken seriously.
So when people determine whether a startup is a "success" is this closure an acceptable end to that success because the acquisition by Salesforce locks in the "success" of that exit regardless of what happens afterwards?
Too indoctrinated by academia to be employed? Out of touch with corporate expectations? Or those who aren't a fit for employment returned to get their PhD, but only as a delay to the inevitable.
If you reduce STEM to its most fundamental trait in a child, it would be something like "the love of taking things apart and/or assembling things together." Obviously Lego is one activity that appeals to this trait however their are other less obvious ones such as taking apart Barbie clothes and reassembling them - sometimes exchanging various limbs and heads. Also deconstructing food dishes to their component ingredients before reassembling a better recipe in the Easy Bake oven. Are these not STEM traits that are somewhat gender biased but still cultivates the necessary curiosity to excel in STEM later in life? Needless to say my daughter is this child and yet shares nothing of her brother's passion for Legos, Mindstorm robotics, programming games, etc. Yet as a parent I'm not concerned because as long as this desire to deconstruct/reconstruct is present, STEM is always an option.