221–230 of 335 posts
So yes salary was good, benefits where good, there was no work, but "there is no free lunch".
And they wonder why house prices in the bay area are so high. :-( I started work at Sun Microsystems on the Monday after they had IPO'ed (the previous Friday). It was about a year later when all of the various restrictions on personal stock sales had been lifted that I clued in that some people just didn't care any more about work and it was quietly explained to my shocked ears that these people were now multi-millio…
I had $30k in Sun stock at one time; lost it all.
I sold some of the stock I had gotten as part of the employee stock purchase plan to buy a brand new car for cash. It was the first time in my life I didn't have a car payment every month. That was in January of 1995. When I sold that car in 1999 to a used car dealer he asked what I paid for it, I told him $1.6M. That was what the stock would have been worth had I held it until 1999. Then I used the stock in a company that had acquired my startup to buy a replacement car, again for cash. When I sold that car in 2009 the equivalent value for the stock was just $280. A bargain!
The dot com days taught me the hard way why you diversify. Sure you don't get the big returns like the ones you hear about where a person invested it all in one stock that went through the roof. But you also don't lose it all when the stock goes down either.
All things in moderation, and now when I have more money in a stock than I'd like to lose I sell half and put the proceeds into something unrelated to the stock I sold.
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Google has such a vast amount of data on users that its search really can't be beat right now. If you're fully in the ecosystem with mail, maps, contacts, calendar, smartphone, apps, etc. you're going to get better results -- not to mention switching could mean giving up these integrated products.
So if we break up Google, this harms consumers by stopping the integration.
We need to stop letting Google protect it's poor quality products by bundling them with their good ones.
So working 9-5 is "coasting"...? Fuck you. I've got kids.
If you have a market position that allows this, especially one you created for yourself, I have no grudge against you. That narrative is entirely a construction of companies...just as 'welfare queens' is to try and argue against worker protections and rights.
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I had $30k in Sun stock at one time; lost it all.
A friend of mine worked too hard, his wife got fed up and divorced him. It was horrible, he had to sell of his Sun stock so that he his wife could have half. That was in the late 1990s. He has really mixed feelings about it. I sold some of the stock I had gotten as part of the employee stock purchase plan to buy a brand new car for cash. It was the first time in my life I didn't have a car payment every month. That w…
These engineers are worth more to them just sitting around relaxing, being content with their lives instead of taking a high octane job at a competitor or startup that will eventually compete with one of their smaller services (mail, ad analytics, etc).
True. The issue then becomes: what could they be doing for society? This takes more ingenuity and leadership.
Some people willfully choose to turn their focus towards their personal lives, raising their kids, etc while still being paid a lot of money in a cushy job where they are respected.
Yes, but the Wall Street CEO's are sooooo hard working. Give me a break. I once worked for a company whose CEO completely ran the thing into the ground and eventually got fired but got paid millions anyhow. I jokingly said I could have ruined the company for half what they paid that meathead. I think the real scandal is the ridiculous amounts of money CEO's get paid for doing nothing in a lot of cases. The money thes…
This is probably why Apple, a hardware company, has operating margins that are higher than Google and Microsoft (even though their gross margins are almost half of Google's and Microsoft's). The only person I can think of that might have this arrangement at Apple is Scott Forstall. I think that's why he's been radio silent until very recently (or he could just be very loyal to Apple). Maybe Katie Cotton when they cha…
A friend of a friend at Apple seemed to have a very long leash. He was involved in the original iPhone, but afterward he kind of bounced around, spent time in Japan, "worked" at home, did a lot of other projects. He and Apple eventually parted ways, but I'm not sure he was fired, and at any rate it was after years of this kind of behavior.
I think the closest that might come to this is Bob Mansfield. He returned after his retirement shortly after Scott Forstall left and eventually gave up his executive role, but even then he continued to work on "special projects", which turned out to be the Apple Watch [1] and now the Apple Car [2].
[1] https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/disruptions-apple-...
[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-taps-bob-mansfield-to-ove...
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Are you really surprised that people can't get along when they re stuck together 24/7 all days? That's what happens when they retire.
My wife and I recently took a trip together involving hours of driving throughout western Europe. We were glad to find we enjoyed just being together, even at the end of the trip. I think it's important to keep building that relationship (courting) throughout the working years, not just to avoid hitting retirement and thinking, "What am I going to do with this person for the rest of my life?" but also just to enjoy a…
Currently. Feelings towards people change constantly. They can hit extreme levels on either side at any moment.
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My wife and I recently took a trip together involving hours of driving throughout western Europe. We were glad to find we enjoyed just being together, even at the end of the trip. I think it's important to keep building that relationship (courting) throughout the working years, not just to avoid hitting retirement and thinking, "What am I going to do with this person for the rest of my life?" but also just to enjoy a…
"We were glad to find we enjoyed just being together" Currently. Feelings towards people change constantly. They can hit extreme levels on either side at any moment.
Seems like a house - if you don't do maintenance, it gradually deteriorates until it becomes unlivable, but with continual maintenance and improvements, it can last forever...