JonFish85

6 ms·

1.
by JonFish85 8y ago
> Congrats either way! One thing to keep in mind, with something like this, employees' stock is almost certainly worth $0. There will likely be some sort of retention plan for some set of employees, but their stock in GA probably wo
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by JonFish85 9y ago
"the main ones you care about are: revenue, expenses, total burn and cash in the bank" That's part of it, but not all of it. Total number of outstanding shares (including warrantable shares!) can change the complexion of thin
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by JonFish85 9y ago
"This is one area that YC has a strong incentive to act in, but hasn't." This is an interesting thing to consider. If you look at the current president of YC (sama), at least from an outsider's perspective, he's the
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by JonFish85 9y ago
"isn't it also being loaned out as well" Hm? In the stock market, you pay a current stockholder for their share(s). The company sees no money from the transaction. It sounds like what you're thinking of is banking, which
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by JonFish85 9y ago
Just to play devil's advocate on this, the money in the stock market (i.e. any stock transaction outside of a public offering) is generally not being invested in companies that actually build things, it's getting stored.
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by JonFish85 9y ago
A different way to look at it might be that in most cases, an illegal deed might be overlooked simply because someone didn't have the funds to see it through the court system. It's one thing if someone is funding endless lawsuits
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by JonFish85 9y ago
I think that this is a natural consequence of a world in which it's impossible to have a dialogue about some things. There are some topics in which it's essentially impossible to have a reasoned discussion about things that we dis
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by JonFish85 9y ago
I thought Prisoner's Dilemma was more about the inability to have good information: the prisoners can't communicate with each other, and therefore have imperfect information about their decision. To me, this supports my argument:
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by JonFish85 9y ago
Soundcloud exists, but is likely on life support[1]. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14990911
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by JonFish85 9y ago
Google and Apple have that too -- YouTube and iTunes have been around longer than Spotify, and likely have similar data sets.
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by JonFish85 9y ago
Isn't the point of an IPO generally to raise funds? In this case, it's just allowing people to sell their shares to the public, right? From the company standpoint, this is almost certainly a negative: additional oversight & re
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by JonFish85 9y ago
I'm not sure how the Prisoner's Dilemma applies here? I agree that consumers should be educated and have the ability to make informed decisions; in many ways, this is what makes a market more "fair": make sure that consu
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by JonFish85 9y ago
>"Luckily humans have developed a great coordination mechanism called 'democracy' and we can use it when coordination in the market place has failed." I find that sort of thinking pretty scary. I'm incredibly hes
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by JonFish85 9y ago
"Do people really believe that infrastructure is not the purview of the government?" I don't think anyone is arguing that the government shouldn't be responsible for certain infrastructure, it's the degree to which
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by JonFish85 9y ago
According to MacRumors, it's a deal "that could be worth $400m". If I were to guess (based on just public information which is almost nothing), the stock is not going to be worth much. Obviously Apple is going to pay the leas
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by JonFish85 9y ago
Is it actually profitable? "Profitable" is a fun term to throw around to make your business look good, but it can mean a lot of different things (net margin profitable, gross margin profitable, pre tax profitable, etc). I'd b
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by JonFish85 9y ago
If you own the share (exercised the option to buy it, were granted a share, what-have-you), you'll get a letter once the deal is finalized. If they were bought for $100m, you'll likely get a letter saying that your share is worth
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by JonFish85 9y ago
Basically it's who you'd think. Some investors will get their money back, some will get a bit more than others. The founders will be fine, but probably more due to their role than their stock. Common stock will probably be worth $
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by JonFish85 9y ago
Why is that interesting? After working for 40 years, saving religiously, it’s entirely possible that they’re living a solid middle class lifestyle not much different from someone else who also lives the same lifestyle but rents and doesn’t
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by JonFish85 9y ago
I'm not thinking just SS. Imagine in 30-40 years when SW engineers are retiring with their $5m 401k, but their neighbor is still barely making rent at their service-level job. I imagine there are many more people who have foregone reti
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by JonFish85 9y ago
To me, this is another implementation of the housing bubble: - People see college graduates making a lot of money - Politicians make it a priority to make it easier for people to get loans to go to college - More people take out loans to go
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by JonFish85 9y ago
> People who came from my alma mater who majored in drama can't say the same. Don't worry, your salary gives them a way out too. And I'm not just saying that to be snarky, I think it's very likely what will end up hap
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by JonFish85 9y ago
"Don't settle for common stock" Unless you're a C-level employee, you're not going to have the choice. And even then you're probably still not going to have a choice except in very rare cases (e.g. Uber'
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by JonFish85 9y ago
Others have mentioned similar things, but there are a few things to consider. Remember, $80k/year now may seem fine, but you have no idea what the future holds. First, you may average $80k/yr, but remember that volatility can be r
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by JonFish85 9y ago
> From the perspective of trying to get the budget balanced, taxing wealth is probably the single most efficient way to do it. Why? As a total layman, wouldn't it be incredibly inefficient? If we tax the wealth of, say, the top 100
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by JonFish85 9y ago
> This proposal seems like the equivalent of a failing startup diluting the crap out of its employee pool to raise a gigantic round. If that's possible, that's probably the right thing to do; if the company is failing, who care
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by JonFish85 9y ago
Outside of the "how to pay for it" question (which has never been addressed beyond vague "tax the rich" promises) there's another problem: how to save people from themselves. One could think of this as an annuity, a
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by JonFish85 9y ago
"Apple provides a black box with iOS, they have full control. Maybe the next iOS update comes with privacy intrusion because it's more lucrative." This is true, but it's also potentially worthwhile to consider that Apple
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by JonFish85 9y ago
"What he basically did was say, "don't ever print anything negative about a billionaire because they can take down your entire business"" No, he didn't. Gawker died on its own merits; in an alternative world wh
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by JonFish85 9y ago
It may be an interesting exercise to think of how this can be turned "against" you. If you wanted to play armchair politics, you could spin this: - Highly paid engineer walked away from a 6 figure salary - Takes a job at a small c

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