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No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

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Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#471

Post by t_mann »

Timsky wrote: post #347

Your article strongly consonated with the ideas I often try to communicate to those around me. I wish there were more open discussion about biases related to PhD qualifications and the growing influence of venture-capital-style practices in science. Many researchers dedicate themselves to exploring new and uncertain areas of knowledge, yet their work is sometimes undervalued by hiring managers and industrial professi…

> I personally know HRs who consider the "PhD" tag in a CV a red flag.

Which should only tell us what a cancer HR departments are. Filtering someone from talking to the hiring department, for the crime of doing a PhD, and telling others about it - to me this sounds more likely like someone getting a kick out of wielding the bit of power they have over others than a useful contribution to society.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#472

Post by seanhunter »

triceratops wrote: post #74
bulletsvshumans wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But dividends also result in a concrete financial reward for all shareholders, yes?

> all shareholders That's the key phrase, they benefit all shareholders. Buybacks on the other hand only benefit the following shareholders: 1. those with regularly vesting stock options and stock grants - basically employees. For non-tech companies especially, this only means high-ranking employees 2. those who intend to sell - that is, soon-to-be-ex shareholders 3. those who borrow against their stock - typically h…

This is simply untrue in every detail. All common stock is pari passu. A buyback of common benefits all common stock holders pro rata with their holdings. Similarly, vesting grants without buybacks harms the common holders by dilution. A buyback of the amount of vested is the least that is required to keep the common holders whole.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#473

Post by overrun11 »

seanhunter wrote: post #472
triceratops wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all shareholders That's the key phrase, they benefit all shareholders. Buybacks on the other hand only benefit the following shareholders: 1. those with regularly vesting stock options and stock grants - basically employees. For non-tech companies especially, this only means high-ranking employees 2. those who intend to sell - that is, soon-to-be-ex shareholders 3. those who borrow against their stock - typically h…

This is simply untrue in every detail. All common stock is pari passu. A buyback of common benefits all common stock holders pro rata with their holdings. Similarly, vesting grants without buybacks harms the common holders by dilution. A buyback of the amount of vested is the least that is required to keep the common holders whole.

The person you're responding to's argument is incoherent and not worth engaging in. The crux of it is that long term shareholders aren't benefited by buybacks because share price doesn't matter to them because they will never sell. Somehow however, dividends are good for them because they will not reinvest them for some reason? It doesn't make any sense.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#474

Post by terminalshort »

runako wrote: post #419
terminalshort wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Georgia State has an average SAT score of 1070. Nobody with a brain goes there. Just a societally sanctioned diploma scam for people who would be much better served by starting work right out of HS.

National average SAT score is ~995. Georgia average is 1030. The Georgia university system has a set of goals for the advancement of the state of Georgia. It's difficult to make an argument that graduating seniors performing above average are unworthy of higher education, and that this would be best for the state. Georgia, like most states, recognizes that not every student will fit in every situation and has options…

It's very easy for me to make that argument because I think higher education is a complete waste of time and money for everyone who isn't going into a particular technical profession that requires focused training beyond HS, and that's maybe 5% of the population.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#475

Post by astrange »

NickC25 wrote: post #457
astrange wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US doesn't have oligarchs except maybe Alex Karp. Oligarch is a specific thing with a specific meaning.

Bezos, Ellison, and Zuck combined have over $1 trillion in net worth. That alone places a combined 3 people with more money than the GDP of all but 20 countries.

And they are not oligarchs because that's not what that word means.

Also, "net worth" is not "money". Shares of a company aren't money.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#476

Post by joseangel_sc »

what kills me specially about the buybacks

is that i’m sure even the CEOs would rather live in a world with anesthesia, MRIs, wifi, gps, etc

yet they greedily prefer to personally gain money because they cannot see that they would be richer in a world with { what would be discovered if we had science }

it’s just that you cannot miss what you already don’t have, if they could only see what would be possible, what we could achieve, the would go nuts about how slow we are moving

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#477

Post by AnthonyMouse »

prewett wrote: post #446
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Share buybacks allow companies to reward executives directly as their compensation is tied to stock price. If we started not doing that, the priorities might shift, but those executives like things the way they are. This isn't right but it's adjacent. Executives don't need buybacks to get whatever compensation. Their compensation is negotiated and you can write the contract to make it whatever. However, paying divi…

I like having a dividend. A company like NVDA forces shareholder returns to the whim of the market price, but dividends stabilize things because the stock is actually tangibly worth something. It also forces a certain discipline in the company, since shareholders don't like dividends getting cut. It also limits empire-building, di-worsification, and "good ideas" that have questionable ROI.

> A company like NVDA forces shareholder returns to the whim of the market price, but dividends stabilize things because the stock is actually tangibly worth something.

All of the whims that go into the market price are still there. If you're a shareholder who doesn't care about the share price you're going to have a bad time.

> It also forces a certain discipline in the company, since shareholders don't like dividends getting cut.

Which usually leads to mismanagement more than anything because the company gets into a situation where they should lower the dividend but is under pressure not to and then starts eating their seed corn so they can still pay the dividend.

> It also limits empire-building, di-worsification, and "good ideas" that have questionable ROI.

Buybacks do the same thing.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#478

Post by anticensor »

bheadmaster wrote: post #323
smaudet wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe some of these 2-brain cell executives should consider that their "buybacks" will be worthless when US throughput starts to be equally worthless compared to the rest of the world... Of course, I'm being a bit pejorative, they aren't thinking big picture at all, just concerned with what happens tomorrow not the day after... However, they are in part responsible for the nonsense happening at the moment wrt to Amer…

It's a prisoner's dilemma, but with a large number of prisoners.

Defect-defect isn't a winning strategy in a continual setting, it's only a winning strategy in a fixed-iterations setting.

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#479

Post by treis »

balls187 wrote: post #444
treis wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, China is better at directing massive state level resources at incrementally improving technology. Nothing truly revolutionary has come out of China. The West is still ahead in that sort of stuff.

> The West is still ahead in that sort of stuff. Such as?

SpaceX, Self driving cars, and LLMs/AI

Re: No science, no startups: The innovation engine we're switching off

#480

Post by NickC25 »

astrange wrote: post #475
NickC25 wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bezos, Ellison, and Zuck combined have over $1 trillion in net worth. That alone places a combined 3 people with more money than the GDP of all but 20 countries.

And they are not oligarchs because that's not what that word means. Also, "net worth" is not "money". Shares of a company aren't money.

Shares of a company are indeed money - or can be used as money in a roundabout way.

They can be placed as collateral in exchange for a loan or other similar ways to access capital immediately.

If Zuck walks into a bank and asks for a million dollars cash on the spot and is willing to place a few thousand shares up as collateral, he gets that done in minutes.

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