Academy Awards Best Picture - Know These New Rules Before You Start Production

To a slightly lesser extent, and not quite as polarizing, that was Steve Jobs. He was not necessarily the tech guru behind the tech... But he could recognize a good thing when he saw it, had good ideas and more or less, would make sure they were refined to a high level, because he appreciated good design and the user experience.
 
Run&Gun said:
To a slightly lesser extent, and not quite as polarizing, that was Steve Jobs. He was not necessarily the tech guru behind the tech... But he could recognize a good thing when he saw it, had good ideas and more or less, would make sure they were refined to a high level, because he appreciated good design and the user experience.
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He was absolutely *not* a tech guru. The story of him ripping off his friend Steve Wozniak by underpaying him to do the tech work he (Jobs) was supposed to be doing when he was hired by Atari (and lying to Woz about it) says pretty much everything you need to know about Jobs.

I'm also not 100% certain he was all that good at spotting a good thing or developing ideas. There's a book out there on the iPhone development (The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone) that I've been meaning to read for a while now. You can read an excerpt here: https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/...et-history-iphone-brian-merchant-book-excerpt

The gist seems to be cutting down the Steve Jobs mythos—which is entirely understandable. CEOs are rarely as important, all-knowing, or infallible as they and their PR teams would like us to believe.
 
drboffa said:
He was absolutely *not* a tech guru. The story of him ripping off his friend Steve Wozniak by underpaying him to do the tech work he (Jobs) was supposed to be doing when he was hired by Atari (and lying to Woz about it) says pretty much everything you need to know about Jobs.
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ha...that is exactly what bosses do (not talking executive positions but life bosses who knew very early on they weren't going to be regular Joe schmucks and had a vision for everything).

I could listen to SJ speak all day...that was his talent and sometimes that's the most important one because there are many who could do the technical work but not many could sell you the pen.
 
Paul F said:
Is Tsingtao any good? I haven't had it in ages. I forgot what it tastes like.
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I haven't had it in a long time too but it was great. Singha was quite delish too.

And I like being confused with Brandel Chamblee.
 
drboffa said:
He was absolutely *not* a tech guru. The story of him ripping off his friend Steve Wozniak by underpaying him to do the tech work he (Jobs) was supposed to be doing when he was hired by Atari (and lying to Woz about it) says pretty much everything you need to know about Jobs.

I'm also not 100% certain he was all that good at spotting a good thing or developing ideas. There's a book out there on the iPhone development (The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone) that I've been meaning to read for a while now. You can read an excerpt here: https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/...et-history-iphone-brian-merchant-book-excerpt

The gist seems to be cutting down the Steve Jobs mythos—which is entirely understandable. CEOs are rarely as important, all-knowing, or infallible as they and their PR teams would like us to believe.
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Side note on the free speech at Twitter front - "Twitter has suspended the accounts of a prominent Tesla and Elon Musk critic, PlainSite founder Aaron Greenspan"
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/15/elo...c.html?__source=sharebar|twitter&par=sharebar

Examples of Musk breaking his promise on free speech are too numerous to count, so I'll just leave it at that for now.

Regarding his merits as a businessman or an engineer, I think his strengths lie as an entrepreneur rather than an engineer. I mean, he clearly understands the engineering well enough to direct the people under him. And even just listening to him talk, it's clear that he's very intelligent.

But I think his real strength is broad strokes planning and predicting the market. My understanding is that he got Tesla going by selling sports cars. Electric cars offer specific advantages to sports cars (namely, fast acceleration). So, he was able to compete in a luxury product on the merits of the product rather than the politics or environmentalism, etc. And that successful product helped bankroll their growth into other types of vehicles.

According to Musk, he got into the rocket business because he was shocked to learn that the cost per pound to launch a payload into orbit has actually gone up over time. So, he did some back of the envelope calculations to figure out how much it would cost to run a reusable system rather than a single-use system and decided he could compete on cost. So, he got into the business of launching satellites and used that platform to springboard into launching the Starlink satellite internet service and also finance the development of the Starship large rocket system for delivering massive payloads to the moon or Mars.

Just as important as big-picture strategy is the marketing and BS by which he attracts investors and customers.

One thing that surprised me was how poorly he has performed at Twitter. When he offered to buy it, I assumed that he must have some master plan to transform their business. But it quickly became clear that he did not. His first moves were to fire the vast majority of the workforce and shove the extra work onto the remaining employees; and then to stiff the vendors that Twitter owed money to as well as refuse to pay rent and force his landlords to sue him. His other big innovation was to start charging users for a service that was previously free. And he managed to scare away all his blue chip advertisers in the process. Not sure if people followed along with the"blue check" scandals happening at Twitter where their pay-to-play verification system let users impersonate major companies and celebrities.

Eli Lilly issues rare apology as fake Twitter Blue account proclaims free insulin for all...


Lilly's shares took a battering the day after the tweet dropping more than 6% and wiping billions of dollars from its market cap.
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https://www.fiercepharma.com/market...ount-forced-apologize-over-free-insulin-tweet
 
ahalpert said:
I mean, he clearly understands the engineering well enough to direct the people under him.
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I think even this is in doubt. "Overpromise and underdeliver" is what I've heard, according to people working on the rocket front. Does he know something about rockets and engineering? Yes. Is he a rocket scientist, as he likes to pretend? Not even close.


ahalpert said:
One thing that surprised me was how poorly he has performed at Twitter.
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I think to anyone who was really familiar with his supposed business acumen (I'm not saying I was) Twitter was not at all a surprise. Musk doesn't seem to be the business genius he's convinced people he is.

Musk isn't alone in this arena, I should also point out. CEO worship (especially tech CEO worship) is a key feature of our culture at this point, so it's relatively easy for these people to sell an idea of themselves as geniuses.
 
drboffa said:
Musk isn't alone in this arena, I should also point out. CEO worship (especially tech CEO worship) is a key feature of our culture at this point, so it's relatively easy for these people to sell an idea of themselves as geniuses.
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Indeed, Theranos and Nikola baffle me. How is it possible to con people this way? Doesn't anybody do even the slightest due diligence?
 
Paul F said:
Indeed, Theranos and Nikola baffle me. How is it possible to con people this way? Doesn't anybody do even the slightest due diligence?
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In the stock market, you make money when other people buy the asset after you do. So, in a way, predicting the success of a company is not as important as predicting how many other people will fall for its appeal.

Farmingdale, New York-based beverage maker Long Island Iced Tea says it's changing its name to "Long Blockchain Corp." ...and its stock jumps 200%
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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnb...ock-soars.html
 
drboffa said:
I think even this is in doubt. "Overpromise and underdeliver" is what I've heard, according to people working on the rocket front. Does he know something about rockets and engineering? Yes. Is he a rocket scientist, as he likes to pretend? Not even close.

I think to anyone who was really familiar with his supposed business acumen (I'm not saying I was) Twitter was not at all a surprise. Musk doesn't seem to be the business genius he's convinced people he is.

Musk isn't alone in this arena, I should also point out. CEO worship (especially tech CEO worship) is a key feature of our culture at this point, so it's relatively easy for these people to sell an idea of themselves as geniuses.
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That's all true, but there's a stiff competition to become the richest person in the world. So he must be doing something right, even if he's more PT Barnum and less Thomas Edison
 
That Long Blockchain story is hilarious.

On a more serious note, I'd like to remind everyone that despite strong demand, Paulscoin is still available for small investors.
 
Our local sheriff in Florida is all in favor of EVERYONE carrying a gun who is legally allowed to. I was at a community meeting last winter where he basically said we'll all be safer if more residents are packing a gun. And that was just a few weeks AFTER one of his deputies shot and killed another one of his deputies while they were goofing around off-duty playing video games.

https://www.clickorlando.com/news/lo...-manslaughter/

I think we should we should give all high school students a free gun so our schools will be safer. Isn't that a logical extension of his position? More guns = safer communities.
 
I imagine that actually does work in some normal, low-key communities in some of those southern states.

The idea being that everyone is relatively sane and everyone is packing, so no one starts anything and there is no crime.

The operative word in the first sentence being some. lol
 
NorBro said:
I imagine that actually does work in some normal, low-key communities in some of those southern states.

The idea being that everyone is relatively sane and everyone is packing, so no one starts anything and there is no crime.

The operative word in the first sentence being some. lol
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If everyone is relatively sane and law-abiding then why does everyone need a gun in the first place. Even in the "best-case" scenarios where "a good guy with a gun" manages to stop an active shooter early, the bad guy always claims multiple victims. And that's been true in high-security venues too. The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is not to give them one in the first place
 
Doug Jensen said:
Our local sheriff in Florida is all in favor of EVERYONE carrying a gun who is legally allowed to. I was at a community meeting last winter where he basically said we'll all be safer if more residents are packing a gun.
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I don't understand how people don't see that this describes the wild west. Like when you read about frontier history and everybody is packing a gun and that's the only justice because the nearest law enforcement is days away. These people are going backwards in history
 
ahalpert said:
If everyone is relatively sane and law-abiding then why does everyone need a gun in the first place. Even in the "best-case" scenarios where "a good guy with a gun" manages to stop an active shooter early, the bad guy always claims multiple victims. And that's been true in high-security venues too. The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is not to give them one in the first place
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Because sometimes people just have a really bad day.

Including good guys.

The idea behind this concept is very simple: Because guns will exist forever no matter what and nothing will be done about it or could be done about it until the planet is completely wiped of humanity, we might as well try to put more into the hands of everyone to protect themselves.

[For the record, not into them, never used one.]
 
ahalpert said:
I don't understand how people don't see that this describes the wild west. Like when you read about frontier history and everybody is packing a gun and that's the only justice because the nearest law enforcement is days away. These people are going backwards in history
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TCM ran one of my favorite westerns a few days ago "Winchester 73". A great film. It is interesting that everyone coming into Dodge City in 1876 had to hand over their guns to the sheriff for the duration of their stay. Same thing was portrayed in "Unforgiven, and probably other westerns too. Now 150 years later we have our Florida sheriff telling people they need to carry a gun everywhere they go. Is this country F#@cked up or what?
 
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ahalpert said:
The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is not to give them one in the first place
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The best way is to put bad guys away instead of catch and release. And while I'm at it, stop convicting people on circumstantial evidence. I'd rather a few bad guys go free than innocent people falsely convicted.
 
NorBro said:
Because sometimes people just have a really bad day.

Including good guys.

The idea behind this concept is very simple: Because guns will exist forever no matter what and nothing will be done about it or could be done about it until the planet is completely wiped of humanity, we might as well try to put more into the hands of everyone to protect themselves.

[For the record, not into them, never used one.]
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Oddly enough, they don't have this problem in any other country
 
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