A lot of finger pointing at Amazon but most of the employment demands from the 'union' have been characteristics of Whole Foods since looonnngg before the aquisition. For example, unpaid paternity/maternity leave, no recognition of any holiday including federal - just 3 weeks of PTO used at your discretion, below market compensation, crappy benefits, calcified management, and the list goes on.
Most people work there because of the perceived culture of being free-spirit & hippy, but from my observation it's not that great of a place to build a career & wealth. Or perhaps it's par for the course and I'm just accustom to tech companies treating their people pretty well given how competitive the market is for top talent.
Source: I live in Austin with friends who work at the HQ.
Having been in the UFCW Local 367, it takes 3 years to get 3 weeks PTO - it's 1 week the first year.
And you get "sick days", but you had to call in sick for 2 days (and lose that pay) and have a doctor's note, to start getting sick pay.
If you do call in sick, you have to explain to the manager that they'll be short a person all day, and customers will find the store that much busier and harder to shop in. Stores don't have a "b-roster" to call in when someone is sick.
Journeyman checker wages have been frozen at 18.50/hour for a decade. And it takes 4 years to work the hours to become journeyman, which increases in every subsequent union contract.
We're in the middle of the best economy in years. Why would a worker put up with that? Go someplace else. Whole Foods doesn't put stores in small towns. Anyone who works there has plenty of other options.
Yeah for sure, people living hand to mouth in a hyper competitive low-skill wage job definitely have the luxury of shopping around for better conditions where employers have their pick of any number of people desperate for a job. Totally.
This sarcasm does not move the discussion forward. There’s a number of things a person can do in the U.S to pick up a skill from a trade to medicine. With grants, loans, or any number of free/paid courses.
Also, it is truly impressive to see people work and succeed going from “not very much” to “boy he’s a force”. Just takes effort, go figure.
Yes, it is impressive to see people improving their lives, and we should work towards a society that helps people do that.
However, to just write it all off as if "hard work" is the only thing preventing a lot of people from improving their lives is very much blind to the reality that a lot of people are _already_ working very hard, just to stay afloat as is, and there are other factors beyond "hard work" preventing change.
Acquiring a skill takes money (if there's any kind of accreditation) and time. If you're living paycheque-to-paycheque and looking to change employers, chances are you don't have much of either. Not everyone has a safety net.
> We're in the middle of the best economy in years.
Best economy for whom? The U.S. economy as a whole has expanded greatly since the 1980s, but it's the individuals' economies that matter, and they haven't expanded much.
There have been umpteen articles how wages have not kept up with inflation. It's a tough sell telling parts of the country that swapped the first black president for man with a less than stellar morality record that this is the best economy in history.
>It's a tough sell telling parts of the country that swapped the first black president for man with a less than stellar morality record that this is the best economy in history.
I don't really understand what you're saying, but Obama had a despicable morality record as well. Kill list, 7 wars, drone bombed American citizens with no due process, dropped 26,000 bombs in 2016 alone, tortured people including Chelsea Manning.
Walking into changing rooms of teenage girls isn't indicative of moral character, or is being the focus of multiple sexual assault allegations.
And if that's just "fake news" given it has been reported in multiple sources, then I suppose I can just call any retort you make as "fake news" as well.
We’re in the middle of the best economy and wages still aren’t rising. Monopoly, monopsony, and free market extremism have crushed them for all but the very few.
And? If Amazon bought a company with poor working conditions, ripe for unionization, it’s their problem. They’re the bosses now.
Maybe the workers hoped things would get better absent labor organization, but now that they’re being managed by a company rife with labor abuses, their circumstances have become more clear to them.
I don't disagree, I think it's a great opportunity for Amazon to make this a big win for their optics - externally for consumers who are starting to view them as the new Walmart and internally for WF employees.
I just felt I needed to clarify that attacking Amazon and painting them red in the press for poor employment practices that WF has upheld for a long time was not really a diplomatic strategy for approaching your new boss, especially when a lot of WF employees likely wanted Amazon to be a "hands-off" acquirer.
I built this about 6 years ago with Lloyd's of London as the underwriter for medical evacuation and search & rescue services. We were way to early for smartphone market, but the GEOS response team behind FindMeSpot.com can be contracted by anyone. http://www.geosworldwide.com/
The challenge for any private company is that the solution needs to be completely integrated into both the device and behavioral patterns need to be re-learned. For most people (in the US), calling 9-11 has been engrained since they were a child. In a moment of panic, it's the first or second reaction... not loading a 3rd party app. While not impossible, convincing Apple or Google to let you own "SOS+" capabilities would be a tall order...
Spot has succeed in the adventure market by owning the device and behavior change being easy to manage with no cell service. Just about everyone I know who has a mountain home, sailboat, or frequently travels to remote places – has purchased Spot.
If I was a VC, I would be interested in a roll-up strategy... GEOS and Spot aren't the only solutions.
I absolutely agree that any new solution will need to be transparent / obvious / non-3rd party app based.
While getting Apple and Google on board may seem like a tall order (I’m sure it is), both have implemented 112’s AML spec natively. Google is also driving this with their Android ELS efforts.
Having emergency responders, and public opinion, on the side of this happening should convince both A and G to look into this.
... and yes, replace the SOS dialpad (!) with something better.
I think Tesla's are beautiful and have set the bar, but if you want a capable & cheap alternative, look at a used BMW i3. Resale value sunk for many reasons but has bottomed.
<salesman>I bought a 2016 fully-loaded REX with 5,000 miles for under $25K, sticker was $58K. Factory warranty for 4 years, 8 years on the battery. Fastest BMW from 0-40mph. This thing flies for urban commuters. It comes with a charger that can plug into a conventional socket which can be nice for people who don't have the means to install a 240v. Fun to hack with BimmerCode to customize all sorts of stuff. My big complaint is the rear door system is awkward. It also rides a little high so I put 1" lowering springs and 15mm wheel spacers which greatly improved handling.</salesman>
I'm also interested in testing the Jaguar iPace. By most performance measures, its beaten the Model X.
Having previously owned a used BMW: I wouldn't touch a BMW without a warranty with a 20ft pole. I mean... The only way to realign the headlights if they get thrown off for some reason is to pay the dealership $200+ because they can't self correct and the only tool that can access the headlight controllers is BMW proprietary. Run, run while you can.
>Having previously owned a used BMW: I wouldn't touch a BMW without a warranty with a 20ft pole.
Yeah, i'd agree if we were talking about traditional cars, and this comes from someone who has wrenched on every bolt of their BMW.
As far as the DIY repair-ability of BMW's electric cars? About the same as every other electric car -- which is to say 'near-zero', unless we're talking about wiper blade replacement level stuff.
To be clear, are you saying you're okay with a lack of repairability in BMW electric cars because that's standard for electrics? You're free to your perspective, but I find it a little odd. My reaction would be to simply not buy any electric cars at all. Is there any reason why the owner shouldn't be able to realign headlights in an electric car when they are able to do so with ICE cars?
Electric cars might need very little maintenance during the first few years of operation, but why should I be needlessly locked out from making repairs on my own vehicle? We've let car companies create what will end up being massive hunks of useless metal and batteries, all because we won't properly regulate them to ensure end users can work on their own cars and extend their useful lives.
That right there is why current electric cars are far from green, if it ain't repairable, its trashcan ready. Trashcan ready products are the anti-thesis of environmentally sound products.
Many of the issues I've had with German vehicles were not related to the ICE. These are the issues I faced in 100k miles of German car ownership:
Window motor,
Parasitic draw,
Blower motor,
Headlight ballast,
Wheel bearing,
Strut mount bushings,
Sunroof drain channel
There is not as much to have fail in an electric car, but that shouldn't mean I lose the right to repair a vehicle I own. Rebuilding batteries isn't new to me, nor is compiling software.
Why should Tesla be allowed to brick every electric car that gets in a fender bender, or refuse to sell parts for cars once the vehicle is out of warranty? A lack of enforcement of the right to repair has driven repair costs on Tesla's vehicles sky high, causing their vehicles to have notably more expensive insurance premiums.
Sure the engine needs less maintenance (at least that's the claim), but there's more to the car than that. Besides the specific example was for realigning headlights and I'm not sure why the maintenance of something like that should be different for an electric car.
Because servicing and spare parts are a huge business. And unless some one is specifically looking to disrupt that part of the business. Its in their interest to keep the charges for something like that high.
I believe you misunderstood me. My original question was why serf was okay with an electric car having this lack or repairability vs one with an ICE when the specific repairability question involves something like realigning headlights which has nothing to do with ICE or not. Of course you're right that manufacturers are more than happy to extract extra money from consumers through such servicing agreements, but that has nothing to do with my question. Besides that reasoning applies to manufactures of ICE vehicles as well so your point is honestly totally irrelevant.
It's an electric car. They are usually reliable until the battery or drive train fails, at which point they can be used as excellent chicken coops. Things like brakes, body, electrics should be fixable on the cheap by regular non-brand shops.
$25k is still a bit much for a car that tiny. What you really want is a used Leaf that has bottom out at around $5000-$8000 for great condition specimens and drive great.
We got a ford focus electric it looks nicer than the frog face leaf and is zippy to. Almost like new was $16k and it works great as a local second car. But the range is really low, you can’t go more than 25-30 miles away from home. Still, we love it for what it is and does.
A Leaf is a glorified golf cart. If you can't afford a Tesla, the next best bet is a Chevy Bolt which has a 250 mile range and not a golf-cart range. (Also, you're buying American, if that's important to you)
I thought the same. But over time the look has grown on me. I think the 2018 model looks really good. The interior is especially nice. It's the only game in town if you want an affordable RWD (fun) electric drive.
The Range Extender means you can drive across United States without depending on the grid; the REX is a gas re-generator. The BimmerCode hack(s) makes it more enjoyable to actually go the distance. I now have a combined 140 miles per charge and ~2.5L gas reserve. There is a popular i3 Facebook Group where people log their long distance drives.
All of that said, my average commute is 10 miles so I'm purely electric about 95% of the time unless I forget to plugin. I got the REX because I thought the resell would be better in Texas.
The i3 has a "BEV" version that is much cheaper but more limited in its range; newer models are getting better tho.
I bought it used in 1/17, so under 2 years old. Base model with QC port. No tax credits available as it was used. Though between the $7,500 federal and $10k KCP&L (I live in KS) rebate, I could have bought a new 2017 for under $15k.
The asshat Nissan dealers wouldn’t budge on list price, so screw buying new. There is a guy locally who only sells used Leafs, as a bunch came off leases, and he flips them from auctions.
Just be careful if you’re in a cold climate. A buddy owned one and had to charge his leaf at Nissan dealerships in the cold to make it home after work - and if I recall right, his commute wasn’t more than 15mi/way.
This makes sense - for whatever inane reason (I'm not going to outright say it's malfeasance), Nissan chose to not include active thermal management for their Leaf line of cars. Even the one they sell today only has less effective cooling.
This means that older Leafs have a greatly reduced range. Even my budget Ford Focus EV 2017 ($16k negotiated cap cost) has active thermal management for the battery pack so I might keep it off-lease.
Keep in mind, the Leaf came out 1-2 years before the Model S, and and less that 1/2 the price. It uses totally different style of batteries. Probably all cost cutting. But yeah, cooling would be nice. They did some redesign for 2015, but it is still air cooled.
That doesn't sound right. That's only 30 miles, total. This should be easily doable even with the cabin heater + battery heater at high highway speeds. Was this Leaf's battery healthy?
It is a ridiculously well engineered car. Way more power than the competition, bigger battery than the competition. The 2009 model is still technically ahead of all the other plugins on the market.
It doesn't matter for the Volt. Since it has a range extender, there's no real need for fast charging. Just charging it every night from a 120V outlet will eliminate most gas usage for most people. If you run out of charge, it's an annoyance rather than a disaster.
I can't speak to the Bolt since I've never seen one.
It depends on your mileage. 4days to fully recharge from empty, if you are on a road trip (which you obviously couldn't do in a Bolt). But overnight it will charge 50miles, which covers local daily use.
The REX isn't even as fast as the standard i3, nevermind considering actual performance-oriented BMWs. Your statement is so generalized it includes the S1000RR and HP4 superbikes in its comparison, hogwash.
glad someone mentioned bikes(motorcycles). very friendly to the environment, well except of course super sports | sports since they guzzle gas. but sill better mpg than most cars. my stolen fz1 used to get 50mpg when I was doing over 120mph
I highly doubt your fz1 got 50mpg while traveling over 120mph.
Presumably you mean you averaged 50mpg across a tank of gas which included some time spent > 120mph, which is a huge difference. Most riders can't really sustain > 120mph for an entire tank of gas, which is typically the granularity of measurement for casual mpg estimates made at fillup time.
My experience with liter bikes was that the fuel economy dropped to < 10mpg approaching vmax, which in combination with their small tank capacity poses a very real problem for those fleeing police.
i was like wtf at that comment too, partly because i drive a pure electric i3 for almost 4 years, partly because of the motorcycles, though a pure electric i3 IS fast.
I've never been in an i3, but just judging from the numbers on wikipedia; 168 BHP with a claimed 2635 lb curb weight, reminiscent of Mazda MX-5 numbers, is not what I'd call a fast power:weight ratio.
There's no doubt in my mind that the i3 feels quick off the line being electric. But I don't think it qualifies as fast unless you're comparing it to a Nissan Leaf or other comparatively slow EVs.
Yes, it's a clown car but I'm okay with that. Resale dropped due to federal tax credits and BMWs aggressive leasing plans.
For me, it was an experiment to try EV and I'm 100% sold. It also pushed me to go full solar on the home we're building. Rather make an environmental impact than a status statement.
I'm also interested in testing the Jaguar iPace. By most performance measures, its beaten the Model X.
You are lying. The iPace is FAR behind the Model X in all performance measures. The iPace has a manufacturer's estimated range of ~350km, no EPA rated range given. The Model X has EPA rated maximum range of 475km - that's a third party verified range that is 125km above the estimated (and very optimistic) range of the iPace. As far as speed goes, iPace is 4.8s to 100km/h, while the P100D variant of the Model X is 0 - 100km/h in 3.6s, a solid second faster.
I don't know why you write such obviously wrong things. They are blatantly false and misleading. Don't write stuff that is blatantly wrong, you poison the internet along with the collective human consciousness.
One of us is correct, depending on what the other is talking about. But "FAR behind" is a bit of a gross overstatement. I also don't understand your negativity except that it must be rooted in a love affair for Tesla/Elon.
When I said performance, this is the video I watched that compelled me to get interested in what Jaguar was doing.
You are being fooled, they never show the backside of that Tesla Model X to reveal the battery size. They are also not really an independent third party
A relative of mine who works for JLR was claiming that the iPace was better than the Model X in every way the other day too. He started reeling off figures that were blatantly inferior. I can only assume GP also works for them. It's a strange mindset over there.
The sheer volume of news that comes across the wire every minute of every day is out of control.
I was working in online media 5 years ago and the number of sites using bots to compile half-baked articles that a junior editor could quickly tweak to meet his 10+ article a day quota was disheartening. Again, that was 5 years ago. Now we have today's news automation capabilities + political drama + Facebook/Twitter/Slack/et al, and you've magnetized millions of consumers with a reality TV soap opera that has infected everything.
Google is at the center, and so is Facebook and Twitter as distributors. They've all built information vacuums which tailor news & content based on your profiles, search intent, visit history, purchasing habits, and predictive attributes to target you. However, no matter how sophisticated the AI/ML becomes – the underlying program is still written by a human and expressed biases are engrained the day we're born. And, they will never go away.
In a company and environment like today, I'm not sure how one can begin to escape the discussions around society and politics while operating an organization that has a larger GDP than Switzerland coupled with uncontested scale that touches nearly every person worldwide...
The Aeron is only for people who are small? They make them in 3 different sizes and Size C can easily handle a very large person. The level of customization is why they became so popular. To that end, they also have premium versions that have even more 'levers and knobs' beyond the standard features. To your point, most people are uninformed about the Aeron (or similar) and the degree of customization that's achievable. But I ultimately do agree with you, it's not a chair that's designed for everyone and you should try before you buy. A great task chair fitted to your body makes a world of difference.
I use to buy and sell used office furniture in the early 00's to pay for college.
> The Aeron is only for people who are small? They make them in 3 different sizes and Size C can easily handle a very large person.
But does nothing for leg length, which is the issue. As I said in the post you replied to, if you fold your legs under yourself the Aeron doesn't work.
For smaller people, they likely won't notice it, but for larger/taller the back of your legs brush against the underside/front of the chair in that position.
The Aeron seems to want you to sit correctly or not at all.
For anyone looking for engineering positions in Austin, we are hiring at athenahealth ($ATHN). Senior-level positions in C#/.NET (+Azure), JAVA (+AWS), ReactJS/Native, iOS/Android.
Our Austin office is where a lot of R&D happens and there is a huge push to re-platform into micro services. athenahealth also owns Epocrates, a very popular mobile app used by more than 600K providers. That product team is based here, too.
Great place to work, beautiful office, downtown location with parking included, and a very mission-driven culture. Find me on LinkedIn or my Gmail in my HN profile. Happy to connect you with the hiring managers.
I really wish Google/Nest would end their corporate beef with Apple and integrate with HomeKit. What happened with the openness of Google?
Instead of buying Nest's entire line to outfit the house I'm building, I'm avoiding them completely even though I think their products are at the top of their class.
Nest isn't unique anymore... neither are their cameras... and they are late to the party with the doorbell. Do I think they are great products? Absolutely!! But they aren't in a position of leverage, the market is becoming commoditized, and forcing consumers to use only your app is a poor strategy. Especially considering it wasn't until a few weeks ago did Nest's app support iPhone X's new format, MONTHs after it was available to the public.
HomeKit is not using open standards. Google and Nest are. Your question should be reversed. Why doesn't Apple just use OpenThread or one of the competing open source IoT frameworks?
HomeKit was announced in June 2014, and released September 2014.
Thread was developed at Nest. The Thread Group was announced July 2014, far into HomeKit's R&D cycle. There wasn't much, or obvious, commercial support for for years. (Although to be fair, HomeKit has taken forever to get traction, too.)
I believe that at the time Apple was also concerned about the quality and security considerations of a Thread-like system. I can't prove or cite this, but having worked with Apple engineers who worked on MFi (ironically, I worked with them at Nest, not Apple), I'm skeptical of the narrative that it was devised as a revenue source. My sense from the culture of Apple when I was there (90s) and everything I see coming out of there more recently is that Apple tries to maintain standards of peripheral quality, security, and compatibility and that have been difficult to find in the Android ecosystem, say, although this has been detrimental in the case of HomeKit adoption and they've finally backed off.
Thread was developed in the Thread Group, and like any standardization body, was (and is) open for any company to join at a variety of membership levels.
All members had input in the specification, and subsequent specs.
I know you're being sarcastic, but for folks who are actually interested, you can request access to the Thread 1.1.1 specification here [1], and you can contribute to Nest's open-source implementation of Thread here [2]
Nobody, you got that all wrong. 802.15.4 and 6LoWPAN are established, quite mature standards. HomeKit is the (proprietary) challenger, that adds nothing but an ecosystem for Apple to profit from
Zwave is proprietary. Zigbee is "not really" open. There is no open implementation AFAIK, the application library (cluster library) is standardized and everyone is allowed to develop and sell compatible devices, yet you won't be able to fetch the code and deploy on the platform of your choice, AFAIK. In this regard Zwave and Zigbee are quite similar.
Almost all the mentioned standards are based on IEEE 802.15.4.
The difference between 6LoWPAN and and the rest of the mentioned "standards": 6LoWPAN is IPv6 "adapted"/compatible. Thread is based/extends on 6LoWPAN, and adds several missing features or replaces some parts, because similar to conventional Internet devices, you need something more than IPv6 to get things going.
Apple's playbook is to launch with APIs for internal use and then, frequently, open them. Examples include iOS support for third-party apps, third-party access to a number of watchOS 2.0 APIs, and third-party access to iOS APIs such NFC, Touch ID, camera overlays, etc. etc. Apple is also ruthless about omitting features (copy/paste, anyone?) from 1.0 releases.
This is in contrast to hardware support, which has tended to contract (floppy drives, CD drives, Ethernet cables, USB jacks, iPhone headphone jack).
It also makes sense to many of us who have done platform development and/or supported public APIs.
I'd want more evidence before concluding that HomePod's initial limitations are an M.O rather than an MVP.
They have had internal support for voice-controlling your music since iOS 1. They had a cross-application API that let you voice control arbitrary music apps on Mac OS since at least 10.4, probably earlier. Music has been a core feature of the iPhone since they day it launched.
It isn't an accident that they've failed to extend voice support to third parties after ten years. If they did plan to add it any time soon, they would have easily been able to get that to market before HomePod. They decided they'd rather continue trying to shove users into their subpar Music service, instead of supporting what users actually want and use.
Conclusion: Don't Buy unless the only audio service you ever use is Apple Music.
> Apple's modus operandi is to, for example, enforce Apple Music as the only native HomePod music service.
(emphasis mine). I think you mean "natively support". You can send anything you like via their proprietary airplay service (like chromecast). "Enforce" is appropriate for, say, their requirement that iOS apps come only via their app store.
Historically Apple, like others, play nice with standards when they are the underdog (the NeXT, and thus MacOS X.<small-integer>) was all about open standards like JPG, though they also paid the danegeld for things like the RTF and GIF licenses. The iPod not only supported mp3 but they openly encouraged ripping CDs. Hell, Steve Jobs paid us actual money to make gcc & objective-C++ gret on the NeXT (though he had a really good team already in place as well). Then as they gained more power they cared about openness less.
Google was similar; they have a better committment to open source than Apple does but also try to use their market muscle to do things like their own mobile page format.
In case I sound like an apologist, I also prefer open interoperability. But I am realistic about looking at the landscape.
Integrating with HomeKit requires adding a HomeKit specific chip to each device. It would require them to reengineer all their products and drive up the cost - it's Apple being closed here, not Google.
I agree it was a very poor decision that lost them a lot of ground to Alexa – but that was HomeKit 1.0. Apple dropped that requirement last year at WWDC.
"If you're interested in developing or manufacturing a HomeKit accessory that will be distributed or sold, your company must enroll in the MFi Program."
Maybe I'm missing something but it looks like she omitted general contractor fees unless she rolled them into the sq/ft cost. Not that most people are qualified but I know people who GC the projects themselves to save a great deal of money. It's worth calling out as it's own item...
I found an up and coming architect so my design fees were substantially less than my GC fees... by about 8-10x.
Square foot costs are only given by a GC, so that's already included.
> I know people who GC the projects themselves to save a great deal of money.
Do not do this unless you know what you're doing. One bad contractor (and you will be hiring many) can trash the whole project. The value of the GC is that he brings a stable of quality contractors that he knows and works with.
I've gone both ways, it really depends on the situation.
Any advice on how to find a good GC? All the people I know who remodeled their home seem to have horror stories. A couple of them ended in law suits with the GC.
I had good luck. As mentioned above, finding a good GC is not easy because they do not advertise. It is entirely word of mouth.
I live in the pacific NW where there are a lot of old craftsman style homes. High quality woodwork details is the theme.
I started by calling high end custom furniture shops and asked them if they could do built in cabinetry work. They did not, but they recommended a number of woodworkers that moved on from furniture into contracting (carpentry, custom window sashes, storm windows, etc...).
Then, I asked them what GCs they have worked with in the past and which they would recommend.
A few names came up often, I spoke with them, picked one, and was really happy with the work.
I guess the tl;dr is, good GCs use highly skilled subs, so find the subs then ask which GCs they recommend.
1. Keep talking to people who've finished projects. Eventually you'll get to people who recommend their GC.
2. If you've run out of people to chat up, try going to your city's build permits department and see which builders have been getting permits in the last few years. Not a guarantee of quality, but gives you a list to interview.
3. Ask for referrals from your architect or engineer. And then ask the referrals for references.
But even if you do this, finding a good GC in Silicon Valley is very hard right now.
I tried getting contractors to bid almost a year ago. From 25 calls/emails, I got replies from about 8. Of those, half said some variant of "sorry, too busy to take on new projects right now."
I can't imagine how much crazier it'll be this year with the hotter housing market and the added demand for rebuilding after the fires.
Have you or your friends worked with any contractor that you like and trust? If so start there and work backwards. I happened upon a really good plumber, for example, so now any time I hire any other contractor I call that plumber and ask him whom I should call. So far it's worked out great.
You're looking at top-line cost to provide care in a very convoluted market. Take chronic for example, a huge chunk is spent on drug treatment. Incentives to use generics are often misaligned from the needs of the patient.
Also, about 10-15% of the $3 trillion is administrative waste (payers). There are a lot of areas that we can save.
My wife and I share my Jeep but I tried really hard to be carless in Austin, TX. I even experimented with a variety of Segways (at the expense of many jokes) and alternatives to a bike for the longer-hauls so that I'm not drenched in sweat when I get to the office. [1]
I was totally fine when we lived downtown as it's becoming very walkable, but it's pretty impractical when you live even a short distance from the core. There are people that do it, we have decent running and bike trails, but it's just not suitable for us. My wife and I are on different time schedules which makes commuting together hard, and Austin lacks great public transportation combined with terrible traffic which drives up the Uber/Lyft cost per ride.
We decided to buy a 2nd car again but this time a used EV (BMW i3) so that our total cost of ownership is really low. Based on my napkin math and the deal we got on the car, I suspect we'll break-even or better compared with using a ride sharing service.
Most people work there because of the perceived culture of being free-spirit & hippy, but from my observation it's not that great of a place to build a career & wealth. Or perhaps it's par for the course and I'm just accustom to tech companies treating their people pretty well given how competitive the market is for top talent.
Source: I live in Austin with friends who work at the HQ.