June 2013
2 posts
May 2013
3 posts
Tumblr Staff: News! →
staff.tumblr.com
Everyone, I’m elated to tell you that Tumblr will be joining Yahoo.
Before touching on how awesome this is, let me try to allay any concerns: We’re not turning purple. Our headquarters isn’t moving. Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn’t changing. And our mission – to empower creators to…
Congrats to David and the Tumblr team. Awesome job on building a awesome company and now a awesome outcome!
April 2013
1 post
“We need to be angry and empathize with the victims without being scared. Our fears would play right into the perpetrators’ hands — and magnify the power of their victory for whichever goals whatever group behind this, still to be uncovered, has. We don’t have to be scared, and we’re not powerless. We actually have all the power here, and there’s one thing we can do to render terrorism ineffective: Refuse to be terrorized.”
—
The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On - Bruce Schneier - The Atlantic
Inspired by this. And I’m gonna run the fucking boston marathon next year.
(via bijan)I was thinking the same thing. Time to run Boston.
March 2013
5 posts
“In other industries, this is called predatory pricing, and many forms of it are illegal because they’re so destructive to healthy businesses and the welfare of an economy. But the tech industry is far less regulated, younger, and faster-moving than most industries. We celebrate our ability to do things that are illegal or economically infeasible in other markets with productive-sounding words like “disruption”.”
—Marco
Tupperwolf: Wealth, risk, and stuff →
vruba.tumblr.com
I run into some version of this essay by some moneybags twig-bishop about once a year, and it bugs me every time.
Here’s the thing. Wealth is not a number of dollars. It is not a number of material possessions. It’s having options and the ability to take on risk.
As with carrying, so with owning in general. Poor people don’t have clutter because they’re too dumb to see the virtue of living simply; they have it to reduce risk.
When rich people present the idea that they’ve learned to live lightly as a paradoxical insight, they have the idea of wealth backwards. You can only have that kind of lightness through wealth.
“
After four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I’ve decided that I’d like to spend more time with my family.
Just kidding - I was fired today.
If you’re wondering why… you haven’t been paying attention.
” —Andrew Mason’s goodbye letter is pretty awesome. (via daryn)I think Groupon just went from being in trouble to totally fucked.
February 2013
9 posts
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The Fault in Our Stars has a director →
shar.es
This is Erin’s movie. It is a awesome book and I think it is going to be a amazing movie.
I like Josh Boone so much, and I think he is the perfect director for TFiOS. He understands the book profoundly (as you can tell from his comments in the story above), and he is also tremendously talented. I am so excited!
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The Insourcing Boom →
theatlantic.com
Even a small shift in manufacturing will have a huge impact on the US economy.
When you take some of the macro things that are happening like this and energy independence the US might actually be heading for some good times in the future.
Who knows maybe we will even be able to pay off our debt…
Chales Fishman for The Atlantic:
GE wasn’t just able to hold the retail sticker to the “China price.” It beat that price by nearly 20 percent. The China-made GeoSpring retailed for $1,599. The Louisville-made GeoSpring retails for $1,299.
Time-to-market has also improved, greatly. It used to take five weeks to get the GeoSpring water heaters from the factory to U.S. retailers—four weeks on the boat from China and one week dockside to clear customs. Today, the water heaters—and the dishwashers and refrigerators—move straight from the manufacturing buildings to Appliance Park’s warehouse out back, from which they can be delivered to Lowe’s and Home Depot. Total time from factory to warehouse: 30 minutes.
American manufacturing seems poised for a comeback. Not for everything, but for a lot of things.
January 2013
11 posts
“Right now, there are brilliant students from all over the world sitting in classrooms at our top universities. They’re earning degrees in the fields of the future, like engineering and computer science. But once they finish school, once they earn that diploma, there’s a good chance they’ll have to leave our country. Think about that.
Intel was started with the help of an immigrant who studied here and then stayed here. Instagram was started with the help of an immigrant who studied here and then stayed here. Right now in one of those classrooms, there’s a student wrestling with how to turn their big idea—their Intel or Instagram—into a big business. We’re giving them all the skills they need to figure that out, but then we’re going to turn around and tell them to start that business and create those jobs in China or India or Mexico or someplace else? That’s not how you grow new industries in America. That’s how you give new industries to our competitors. That’s why we need comprehensive immigration reform.” —
Intel was started with the help of an immigrant who studied here and then stayed here. Instagram was started with the help of an immigrant who studied here and then stayed here. Right now in one of those classrooms, there’s a student wrestling with how to turn their big idea—their Intel or Instagram—into a big business. We’re giving them all the skills they need to figure that out, but then we’re going to turn around and tell them to start that business and create those jobs in China or India or Mexico or someplace else? That’s not how you grow new industries in America. That’s how you give new industries to our competitors. That’s why we need comprehensive immigration reform.” —
damn straight
President Obama in Nevada today, laying out a four-part plan for comprehensive immigration reform
(via barackobama)
Yup
“We just had the best quarter of any technology company ever. The only companies that report better quarters pump oil. I do not know about you all, but I do not want to work for those companies.”
—
What Tim Cook reportedly said to employees at the latest Apple Town Hall event this past week. (via parislemon)
I still think it is incredible how the market has reacted to Apple’s last quarter. I am a happy shareholder at 460 and look forward to the day (which will probably not be too long from now) that everyone thinks Apple is a unstoppable company again and pushes the stock to 700 (I am not a crazy believer so I will probably sell around 600-650)
Bought Apple stock today
Overall I hate buying stocks and only a medium fan of Apple. But if you take the cash off of their balance sheet the company is now selling at around 6 times earnings.
Wall Street seems to either think companies can do no wrong (see linkedin) or in Apples case do no right.
I am happy to buy the ones that are hated, still have a great future in my opinion and make a ton of money.
“Only one airline has made money over the last 40 years in the U.S.: Southwest Airlines. And everybody else is just doing a public service by flying people around. In a half hour, Delta is going to fly me to Detroit and make no money for their shareholders.”
—
What the NHL Lockout Reveals About Capital and Labor by Gretchen Gavett
When people are worried about competitors copying them they should just look at Southwest. For 40 years their very simple and fairly easy to copy business model has been left alone by all of the other idiots in the business. They all are losing their asses while Southwest continues to make a profit. Amazing
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December 2012
11 posts
Best way to call while traveling international
Both Fred and Bijan are traveling internationally right now and as always they are talking about the different technology issues and products that they are using.
A few weeks ago I was in Paris for Le Web and I think I figured out the best way to call while roaming internationally. There are cheaper solutions out there but this is the best hack for the buck in my opinion.
ATT does a 800mb roaming plan for $120. That puts each meg at $0.15. An average Skype call uses slightly less then 1 meg per minute, so even with the Skype out cost you are under $0.20 cents per minute while roaming on the cellular network. I was worried that the call quality might not be great but in the 4 countries I tired it in (Romania, UK, France and Italy) it was flawless.
You can basically use any VOIP client, I like using Skype because it just seems to work and I have programmed it to show my cell phone caller ID when I call out using it. While this does create call backs to my cell phone I find that so many people screen for caller ID that if I call through anything else I never get through.
We Just Changed Apple's Policy
If you had asked me yesterday if Apple would have changed their policy based on our canceling the POP charger I would have said that is crazy. We should not have even been a blip on their screen.
However as of a few hours ago it looks like Apple has changed their policy on Lightning and we will be able to make POP. Need to confirm as all of this has come from Apple PR but what a crazy turn of events.
Full story is here, Apple lifts block on combo 30-pin+Lightning charging accessories
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November 2012
21 posts
“It’s a bit of a fixer-upper.”
—Elon Musk, on Mars (via david)
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… it’s often easier to sell a product that intensely appeals to a narrow market than one that loosely appeals to a broad one. Early in his career, he proved this point while selling educational software.
He discovered that parents making purchasing decisions wanted to know that the product was perfect for THEIR kid. That left his marketing slogan at the time, “Perfect for ages 8-80” dead in the water. To combat this, Gross tested a product called “Jump Start for Kindergarten” and market only to 5-year olds. This product made $5 million in its first year and lead to a franchise for each grade. When originally proposed, the idea was shot down by every sales, marketing, and finance executive at the company as being too narrow. The end result, which came to be only through testing, was the most successful product in company history.
The takeaway lesson is that a more focused product sells better. Tangentially, he said that startups can often use focus as a secret weapon to outmaneuver larger companies. Gross’ closing advice on the subject was: “Focus is always better, even if it’s the wrong focus.”
” —Bill Gross: The Best Advice I Ever Received (via msg)