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Drop the ego and prove "I could make that so much better"

blog.lawnstarter.com

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Re: Drop the ego and prove "I could make that so much better"

#71

Post by tluyben2 »

JonnieCache wrote: post #49
pekk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your attitude toward bragging about income culturally typical for Dutch people?

Is certainly typical in the UK. Income is considered an intensely personal matter. You may as well walk into a party and proudly start telling people your genital measurements. Here's an amusing video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E837tnxRVS0 "It's essentially a distillation of the problem we always have with american behaviour that's different from ours: Are they being admirably honest and upfront,…

Good one that video. I'm not sure if that's it in the Netherlands either.

When thinking about it; why do you tell or conversely, why do you ask? Why you tell without being asked, to me, is just a sign of you having a very small penis (it's usually guys). Asking it; are you really interested? Or are you comparing to yourself in some kind of oh i'm really not interested what you answer I make more anyway and really want to tell you that!? Or do you want to feel bad about your own income in some kind of sadomasochistic manner people seem to enjoy? Or do you want the other person to feel bad because you know he makes crap or is 'in between jobs'?

I'm trying to figure out what the upside is here; I don't mind telling what I make per se but I'm curious why anyone would want to know and when I think about it I cannot come up with any positive reasons. And so it never came up as a question from or to me and the only people I heard talking about it are guys I suspect were picked on a lot in high school. But maybe someone can enlighten me here? :)

Re: Drop the ego and prove "I could make that so much better"

#72

Post by agentultra »

waterfowl wrote: post #63

I grew up with a father who owned garbage companies and caught a lot of shit about it when I was a kid, but for as "unsexy" as garbage is, it's a goldmine(esp things like owning landfills). I live in DC, if I had a lawn(condo) I would have you cut it. Good luck

That's pretty cool. I've always been curious about how well served waste management has been with technology and innovation over the years. It doesn't seem like we'll ever stem the tide of consumerism and the relentless torrent of disposable crap we manufacture and throw away. Have we progressed beyond digging holes and filling them up or dumping it all in the ocean?

I've heard about incinerator technology in some Baltic country that uses liquid magnets to extract precious metals from the ash piles.

Makes me wonder if there's some way to reclaim other materials... though I don't have the chemistry/physics background to know if it's worth following through.

Still... garbage companies are important!

Re: Drop the ego and prove "I could make that so much better"

#73

Post by pjc50 »

vdaniuk wrote: post #65
ulfw wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world must be one hell of a shitty place if it needs to be changed so much every single time.

The world is extremely shitty place and you dont see that only because, I assume, you are the part of the top earning cohort.

It certainly needs a lot of change. The change it needs is not necessarily the change it gets.

Re: Drop the ego and prove "I could make that so much better"

#77

Post by EGreg »

ryanSrich wrote: post #32
jfasi wrote: post #21

I consider this post part of a nascent trend to de-bullshit the startup and technology scene. For years the narrative has been "we in the tech industry are standard bearers leading society into a bright new tomorrow." The recent protests around the Google buses, as well as John Oliver's takedown [1] of the tech industry seem to be striking a chord with the public, and there's a lesson to be drawn: we tech folks are n…

"Join us and help change change the world" - _every valley startup ever_

Some businesses change the world more than others :)

http://qbix.com/blog/index.php/2013/04/a-new-kind-of-platfor....

What do you think?

http://platform.qbix.com

Re: Drop the ego and prove "I could make that so much better"

#78

Post by stickydink »

Benvie wrote: post #70
stickydink wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't look down on our customers at all. But certainly, those in-charge of design don't care where the line is. If the change is a net profit increase (almost exclusively, we go on insider's reports from other studios on how their changes worked out) we do it. As a developer I put up as much resistance as possible when it feels absolutely ridiculous - when design becomes more about tricking people into accidentall…

At one point we made the flow for connecting to Facebook pretty ambiguous, where "Skip" meant yes and "Continue" meant no. Wow wow wow. That is beyond ambiguous into downright misleading. I've always stayed away from these games because I largely don't find them fun, but now I have the additional reason that they are trying to fuck me from the moment they are installed . I didn't realize it was quite that bad.

This one was proposed because a competitor was doing the exact same thing, and we knew from someone inside that it boosted registration by ~25%. Seems quite a lot of people don't really think, "Why did Facebook appear?".

Fortunately we argued this one down before it ended up in production.

Re: Drop the ego and prove "I could make that so much better"

#79

Post by kyro »

I experienced a similar change in mindset regarding the valley and the tech scene, catalyzed by recent trips out to SF that left me with a very uneasy feeling.

The uneasiness, I think, came from realizing that the community I wanted to be a part of for so long consisted largely of the same young, inexperienced recent college grads with self-appointed expertise in a variety of abstract fields (marketing, social behavior), who peddle the same formulaic and shallow insights on business and life, all with the belief that they are changing the world for the better. And look, there's nothing wrong with being inexperienced and wanting to do big things, but what irritates me is the semblance of expertise, arrogance, and contribution startup people put on without putting in their time to attain a deep understanding of any one area, especially since I come from a medical background where you know the people you work with are intelligent, have run the gauntlet, and prove themselves on a daily basis.

Or maybe that's how you hack wealth and I'm growing old and grumpy.

Re: Drop the ego and prove "I could make that so much better"

#80

Post by akeating »

jfasi wrote: post #21

I consider this post part of a nascent trend to de-bullshit the startup and technology scene. For years the narrative has been "we in the tech industry are standard bearers leading society into a bright new tomorrow." The recent protests around the Google buses, as well as John Oliver's takedown [1] of the tech industry seem to be striking a chord with the public, and there's a lesson to be drawn: we tech folks are n…

This resonates with me. In my view the real superstars in this industry are people who listen well, have humility, are grounded in reality but are smart and confident.
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