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The Summly deal makes no sense

philosophically.com

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Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#131

Post by bradleyland »

kyro wrote: post #123

For some who need perspective: Right now, somewhere in the world, a child is being born into an uberly rich family. That child will grow up to inherit millions for absolutely no work. He'll live the good life full of yachts and private jets. Right now, somewhere in the world, there is a party happening full of gorgeous wealthy people who need not lift a finger to attain the luxuries that they have. Their success is o…

I agree that all of the events you've listed are probably happening somewhere in the world, but I disagree that we should all just accept this as "the world we live in" and carry on. Look back across history and consider what would have happened if at any point, the people on the losing end of any deal were to simply keep their heads down and keep working.

It's worth talking about. It's worth criticizing. It may not be worth obsessing over, but it is worth some portion of our attention.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#132

Post by chime »

kyro wrote: post #123

For some who need perspective: Right now, somewhere in the world, a child is being born into an uberly rich family. That child will grow up to inherit millions for absolutely no work. He'll live the good life full of yachts and private jets. Right now, somewhere in the world, there is a party happening full of gorgeous wealthy people who need not lift a finger to attain the luxuries that they have. Their success is o…

> I get down about how unfair that is from time to time, but there's nothing you can really do about it, other than focus on your work.

Fairness is a fictional manmade concept. That we expect some sort of fairness in life is solely due to our social contract. It's not fair to me that someone steals my car and thus we have systems in place to address that. However, nothing in our laws, norms, ethics, or philosophy says that people must get everything they deserve and no more or no less. Hence the concept of fairness does not apply to kids of billionaires or friends of politically connected.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#133

Post by jimfl »

pisarzp wrote: post #25

I kind of agree with the author. Have I been engineer in Yahoo, I would ask myself question "Why is he paid so much, where we could do it in house better and spend this money on bonuses for employees?". Especially given that fact, that Summly doesn't even own this technology just licences it from SRI. The only explanation I see, is that what Yahoo actually really bought is the great licensing deal (flat fee? exclusiv…

Yahoo! engineers probably could do this. Yahoo! middle management not so much.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#134

Post by jimfl »

pisarzp wrote: post #25

I kind of agree with the author. Have I been engineer in Yahoo, I would ask myself question "Why is he paid so much, where we could do it in house better and spend this money on bonuses for employees?". Especially given that fact, that Summly doesn't even own this technology just licences it from SRI. The only explanation I see, is that what Yahoo actually really bought is the great licensing deal (flat fee? exclusiv…

Yahoo! engineers probably could do this. Yahoo! middle management not so much.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#135

Post by jamesaguilar »

kyro wrote: post #123

For some who need perspective: Right now, somewhere in the world, a child is being born into an uberly rich family. That child will grow up to inherit millions for absolutely no work. He'll live the good life full of yachts and private jets. Right now, somewhere in the world, there is a party happening full of gorgeous wealthy people who need not lift a finger to attain the luxuries that they have. Their success is o…

> unfair

It's laughable that a programmer would worry about how unfair the industry is on the top end. Do you get how lucky we are compared even to other engineers? To say nothing of service workers who work much harder for much less.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#136

Post by thiagoperes »

Let's say you're Yahoo:

You're making a huge effort towards mobile, with no apparent success.

You see a small team that built a great product, that fits mobile nicely and that has a huge user base. BTW, You have a lot of money.

A 17yr old boy did something that lots of highly skilled engineers, managers, designer couldn't do, and that you pay a lot of money.

If you have the chance to acquire a great product with a huge user base, wouldn't you do it (being a company like Yahoo)?

--------

That's the same as the Instagram deal. Huge companies are not succeeding in mobile, but they need to do this right and create a mobile presence. If it costs "only" 30m, it's a great deal if you ask me.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#137

Post by brvs »

chime wrote: post #132
kyro wrote: post #123

For some who need perspective: Right now, somewhere in the world, a child is being born into an uberly rich family. That child will grow up to inherit millions for absolutely no work. He'll live the good life full of yachts and private jets. Right now, somewhere in the world, there is a party happening full of gorgeous wealthy people who need not lift a finger to attain the luxuries that they have. Their success is o…

> I get down about how unfair that is from time to time, but there's nothing you can really do about it, other than focus on your work. Fairness is a fictional manmade concept. That we expect some sort of fairness in life is solely due to our social contract. It's not fair to me that someone steals my car and thus we have systems in place to address that. However, nothing in our laws, norms, ethics, or philosophy say…

I think you meant "my concept of fairness".

Because other peoples' concepts of fairness certainly do consider the ultra-rich.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#138

Post by newbie12 »

kyro wrote: post #123

For some who need perspective: Right now, somewhere in the world, a child is being born into an uberly rich family. That child will grow up to inherit millions for absolutely no work. He'll live the good life full of yachts and private jets. Right now, somewhere in the world, there is a party happening full of gorgeous wealthy people who need not lift a finger to attain the luxuries that they have. Their success is o…

Bitter and jealous is no way to go through life. All of these guys executed on their project or have specialized knowledge. The pie is not zero-sum, and we live in the greatest, most fair time in human history.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#139

Post by samtp »

scholia wrote: post #58

Last year's press release had quotes from Daniel Ek (Spotify) and Mary Meeker, and said: "Summly is backed by several investors, including Horizons Ventures, Ashton Kutcher, Betaworks, Brian Chesky, Hosain Rahman, Joanna Shields, Josh Kushner, Mark Pincus, Matt Mullenweg, Stephen Fry, Troy Carter, Yoko Ono and many more." Not exactly a teen-programmer-in-mother's-basement story...

His dad is a commodities trader/energy financier at Morgan Stanley.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#140

Post by cygwin98 »

larrik wrote: post #128
kyro wrote: post #123

For some who need perspective: Right now, somewhere in the world, a child is being born into an uberly rich family. That child will grow up to inherit millions for absolutely no work. He'll live the good life full of yachts and private jets. Right now, somewhere in the world, there is a party happening full of gorgeous wealthy people who need not lift a finger to attain the luxuries that they have. Their success is o…

I thought the point was that Yahoo, a public company, was throwing away 30 million for no apparent gain.

That's the part I don't understand capitalism: on one hand, big corps try to save every dime by downsizing and outsourcing, and on the other hand, they pour money like this.
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