The apparent carelessness with which Softbank throws its money around makes sense with this revelation. It's not so different from some of the really over-the-top projects funded by oil money with respect to real estate (particularly real estate "created" in the sea).
What does it mean for American innovation to be backed by oil wealth?
81–90 of 129 posts
Re: What does it mean for American innovation to be backed by oil wealth?
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
"willingly" is a bit of a stretch considering the difficulty of doing so, and gives off a different connontation.
Of course it’s difficult, but we all have the means to build social movements, companies or sue if we feel that there’s something terrible going on. But we all like our flights, our cars, our cheaper and cheaper phones, stable policy in the West and perceived security. It’s hard but you can go against it. Just always saying ‘it’s the elite’ and then sitting it out seems really easy to me. Everyone has a conception of…
Indeed. This expanded version of your previous comment is accurate. As long as people are still comfortable enough, there will be no change. Unfortunately, it takes great discomfort to motivate people to actually fight for change. (I'm like everyone, so I'm not fighting... yet?)
I do believe the internet and global communication does speed up the process, at least when people get near the tipping point. Knowing that you are not alone in your frustration does help steel people and enable connection and shared-effort. So yes, it's fucked right now, but I think it will improve measurably in the next 20 years. (It does indeed help that many of the most powerful people will die of old age within those 20 years).
Re: What does it mean for American innovation to be backed by oil wealth?
#83Uber. WeWork. Flexport. Slack. MapBox. DoorDash. What do all of these hip American companies have in common, other than appearing regularly in tech headlines (and, now, being leading indicators of a tech bubble)?
The big ones bought market share by losing money?
Uber is not a "tech company". Uber is a taxi company with delusions of grandeur. WeWork is a landlord.
Re: What does it mean for American innovation to be backed by oil wealth?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
You willingly put up with the ‘global elite’ though.
I don't understand anti-elitism, given the alternative.
Please state what you think the alternative is, since you used the singular. To me, there is a range of alternatives, so it is hard to understand your objection because I don't understand what you are imagining.
One alternative is a French Revolution, part 2. Another alternative is a system of wealth, income, and inheritance taxes that helps prevent concentration of power in a few families. Another is more aggressive antitrust enforcement to reduce political power of any one company. Another is strengthening of unions. There are many others, and there are many combinations of them.
Re: What does it mean for American innovation to be backed by oil wealth?
#85Comes close to an important point, and then misses it completely. The problem is not that Saudi money would get them influence at new U.S. tech companies. The problem is that Saudi money is getting pushed into "tech" companies that have unsustainable business models, and this is sucking all the oxygen (e.g. available developers) from other projects that could accomplish more. Imagine two startup ideas. One, could be…
Why are you so sure that only one of these things is a problem?
Good point, could be both. But the distortion effect is the one that bothers me more, because it doesn't just impact the companies that take Softbank money, but more generally distorts the whole startup space. But sure, could be both.
Re: What does it mean for American innovation to be backed by oil wealth?
#86One thing to point out: Oil is still _huge_ when it comes to investment and sheer amount of financing available. Anything involving large-scale finance will have oil money involved in it in some way. Frankly, even at the height of the tech boom, the tech industry has never had significant capital available compared to the oil industry. I've worked in both... Folks in tech think 100 million in capital is a lot. In oil…
Damn and here I am spending days preparing to justify my requests for a measly $2M to $5M for project spends. I should go be an oil boy.
Don't wish for it too much... Getting approval for any decision is like pulling teeth. As a project manager in the oil industry you still aren't the final decision maker in most cases, and even when you are, there are decision review boards/etc.
There's a _lot_ of "process" to everything in oil. It's there for a good reason, but it can get out of hand.
I once spent three months getting approval to spend $20 to order some data from the US government. It was exactly the same process that you'd go through for a $10 million purchase. (Didn't help that we were re-buying our own data from 20 years ago because we'd lost it, but that's a different story.) I billed another wing of the company at $465/hr during the entire process... I billed around $50k to get approval to order a $20 DVD with a bunch of old scanned documents on it. Things can get very strange in the oil patch sometimes...
Re: What does it mean for American innovation to be backed by oil wealth?
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
M is 1000 in roman numerals. MM is one million.
I think MM is 2000 in Roman numerals, no?
You are technically correct, financial dudes like roman numerals but somewhere in history someone (probably someone reeeeeally powerful) started using MM for million and thus started the trend.
Aside, swiss watches tend to have a watch maker's four on them instead of the more correct IV... and apparently there are a bunch of other variations out there[1]. Though MM is still quite stupid.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numerals#Variant_forms
Re: What does it mean for American innovation to be backed by oil wealth?
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a tremendous amount of intertia that needs to be overcome when starting a competing company or a movement to replace any of those. A lot of the competing companies have a large vertical integration in their field, and can refuse your supply for any of it
Of course, that’s the whole point. But you can build inertia. Take a look at Europe where there’s tremendous protesting going on regarding Climate Change, and we slowly see some change in for one, public opinion and two in policy making. It’s slow and painful and frustrating but you gotta work and not always blame the ‘global elite’. I know it’s hard to build inertia, I failed in court, I failed at building companies…
Unfortunately, Europe is moving quite westward in terms of politics and ignorance. (I'll just be direct and use the word, karma be damned).
So what has happened in the US is happening elsewhere, on a delay. Fortunately, what is not on a delay is the age of the people doing the self-serving, future-burning deeds. Those people will all die within 15 years of each other. Hopefully those who are left will have a bit more sanity.
Re: What does it mean for American innovation to be backed by oil wealth?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't know they were that cheap. A new refinery starts at about $5B.
Why the moaning about nuclear power plant cost if refineries sit at a similar cost?
Human lifespan is short. So things that affect one human lifespan quickly are scarier. Radiation scares people because it can kill them fast. Effects from oil and gas tend to take much longer.
Re: What does it mean for American innovation to be backed by oil wealth?
#90Uber. WeWork. Flexport. Slack. MapBox. DoorDash. What do all of these hip American companies have in common, other than appearing regularly in tech headlines (and, now, being leading indicators of a tech bubble)? The big ones bought market share by losing money? Uber is not a "tech company". Uber is a taxi company with delusions of grandeur. WeWork is a landlord.
Uber’s lawyers would like a word with you. They aren’t a taxi company or in the business of ride sharing. Uber is a digital marketplace company.
It’s laughable how delusional they are:
>In fact, several previous rulings have found that drivers’ work is outside the usual course of Uber’s business, which is serving as a technology platform for several different types of digital marketplaces.