Active Inference is kinda "a joint learning of the state representation with the search algorithm"...or at least, related to the idea. I like framing it as a joint learning problem.
This is true except FoxPro really was more of a 'normal' relational database model. It just had this 'tabular' view for its Database Viewer client front-end. FoxPro was certainly not a 'spreadsheet' product in the sense that Excel is.
FoxPro was bundled with MS Office at one point, and it blew me away with how easy it was to make data-centric apps. It's the only thing I've experienced that comes close to a spreadsheet for enabling programming for those who would identify as non-programmers.
Oracle says "hi" too!
I remember seeing ads in Infoworld for a product called SQL*Calc.
As far as I know it was fully vaporware, Oracle never even did anything past a photoshop (or more likely ms-paint) advertisement for it, but somebody on usenet may have used it:
I can’t quite reconcile this article with what I’ve seen before like this below…the methodology in the OP seems pretty questionable, so I trust this other article more.
Any definitive statements made about the past half century are pretty questionable, ideological biases notwithstanding (see “ The constant turnover in the Fortune 500 is a positive sign of the dynamism and innovation that characterizes a vibrant consumer-oriented market economy, and that dynamic turnover is speeding up in today’s hyper-competitive global economy.” and “Another economic lesson to be learned from the creative destruction that results in the constant churning of Fortune 500 (and S&P 500) companies over time is that the process of market disruption is being driven by the endless pursuit of sales and profits that can only come from serving customers with low prices, high quality products and services, and great customer service.”).
I think it’s not an unreasonable argument that the process of market disruption (over the past century at least) isn’t being driven by “the endless pursuit of profits that can only come from serving customers with low prices, high quality products and services, and great customer service” (LOL) but by some insane demographic changes occurring in the background of equally insane technological progress.
It actually seems quite delusional that, knowing about Moore’s Law/baby boomers/more than 5 tv channels, this person decided that customer service would be more important in deciding how the economy moves. Bonkers levels of autofellation, I say.
A potential reconciliation is that most of the companies left those lists via mergers with other companies on the list. It both consolidates power and gives churn to that list.
I don't know whether that's true or not, but it's notable that your article counts companies as "leaving" the list if they merge with someone else.
Complete tangent, but I noticed we posted the same exact link [1] around the same time and was curious what your research methodology was?
My Approach to suspect articles is to look for data that would either confirm or deny the claim in the article. Google article results are usually garbage so I look at image results to find actual data tables or charts. In this case, I found the link you posted by searching "Fortune 500 company turnover by year" and looking for line charts with a reasonable time frame.
Safeway might be OK for shoppers, but it's terrible for the workers. My Grandma worked there from 1965 to 1985, and watched the decline in the 80s. It was a really good paying job with a good union and good benefits when she started. My brother and cousin worked there a decade ago. Today, the union is a joke, and the hours and pay are the same as any other minimum wage job.
Berkshire Hathaway is a public company and IIRC Buffet only owns about 15% of it. So it really that different from a large corporation with many subsidiaries which also runs an actively managed investment fund at the same time?
Practicing gratitude for what you have is of course wise, and there are techniques that are helpful...gratitude journals, meditation, etc can be helpful.
However when I read your post it sounds to me like perhaps the issue is not a failure to be sufficiently grateful for what you have. It sounds like there is some desire, deep within you, that is going unmet. You have checked off everything from your list of Stuff You Thought You Wanted and yet something is still missing. It seems likely to me that that something is in fact missing.
You say "it's never enough", you "want more". But what exactly is it that you're wanting? What's the "enough" that it isn't? If you can look closely at that feeling with real curiosity and some gentleness...maybe there's a clue there as to what's going on. What's the reality that is going on (eg. "I'm often feeling deep failure and shame", a fact) vs. what's the narrative you're telling yourself ("Nothing is ever enough for me", a judgement you're making)?
That's not what the SAFE says. It's only on subsequent securities, not prior ones.
"If the Company issues any Subsequent Convertible Securities with terms more favorable than those of this Safe (including, without limitation, a valuation cap and/or discount) prior to termination of this Safe, the Company will promptly provide the Investor with written notice thereof, together with a copy of such Subsequent Convertible Securities (the “MFN Notice”) and, upon written request of the Investor, any additional information related to such Subsequent Convertible Securities as may be reasonably requested by the Investor."
Just to add to appsec112's point, while I did frame my original point as a 'perception', I'm willing to take a bet that if you put together US companies stats, I would be more right than wrong.
And while we are at 'actual stats' conversation, can we do the following -
- for the sake of this conversation, not divvy up enterprise/saas from devtools and enterprise-y fintech and enterprise-y health?
- publish stats on stanford/mit claim?
- publish stats on previous employer? ex-FAANG vs ex-YC portfolio vs none of those.
I appreciate YC publishing stats but the industry's work is not done when just high-level stats are published without scrutiny.
This doesn't address the claims, and honestly feels evasive. The original comment specified:
"(and that might be true for lot of the intl founders YC funds). But for most in the US"
ie., they agree things might be different for international YC startups, but they are talking specifically about US startups. That half of the startups are international doesn't matter for claims about the sub-population of US startups. Likewise, any particular type of startup could be well-represented among all YC companies but not US companies.
One problem with these stats is that they're counting the 15% of founders who are Latino as non-white. However, in countries like Brasil and especially Mexico, a large portion of the people who are able to get tech startups up and running are white people, not indigenous, mestizo, or black people. Mexico in particular has a huge problem with the elites almost all being white. Y Combinator is likely padding its diversity numbers by recruiting rich European and Mediterranean elites from Latin America. I'm not saying they definitely are, but it's very likely.
I do think it'd be more accurate to say "white or Asian" rather than just "white" when describing the bulk of Y Combinator participants. Asian people, though discriminated against in many ways in US office settings, are still firmly a part of Silicon Valley culture at all levels.
The perception tells more about the poster than YC for sure, but how will you address this ? I'll be honest, I had the exact same impression and I'm French, living in Hong Kong. For everyone, YC is a sort of Californian techno bubble, and now that I see stats, I wonder why I thought that way.
Maybe move away from California/US completely, change your own capital providers, make documentaries about how you're the top African venture capitalists and are headquartered in Kenya ? Maybe we conflate who you fund with who funds you ? Do you have the same breakdown for representatives of capital providers ?
Do you even know what the Thiel Fellowships are? Whatever you think of his politics, he literally gives away money to promising young people to help them realize their dreams...in exchange for no equity. Are you really saying that, because you dislike Thiel, you'd never do business with anyone who accepted free money from him?
I fail to see the relevance of your own post as well, and frankly, I don’t see why I’d have to explain myself to you or anyone else, just as I don’t expect any from you.
The point of my post is that there is nothing particularly significant about claiming that you would refuse to take money from someone who is never going to offer it to you to begin with. It's a completely worthless and trivial statement that comes across as posturing.
I mean, it's called a hypothetical. They're pretty common. They can even be used as thought experiments to bring out interesting aspects of moral questions.
If the person bringing up the hypothetical were remotely as talented as the people on this list and then made a claim that they'd refuse a free $100,000 in order to advance their interests, that would be a worthwhile discussion. Then we can expand on their point of view, what tradeoffs they make, what actual resources or funding they made use of as well as the kind of diligence they performed when accepting money...
In the absence of those qualifications, some random person saying they'd refuse 100k knowing full they're not in a position to have it offered to them is nothing more than a cheap claim and does nothing but demean the talent and judgement of those who choose to accept it.
I don't see what that has to do with anything. They are equally qualified to discuss the moral aspects of the question, which is what they are discussing. This feels like a lame attempt to shame the other commenter out of a point you couldn't answer - and on the basis of a standard you wouldn't pass yourself either.
No they are not equally qualified to discuss the moral aspect of it because they have nothing at risk. It's very easy to make cheap moral claims when there is nothing at stake. What's interesting is the kind of moral decisions and tradeoffs an individual makes when there is something at stake.
The fact that this person is not in a position to stake anything makes their claim entirely vacuous and superficial. First go off and start a company working on nuclear energy or electric airplanes, get to a point in your life where someone cares to offer you $100k for nothing in return, then feel free to talk about the tradeoffs and difficult balancing act that leads you to refuse it. That can be an interesting discussion...
Some nobody just chiming in with nothing other than a claim that they'd refuse to take money that they're in no position to even be offered is cheap posturing.
OK, this is now closer to approaching a cogent counter-argument. So why exactly is it that having something at stake would lead someone to answer that question differently?
And why do you think human beings can't think hypothetically about the condition of having something at stake, the same way we can think hypothetically about most everything else?
Tens of thousands of FAMANGA employees get $100K+ per year above and beyond a great income, which they can use for whatever they care about. A $100K fellowship gift isn't so different.
Yeah, I don't think I've seen such an incoherent attempt to ban someone from having an opinion. It's on a level with saying you can't disapprove of Harold Shipman until you've got a medical degree.
Presumably we all have to spend the rest of our lives running around getting various professional qualifications and careers, just so that we can have opinions on utterly generic moral questions which happen to be faced by someone with that degree.
Indeed - apparently my Trump bashing was "unqualified", so I now have to go and run for President, get elected, be President for 4 years, and then I can start bashing him.
There are some other things on that todo list ('rape first wife', 'cheat on pregnant third wife with pornstar', 'publicly blame your failed business on a dead man before his funeral had even taken place', 'send deranged tweets to Kim Jong Un while on cough medicine and alprazolam') but you'll get to them ;)
But nah, seriously, I don't know how some people can say such absolutely witless stuff, and still see fit to click 'send'. I think they are just nonplussed that not everyone else has the same Ubermensch ethic as they do, where anyone sufficiently rich or accomplished is exempted from the moral requirements incumbent on normal human beings.
They worship them, to put it simply - the rich and powerful - and they don't understand & can't process that not everyone else does.
I'm not a Facebook user, mostly because of the vast and repeated privacy violations they've committed in the past (not to mention their monopoly behaviors and political influencing, etc.) - but because I don't run/own/fund any similar monopolistic entity, I'm essentially forbidden from even talking about it??
Another is ClearView AI (oh look, another Thiel-funded thing!) - I oppose the existence of that company based on their entire business model being the abuse of people's information without consent, and how they expect you to cancel yourself to prevent being abused by them [1]. But according to some people [2], anyone that hasn't been abusing people's privacy cannot have an opinion on ClearView AI's actions [3], until you actually do so yourself [4], otherwise you're just "posturing" [4][5].
Yeah, great logic!
> They worship them, to put it simply - the rich and powerful - and they don't understand & can't process that not everyone else does.
What's worse are the ones that go out of their way to justify or even apologize their behavior (not unlike those part of a certain political cult right now).
Yeah, it's an absurd claim. And of course it never applies to their own hagiographic opinions of these people and these companies - it only invalidates critics. Handy! Who wants to be the one to tell the Holocaust historians?
And yeah, ClearView is absolutely typical. I'm not going to genuflect to some seasteading-obsessed professed libertarian whose entire business career, practically, has been in the realm of surveillance companies targeted at the bloated and despotic American state. Not even if you wrap it in some cod-philosophy blog post that namedrops Bayesian probability and game theory and Taleb.
Lots of people in society today believe everything is politics, and if you do not agree with a person 100% on every political issue then you must refuse to all interactions with them, you must never associate with them, you must never partner with them in area's where you may align, and above all else you must never take money from them...
it is sad existence for these people, one of mono-culture, and cult like adherence to a single political dogma
Come on...before you post complaints about how someone else is literally giving away millions of dollars to the wrong promising young people, maybe actually read the list of projects?
"Zeno Power is developing small-scale nuclear power systems to provide clean and resilient power in austere environments." He's literally funding clean energy.
And even if this year's list didn't have that in the list, let's celebrate someone doing good instead of lobbing stones from the sidelines about how they didn't do it the exact way we would have.
If there were things on there about climate or carbon capture people would find something else to hate about it. It's not enough. It won't work. And so on...
This is silly. An investment is an expenditure of resources today, which pays off down the line. Dinner at a restaurant? Not an investment (unless you believe in investing in memories, which I believe stretches the metaphor slightly). An Xbox? Sure that’s an investment that pays dividends in entertainment over time. It’s a pretty short term since it’ll be obsolete in 5-7 years. Investing in a house w a neighborhood you love? Assuming you stay and love it, absolutely an investment and a long term one — maybe pays off for the rest of your life!
Not all returns pay out in cash. To think otherwise is to financialize your whole life, to know the value of money but nothing else.
