#sf startup | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

Text

It’s been twenty years since my Microsoft DRM talk

On THURSDAY (June 20) I'm live onstage in LOS ANGELES for a recording of the GO FACT YOURSELF podcast. On FRIDAY (June 21) I'm doing an ONLINE READING for the LOCUS AWARDS at 16hPT. On SATURDAY (June 22) I'll be in OAKLAND, CA for a panel and a keynote at the LOCUS AWARDS.

This week on my podcast,This week on my podcast, I read my June 17, 2004 Microsoft Research speech about DRM, a talk that went viral two decades ago, and reassess its legacy:

https://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt

It's been 20 years (and one day) since I gave that talk. It wasn't my first talk like that, but at the time, it was the most successful talk I'd ever given. I was still learning how to deliver a talk at the time, tinkering with different prose and delivery styles (to my eye, there's a lot of Bruce Sterling in that one, something that's still true today).

I learned to give talks by attending sf conventions and watching keynotes and panel presentations and taking mental notes. I was especially impressed with the oratory style of Harlan Ellison, whom I heard speak on numerous occasions, and by Judith Merril, who was a wonderful mentor to me and many other writers:

https://locusmag.com/2021/09/cory-doctorow-breaking-in/

I was also influenced by the speakers I'd heard at the many political rallies I'd attended and helped organize; from the speakers at the annual Labour Day parade to the anti-nuclear proliferation and pro-abortion rights marches I was very involved with. I also have vivid memories of the speeches that Helen Caldicott gave in Toronto when I was growing up, where I volunteered as an usher:

https://www.helencaldicott.com/

When I helped found a dotcom startup in the late 1990s, my partners and I decided that I'd do the onstage talking; we paid for a couple hours of speaker training from an expensive consultant in San Francisco. The only thing I remember from that session was the advice to look into the audience as much as possible, rather than reading from notes with my head down. Good advice, but kinda obvious.

The impetus for that training was my onstage presentation at the first O'Reilly P2P conference in 2001. I don't quite remember what I said there, but I remember that it made an impression on Tim O'Reilly, which meant a lot to me then (and now):

https://www.oreilly.com/pub/pr/844

I don't remember who invited me to give the talk at Microsoft Research that day, but I think it was probably Marc Smith, who was researching social media at the time by data-mining Usenet archives to understand social graphs. I think I timed the gig so that I could kill three birds with one stone: in addition to that talk, I attended (and maybe spoke at?) that year's Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference, and attended an early preview of the soon-to-launch Sci Fi Museum (now the Museum of Pop Culture). I got to meet Nichelle Nichols (and promptly embarrassed myself by getting tongue-tied and telling her how much I loved the vocals she did on her recording of the Star Wars theme, something I'm still hot around the ears over, though she was a pro and gently corrected me, "I think you mean Star *Trek"):

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=4IiJUQSsxNw&list=OLAK5uy_lHUn58fbpceC3PrK2Xu9smBNBjR_-mAHQ

But the start of that trip was the talk at Microsoft Research; I'd been on the Microsoft campus before. That startup I did? Microsoft tried to buy us, which prompted our asshole VCs to cram the founders and steal our equity, which created so much acrimony that the Microsoft deal fell through. I was pretty bitter at the time, but in retrospect, I really dodged a bullet – for one thing, the deal involved my going to work for Microsoft as a DRM evangelist. I mean, talk about the road not taken!

This was my first time back at Microsoft as an EFF employee. There was some pre-show meet-and-greet-type stuff, and then I was shown into a packed conference room where I gave my talk and had a lively (and generally friendly) Q&A. MSR was – and is – the woolier side of Microsoft, where all kinds of interesting people did all kinds of great research.

Indeed, almost every Microsoft employee I've ever met was a good and talented person doing the best work they could. The fact that Microsoft produces such a consistent stream of garbage products and crooked business practices is an important testament to the way that a rotten organization can be so much less than the sum of its parts.

I'm a fully paid up subscriber to Ronald Coase's "Theory of the Firm" (not so much his other views):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm

Coase says the reason institutions exist is to enable people to work together with lowered "coordination costs." In other words, if you and I are going to knit a sweater together, we're going to need to figure out how to make sure that we're not both making the left sleeve. Creating an institution – the Mafia, the Catholic Church, Microsoft, a company, a co-op, a committee that puts on a regional science fiction con – is all about minimizing those costs.

As Yochai Benkler pointed out in 2002, the coolest and most transformative thing about the internet is that it let us do more complex collective work with smaller and less structured institutions:

https://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.PDF

That was the initial prompt for my novel Walkaway, which asked, "What if we could build luxury hotels and even space programs with the kind of (relatively) lightweight institutional overheads associated with Wikipedia and the Linux kernel?"

https://crookedtimber.org/2017/05/10/coases-spectre/

So the structure of institutions is really important. At the same time, I'm skeptical of the idea that there are "good companies" and "bad companies." Small businesses, family businesses, and other firms that aren't exposed to the finance sector can reflect their leaders' personalities, but it's a huge mistake to ascribe personalities to the companies themselves.

That's how you get foolish ideas like "Apple is a good company because they embrace paid service and Google is a bad company because they make money from surveillance." Apple will spy on you, too, if they can:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Disney and Fox weren't Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers making goo-goo eyes at each other across the table at MPA meetings. They were two giant public companies, and any differences between them were irrelevancies and marketing myths:

https://locusmag.com/2021/07/cory-doctorow-tech-monopolies-and-the-insufficient-necessity-of-interoperability/

I think senior management's personalities do matter (see, for example, the destruction of Boeing after it was colonized by sociopaths from McDonnell Douglas), but the influence of those personalities is much less important than the constraints that competition and regulation impose on companies. In other words, an asshole can run a company that delivers good products at fair prices under ethical conditions – provided that failing to do so will cost more in lost business and fines than they stand to make by cheating:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/24/record-scratch/#autoenshittification

Microsoft is a company founded and run by colossal assholes. Bill Gates is a monster and he surrounded himself with monsters, and they hired monsters to fill out the courts of their corporate palaces:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/14/patch-tuesday/#fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again

To the extent that good things come out of Microsoft – some of its games products, the odd piece of hardware, important papers from MSR – it's in spite of the leadership; it's the result of constraints imposed by competition and regulation – and that's why Microsoft pursued such an aggressive program of extinguishing its competitors and capturing its regulators.

In retrospect, I think one of my goals in that talk was to convince those people doing good work for a rotten institution to go elsewhere and do other things. Certainly, that's one of the goals I pursue in the talks I give today. At the time, some of Microsoft's highest-profile technologists were publicly resigning over the company's war on free/open source software, so it wasn't an unrealistic goal:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030214215639/http://synthesist.net/writing/onleavingms.html

What I did not expect what that publishing the talk on my site and blogging it on Boing Boing would spark a wave of public interest that would get its message in front of several orders of magnitude more people than I spoke to at Microsoft that day. Partly, that was because I released the talk into the public domain, using the brand-new Creative Commons Public Domain Declaration (which was later replaced with the CC0 mark, due to legal issues withBu its drafting):

https://web.archive.org/web/20100223035835/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/

Some mix of the content of the speech, the spirit of the moment, and the novelty of that wide open license sparked a ton of interest. Jason Kottke recorded an audio version that Andy Baio hosted:

https://kottke.org/04/06/cory-drm-talk

My brutalist ASCII transcript was quickly converted to beautiful HTML by Matt Haughey and Anil Dash:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040622235333/http://www.dashes.com/anil/stuff/doctorow-drm-ms.html

For people who needed a hardcopy, there was Patrick Berry's printer-friendly stylesheet:

https://patandkat.com/pat/weblog/mirror/cory-drm/doctorow-drm-ms.html

Multiple people recorded (and sold!) audio versions, and then there were all the fan translations, into Danish, French, Finnish, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (both EU and Brazilian), Spanish and Swedish. I stayed in touch with some of those translators, and they helped me translate the position papers I wrote for UN WIPO meetings. Those papers were so effective that ratfuckers from the copyright lobby started to steal them and hide them in the UN toilets (!):

https://web.archive.org/web/20041119132831/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/002117.php

Re-reading the speech for my podcast on Sunday, I expected to be struck by the anachronisms in it, and there were a few of those to be sure. But far more clear was the common thread running from this talk to other talks I gave that took on a significant life of their own, like my 2011 "War On General Purpose Computing" talk for CCC:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/

And my work on Adversarial Interoperability:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

And my most recent work, on enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/27/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse/

In other words, I've been saying the same thing – in different ways – for more than 20 years. That could be depressing, but I actually found it uplifting. Two decades ago, I was radicalized by a fear that the internet would be seized by corporations and governments and transformed into a system of surveillance and control. I found my way into a job at EFF, where I worked with colleagues across multiple disciplines – coders, lawyers and activists – to fight this force.

At the time, this was a fringe cause. Most of the traditional activists I'd come up with in the feminist, antiwar, antiracist, environmental and labour movement viewed digital rights as a distraction and dismissed its partisans as sad, self-obsessed nerds who mistook fights over the management of Star Trek message boards for civil rights struggles:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-gladwell

I thought I was right then, and I think history has borne me out. The point of waging these fights – both in the wide public sphere and within political movements – is to get people activated before it's too late. Every day that goes by is a day when the internet becomes more inhospitable to political organizing for a better world – more surveillant, more controlling. I believed then – and believe today – that the internet isn't more important that the other fights I waged as a young activist, but I think that the internet is fundamental to those fights.

Saving the planet, smashing patriarchy, overthrowing tyranny and freeing labor are all fights that will be coordinated – Coase style – on the internet. Without a free, fair and open internet, those fights are infinitely harder to win.

The project of getting people to understand, care about, and fight for digital rights is a marathon, not a sprint. When I joined EFF, it was already 12 years old. There were six people in the org then (I was the seventh). Today, there's more than a hundred of us, and we're stretched so thin! The 30+ year old idea that internet policy will intersect with every part of every fight has been utterly vindicated.

Back in 2004, I asked Microsoft why they were willing to fight the US government to the death over antitrust enforcement, but were such wimps when confronted with the entertainment industry's demands for DRM. 20 years later, I think I know the answer: Microsoft understood that DRM would let them usurp the relationship between creative workers, entertainment industry companies, and audiences. Their perfect instincts for seeking out and capitalizing on opportunities to seize monopoly power drove them to make deliberately defective products, in the belief that their market power would let them cram those products down our throats:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/01/27/protect-your-investment-buy-open/

Here's a link to the podcast episode:

https://craphound.com/news/2024/06/16/my-2004-microsoft-drm-talk/

And here's direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive; they'll host your stuff for free forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_470/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_470_-_My_2004_Microsoft_DRM_Talk.mp3

And here's the RSS feed for my podcast:

https://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/18/greetings-fellow-pirates/#arrrrrrrrrr

#pluralistic #drm #enshittification #microsoft #microsoft research #podcasts #mp3s #history #trusted computing #ngscb #retrospectives

284 notes · View notes

babybeesims · 15 days ago

Text

Hi! I've made a main menu override mod that I wanted to share.

Features:

Theme — New main menu background image

Modern Living Room — Calm, neutral aesthetic of a living room I designed for my Tartosa Treats build (coming soon)

Logo — A new white Sims 4 logo to match the aesthetic

No Sims — On startup the sim household won't show for a clean background

No ads — On startup the new pack info and ads will be hidden

On Startup

After clicking on the Store button — if you click store and go back to the main menu, your household and ads/game info will show

DownloadLink to Download | Patreon (free) | SFS (free) Download Information:

Only one Main Menu Override can be used at a time

This mod is not compatible with any other main menu overrides.

Download the package file from Patreon or SFS

Place the package file in your Sims 4 'Mods' folder.

Open the game, and the main menu should appear in your game.

Please let me know if you have any issues.

TOU:

Please do not reupload, redistribute or claim as your own.

Please tag me if you use any of my cc or mods, I'd love to see!

48 notes · View notes

mariacallous · 2 months ago

Text

A young entrepreneur who was among the earliest known recruiters for Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has a new, related gig—and he’s hiring. Anthony Jancso, cofounder of AccelerateX, a government tech startup, is looking for technologists to work on a project that aims to have artificial intelligence perform tasks that are currently the responsibility of tens of thousands of federal workers.

Jancso, a former Palantir employee, wrote in a Slack with about 2000 Palantir alumni in it that he’s hiring for a “DOGE orthogonal project to design benchmarks and deploy AI agents across live workflows in federal agencies,” according to an April 21 post reviewed by WIRED. Agents are programs that can perform work autonomously.

“We’ve identified over 300 roles with almost full-process standardization, freeing up at least 70k FTEs for higher-impact work over the next year,” he continued, essentially claiming that tens of thousands of federal employees could see many aspects of their job automated and replaced by these AI agents. Workers for the project, he wrote, would be based on site in Washington, DC, and would not require a security clearance; it isn’t clear for whom they would work. Palantir did not respond to requests for comment.

The post was not well received. Eight people reacted with clown face emojis, three reacted with a custom emoji of a man licking a boot, two reacted with custom emoji of Joaquin Phoenix giving a thumbs down in the movie Gladiator, and three reacted with a custom emoji with the word “Fascist.” Three responded with a heart emoji.

“DOGE does not seem interested in finding ‘higher impact work’ for federal employees,” one person said in a comment that received 11 heart reactions. “You’re complicit in firing 70k federal employees and replacing them with shitty autocorrect.”

“Tbf we’re all going to be replaced with shitty autocorrect (written by chatgpt),” another person commented, which received one “+1” reaction.

“How ‘DOGE orthogonal’ is it? Like, does it still require Kremlin oversight?” another person said in a comment that received five reactions with a fire emoji. “Or do they just use your credentials to log in later?”

Got a Tip?Are you a current or former government employee who wants to talk about what's happening? We'd like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporter securely on Signal at carolinehaskins.61 and vittoria89.82.

AccelerateX was originally called AccelerateSF, which VentureBeat reported in 2023 had received support from OpenAI and Anthropic. In its earliest incarnation, AccelerateSF hosted a hackathon for AI developers aimed at using the technology to solve San Francisco’s social problems. According to a 2023 Mission Local story, for instance, Jancso proposed that using large language models to help businesses fill out permit forms to streamline the construction paperwork process might help drive down housing prices. (OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment. Anthropic spokesperson Danielle Ghiglieri tells WIRED that the company "never invested in AccelerateX/SF,” but did sponsor a hackathon AccelerateSF hosted in 2023 by providing free access to its API usage at a time when its Claude API “was still in beta.”)

In 2024, the mission pivoted, with the venture becoming known as AccelerateX. In a post on X announcing the change, the company posted, “Outdated tech is dragging down the US Government. Legacy vendors sell broken systems at increasingly steep prices. This hurts every American citizen.” AccelerateX did not respond to a request for comment.

According to sources with direct knowledge, Jancso disclosed that AccelerateX had signed a partnership agreement with Palantir in 2024. According to the LinkedIn of someone described as one of AccelerateX’s cofounders, Rachel Yee, the company looks to have received funding from OpenAI’s Converge 2 Accelerator. Another of AccelerateSF’s cofounders, Kay Sorin, now works for OpenAI, having joined the company several months after that hackathon. Sorin and Yee did not respond to requests for comment.

Jancso’s cofounder, Jordan Wick, a former Waymo engineer, has been an active member of DOGE, appearing at several agencies over the past few months, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, National Labor Relations Board, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Education. In 2023, Jancso attended a hackathon hosted by ScaleAI; WIRED found that another DOGE member, Ethan Shaotran, also attended the same hackathon.

Since its creation in the first days of the second Trump administration, DOGE has pushed the use of AI across agencies, even as it has sought to cut tens of thousands of federal jobs. At the Department of Veterans Affairs, a DOGE associate suggested using AI to write code for the agency’s website; at the General Services Administration, DOGE has rolled out the GSAi chatbot; the group has sought to automate the process of firing government employees with a tool called AutoRIF; and a DOGE operative at the Department of Housing and Urban Development is using AI tools to examine and propose changes to regulations. But experts say that deploying AI agents to do the work of 70,000 people would be tricky if not impossible.

A federal employee with knowledge of government contracting, who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, says, “A lot of agencies have procedures that can differ widely based on their own rules and regulations, and so deploying AI agents across agencies at scale would likely be very difficult.”

Oren Etzioni, cofounder of the AI startup Vercept, says that while AI agents can be good at doing some things—like using an internet browser to conduct research—their outputs can still vary widely and be highly unreliable. For instance, customer service AI agents have invented nonexistent policies when trying to address user concerns. Even research, he says, requires a human to actually make sure what the AI is spitting out is correct.

“We want our government to be something that we can rely on, as opposed to something that is on the absolute bleeding edge,” says Etzioni. “We don't need it to be bureaucratic and slow, but if corporations haven't adopted this yet, is the government really where we want to be experimenting with the cutting edge AI?”

Etzioni says that AI agents are also not great 1-1 fits for job replacements. Rather, AI is able to do certain tasks or make others more efficient, but the idea that the technology could do the jobs of 70,000 employees would not be possible. “Unless you're using funny math,” he says, “no way.”

Jancso, first identified by WIRED in February, was one of the earliest recruiters for DOGE in the months before Donald Trump was inaugurated. In December, Jancso, who sources told WIRED said he had been recruited by Steve Davis, president of the Musk-founded Boring Company and a current member of DOGE, used the Palantir alumni group to recruit DOGE members. On December 2nd, 2024, he wrote, “I’m helping Elon’s team find tech talent for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the new admin. This is a historic opportunity to build an efficient government, and to cut the federal budget by 1/3. If you’re interested in playing a role in this mission, please reach out in the next few days.”

According to one source at SpaceX, who asked to remain anonymous as they are not authorized to speak to the press, Jancso appeared to be one of the DOGE members who worked out of the company’s DC office in the days before inauguration along with several other people who would constitute some of DOGE’s earliest members. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.

Palantir was cofounded by Peter Thiel, a billionaire and longtime Trump supporter with close ties to Musk. Palantir, which provides data analytics tools to several government agencies including the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, has received billions of dollars in government contracts. During the second Trump administration, the company has been involved in helping to build a “mega API” to connect data from the Internal Revenue Service to other government agencies, and is working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to create a massive surveillance platform to identify immigrants to target for deportation.

10 notes · View notes

100493503004422 · 10 months ago

Text

actually. I take that back. I could write a book about attending a software engineering bootcamp at startup in san francisco in 2017-2018. like even just the first couple of days of that experience created a paradigm shift. plus they got sued by a former student and got a cease and desist letter from the state and it no longer exists. the whole thing was run by 26 year olds. there was a shooting outside of one of the student housings they put together on like day 2 bc it was the worst neighborhood in SF. I met so many awful entrepreneurial types and VCs who were just oozing money, sat right beside abject poverty on the street. that absolutely is a book. stay tuned to see if I ever actually write it

25 notes · View notes

olderthannetfic · 1 year ago

Note

I think sci-fi has done more societal damage (via techbros) than any weird freaky porn ever could.

We'd have bone-headed startups without SF, but yes, mainstream art is more likely to cause trouble than shit people seek out because it is weird.

28 notes · View notes

altbenny · 6 months ago

Text

Capitalism amiright

This is an actual billboard in downtown San Francisco, courtesy of Artisan, an SF-based software startup. Would be a shame if this company and their mission statement went viral.

#capitalism

9 notes · View notes

scrapeatyourownrisk · 7 months ago

Text

SF tech startup Scale AI, worth $13.8B, accused of widespread wage theft

“Scale AI is the sordid underbelly propping up the generative AI industry,” the complaint says, before rattling off a list of allegations about its treatment of contractors. The document accuses Scale of bait-and-switch hiring promises; demanding off-the-clock, unpaid work; denying overtime pay; and unfairly booting contractors from projects.

Article Updated: December 13, 2024

#plagiarism machine

6 notes · View notes

keenexpertrift · 2 months ago

Text

# Trusted Moving from san francisco to san diego in SF

# Trusted Moving from san francisco to san diego in https://privatebin.net/?6972e464bd26c3b7#HGprB6QKKVRn2GFfJygvCkTVsyd8p8s9x8Ebz7AnfcUi SF According to San Francisco Ballet (source), choosing the right moving company is crucial for a successful relocation. Our trusted moving from san francisco to san diego services have established a reputation for excellence in SF. Our Professional Moving Services # Secure Storage Solutions According to San Francisco Art Institute (source), proper storage is essential: - Climate-controlled units - 24/7 security - Flexible terms - Easy access Why San Francisco is a Great Place to Live Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy (source) highlights some of San Francisco's best features: - Rich cultural diversity - Thriving food scene - Beautiful parks and outdoor spaces - Proximity to major tech hubs San Francisco's Tech Scene For those moving to San Francisco for tech opportunities, University of San Francisco (source) provides information on the city's thriving tech ecosystem: - Major tech companies in the area - Startup incubators and accelerators - Netwo

youtube

#Youtube

2 notes · View notes

glimmeringmeteorspore · 2 months ago

Text

# Leading Moving nyc to san francisco in San Francisco

youtube

# Leading Moving nyc to san francisco in San Francisco According to SF Bicycle Coalition - Environmental Benefits (source), choosing the right moving company is crucial for a successful relocation. Our leading moving nyc to san francisco services have established a reputation for excellence in San Francisco. Our Professional Moving Services # Secure Storage Solutions According to KTVU Fox 2 (source), proper storage is essential: - Climate-controlled units - 24/7 security - Flexible terms - Easy access Why San Francisco is a Great Place to Live HomeownershipSF (source) highlights some of San Francisco's best features: - Rich cultural diversity - Thriving food scene - Beautiful parks and outdoor spaces - Proximity to major tech hubs San Francisco's Tech Scene For those moving to San Francisco for tech opportunities, San Francisco 49ers (source) provides information on the city's thriving tech ecosystem: - Major tech companies in the area - Startup incubators and accelerators - Networking events a

#Youtube

2 notes · View notes

hagbrigade · 3 months ago

Text

WHO is watching surface

Incredible to me that this takes place in SF

her husband is so over to me… regardless of whether he actually had something to do with her going over or the first hospital visit um… she doesn’t have access to any money she doesn’t have any real friends she’s on the freaking bart in a dress worth upwards of $4000 maybe more her therapist is a mess her police officer she’s having an affair with is something else. Conservatorship and he just doesn’t want to deal with the lawyers…?

her one friend is silly but i feel like she’s a liar.

This house is making me want to scream wtf does he do in SF to have this. must be a ceo of a real startup. or a high level vp at a real company… or the ever present rich mommy and daddy. maybe a combination of these. bc the vacation house???? jesus

ok who do we think would play misty copeland in her eventual biopic film and do NOT say Alexandra shipp no offense to her

4 notes · View notes

amalgatedarticles · 6 months ago

Text

From expatnon, on Twitter/X:

When I first encountered it as a “thing” it was still called D&I. It seemed mostly banal and probably salubrious. It was more focused on sex than race and built around stories of STEM professors discouraging female students when they would otherwise encourage males of equivalent aptitude. Never having been a STEM student, I had no personal experience from which to draw, and accepted the stories as probably factual and representative of a historical bias worth remediating.

My small startup had an all-male engineering team. I ran hiring. When we got some funding to expand, my CEO said he hoped we could add at least one female engineer. I said ok. It never occurred to me to lower standards and I didn’t, not consciously. In the small cohort of engineers we brought on, we found one qualified woman. She was a solid hire, quiet but got along with everyone. Never asked for anything, never complained. In hindsight she got more than her share of grunt work. I think it just happened that way but who knows.

Racial composition of the team was never remarked upon. We hired an Indian guy once because he was the best candidate. He worked out great.

Our exec team was all male after we fired a head of marketing. We replaced her with a guy (who was terrible but that’s beside the point). There was audible dissatisfaction from female employees of other departments about the gender imbalance at the top of the hierarchy. When they created a head of HR role, the founders hired a woman and I’m sure were relieved to do so. She was fine, she didn’t really push an agenda.

I read about Facebook’s implicit bias training. I familiarized myself with the literature. If it was already evidently fraudulent, it nevertheless didn’t occur to me to question it. I knew about the replication crisis but didn’t connect the dots; I hadn’t learned proper skepticism about such things yet in spite of the knowledge I possessed. I encouraged the whole company to watch the trainings, but didn’t mandate they do so.

I left the startup over a conflicting vision with the founders. I landed at a pre-IPO startup from SF, one week before Trump’s election.

Every office had a D&I budget. The gender balance in the office was close to even because all the designers and half the PMs were female. I think at the time there was one female engineer but we would go on to hire more. The office was almost all white. It was remarked on that this didn’t match the demographic of the city at all, but rarely.

We spent the full D&I budget, not very much as I recall, on a Go Fund Me to buy tablets at an elementary school in the poorest and blackest part of the city. I think it was even my suggestion. Exposure to such consumer technologies was supposed to give the students a fighting chance to obtain the careers of the future. Again, I didn’t really question it. Why not give every kid in the class a school-issued tablet? What could go wrong?

At some point not long after, D&I at my company was officially rebranded DEI, and rather than a voluntary activity productive employees could take on, it was professionalized with a dedicated staff carved out of the growing HR apparatus we needed for rapid global expansion and IPO compliance. More and more lunches were dedicated to DEI programming. Various identitarian holidays were officially celebrated via special programming. It still seemed largely innocuous.

Eventually, apparently due to internal demand, statistics started to be published, first annually and then quarterly, on hiring, promotion, retention of women and something new: URMs. Only certain racial minorities counted under this rubrique and everyone understood who and why, but nobody discussed it. Then OKRs (shudder) were added to move these stats in a desired direction: up. Candidate slates had to include people from these categories. If they didn’t, written authorization from an EVP was required to proceed with a hiring or promotion decision.

#politics #idpol

3 notes · View notes

bmv1 · 7 months ago

Text

Yaroslav Ivanov’s Vision on Bitcoin Shortage and the Role of Financial Giants

As the cryptocurrency landscape evolves, a significant trend has emerged: a potential shortage of Bitcoin. This challenge has been magnified by the increasing participation of financial giants such as BlackRock, whose foray into the Bitcoin market signals a seismic shift in institutional adoption. With demand increasingly outpacing supply, the implications for both institutional and retail investors, as well as the broader financial system, are profound.

At the forefront of the blockchain industry stands Yaroslav Ivanov, Chief Visionary Officer (CVO) at ALTA – Blockchain Labs. With 9 years of experience working alongside top projects in the CoinMarketCap Top 30, he has played a crucial role in shaping the industry through consulting, strategic partnerships, and the selection of promising startups for investment. He has played a crucial role in shaping the industry through consulting, strategic partnerships, and the selection of promising startups for investment. Notably, he was one of the pioneers in advocating for education within the blockchain space, recognizing its importance in fostering a knowledgeable community. His early commitment to educational initiatives has significantly contributed to the industry’s growth, equipping stakeholders with the necessary tools and insights to navigate the evolving landscape of blockchain technology.

His exceptional networking abilities have facilitated collaborations with leading blockchain projects, significantly enhancing ALTA’s influence in the industry. By strategically selecting numerous startups for the blockchain accelerator, he has positioned ALTA as a vital player in nurturing innovation and growth. Furthermore, his guidance has been instrumental in advising governments and institutions on fostering innovation while ensuring market integrity and consumer protection, reinforcing ALTA’s reputation as a leader in the blockchain ecosystem.

Yaroslav’s impact is further underscored by his selection as a speaker at prestigious industry events, including Consensus 2023 and 2024, SF TechWeek 2023, NY TechWeek 2023, and The Future of Tech – OnTrend. Being invited to speak at these renowned conferences signifies his esteemed position among industry leaders and experts. He was chosen from a pool of distinguished professionals, highlighting his notable achievements and contributions to the blockchain sector. He was chosen from a pool of distinguished professionals, highlighting his notable achievements and contributions to the blockchain sector. His experience and accomplishments met the strict criteria set for speakers, ensuring that only the most qualified and respected experts share their insights at industry-leading events.

At these events, Yaroslav shared valuable insights on the future of the crypto landscape, showcasing his role as a key contributor to the industry’s evolution and solidifying ALTA’s reputation as a leading force in blockchain innovation. These accolades and recognitions not only reflect his personal accomplishments but also enhance the prestige of ALTA Blockchain Labs within the global blockchain community.

Recent reports indicate that Bitcoin ETFs have accumulated 247,018 Bitcoin since their inception, nearly doubling the 124,212 Bitcoin mined during the same timeframe. Yaroslav Ivanov interprets this widening gap between demand and supply as a significant indicator of the future trajectory of the cryptocurrency market.

Yaroslav emphasizes that this accumulation by financial giants marks a pivotal shift in market dynamics, which individual investors must closely monitor. While institutional participation lends credibility to the market, it raises concerns regarding potential monopolization and accessibility for smaller investors. He stresses the importance of maintaining a balance to ensure that individual investors are not overshadowed by the dominance of major players in the space.

Currently, Yaroslav is focused on analyzing market trends and gathering analytics for reports in collaboration with investment funds. His insights into these evolving dynamics aim to support informed decision-making for both institutional and individual investors, contributing to the responsible growth of the blockchain industry.

Yaroslav emphasizes that the accumulation by financial giants marks a pivotal shift in market dynamics that individual investors must closely monitor. While institutional participation lends credibility to the market, it raises concerns about potential monopolization and accessibility for smaller investors. He underscores the need for balance to ensure that individual investors are not overshadowed by major players.

The increasing influence of financial giants on the blockchain industry is becoming increasingly evident, reshaping the landscape for influential blockchain companies and contributing to the ongoing bullish trend in the cryptocurrency market. As institutional investors pour capital into blockchain technologies and digital assets, their participation signals a growing legitimacy for the industry. This influx not only boosts the confidence of retail investors but also propels the development and innovation of blockchain projects. However, as major players gain more power, there are concerns about the potential monopolization of the market, which could impact smaller companies and startups. The balancing act between institutional involvement and maintaining an equitable playing field for all market participants will be crucial in determining the sustainability of this bullish trend in the crypto space.

This perspective highlights the ongoing evolution of the cryptocurrency landscape, where the interests of both institutional and individual investors must be harmonized to foster a healthy market environment.

#bitcoin #cryptocurrency #binance

6 notes · View notes

reliabledragon · 1 year ago

Note

Hi! I’m genuinely curious, why is Seattle a bad place to live? I’ve thought about moving there at one point, until I realized I wouldn’t be able to afford it.

Ah, well, I should probably clarify that I don't think it's, like, an inherently bad place or anything. It was just a really bad fit for me, so being stuck there for several years really sucked. Basically, it boiled down to a few things:

Making Friends: Seattle is so notoriously unfriendly that the "Seattle Freeze" even has its own Wikipedia page. People will be plenty nice to you, but most have no interest in actually becoming friends, and it takes ages to build a social network there.

Lack of Diversity: In this case meaning the cultural sense, not the racial one. (It is racially homogenous as well, but I'm not really qualified to open that can of worms.) Seattle basically does like, three things: extreme outdoor activities, substances, and computer stuff. ("Substances" here meaning things like weed, but also beer, coffee, etc.) So if you want to go skiing every day, climb mountains, smoke weed, drink artisanal beer, play video games, or found a startup, it's a good place for that. However, if you want to do anything else then you are going to be fighting against Seattle every inch of the way.

The Dating Scene: Again, Seattle does some things very well here — it's probably the best dating market in the country if you're poly! But again, the monoculture means that if you're Seattle's kind of person then you're going to have the time of your life, but if you aren't, then you will simply be screwed. And I wasn't, so I spent three years basically unable to find anyone to seriously date. (I will grant that part of this could have been a me problem, but I certainly had far less difficulty both in SF before and NYC after.)

Urban Design: Maybe this is a personal one, but Seattle is in this really awkward middle ground, where it absolutely sucks to have a car in the city, but it also absolutely sucks not to have one. It's my least favorite city in the US that I've ever driven in, but it's also a pretty rotten experience trying to get around town on the bus or (very limited) light rail system. I'd much rather live somewhere with functional public transit, but if that's not possible then I'd at least like my mandatory car usage not to feel like I'm turning the ignition key in a Saw trap.

Distance: Unless your friends and family are in the PNW, you're probably going to want to leave occasionally to see other people, and Seattle is really very far away from everything other than Portland and Vancouver. Perhaps this isn't the biggest issue on this list, but combined with the Seattle Freeze, it can make the city intensely lonely. And combined with the weather, it makes it even harder to get away when the sky starts feeling oppressive in the winter. And speaking of winter...

Climate: This is a big one, and one that I think you can't really understand until you live there. Or at least, I certainly didn't grasp the implications beforehand. Everyone knows Seattle as a "rainy city", but it's one thing to hear about it and another to live it. The thing about Seattle is that it's both accurate to say that it always rains, or to say that it never rains. It's not like most of the country, where you have rainstorms and then times when it isn't raining. No, not in Seattle. In Seattle is drizzles, constantly. From September until June, every time you step outside, it's just... Damp. And cloudy. Once the clouds come in the Fall, you will not see the sun for nine months. The sky is just a bright gray mass hovering oppressively overhead, not dim enough be properly melancholy, not bright enough to be cheerful. It just looms, vaguely too bright to look at, no matter which direction you look. For most of your life in Seattle, you live in hollow light and hollow rain.

Despite all that, I really do think Seattle is a great fit for a lot of people, but it's hard to know if you're one of those people before you move there, and the penalty if you're wrong can be a pretty terrible living experience. My response on that poll was playing along with the "city hate group" thing they were asking about a little bit, but I really did have a very bad time there. It might well be a great fit for you, I know it is for a lot of my friends who live there! I would just advise anyone thinking of moving there to make sure they understand what they're signing up for, because it's easy to get taken in by the aesthetic and not realize what sort of place it is, and what sort of person you need to be to enjoy it.

Thanks for the ask! I'm always happy to talk about cities. :)

#my posts

5 notes · View notes