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The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

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Re: The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

#181

Post by PeterisP »

cmdrfred wrote: post #134
Phlarp wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intent of my comment was to draw attention to the other side of this coin. >You are allowed to use any opening in the law to save on taxes, but not lie. The other side of that is: If you (as a C(ETF)O of a company) do not use every opening in the law to save on taxes you may be violating a fiduciary duty to your shareholders.

Oddly enough nobody is concerned with fiduciary duty when a CEO pulls a few million dollar bonus out of a failing company.

The shareholders and board very much are, although for a failing company often they will set up a CEO with the explicit goal to wind down the company my milking it to death (which often takes many months or years, and starts long before employees would be notified about the plan) and offer multimillion bonuses conditional on extracting dozens more millions for shareholders from a dead horse by riding it in sunset until all that's left is debt to "someone else".

Re: The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

#182

Post by TeMPOraL »

aresant wrote: post #138
eloff wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite the examples you give, I don't think it's fair to lump Facebook and Google in with 50onRed. The former two are mostly above board, with some occasional exceptions, while the latter is completely, morally, underwater.

Clearly it's not an analog comparison, I never said it was. I wrote my comment because online advertising is a murky and often slimy place. Facebook & Google are the world's two largest online advertising companies - they sell and influence your attention for a living. Google now spends more money lobbying the government than any other corporation (1) including GE, Exxon, etc, etc. Depending on Apple's stock performa…

> Google now spends more money lobbying the government than any other corporation (1) including GE, Exxon, etc, etc.

Didn't realize that, thanks. I wonder where that money goes though; I don't see any big successes in fighting with MAFIAA over not screwing up the Internet.

Re: The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

#183

Post by etjossem »

mrweasel wrote: post #158

>Gill tells me he doesn’t consider himself in the adware business. He prefers, instead, to describe 50onRed as a company that keeps content free for users. I love that bit. How does injecting ads into random sites help keep content free for users? Who's buying those ads by the way? Sure it sound like a terrible company, but I can help thinking that their customers are worse.

If anything, hijacking page real estate makes it less likely the user will click on non-injected ads (which actually pay something out to the content creator).

I believe content creators have a right to seek compensation for their work - whether it's through ads, affiliate links, or a subscription model.

But what 50onRed does is thievery from the creators, plain and simple.

Re: The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

#184

Post by TeMPOraL »

kbenson wrote: post #141
aresant wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly it's not an analog comparison, I never said it was. I wrote my comment because online advertising is a murky and often slimy place. Facebook & Google are the world's two largest online advertising companies - they sell and influence your attention for a living. Google now spends more money lobbying the government than any other corporation (1) including GE, Exxon, etc, etc. Depending on Apple's stock performa…

I'm pretty sure I understand your point, but you're going about it in a way that makes it hard to have a useful conversation. You've essentially said "online advertising is bad, because I say so, and these companies are big and they do it, so you should be worried about them." Is all advertising bad? What makes advertising bad? To what degree do these companies participate in that behavior? Is all lobbying bad? Shoul…

I think the GP's points in the comment you replied to are basically:

- advertising in general is a "a murky and often slimy place"

- Google and Facebook are two behemots, who live in and out of that "murky place"

- given their side, influence over public life (as evidenced by lobbying efforts, besides the usual things), and "past propensity for bad behavior" (as the GP tried to evidence with some examples), they're much more interesting to look at than some random startup that's obviously evil, but also obviously not as influential

At least that's how I understood it.

Re: The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

#185

Post by chao- »

kbenson wrote: post #139
chao- wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logical extension of that is a justification for current, smaller players building new "hills of skulls" in their quest to build their own new nation. But hey! You know, once they're big too, they can put it all the shady dealings in the past and be one of the good guys, and it'll all be fine! It's a weak justification.

> The logical extension of that is a justification for current, smaller players building new "hills of skulls" in their quest to build their own new nation. Maybe you can explain this logical extension, because I don't see it. At a minimum, it's not self-evident.

Precisely what lhc- says. When you wrote:

> "Has done in the past" is not the same as "is currently doing".

Because the "is currently doing" is predicated on a path to success that rested on "has done in the past", I interpreted that as promoting an "ends justifies the means" strategy of growing a company. That is: If you have to do bad things to get to be big enough to do good things, well so be it.

Similarly, you later wrote:

> In my experience, plenty of people do things when they are young that they are ashamed of later in life, and would not repeat. Why should I believe the same can't be said of a company, which is made up of people?

I don't disagree with your statements as observations. I disagree with the lackadaisical presentation of this sort of corporate behavior as something which, by-and-by, people should let slide, so why worry about it?

Furthermore, a young person is comprised (by definition) of a single young person. A young company can sometimes be made up of young people. However, a young company can also be made up of seasoned, cynical people who take seriously the attitude of doing bad when it helps you succeed, and well, maybe some good when you can afford to later on.

Re: The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

#186

Post by fapjacks »

xzel wrote: post #171
natdempk wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally it's an extended internship as a supplemental part of a university curriculum.

Exactly. To further hypothesize, Drexel, a Philadelphia university, offers mostly 5 year degrees with co-ops which more often than not involve local Philadelphia companies.

Hah! Philadelphia! That makes perfect sense.

Re: The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

#187

Post by ryanl0l »

notacoward wrote: post #159
vonmoltke wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it isn't. Your statement is wrong and based on a flawed interpretation of Dodge v. Ford that makes the rounds on the Internet and refuses to die.

Thank you. Actions that are deemed to have been taken solely for their tax effects are clearly and explicitly deemed tax evasion by the IRS, and are prosecuted as such. I believe other countries have similar standards. There's a lot of room to give people the benefit of the doubt, e.g. by counting the good will from charitable activities as a credible alternate reason, but there's no license and certainly no requirem…

>Actions that are deemed to have been taken solely for their tax effects are clearly and explicitly deemed tax evasion by the IRS

This is just not true.

Re: The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

#188

Post by duaneb »

eloff wrote: post #93
aresant wrote: post #62

So what else is new. If you work at Facebook or Google you're benefiting directly from the similarly shady practices they used to grow on their way to being "pillars of tech" today. Do you remember when at LEAST 20% of Facebook's revenue came from Zynga? Like less than 5 years ago? Many speculated it was considerably higher, but Facebook never provided a full accounting (1). Or do you remember when Facebook literally…

Despite the examples you give, I don't think it's fair to lump Facebook and Google in with 50onRed. The former two are mostly above board, with some occasional exceptions, while the latter is completely, morally, underwater.

> The former two are mostly above board, with some occasional exceptions

I'd say the exceptions are where the corporate interests align with moral ones. It's a pity we now view traditional ad providers and ad "injectors" as separate entities with clearly distinct morals—both are still preying on people who probably don't realize they're clicking on ads at all. Google and facebook simply do the footwork on user experience to not alienate the people who do realize a) what a bullshit experience online ads are and b) that they are perfectly able to block them.

I'd prefer the perks over a false sense of integrity in my business. Not that one would have to choose in this case.

Re: The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

#189

Post by phonon »

phjesusthatguy3 wrote: post #151
fiatmoney wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every nation is built on a hill of skulls. "Has done in the past" is not the same as "is currently doing".

>Every nation is built on a hill of skulls Did you quote that from somewhere? Because that is an amazing turn of phrase.

Probably thinking of the founding of Rome. (Fratricide) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_and_Remus

Re: The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

#190

Post by TeMPOraL »

cookiecaper wrote: post #99
aresant wrote: post #62

So what else is new. If you work at Facebook or Google you're benefiting directly from the similarly shady practices they used to grow on their way to being "pillars of tech" today. Do you remember when at LEAST 20% of Facebook's revenue came from Zynga? Like less than 5 years ago? Many speculated it was considerably higher, but Facebook never provided a full accounting (1). Or do you remember when Facebook literally…

Yeah, I think one of the dirty secrets that doesn't really come across until you've been in the entrepreneurial trenches for a while is that most people who make a lot of money end up doing so not by being paragons of morality, but by skirting rules and doing things other people may find questionable or unfair. YC itself acknowledges this to an extent by saying that good founders are moral, but that they are not "goo…

> Now I understand you must play that game, that everyone plays that game, and they just don't talk about it because it doesn't help them to do so. It helps them to keep potential competitors naive.

Yeah, and that's the primary reason I increasingly don't want to be an entrepreneur. Call me naive, but even if I could somehow handle the necessary sacrifice of conscience to be able to compete in the marketplace, I think I wouldn't like the person I would become very much.

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