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Why I left Google to join Grab

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Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#141

Post by crispinb »

manigandham wrote: post #63
crispinb wrote: post #20

How depressing. Our living planet is collapsing at a dizzying and increasing pace, and not only do our 'best and brightest' (if that's what they are) work largely on trivia designed to accelerate the collapsing trend, they advertise their superficiality with this crude purported messianic zeal. Froth and bubble atop the dank turbid waters.

You made it sound way more depressing. Who says they are the best? Maybe you are - so change the world the way you want to.

> Who says they are the best? Maybe you are

Maturity comes with losses and gains: amongst the latter is understanding (and becoming content with) one's limitations.

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#142

Post by crispinb »

iso-8859-1 wrote: post #46
crispinb wrote: post #20

How depressing. Our living planet is collapsing at a dizzying and increasing pace, and not only do our 'best and brightest' (if that's what they are) work largely on trivia designed to accelerate the collapsing trend, they advertise their superficiality with this crude purported messianic zeal. Froth and bubble atop the dank turbid waters.

Which project should he work on instead?

I could hardly know, from reading a few blog posts, enough about the man to say. I can claim that, given his history, the world is pretty much Yegge's oyster, so he's in a position to do a huge variety of worthwhile things. That he doesn't is obviously entirely his business, right up to the point that he makes public declamations combining world-blindness, triviality and self-important puffery in such an appalling way.

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#143

Post by crispinb »

gamblor956 wrote: post #115
zeveb wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine that getting better food options to millions of people and enabling tens of thousands to start businesses does impact the poorer half of mankind positively. We've seen for decades that the typical Western approach of throwing money at the elites of a poor country really doesn't help improve life for the impoverished; it's when we create opportunities for them that their lives become measurably better. Contr…

It will be extremely difficult to replicate European prosperity without replicating the colonial system that made it possible and is largely responsible for the state of the developing world today.

If true, just as well. Given we're already so far beyond the living planet's carrying capacity (nearly every ecosystem is already in rapid decline) replicating European 'prosperity' (actually future-theft) would be cataclysmic. Extend-and-pretend 'economics' (ie. 18thC superstition) just pushes all the decisions out to a future that never arrives.

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#144

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

perseusprime11 wrote: post #123

I felt like his rant was all over the place this time. I would like to understand his definition of innovation and by that definition, who is innovating and who is not innovating. Google+ example is an ancient one, and the current Google is very different from that. Does he have a problem with Sundar's vision of making Google into a machine learning first company? Does he see the distinction of Alphabet and Google, a…

It often is. we should just ignore it but given that it's Steve Yegge that's not gonna happen.

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#145

Post by [deleted] »

sgift wrote: post #55

> When this idea inevitably takes off, people are going to be able to order take-out from their neighbors, from anyone in the city who wants to cook their family recipe. It will change cuisine forever. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. As if such things as hygiene regulations didn't exist and you can just open a restaurant by hanging a sign out and telling someone to deliver whatever you just produced in y…

[deleted]

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#146

Post by argonaut »

crispinb wrote: post #20

How depressing. Our living planet is collapsing at a dizzying and increasing pace, and not only do our 'best and brightest' (if that's what they are) work largely on trivia designed to accelerate the collapsing trend, they advertise their superficiality with this crude purported messianic zeal. Froth and bubble atop the dank turbid waters.

Except by your standards, Grab is a vast improvement over Google, an advertising company.

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#147

Post by argonaut »

ian0 wrote: post #44

:( I loved this authors previous blog posts but man this one has a lot of inaccuracies - People don't trust apps more than they do banks. Traditional bank accounts are expensive (for bank & users) and its this has been the primary limiter of financial inclusion. Mobile wallets reduce branch costs. Mobile wallets like Grab, where the "bank" has a few hundred thousand employee / customers and millions of potential user…

Also agree with ponyfleisch. Taxis as a foreigner in Thailand were always a gamble. 50/50 chance of a negative experience.

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#148

Post by alain94040 »

slouch wrote: post #122
cageface wrote: post #52

Grab is very popular here in Vietnam but I'm not as enthusiastic about it as Steve is. First of all, taxi service here is great. Taxis are cheap and plentiful and ripoffs are actually quite rare if you use one of the well known companies. Grab is burning VC to undercut the taxi companies and doesn't really deserve a better rep than Uber in that respect. Grab motorbike service is also very popular but in this case als…

put the oven in the car

Like zumepizza? Relevant panel discussion at last year's startup conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlW3wau3Lis

Re: Why I left Google to join Grab

#150

Post by Apocryphon »

18pfsmt wrote: post #126
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like unions are the new Rust on Hacker News.

I've got many friends in unions (e.g. pipefitters/welders) and based on the stories they tell me, unions need a 21st century reboot. They need a simple platform to organize/communicate digitally. Do you know of anything that exists like that?

If only there was an industry that was good at building new communications platforms + revamping 20th century institutions.
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