I listened to a talk to that Jim Simons gave at San Francisco State University about a decade ago in which he mostly recounts his life and career. Towards the end when he was describing the state of the fully realized RenTech firm, he mentioned that they collect approximately 7TB of data per day, and that the #1 investment rule is that a human never, under any circumstances, intervenes with what the model (he said "the computer") decides.
Which in those days was absolutely staggering. But I think they were looking for similar patterns in historical data to current data, not trying to fit current data into a set of predefined patterns or algos from historical data.
From a high level engineering perspective (and not being an expert in blockchain systems), the amount of complexity in the Ethereum ecosystem seems... excessive? And it seems likely the amount of complexity will only continue to increase over time. We tend to prefer 'elegant solutions' and simple systems in engineering, and this seems quite the opposite. Is it truly necessary to solve the problems that it's trying to solve?
I'm not sure how much more 'actually complex' it is. I think we can often underestimate the complexity of incumbent systems because most of the complexity is not in the open.
I'm sure that market makers and exchanges in traditional finance have a lot of complexity behind them.
I don’t know anything about either of these people or the nuance of their professional qualifications, and I think that probably also holds true for 99% of other people who will see your comment.
"For an institution that had historically promoted from within, first with Sam Altman, now CEO of OpenAI, then Ralston, the Tan era came as a shock. Within YC, many staff had wanted Michael Seibel, the cofounder of Twitch and YC’s longtime batch leader, to get the job. Multiple sources remembered longtime partner Dalton Caldwell vocalizing what others were feeling, too: we’re all just employees who work here, message received. Seibel, meanwhile, wrote a letter to YC’s board to explain his disappointment at being passed over, despite broad internal support. He vowed to support Tan moving forward, anyway. Caldwell and Seibel declined to comment on those incidents through a YC spokesperson."
PG has thrown his weight behind boosting questionable builders (50% supportive tweets were about Austen Allred's Lambda School and Suhail's Mighty). Now Tan, who is throwing tantrums on Twitter ("die slow motherfucker"), while passing on someone like Seibel?
I suppose all of them were still sadly supportive of the SVB bailout, "government cronyism for me, capitalism for thee". So much for any illusion of libertarian ethos.
If Garry Tan stays long as YC CEO, I'm betting we have a mutiny and a fork form. It looks like Seibel isn't going to do all the work of leading the batch while Tan reaps the larger share of rewards.
Wasn't he the CEO in the past? I see him referred to as "CEO" in some places, like [1], but I can't find any announcement or news article about when this changed.
No, just the ones you are likely to hear about on the news. Take a look at the top 10 richest Americans, most spend very little time on politics and you'll often struggle to even find out their opinions of the issues of the day.
The only losers in bitcoin are the ones that stopped. Any 5+ year holding has been ridiculously profitable.
In gambling, the longer you continue, the more certain it is that you will lose. Bitcoin is a uniquely ironic form of gambling if it's gambling at all.
That's silly. Anyone who's dollar cost averaging bitcoin buys over a long period of time has been incredibly well rewarded. BTC is up 146% over the last 12 months, and up 15x (!) over the last 5 years.
Even if you were slow and naïve and only jumped at the 2021 all-time high, and kept buying during the next 12 months (as one should when an asset you like goes down), you'd have made your money back and then some.
I didn't say buy-and-hold for 5 years. Feel free to do the math; dollar cost averaging over 5 years would still be one of the best investments in modern times.
> Any 5+ year holding has been ridiculously profitable.
The more remarkable a short history the more likely it is not sustainable: Beanie babies, tulips, etc.
In a zero sum investment for every win there is a loss. Bitcoin however is highly negative sum. For every win there are far more losses. Who do you suppose pays hourly train loads of coal turned into CO2? How many years now?
Your two examples, beanie babies(4-5 yrs bubble) and tulip mania (16 months) did not even last long enough for a 5 year comparison. Bitcoin is turning 15 this year.
I think it's mostly societal perception. For whatever reasons, a lot of people seem to think of professionals in SF and NYC as smarter or more capable than professionals from Boise or Salt Lake City. Just like a lot of people assume those who got into Harvard or Stanford as 18yr olds are smarter or more capable than those with degrees from the large public universities.
As a resident of SF, this was probably the best article about SF that I've read in years - it really captures a broad set of perspectives and paints an accurate picture of the landscape.
As a non-resident who has enjoyed going to tech conferences in SF in the past, taking along my family so they could explore the city while I was at the conference, this article did nothing to change my opinion of SF. There is no way in hell I would go to SF for a conference or take my family there.
Not OP, but I've seen SF in the news before coming here last week and it really looked bad.
It's sadly exactly as shown in the news - car break-ins and zombies around TL. It's just sad and not safe.
I don't know how the rest of the US looks like right now in terms of crime rate and drugs abuse - but as an european I have never seen anything this bad.
Meh. The article presents a rather disingenuous view of "both sides".
Gumps? Gumps went out of business in 2018 (Chapter 11). What Chachas is mourning is not a centuries old company, it's the less than a decade old plaything of an investment banker who bemoans the effect of remote work on his San Francisco business… from New York.
TogetherSF? They've put forth some rather dubious political positions and bankrolled the comically tone deaf "Fentalife" ads. Who cares about the opinions put forth by a group only interested in pulling cheap publicity stunts?
Otherwise it's a puff piece filtered through the perspective of tech. How droll.
Strengthening my thoughts that most if not all near-term AI developments will find success as features within products controlled by the hyperscalers and established tech giants. Would love to hear from anyone who believes that startups might capture the lion's share of opportunity.
