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Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

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Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#761

Post by chinchilla2020 »

cercatrova wrote: post #84
MAGZine wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the fact that you stopped to ask those questions makes me think that you're at minimum, an above average developer. caring about the business and its fundamentals is important beyond just slinging code.

Interestingly, I've heard many instances where interviewees asked startups about their revenues and the startups just wouldn't tell them, saying that it's growing, or some other vague nonsense. Even in the case of inquiring about the amount of equity one gets, many startups would not tell them the actual percentage of the company they'd get, instead opting to tell them the number of shares, without actually telling t…

I have been in this situation post-hire. I asked for outstanding shares and other documentation about my options. I never received anything. Just a single "You have X options" line on my pay summary.

Unsurprisingly, my options turned out to be the typical startup-style employee incentive options which were invalidated/worthless upon the company being acquired.

I was young and new to the industry so didn't know any better at the time.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#762

Post by mym1990 »

WaxProlix wrote: post #476
mym1990 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple: It is not the responsibility of the Fed to evaluate and empower or degrade certain markets according to what "smart investments" should be. This is ultimately up to the banks that receive the money and the people who come up with investment ideas.

This entire conversation is about how those entities don't seem to be doing a particularly good job.

And that is a very valid concern, but the Fed is not the one to address that problem.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#763

Post by Mandatum »

llbeansandrice wrote: post #759
Johnny555 wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't get to choose, in my case, it's our corporate IM system, so I have to use it whether I want to or not. It's got a lot of enterprise features that companies like, like SSO integration, message retention policies, security certifications like HIPAA and FedRAMP, and more. There are also a lot of pre-made apps for integrating with corporate apps like Jira, Gmail, Salesforce, etc. It's fine, I haven't lo…

The big sells for Hangouts and Teams is that they have video. Slack doesn't so you have to find a video conference provider as well like Zoom. Also Teams integrates more easily with the existing Microsoft stack (office, outlook, etc.) that a ton of non-tech companies are on. I think a lot of tech companies struggle to break into the non-tech world. Slack might be ubiquitous for SWEs but my SO who works in traffic eng…

https://slack.com/intl/en-au/video-conferencing

They do. They acquired ScreenHero for screensharing, and then fucked up the integration.

> https://www.xda-developers.com/slack-working-on-video-suppor...

They've only just got it right - check out Huddles. No doubt with their next yearly annual conference they'll be releasing the video version for this.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#764

Post by Shocka1 »

adam_arthur wrote: post #688
dntrkv wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there were a ton of voices saying the exact opposite. That we must do everything we can to avoid another 2008. There will always be the voices on both sides, the problem is that it's not always easy to know who to listen to at the time. > The feel good policy of spending excessively and avoiding inflation fighting has proven to fail many times in history There are many examples of the opposite. The question isn't…

It's basic math. Society lost x in purchasing power through lost wages via unemployment, and you inject 10x in stimulus, what do you think is going to happen? This was Larry Summers' argument, backed with real numbers. Nobody passing these bills ever considered whether it was too much. You have the two top economists for both Clinton and Obama saying it was too much and being outspoken about the issues with how the b…

You've made some really great points in all your comments thus far that I 100% agree with, especially with current politicians losing all economic sense. Even the once budget stubborn Republicans signed away. I have no citations, but my theory about this is that the American society as a whole is foaming at the mouth for instant gratification. It feels as though we're thinking of the weekend instead of years ahead... That, combined with a high percentage of economically uneducated politicians that seem more like social media influencers than actual lawmakers = not well thought out economic decisions.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#765

Post by [deleted] »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #306
colechristensen wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was driven by extended 0-ish% interest for an entire recession cycle. Unable to get "safe" returns, money chased more dangerous classes of assets and inflated prices. Inflation and a return to nonzero interest means capital gets to retreat to safer ground, pulling the rug out of stupid unprofitable startups that can only make money with head-in-the-clouds IPO valuation or FAANG acquisition.

Is it really a bad thing? Unemployment is pretty low.

[deleted]

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#766

Post by shrimpx »

andsoitis wrote: post #610
shrimpx wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All-cash is basically the new norm. It’s paradoxical that all-cash became the norm in a period where mortgage rates were at all time lows…

> It’s paradoxical that all-cash became the norm in a period where mortgage rates were at all time lows… Cash transactions have less friction and chance of falling through, so it makes sense that sellers prefer cash purchases. Consequently, you see cash offers because buyers know that sellers prefer - you essentially jump to the front of the line.

I guess my core question is: do they keep the cash in the house, or do they use cash just as a vehicle for the purchase, and then finance the cash out of it?

Because there was a concurrent trend to refinance houses at 2% loans and put the cash in the stock market, which is assumed to beat that 2% over the duration of the loan.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#767

Post by JamesBarney »

drexlspivey wrote: post #439
JamesBarney wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying if interest rates increased and stock price P/E remained the same most funds would allocate less money to bonds? I don't understand why that would be. If the expected future cash flow of one asset increases (bonds), and remains the same for another (stocks) why would you allocate more money to stocks and away from bonds?

The future cash flow of existing bonds is fixed and it does not increase. If you have a bond that pays a 2% annual coupon you will see it's value drop when interest rates increase. The reason is that you can now get a newly issued bond that pays a higher (say 3%) fixed coupon so your's is worth less. Your bond's price will drop to say 90% of the notional amount while the new bond will trade at 100% so they will effec…

The future cash flow of any given bond stays the same. But from an asset allocators point of view the cost of the future cash flow from a band decreased, making it a more attractive investment.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#768

Post by prohobo »

pingeroo wrote: post #695
prohobo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was odd, but my envisioned development window was about 3-4 months (planning for 6) and I had potentially high upkeep after launch ($500-$1000pm for production ready servers). I could have found a co-founder or two and funded them for that period as well. So it would have been just enough + a buffer. At least in my mind. I realize you need more runway than to just get to launch and survive 2-3 months now. The idea…

I think Google/YouTube is already doing this. For example when you Google search "how to reset a Macbook", the top result is a video that jumps to a particular highlighted section that answers the question. This isn't the best example of this feature, but it sure has saved me a lot of time in other queries that I can't recall at the moment.

Exactly. Google does this through the video transcripts, and finds the query location in the video for you. The problem is that this isn't part of the video player itself (or YouTube search). It's also very basic, being just a transcript search - I want more data mined insights to be available.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#769

Post by robocat »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #756
robocat wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's irresponsible to bid 20% over what the house is worth . . . emotionally attached If you are young it can be perfectly sensible to bid far more for a home you love. An “overpayment” is paid over many years of happy living, which can be a worthwhile trade. Living in a cheap economically sensible shithole for too many years is a bad idea, unless you have no other choice financially. The problem is making sure you…

Tell me you're in real estate without telling me you're in real estate. I think most people are better off just renting until this madness blows over. God knows I am much better off for having rented and plowing my money into investments for about a decade before I bought my place. Houses keep up with inflation over the long run, while stocks have returned ~ 7% after inflation. If housing is an investment, it's a poo…

Ha ha! I completely loath real estate, and I think I am an engineer type on the spectrum. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I think you are committing the error I am trying to point out: don’t treat your living requirements 100% as an investment.

That said, your living choice always has an investment decision component, because most of us need one roof over our head. If renting, you are shorting the home ownership market (a renter owns zero bedrooms but needs one bedroom). Making the decision to rent is either (a) betting against the real estate market (shorting), or (b) betting that one can make better returns through other investments.

The deeper point is that we should try to optimise for our internal joy, and nobody should measure their success only in metric dollars.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#770

Post by ripe »

Robotbeat wrote: post #202
kurthr wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is "the market" working for you! We could allocate resources to productive assets by fiscal spending, but that is prevented by politics. Only when "the market" gets its cut can any infrastructure be built in the US. That's also true for much of the medical establishment and pension/retirement systems. If the market was efficient, we wouldn't be complaining about it. Unfortunately, a "free market" and an efficien…

What sucks is that fiscal policy, ie government spending, is also often not very efficient. Even when rampant corruption doesn’t destroy efficiency, crushing bureaucracy or just plain incompetence will. (Is the DMV a model of efficiency?) So you need a smart balance. And you need competent, honest people in both business AND government. I don’t think that government necessarily is inefficient. The DMV could be a very…

What's with the hate for DMVs? Maybe they're bad in some US states, but in mine (Massachusetts), I really can't imagine a better-run business, private or public, that accomplishes so much with so little investment.

You can do most things online with a much better UX than most commercial websites. No crappy ads or pop-ups. Plus when you do need to go in, you book a time slot at a DMV center online.

Recently I had to bring my daughter for a driving license to the one in Brockton, MA. When you go in, they give you a token number. The currently processing token number is shown on a huge LED display on the wall. Hundreds of customers are in there, many of them don't speak much English, etc., but things move pretty smoothly and fast. Very efficient.

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