Bookmarker is a personal project by @dellsystem to help with retaining reading material. Source on GitHub.

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7 years, 10 months ago

four or five tech giants with cash piles

The funding model for startups is venture capital. And venture capital is a hits-driven business: you expect the vast majority of your investments to fail, so the ones that succeed have to succeed on a massive scale. Venture capital is risky, and it requires a lot of money.

Until relatively rece…

—p.238 Failure (Logic #5) Life Aboard the Rocket Ship: An Interview with an Anonymous Engineer (225) missing author
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7 years, 10 months ago

I wasn’t actually solving problems

I think what really shifted my thinking about my success was observing that most of the startups that are getting crazy amounts of venture capital aren't solving interesting problems. There is a lot of money going into squeezing more ad dollars out of users, and getting more attention and eyeballs.…

—p.242 Life Aboard the Rocket Ship: An Interview with an Anonymous Engineer (225) missing author
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7 years, 10 months ago

a way to justify paying us a lot

But acquiring our assets was also a way to justify paying us a lot. If they're only going to pay you 2x the normal salary, then that can take the form of a very nice job offer. But if they're going to pay you more like 8x or 10x, it breaks the whole idea of salary bands, which is how big companies …

—p.232 Life Aboard the Rocket Ship: An Interview with an Anonymous Engineer (225) missing author
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7 years, 10 months ago

the worldwide decline in corporate profitability

The worldwide decline in corporate profitability in the last half century has led investors to chase easy sources of profit. Sometimes that leads to investment in high-growth technology firms - many of which turn out to be duds or scams, or simply elaborate schemes to lower labor costs in existing …

—p.222 Nothing Ventured (215) missing author
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7 years, 10 months ago

the ideological role of venture capital

Elite segments of the tech sector sense that the political fissures exposed by Trump's victory are entwined with plutocratic entrenchment and diminished opportunities for the working class. So they are eager to prove that they can ease economic malaise by bringing growth to regions with very little…

—p.216 Nothing Ventured (215) missing author