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I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion
151–160 of 163 posts
Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
It really doesnt matter whether the startup gives you 4500, 1500, or 45000, or a million. You are being given the numerator without knowing the denominator, so it is all worth zero until you get to see the Cap Table. Most startups wont let you see the Cap Table. Even if you saw the Cap Table, there is still a lot of uncertainty, tons of illiquidity, and a long horizon. Options are nice, but they are not cash and do n…
I feel like you didn't actually read/understand his comment. He stated they were worth $0, implying that it doesn't matter how many they give; they're still worth $0. It was cheekily pointing out how worthless stock options in a pre-IPO startup are.
He was also differentiating between 1500 and 4500 options, which suggested he didnt value them at zero.
Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like you didn't actually read/understand his comment. He stated they were worth $0, implying that it doesn't matter how many they give; they're still worth $0. It was cheekily pointing out how worthless stock options in a pre-IPO startup are.
Why would stock options be worthless just because a company is pre-IPO?
Specifically what I said was that they are worthless until you get to see the cap table (which most startups will not show you.)
Stocks are shares in a company. Imagine you have a box with money in it. And I tell you you get 4500 parts of this box. But I dont tell you how many parts there are total -- you see the numerator but not the denominator. In that situation it is impossible to discern the value of your 4500 parts since you dont know how many ways the money gets split.
It gets trickier, because cap tables also have liquidity preferences. So you can have 4500 parts of the box. And another person can have 4500 parts, but their 4500 might be worth a whole lot more than your 4500 because there are different classes of stocks. It isn't uncommon to have one class paid first, in whole or 1.x greater than whole before the next class gets paid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidation_preference
Oh, then there is the actual business -- there is tons of business risk. Even if the business does well, it may be in the red and the future of the company (and worth of your shares) are dependent on successive rounds of funding and their implied valuation. You get a down-round and you might be wiped out. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/downround.asp
Even if everything gets well, depending on the classes of shares of decision-makers, you can end up in a situation where the founders/board might have an incentive to sell at just an amount where they make out well but employees get wiped out. Case: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/technology/when-a-unicorn...
Or Levandowski's side startup where the company got sold for just enough for Levandowski to make out golden https://www.wired.com/story/god-is-a-bot-and-anthony-levando...
The Net-Net of all this is: stock options are not worthless, their worth is based on a formula with a dozen+ variables, almost none of which you know the values/ranges/distributions for -- and a formula where many combinations of theoretical inputs result in zero value.
Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, and STEM is different? Let me try: math and physics aren't about understanding quantity and the universe; they are about memorizing equations and pretending you know them just in time for the test. Computer science is about more about copying and pasting code and getting away with it. What you're describing - where gaming the system is the norm - is entirely valid, and a problem with education institutions as a w…
> Oh, and STEM is different? You're making claims about philosophy, I'm not making claims about STEM - I don't know what you're trying to accomplish. > Not everybody agrees, so therefore liberal arts education is invalid? No. Not everybody agrees, thereforce "liberal arts advances humanity" isn't agreed upon and shouldn't guide us. Let's agree upon it first. > you're saying "nobody should do anything but the work" No…
We’re getting nowhere with this. This entire thread was about STEM vs other majors, and you were singling out philosophy. You can’t just decouple yourself and your arguments from the context of the conversation and claim i’m straw-manning you. And again, you have a severe misconception that none of these “bullshit majors” are useful, and that somehow a lack of consensus on everything invalidates competing ideas. And come on, “torture people” is bringing your argument to absurity. You’re basically arguing that individuality is a bad thing now. I can’t change your perspective, but suffice to say it’s short sighted.
Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Black people and women in the US got the right to vote just in the past century. What about that says STEM to you?
History is very complicated thing. But the quick spread of the trend would not be possible without communications and expanding transocean travel to name the least. Same applies to coordinated protest activities.
There are ripple effects with everything, and yes technology always provides disruption, but it would be absurd to say that technology accomplished these things.
Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
A major which the labor market doesn't need in the quantities that are being churned out by colleges, such as the classic "would you like fries with that" English major. It's not "bullshit" if you're independently wealthy and can pay to "study" for "fun", or as a second major to something that's in demand. But for everybody else I'd consider more in-demand professions, even though they're usually much harder. For an…
You can go even farther, if less than 50% of the people studying it work in that field, maybe less than 20% work there? And their expected wages can't pay for the cost of the college education in 20 years, then it's very questionable to study in that field. Unless you are rich already.
>You can go even farther, if less than 50% of the people studying it work in that field, maybe less than 20% work there?
By that metric, one of my undergrad majors (physics) is a bullshit major as very few of us went into that field. But it prepared us very well for many other fields, so I'd say that metric is not meaningful.
Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a very important observation. It's been almost 20 years since I was an undergraduate, but at the time (I went to UCSD), general college requirements were overwhelmingly tilted toward the humanities. Specific requirements varied on which particular college you attended, but often required a 2 lower division survey of world history and cultures, 2 years of a foreign language, and 1-2 courses in performing arts.…
Gen-ed humanities courses taught to giant lecture halls aren't quite the same as the much smaller courses the majors take. You are extremely likely to be put on the spot and made to defend a subjective position you've taken. They're tough and require you have tons of knowledge at hand to succeed in them. In math, and to some extent engineering or science, you can often reason your way through if you get stuck, or at…
I agree, but I also believe stem majors are more likely to take upper division humanities courses than the other way around. Gen ed requirements are sufficient to take an upper division history course, whereas upper div stem courses typically require two years of calculus, linear algebra, and ordinary differential equations.
Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Oh, and STEM is different? You're making claims about philosophy, I'm not making claims about STEM - I don't know what you're trying to accomplish. > Not everybody agrees, so therefore liberal arts education is invalid? No. Not everybody agrees, thereforce "liberal arts advances humanity" isn't agreed upon and shouldn't guide us. Let's agree upon it first. > you're saying "nobody should do anything but the work" No…
We’re getting nowhere with this. This entire thread was about STEM vs other majors, and you were singling out philosophy. You can’t just decouple yourself and your arguments from the context of the conversation and claim i’m straw-manning you. And again, you have a severe misconception that none of these “bullshit majors” are useful, and that somehow a lack of consensus on everything invalidates competing ideas. And…
> and you were singling out philosophy
No, I wasn't. You made claims about philosophy and I uttered my doubts because they didn't match my personal experience at all. You then decided to tell me how bad STEM was, which I hadn't even mention.
> you have a severe misconception that none of these “bullshit majors” are useful
That's not what I said. They might very well be useful, my point is that we should let the market decide whether they are. Vague statements about some loss of culture or a descent into dystopian nightmares if we don't finance them just isn't that - it's fear mongering to push something through without giving those a vote that are supposed to pay for it.
> “torture people” is bringing your argument to absurity
You should've taken a few philosophy classes, especially logic. Using extremes and hypothetical situations is what you do to test an argument/claim. If you present a claim and I present to you an example that makes your claim fall short, there's no "well, exceptions prove the rule", that's not how logic works.
> You’re basically arguing that individuality is a bad thing now.
Somewhat, sure. I don't like the kind of individuality that wants all the freedom but puts the responsibility (that is: footing the bill) on other people. Either say "I want to be free, and I will suffer the consequences of my decisions" or enjoy the protection of the collective at the cost of having to also submit to the collective's rules & needs, and limit your freedom. If you want the collective to pay for what you study & work in, choose something that the collective needs and it will gladly pay for it.
Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's like saying don't bother studying so you can get to the NBA. For the unicorns that can pull that off, sure. For the other 99.9999999999999% of the population of the planet it's really bad advice.
I consider virtually all the time I spent in higher education to be wasted. The actually educational pieces of a Ph.D. in physics; probably about 2 years worth of effort, using existing didactic techniques. Probably a year if you did it right -then maybe another year to work on a problem. Einstein getting his Ph.D. when he was 21 was considered normal once. "Higher education" is mostly make-work for pedants and busy…
No, it's called hyperbole. It's used to make a point.
Re: I'm a Data Scientist and It's Not My Passion
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
That QZ article gets a lot wrong. In particular: > if the tech bubble bursts, computer science may even be riskier than a humanities degree, which gives graduates a broader set of knowledge. How do humanities degrees provide "broader knowledge" than CS degrees? Different, sure, but broader? Good CS degrees are not coding bootcamps. CS students take a lot of mathematics and logic-heavy courses and can easily pivot fro…
That's a very important observation. It's been almost 20 years since I was an undergraduate, but at the time (I went to UCSD), general college requirements were overwhelmingly tilted toward the humanities. Specific requirements varied on which particular college you attended, but often required a 2 lower division survey of world history and cultures, 2 years of a foreign language, and 1-2 courses in performing arts.…
My understanding is that colleges used to focus more on humanities because they allowed one to better understand culture. However, it seems like the view of college has changed to that of vocational training and with that the the running of schools like a business where costs are inflated and degree economics are emphasized.