Viewing profile — rgifford

How risky is it to buy protective puts on your equity compensation (for publicly traded companies)? I've heard companies sometimes have a clause in employment agreements against op…

LLMs have been around since the 50s. Chomsky has plenty to say on them [1]. It's not half as rosy as the current hype cycle. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/opinion/noam-chom…

The machine building itself is end game. At that point you're suggesting singularity. I don't see how any profession survives that. There's so much hype around AI right now, it's a…

Sociopaths, the clueless and losers. This great essay analyzing The Office argues that in a modern business context you're one of the three. [1] Those "functional elites" you menti…

> That would be a bad bet. It's a terrible bet. But it's the direction American corporate leadership has overwhelmingly been heading for the past couple decades [1] [2]. I get the …

I agree: Conflict resolution, public speaking, salesmanship -- they're all valuable. They make for better people in this world. When it comes to how these traits translate to the s…

You're missing what the previous commenter said. There are a lot of ways in which companies can succeed simply by their timing, or a couple incredibly lucky early hires, or first m…

Lack of corporate regulation and labor organization have led to a real asymmetrical arrangement for workers. It's a classic power imbalance. CEO-to-worker pay is at its highest lev…

Oddly I quite like these people -- provided they're internally and externally consistent. It's refreshing to say, "you're being an asshole" and have a friend go, "oh my bad, I do t…

I don't own multifamily property in SF, so I'm not whining about my ability to do anything. When tenants rights are restrictive enough property owners view tenants as a liability a…

The vacancy rate doesn't tell the whole story. Short term rentals and self reporting likely mask the effect I've mentioned. I generally agree, SFs problem is 100% supply. But I thi…

People buying a second home are not the problem. A healthy housing market needs rental housing stock. We have to have places for people in transitory phases of life, for people str…

> the casual way you say "you could evict" makes me think you don't appreciate that that's someone's home... It's their home and your property. I'm not advocating anything crazy. A…

Why are these properties vacant? I'm pretty familiar as a renter and property owner with tenants rights in SF. If I were to buy a duplex in the city I would never ever ever rent ou…

I posted something to this effect elsewhere, so forgive me for repeating myself. I do want to get your take though. First, the implementation of the fine isn't so important as the …

> Most people don't think you should be able to buy up a precious thing and squander it. What does it mean to "squander" and who decides? I'm pretty familiar as a renter and proper…

It's pretty coercive. Taxes are levied against transactions. A tax in the absence of a transaction is really just a fine. And fining people for not selling something violates most …

> ...unless the org is completely dysfunctional they are responsible for the ultimate deliverables. This is true in theory if everyone has perfect knowledge. In practice I've never…

Yeah, bullshitting is draining. I wonder, why? Sisyphus was condemned to aimlessly push a rock forever, but isn't that basically just the human condition? Most of us convince ourse…

I guess it's all relative. To be honest, I would be over the moon to never "work" again. Don't wanna be needed, don't wanna have to report to anyone, don't wanna be part of a pyram…

This is hilarious. You're wrong for like every reason, but I'll give you 3: 1. Berkshire has not significantly outperformed the S&P500 for 20 years. Go take a look, they've basical…

I have a buddy that's a wealth advisor with a high net worth (100M+) wealth management firm. Wealth preservation -- and really diversification -- is all ultra-high net worth folks …

I disagree. There's an ableist, patronizing assumption to be analyzed here: People with mental disabilities must have the language used around them carefully policed because they c…

People who are overweight should not be accused of being similar to corporations that misallocate and overspend (i.e. fat corporation, bloated spending, etc.). Anemic, impotent, ba…

Are the terms "bald," "stupid," "fat," "anemic," or "impotent" harmful when used abstractly and negatively? Come now. At the root of all of this is an ableist, patronizing assumpti…