I'm not sure remote first is actually cheaper when you factor in off-sites and WFH stipends. From the article:
With that in mind, we decided to have office hubs in the major cities (starting with SF, NY, SLC, and Vancouver), where employees can work whenever they want. Our office hubs will also be important for those who miss the daily physical interactions and in-person collaboration of an office.
A service that does planning and execution of off-site meetups for remote companies is a great business idea. Essentially, travel agency/event planning for remote first companies.
Once we're past COVID, a lot of companies are going to stick with remote first and making the planning of off-sites easy seems like a must need service.
I know that InVision (InVision app.com, a remote-first company) has an entire team dedicated to planning their yearly offsite. I can imagine many other companies choosing to hire a company to help plan offsites. Great idea :-)
Do any of the major platforms really have a handle on how to deal with these challenges? I'm not excusing the lack of oversight. But most companies that grow this quickly are a complete cluster inside. Imagine having to battle well funded state actors on top of trying to build a business.
Again, not saying Facebook shouldn't be held accountable. But it's always easy from the outside looking in.
I think your cause-effect is backwards. Moderation at scale does not work, and a social network does not have to be the all-out-for-clicks disinformation machine that Facebook is. The company chooses to make it that way because it is optimal for their bottom line; rage makes clicks, clicks make money. They already built the business, and they choose again and again not to change it. So, to your statement, it is not that the company accidentally grew to what it is today and now it is swamped with unsolvable problems; rather, the company solved a different problem and has no intention to solve the others (nor they can with this business model).
Twitter is kind of adequate - somewhat responsive, somewhat proactive, but primarily they have an API that's sufficiently open and accessible to anyone that social science researchers can identify and map the the networks and behavior of political actors.
This is called due diligence, and it's on the investor to perform their own due diligence. For a product that isn't commercially available to consumers yet, due diligence should be enough.
In the case of something like Theranos, I thoroughly agree. Oversight of a commercially available product, especially one with health implications, is definitely necessary. Although it seems even these systems failed in the Theranos case.
There is actually the legal test of a Reasonable Person.
If they say they're going to sell trucks, and they present a truck doing truck things (moving), most people would assume it's a complete truck as portrayed. An empty shell is just fraud in the court, hopefully.
Agreed, but a reasonable person would also ask: "how well does it drive up hills?", "what are it's miles per charge?", etc. at which point the truth is uncovered.
It's not a good look, but you also shouldn't be investing based on what amounts to a commercial. This should be another stain for the company and another warning sign for investors, but we don't need a law against misleading promo videos because almost all are short on information and high on emotion. It's the investor's job to get the information behind the video.
While it's true that funders should perform due diligence, diligence for fundraising still relies on an underlying need for the entity raising funds to be truthful.
As an example, if you apply for a bank loan and falsify the application, you can still be charged with fraud and go to jail even though the bank potentially could have discovered the falsehood by hiring an investigator before issuing the loan.
The harm caused by this kind of deception is not only to the investors (or to the deceivers, when they are found out). It also increases the general background level of distrust, which harms the honest.
If you read to the end of the article it addresses the GM deal. GM will use its own battery tech. Nikola is basically just sales/marketing. The deal still makes absolutely no sense, but GM isn't dependent on Nikola having working tech or not.
It might actually make sense for GM. GM is building the vehicles using their own tech/plants (presumably not at a loss) and for doing so, is getting Nikola stock.
If Nikola is an unexpected success, then they have a significant stake in it, and if they fail, then hopefully they don't have too many vehicles that Nikola hasn't paid for.
It's baffling. Like you said, GM will use its own technology. So they bought 11% of Nikola for…edgy CEO shitposting on Twitter?
GM can definitely build a good electric vehicle. They cannot seem to market a good electric vehicle—see Chevrolet Bolt sales, and then ask a random person if they know what a Bolt is. So the Nikola investment is the equivalent of buying a hip design studio?
They didn't buy any stock. GM gets 11% in return for supplying and R&D for the Nikola "car". But they didn't spend any cash, and in fact get cash because they can reimburse 700M.
In the worst case, they were paid to do their own R&D.
Nikola basically bribed GM with a insane deal so they can say they have a GM partnership.
I personally don't listen to the debates, find them mostly a waste of time. But as someone who occasionally listens to Rogan, I would probably listen to this debate...Might be a good way to get more people to take an interest in this election.
They are, and it's specifically because the format never allows (or, perhaps more importantly, never _requires_) the participants to get into real detail about anything ever. It's all just talking points. The opposition never has the chance to actually ask questions that might potentially lead to a situation where someone has to say, "gee, I hadn't thought about that, that's a good point, it will take some careful consideration".
Given the format the only game-theoretical move that makes sense is to employ Arthur Finkelstein style tactics and simply attack the other person, get people scared of them and the world they'll perhaps create, and/or demoralize people that might have voted for them and get them to stay home instead.
This needs to change. Why can't the debate be a day-long event, where they sit down and have serious conversations, not rhetoric but a real dialectic with one another?
I suspect it would reveal a tremendous lack of depth and understanding on _both_ sides. Any cognitive decline, any lack of awareness about world issues, etc. would be exposed immediately. That would pop the bubble, for sure.
The purpose of the very public political debates is not to discuss issues and learn from one another. It's an opportunity for two political opponents to convince other people why they should be elected and not the other person.
There may be a place for actual political discussion between the two sides, but expecting two warring politicians to do so publicly just before an election is not going to happen.
Sure but by the same token, the point of discussing issues is that if you can do it passably, it can be a bit more convincing towards the audience than the usual soundbites and lazy negative claims about The Other Guy. But perhaps it's not exactly fair to expect that sort of semi-real discussion from either Biden or Trump.
It sounds more convincing to what demographic? It may convince people of above average intelligence, but half of all people have below average intelligence. For those people, emotional appeals will probably be more convincing than boring, logical arguments.
They're also terrified of losing access by really challenging them.
Remember the 2016 debates, Trump's strategy is to basically spew as much shit as possible until something sticks - the press will not challenge that except in a few cases (The recent two disaster interviews).
"No puppet, No puppet, You're the puppet" would've been eviscerated in a British election debate (and ours are awful)
I'd be looking for the long form as well. Not a timed debate where we just get canned answers. I'd actually rather him do 2 separate interviews, each an hour or two long. No debate, just each candidate shooting the shit for an hour or two separately. Something a little more humanizing than the debates and polished political media machine we are overwhelmed with. Of course, no sane campaign manager would allow this.
Best way to start on the path to building one of these businesses is to start building a following. Many of these 1 man companies are reliant on strong founder personalities that develop a following. Makes distribution way easier.
These are solo founder businesses. Many of the examples hired employees. If you have a boring b2b SaaS that charges $100 a month, you only need 1000 monthly customers to gross $1M a year. You don't need a personality, you need a decent funnel.
