Text: This is not a lament for Humane or its business model. It's a lament for all of us. So many innovative products will never get funded or never launch a product because if they can't connect deeply with the smartphone, they're at an impossible disadvantage. And if one such product somehow did make a mark, what are the chances that it would survive rather than just being acquired by Apple, or Amazon, or Google, or Microsoft, or Facebook? What are the chances that those companies would just build a me-too product that was vastly more functional because they were able to tightly tie it into the ecosystems they control?
@ike it's very confusing!
i got a kind of stage fright, and also wanted off of WordPress, so i made myself a new blog and called it drafts.
but it's the main place i'm writing! please do share the links.
as a businessman, Elon Musk is kind of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, except his dual personages are PT Barnum and Jack Welch.
every presidential ballot should have a “burn it all down” option that is purely expressive.
if that’s what you mean to express, you should have the option just to say so directly, rather than actually elect and arsonist or saboteur.
of course, you can still vote for arsonists and saboteurs if you want. but i think a lot of people want to express the sentiment without actually contributing to making a charred husk of the world.
@invisv (thanks! i'm intrigued by Coasian hells, but at the moment can't get to it? there are always so many kinds of hell for us to play in.)
@caseyjennings i have no deep knowledge of Stonecipher. these last months i've been following a lot of media / podcast takes on WTF Boeing, and it's pretty common in them to blame Stonecipher, for McDonnell Douglas / GE "culture" and the outsourcing decision. i'm frustrated with leaving explanations at "culture", and was reading pocket histories of Boeing's CEOs ( Wikipedia, also https://www.historyoasis.com/post/boeing-ceo-history ) when i realized he was very unusually an outside hire, thought abt that, came up with this.
@caseyjennings "Senior mgmt consistently viewed themselves as the critical asset for GE" that… well, the old hubris/nemesis conjuncture is not out of place. i imagine gigabrain Star Trek futuristic humanoids having their colons excised because colons are, um, earthy and beneath them. then bad consequences ensue.
@phillmv responding in reverse... i think it can work at the conglomerate level! but only if the CEO, who is really a portfolio manager, doesn't break what they own by imagining they know better, or tell themselves immorality tales about how a little pressure and adversity could only do some good. the conglomerate CEO's role is more like board member than owner, a source of advice, counsel, and resources, but not command. if unsatisfied, the conglomerate CEO should usually just sell.
@phillmv yeah. Berkshire is a conglomerate, and Buffett/Munger have always been very clear that within broad parameters of decent performance, they stay out of the way and let business-unit managers do their thing. it's fine to treat your business like a financial portfolio, if that's in fact what it is, and you don't ruin your holdings by arrogating micromanagement or squeezing cash flows.
@caseyjennings it's more straightforwad perhaps! but also not mutually exclusive.
and in particular for Stonecipher (by the time it was Calhoun or even Muilenberg, the die was cast), i think it's instructive to put oneself in his place. Boeing was just an entirely different kind of firm than McDonnell Douglas, and there he suddenly was. Almost Forrest Gump-ish. But he was not a humble man. What on earth are you doing to do with all these "engineers" always trying to tell you what to do?
"The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends. It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace. They never are." (A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin)
cf @paninid https://mastodon.world/@paninid/112268182344408843
@paninid just tried. it works!
i have to say i’m not cheered, though.
guys? i don’t think it would work. where’s the collective digestive system? https://todon.eu/@RadicalGraffiti/112242221125101821
the word “because” is so frequently an act of hubris.
@paninid I tried to read this and BAM. No idea why. Never happened before.
A message from Cloudflare saying I am blocked from medium.com.
the worst thing that could happen to the Palestinians is a war “on their behalf” that pits Israel and the US and US-aligned Arab states against Iran and its proxies and allies. in the context of an “existential war”, anything could be done and making too much of a fuss about it would just be aid and comfort to the enemy. queasy stuff would be cut from the newsreels, downranked and piled on in social media. the Smotriches would have their way, often in the worst way. war is hell, you know.
