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Experts from a world that no longer exists

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Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#231

Post by leobg »

kingcharles wrote: post #30

This quote made me feel better: "Some of the biggest businesses of the last 10 years are all in industries that were the starkest examples of stupidity 20 years ago." I'm still a little bitter from VC experiences 20 years ago. In 1998 my friends and I built a browser-based (Java applet) collaborative word processor and spreadsheet called Office Wherever (o-w.com). We shopped it to a dozen VCs and all went ROFLMAOWTFB…

Experiences like this seem not to have made Musk bitter, but just even more determined.[1]

Comes down to the old “Would you rather be famous for a great thing you never did, or have done something great without anybody else realizing it?”

You experienced the same things as Elon Musk. When he pitched Zip2, the execs from Yellow Pages laughed at him, shoved the yellow pages book over the table and said, “So you think you’re gonna replace THIS?”.

What you're saying is that you have seen things and done things like Elon Musk. You didn't get the wealth and the recognition. But that you have these things "in you" - how many people can say that about themselves? You not only had really visionary ideas that were proven right within a decade. But you also built a Google Docs and a Netflix before Google and Netflix did.

You're one of the Semmelweises or Lickliders of history. They didn't get rich, and most people don't know about them. But they are the ones who actually drive our world forwards. They are the ones who go "Zero to One". The others are just resellers, even if they end up getting all the credit.

[1] I mean, the guy was bullied at school and still did not, as one might expect, end up being driven in life by “paying them back”, or by retreating from humanity. This trait of “taking a lot of crap without becoming dirty himself” is an underestimated quality that he has.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#232

Post by labcomputer »

anonporridge wrote: post #226
trenning wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding on to your first paragraph about dependency on stock market performance for retirement. 401ks that my generation is used to are a concept only ~36years old, even at that most companies didn't start offering them until the 90s. It's a very young tool that we're only just now seeing play out for people reaching retirement age that missed the ubiquitous pension era. And roth IRA was introduced in 1997. No comment…

I'll admit that one of the things that makes me nervous about the Roth, and not taking your tax advantage now instead of later, is that in an extreme situation, the government could renege on the promise of tax free gains and distributions. They can't renege on the tax advantage they already gave you with a traditional.

You have to think more creatively :)

What about a surtax on distributions from traditional IRAs?

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#233

Post by leobg »

intrasight wrote: post #62

I did enjoy the article. I forwarded it to some colleagues. I wasn't aware of Ford's rule. But I will say that the rule perhaps only applied in that place and time. I've worked in the nuclear industry, in defense, in aerospace. Not documenting failures in those industries would be a recipe for disaster. Technology is way too complicated today. The man who "either did not know or paid no attention to the previous figu…

Oh, well. The early 1900s. Henry Ford not heeding safety precautions. Carl Jung having affairs with his therapy clients. Gotta break some eggs to make an industry, don’t you?

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#234

Post by underdeserver »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #161
kristjansson wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, the point of the comment being that generous defined benefit pension schemes probably aren’t some paneceal solution that capital is now withholding, but that they were at best a burden and at worst a lie.

How are individuals supposed to have it any easier, though? Should people just be forced to work until they drop? Or does everybody now need to be some kind of financial genius in order to make retirement work?

In much of the western world, people set aside ~10% of their paycheck to a pension fund, which then invests it in relatively solid options (stocks, real estate, bonds, with a risk profile that adjusts over time as the worker ages).

If you do that throughout a career - keeping the same fund between employers - you have an independent source of income for retirement. By giving significant tax benefits to not withdrawing this money early, most people who worked most of their careers will be set for retirement.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#235

Post by [deleted] »

raziel2701 wrote: post #37
nickdothutton wrote: post #23

What I found interesting is that the period for reappearance of “failed ideas” is roughly the length of a career. Coincidence or due to any real effect I don’t know. I wrote a little about it here: “Don’t be discouraged by the failure of technology or approaches of the past. If the problem is still important after all this time then it’s a problem worth solving. Don’t avoid unsuccessful solutions. Avoid insignificant…

I went through grad school and I saw how change comes about one funeral at a time. A big shot professor that has made their name with their pet theory/work will fiercely defend it against competing ideas, and people will defer to their expertise. It's not scientific, it's egotistic. They are a wall against progress that gets removed upon death. These professors can also create a dogma through their students who also…

[deleted]

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#236

Post by sul_tasto »

nickdothutton wrote: post #23

What I found interesting is that the period for reappearance of “failed ideas” is roughly the length of a career. Coincidence or due to any real effect I don’t know. I wrote a little about it here: “Don’t be discouraged by the failure of technology or approaches of the past. If the problem is still important after all this time then it’s a problem worth solving. Don’t avoid unsuccessful solutions. Avoid insignificant…

I found your article very interesting, but how does one know which problems are ripe for revisiting?

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#237

Post by nly »

underdeserver wrote: post #234
actually_a_dog wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are individuals supposed to have it any easier, though? Should people just be forced to work until they drop? Or does everybody now need to be some kind of financial genius in order to make retirement work?

In much of the western world, people set aside ~10% of their paycheck to a pension fund, which then invests it in relatively solid options (stocks, real estate, bonds, with a risk profile that adjusts over time as the worker ages). If you do that throughout a career - keeping the same fund between employers - you have an independent source of income for retirement. By giving significant tax benefits to not withdrawin…

Here in the UK:

> After a lifetime of saving, the average UK pension pot stands at £61,897. With current annuity rates, this would buy you an average retirement income of only around £3,000 extra per year from 67, which added to the maximum State Pension, makes just over £12,000 a year, just enough for a basic retirement lifestyle.

Source[0]. £12K is $16K USD/yr

There are also some sobering statistics on PensionBee[1]

[0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/financial-services/pensions-advi...

[1] https://www.pensionbee.com/next-generation-of-retirees-repor...

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#238

Post by nly »

dehrmann wrote: post #230
nly wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is we're all now dependent on stock market performance to make retirement feasible. Employer guaranteed defined-benefit pension schemes are dead. My uncles pension scheme was structured to pay out 1.5% of his final salary, inflation adjusted for the rest of his life, for each year he'd worked. He worked at one company his whole career, from age 18 to age 55, when he retired. Factoring in his mortgage, whi…

> Employer guaranteed defined-benefit pension schemes are dead What do you think those funds invest(ed) in? If stocks and bonds don't perform well, how do those funds continue to make their payments? The shift to individual plans shifted responsibility, hurt some efficiencies pensions could get because they can plan for the mean, not the p95, and decoupled retirement from employers, improving the labor market. All in…

Employer run schemes are/were supported by the business. The theory went that yes, they invested the pension funds in the market, but the business itself would always be there to contribute to cover the shortfall.

What fucked these schemes is falling bond yields

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#239

Post by lelanthran »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #214
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people think this - but most of Europe has been like this for a while. Why will it be so interesting when it happens in the US?

Yeah middle class homeownership is bullshit. Middle class stock ownership is less obviously good or bad, because the 0-sum nature of land is not present. When one gets right down to it, ownership is a too strong stuff. Total Control for eternity which is then sold in finite time in practice? Woah there, why so many infinities? "Rent" has a bad rep, but the problems of rent have to do with it being backstopped by owns…

So, what then? The state owns all the land and all company stock? Non-middle-class persons own all the land and all company stock?

Sounds like a great way to force everyone except the wealthy elite into poverty cycles. Maybe there is a reason that those countries that implement what you are talking about (no property ownership) are locked in either perpetual poverty or perpetual war against their own citizens.

Doing away with property ownership is a great way to join the ranks of the third world.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#240

Post by lelanthran »

eulers_secret wrote: post #219
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people think this - but most of Europe has been like this for a while. Why will it be so interesting when it happens in the US?

It's already that way in the US, the percentage of paid off home owners is ~29%. I don't know why some people consider themselves "owners" of assets the bank actually owns, but it's normal in the USA.

> It's already that way in the US, the percentage of paid off home owners is ~29%.

That 29% is a huge chunk of people; to put things in perspective US presidents win elections with a lower percentage of support from the population.

> I don't know why some people consider themselves "owners" of assets the bank actually owns, but it's normal in the USA.

Because they actually have equity in that asset, and that equity might be the majority? For example, they bought the house for $500k, then ten years later they owe $350k but the realisable value of the house is $800k. If the house is turned into cash, they own more of the cash than the bank does.

Also, because there is a clear path to ownership[1]? You aren't at the whim of the landlord - upgrade (or not) your property whichever way you feel is best with very little interference from the actual "owner" (i.e. the bank). If you have complete say in how an asset is used, and when it will be disposed off, and who may use it, that sure looks like ownership to me.

My residence, for example, will, at the current trajectory, be completely paid off in 24 months or less. My monthly costs drop dramatically at that point, which can be the major goal when "buying" property.

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