131–140 of 166 posts
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Yea, joke is on us, because they'll still develop the thing they told the pentagon they would develop, all while appearing to be 'good guys' to people (which is apparently quite a few people) who don't understand how contracts work.
Those existing contracts are about see quite a few "scope changes"
> Big tech firms have been known to intimidate startups into agreeing to a sale, saying that they will launch a competing service and put the startup out of business unless they agree to a deal... > Big tech firms are able to shell out huge sums to keep top performers and even average employees in their fold and make it uneconomical for their workers to consider joining startups. Reminds me so much of the show Silico…
I’m not always convinced Google, Amazon, etc can start a product and compete in a new market and have it work 100% of the time. These companies have plenty of their own flops. Many things come to mind: google plus, amazons smart phones, MSs acquisition Skype... Certainly they have scale advantages, but there’s also diseconomies of scale that can work against them.
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Is BTEC suddenly a notable qualification? And isn't A1 the lowest level (up to 5?). Last thing I heard was that Pearsons BTEC system was a gateway to University in the UK; akin to GCSE or A-Level depending on the level taken. And A1 would be year 10 (14-15 years old) ~ GCSE level grades.. no? If this is no longer the case my BTEC's are going to get a prominent position on my CV.
A1 was the specialised version of a mech ENG BTECH aimed at the pump, turbine, hydrodynamic and aerospace industries it did cover all 5 levels up to the equivalent of a HND aka first two years of Uni. All but one of us worked at the bleeding edge in research for the scientific civil service or in related civilian organisations based at Cranfield. I did do a spec pitch a few years ago to a small engineering company RB…
BTEC A1 is introductory level from all sources I can find.
https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/pearson...
https://university.which.co.uk/advice/a-level-choices/what-a...
This article makes the case for government intervention [0]. The central thesis is that, had Microsoft not been sued for antitrust in the 90s and wary of yet another lawsuit, they would have killed Google in its infancy. Apparently anonymous sources in both companies confirmed this would have been a distinct possibility. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/magazine/the-case-against...
Hypotheticals don't work in law. You don't punish someone who hasn't commited a crime.thats common law. Now if it were Europe style civil law, it would be different. Also if Google had died in its infancy, there's nothing that guarantees that another search engine would not not prop up. All great ideas come to fruition when the time is right. 'Search' was ready in 1999. Similarly many falsely believe that the interne…
As much as I don't agree with it in certain cases hypothetical very much apply. All sort so things that have a small but nonzero chance of a bad outcome are violations of civil and or criminal law (e.g a speeding ticket).
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Hypotheticals don't work in law. You don't punish someone who hasn't commited a crime.thats common law. Now if it were Europe style civil law, it would be different. Also if Google had died in its infancy, there's nothing that guarantees that another search engine would not not prop up. All great ideas come to fruition when the time is right. 'Search' was ready in 1999. Similarly many falsely believe that the interne…
Civil law is one thing, and has btw nothing to do with crime and punishment - that would be criminal law. Protecting a market from becoming a monopoly is another thing entirely; punishment isn't a category here but the overwhelming interest to enable everybody to participate in a market within reason. Shielding individuals from the law of the strong (as in the jungle) and the natural tendency for monopolies is the en…
1. The legal system [1], based on Roman law, that is common in former French colonies across the world (e.g. Quebec, Louisiana, France).
2. In common law legal systems, the branch of the law that deal with non-criminal matters [2].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law_(legal_system) [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law_(common_law)
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No, they move there because they hope that math works out that way, and they think they will be the one guy out of 10? 20? 100? where it actually does work out.
I don’t understand what is the unlikely thing to happen in the scenario described. If you’re talking about striking millions in startup exit/IPO money, I def agree with you it’s unlikely.
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Yeah I often joke I want to decline at least $6 Billion. (Following Facebook declining Yahoo’s $1.5B buyout offer and later Groupon declining $4B. Yeah our company’s that old.) Anyway I met the lawyer of the Free Software Foundation, Eben Moglen, with one question: how can I prevent the tech giants from cloning my open source software, while the indie shops can? He said AGPL. That’s the poison pill you need for those…
Wouldn't GPL v3 be as effective as AGPL in this context?
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My current "quarter life crisis" is around this number, it appears to getting from $150-200k in liquid salary is MUCH more difficult than $100-150. So if liquid income is your "north star metric" job wise, what do you do?
RSUs in a public company are liquid, they can just be volatile.
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Hypotheticals don't work in law. You don't punish someone who hasn't commited a crime.thats common law. Now if it were Europe style civil law, it would be different. Also if Google had died in its infancy, there's nothing that guarantees that another search engine would not not prop up. All great ideas come to fruition when the time is right. 'Search' was ready in 1999. Similarly many falsely believe that the interne…
>Hypotheticals don't work in law. You don't punish someone who hasn't committed a crime.thats common law. As much as I don't agree with it in certain cases hypothetical very much apply. All sort so things that have a small but nonzero chance of a bad outcome are violations of civil and or criminal law (e.g a speeding ticket).
This is not anti competitive behaviour. In fact, this IS competition. Competition means all sorts of actions that lead to me having more customers than you. The only problem is when the entrenched business use govt/lobbying/abusive patent law to get this done. Buying out competition and trying to enter a low barrier to entry business is the very definition of competition. Suck it up
There's also an argument to be made that big tech giants have some benefits for startup ecosystems. The option of being bought out, for example, acts as a safety net, so that even if your company doesn't have explosive growth that lets it go public, well at least you'll get something out of it. Similarly, having tech giants nearby means that even if your startup just implodes, you can probably still get a decent job in the area (going from big company to startup to back again is really common in the bay area, for example).
Disclaimer: I work at Google, my opinion is my own, etc.