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Careless People

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Re: Careless People

#421

Post by m463 »

lordnacho wrote: post #96
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #9

> There's Zuck, whose underlings let him win at board-games like Settlers of Catan because he's a manbaby who can't lose (and who accuses Wynn-Williams of cheating when she fails to throw a game of Ticket to Ride while they're flying in his private jet). Why does this seem to be a recurring pattern among the modern ultrawealthy? Does anyone who fails to bend over backwards for them just end up getting exiled? Have th…

You've won the lottery, but you don't want to acknowledge that you won the lottery. You want to feel they you deserve your position through hard work and talent. You're living in a society where people are credulous, to some degree they believe that hard work and talent are related to success. So what will happen? Everyone you hire ends up patting you on the back, telling you what a great guy you are.

I kind of wonder if they have to dominate to be the unquestioned leader.

Like Steve Jobs dominating the whiteboard, or Elon Musk angrily emailing in early Tesla after not being mentioned by PR at the beginning.

Re: Careless People

#424

Post by bombcar »

armandososa wrote: post #416
matthewdgreen wrote: post #4

I’m only part of the way through the book, so have nothing to spoil here. But it’s entertaining. And shocking. The author will relate a scene that’s so absurd that you think “ah, this can’t be true, this is made up for dramatic effect, nobody would act like that” and then you Google it and you realize the absurd thing is totally true and was fully documented at the time. All the author is adding is a perspective from…

Did you find the author/narrator very unlikable? [mild spoilers ahead] I was tempted to stop reading after the shark attack story when she wakes up in the hospital and declares "I saved myself". Ugh. But I think it makes narrative sense: why would a good person stay at the company after all she has witnessed? It also makes the company leaders seem so much worse in comparison. One more thing: Is it credible that she h…

> One more thing: Is it credible that she had such a high profile job for so long and still be worried about money?

Read threads at bogleheads for a month or so. The eighth post that is a variation on "we have fifteen million dollars in cash, and more in stock, can we afford to buy a used 2008 Accord" and you'll go insane.

Re: Careless People

#425

Post by verteu »

hackeman300 wrote: post #188
kibwen wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many competitive people want to win, but they want to win the real game, not a rigged version. There are far, far fewer of these people than you think. Lance Armstrong was the best, and he cheated to win anyway. Barry Bonds was the best, and he cheated to win anyway. Tom Brady was the best, and he cheated to win anyway.

The thing Tom Brady is accused of (deflating footballs) is scientifically proven to be a result of the ideal gas law. The NFL admitted they had no idea that was a thing when they levied the accusations at him. Even if you believe the NFL and it was "more probable than not" that he was "generally aware" of a scheme to deflate the balls, let's not pretend that accusation is even in the same universe as what Bonds and A…

Though a far cry from steroids & doping, DeflateGate was found NOT to be explainable by the ideal gas law.

https://web.archive.org/web/20191107043435/https://static.nf...

"we have concluded that it is more probable than not that Jim McNally (the Officials Locker Room attendant for the Patriots) and John Jastremski (an equipment assistant for the Patriots) participated in a deliberate effort to release air from Patriots game balls after the balls were examined by the referee

...

Our consultants confirmed that a reduction in air pressure is a natural result of footballs moving from a relatively warm environment such as a locker room to a colder environment such as a playing field. According to our scientific consultants, however, the reduction in pressure of the Patriots game balls cannot be explained completely by basic scientific principles, such as the Ideal Gas Law, based on the circumstances and conditions likely to have been present on the day of the AFC Championship Game. In addition, the average pressure drop of the Patriots game balls exceeded the average pressure drop of the Colts balls ...

...

Based on the testing and analysis, however, Exponent concluded that, within the range of likely game conditions and circumstances studied, they could identify no set of credible environmental or physical factors that completely accounts for the Patriots halftime measurements or for the additional loss in air pressure exhibited by the Patriots game balls, as compared to the loss in air pressure exhibited by the Colts game balls. Dr. Marlow agreed with this conclusion. This absence of a credible scientific explanation for the Patriots halftime measurements tends to support a finding that human intervention may account for the additional loss of pressure exhibited by the Patriots balls."

Re: Careless People

#426

Post by emmelaich »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #9

> There's Zuck, whose underlings let him win at board-games like Settlers of Catan because he's a manbaby who can't lose (and who accuses Wynn-Williams of cheating when she fails to throw a game of Ticket to Ride while they're flying in his private jet). Why does this seem to be a recurring pattern among the modern ultrawealthy? Does anyone who fails to bend over backwards for them just end up getting exiled? Have th…

That story is disputed, to say the least.

Dex Hunter-Torricke:

>There's a story about when I was playing Mark Zuckerberg at Catan. Sarah suggests I was deliberately letting Zuckerberg win the game, and "brazenly" dismissing her strategic guidance. It's a lovely anecdote that positions our heroic narrator as some sort of principled mind surrounded by a sea of yes men or something, and that we all liked to let Zuckerberg win. Yeah, except that's not what happened at all.

Read on: https://www.threads.com/@dextorricke/post/DHCUpnssuuw/theres...

I for one don't believe it.

Re: Careless People

#427

Post by akudha »

Wynn-Williams gets Zuck a chance to address the UN General Assembly. As is his wont, Zuck refuses to be briefed before he takes the dais

Holy moly! No matter what your feelings are towards the effectiveness of U.N, addressing the general assembly is a huge opportunity to stand out, send a message, do something good etc. What a waste

Re: Careless People

#428

Post by BobbyTables2 »

sokoloff wrote: post #190
lordnacho wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've won the lottery, but you don't want to acknowledge that you won the lottery. You want to feel they you deserve your position through hard work and talent. You're living in a society where people are credulous, to some degree they believe that hard work and talent are related to success. So what will happen? Everyone you hire ends up patting you on the back, telling you what a great guy you are.

> to some degree they believe that hard work and talent are related to success Does anyone actually believe that hard work and talent are either zero or negatively correlated to success? I don't think the correlation is 1.0, but I firmly believe that it's positive for both.

Who should be promoted and/or given a raise?

The person working hard with the same company for 15 years with extensively proven track record and well known impact across the organization?

Or the interview candidate with 5yrs experience?

Yet every time, companies roll out the red carpet for the new guy. He’s probably at least half bluffing and the new company has little concrete evidence of his past performance.

Re: Careless People

#429

Post by CrystalCuckoo »

xivzgrev wrote: post #399

this cracked me up "When he gets to the mic, he spontaneously promises that Facebook will provide internet access to refugees all over the world. Various teams at Facebook then race around, trying to figure out whether this is something the company is actually doing, and once they realize Zuck was just bullshitting, set about trying to figure out how to do it. They get some way down this path when Kaplan intervenes t…

The author of the post tries to use this as an example of Kaplan being an idiot but (having read the books) struck me as a rare case of him being the only sane man in the room - Facebook pivoting from "we have to give free internet to refugees" to "we have to sell it" smacks of broader leadership not considering the wider context.

Re: Careless People

#430

Post by akudha »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #236
moolcool wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Facebook's core product is inherently evil in a way that other FAANG's core products may not be.

It doesn't have anything to do with this though. It has to do with having so much power and money in a "meritocracy" and the mental gymnastics needed to maintain those two opposing propositions. Meta's core product is a machine to sell ads, just like YouTube, TikTok, Netflix (now), etc. It's not that unique. And these stories are all over the valley for even much less powerful individuals

I haven't used FB in over a decade, so maybe I am not up-to-date. While YouTube and FB are both machines to sell ads, I'd take YouTube over FB any day. I can pay YouTube a few dollars and avoid ads, YouTube is an insanely useful learning tool as long as I avoid politics/influencer-idiots and comments - is there any useful part of FB? Maybe marketplace, not sure. Is it even possible to avoid ads on FB?
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