Who knows what happened but it's for sure that the company was in trouble and was unable to continue without a cash infusion. Stuff like this has to be approved by a court to make sure there are no shenanigans happening. Company officers have to follow the law. They can't just decide that they will cancel stock and reissue new without a valid reason.
BTW, even if they had looked for you and told you about the reissue, it's unlikely you would have done anything. Since you would have needed to put some money in the company to buy the new stock. Sometimes it's possible to exchange old stock for new stock but the company would need some assets. If you got nothing then it means there were no assets left for the common stockholders.
I agree with what others say, stock issued as part of your compensation should be valued at 0 until you can cash out.
Hi Peter,
I've got an EB-1A (August 2018 approved in September 2018) and NIW (November 2018 approved in January 2020) petitions approved, and yet I haven't gotten my adjustment of status issued.
The adjustment of status was filed with the NIW in Nov. 2018. I didn't file an adjustment of status for the EB-1A because the priority date wasn't current.
Is there anything I can do to get anything issued?
I've followed up regularly until I was told to stop calling...
You need to link up your approved EB1A I-140 petition with your pending I-485 application by requesting that this approved petition be "interfiled" with your pending I-485 application. At the same time, I would recommend that you ask your local U.S. representative to make an inquiry with USCIS (something that is done all the time) and that you also submit a "service request" through the USCIS website regarding your pending I-485 application.
I honestly think that $10/month is more than worth it.
I found that having copilot is cheaper than hiring a junior dev. I mostly use it for C++, python, and TypeScript and has been really satisfied with it.
In what circumstance does Copilot allow you to not hire a junior dev? I like Copilot and find value in it at 10 dollars a month, but that's a dubious claim IMO. What Copilot does only really assists a human operator, and not in a way that meaningfully would allow anyone to reduce headcount. It's a great tool to save some round trips to google for syntax or configuration questions etc, it's unlikely to replace a person (yet...).
I used OpenAI Codex for some recent freelance work. The work was simple - upload a form in JS. When I took the job, I said I'd charge for about 4 hours of work, and they said great, they needed it tomorrow anyway. I realized I needed some help and picked up Codex.
Scope of work for the AI: import jQuery, turn the dummy code into an ajax GET call, pass the clicked data between two pages, turn a PHP form into a JS one, add form validation, setup a POST call, debugging the regex of the phone validation from their backend team.
My scope of work: steal code from Codepen to do some drag and drop file upload and mess with the CSS to have it fit the page.
I actually train JS bootcamps and I'm sure 80% of juniors cannot do this within 4 hours. Nor would the good ones be hireable within such a short timeframe.
But it did help me keep the contract within the time I'm charging for. It was a $125 contract, so it would have been worth the price if it did half the work.
Disclaimer: I'm the founder of blkSAIL (black sail) that builds AI and autonomy for ocean-going maritime ships. We are an MIT CSAIL spinoff. We started with an aim to become Uber for the waterways, then pivoted to large ships.
Many of the comments below touch on many key points: (1) most commercial ships have a crew between 8 to 20, (2) auto-pilot in ships exist since the GPS was invented, (3) when ship hits the fan, there's not much you can do.
(1) Autonomy in maritime is not to replace seafarers, the navigation crew is less than 30% of the crew. And crew is negligible OPEX compared to fuel etc. (2) Because the industry is the backbone of global trade, it moves much slower in adopting technology for the sake of technology. However, when there's a simple reliable system that can clear benefit, the adoption happens. So given that there's few[1] lanes in the ocean, you can easily go from one waypoint to the next. (3) Onboard a ship, there's no such thing as breaks. In most cases, you know about a collision or a grounding 12+ minutes in advance. The challenge is in getting the predictions right and abide by the rules of the road. Most advanced LIDAR have 1km range, which is too close, cameras don't see much neither[2].
[1]: there are quite few channels around ports to ease traffic that are one-way. [2]: the resolution is too low to see far out. When using zoom, the stabilization is a nightmare.
> (1) Autonomy in maritime is not to replace seafarers, the navigation crew is less than 30% of the crew.
As someone who works in the autonomous ship space now and a prior merchant mariner, I agree with a lot of what you state, except for point 1...
In the near term, yes, I agree that people are working to use autonomy to augment the bridge crew (and engine crew and ship owners for that matter). However, in the long run (and there are actually several prototype autonomous vessels on the water today), the ultimate goal is absolutely to eliminate the need for a human crew.
Reasons... The biggest driver is that much of the design of ships is driven by the fact that human crews are embarked. There are too many items to list, but human factors include the ship superstructure (living qarters/bridge/galley/sanitation), freshwater generation, HVAC (a large chunk of energy costs, safety provisions, medical, and on and on. Other drivers are 1.) Human safety, 2.) Asset (ship & cargo) safety, 3.) Litigation avoidance/lower crew/cargo insurance/underwriting - which relate to 1 and 2 (e.g. collisions into other ships, piers, or getting your ship wedged in a canal). Many maritime incidents are the result of human error.
To the naiive, it may seem that autonomous operation at sea is easier than driving autonomously on land. However, the lay person may not realize that ships come in a variety of shaps/sizes and maneuvering abilities (for different functions including ferries, tankers, containerships, taxis, navy vessels, barges, cruise ships, etc.), communicate via complex bridge-to-bridge communications, navigate using a variety of floating/light/radio indicators, and are very sensitive from a stability and structural soundness perspective to weather (seastate, wind, currents, etc), among many other complex constraints. Thanks to inertia and the large absence of "traction", large ships don't stop instantaneously, they have a stopping distance which can be over 4 nautical miles [1] !
Driving cars autonomously is very difficult, but driving ships autonomously is just as difficult, if not more so.
Disclaimer: I'm the founder of blkSAIL (black sail) that builds AI and autonomy for ocean-going maritime ships. We are an MIT CSAIL spinoff. We started with an aim to become Uber for the waterways, then pivoted to large ships.
Many of the comments below touch on many key points: (1) most commercial ships have a crew between 8 to 20, (2) auto-pilot in ships exist since the GPS was invented, (3) when ship hits the fan, there's not much you can do.
(1) Autonomy in maritime is not to replace seafarers, the navigation crew is less than 30% of the crew. And crew is negligible OPEX compared to fuel etc.
(2) Because the industry is the backbone of global trade, it moves much slower in adopting technology for the sake of technology. However, when there's a simple reliable system that can clear benefit, the adoption happens. So given that there's few[1] lanes in the ocean, you can easily go from one waypoint to the next.
(3) Onboard a ship, there's no such thing as breaks. In most cases, you know about a collision or a grounding 12+ minutes in advance. The challenge is in getting the predictions right and abide by the rules of the road. Most advanced LIDAR have 1km range, which is too close, cameras don't see much neither[2].
[1]: there are quite few channels around ports to ease traffic that are one-way.
[2]: the resolution is too low to see far out. When using zoom, the stabilization is a nightmare.
The L3Harris Mk20 optical sensor supposedly has excellent stabilization when using zoom. But it's intended for warships and might not be suitable for civilian autonomous vessels.
It would be amazing if this latest memo had different wordings per group of people.
They search would be narrowed and they would have truly made an effort to track these leaks.
That reminds me of all the espionage and counter-espionage that (at least used to) occurred in EVE clans/guilds (not sure if that's the right word). They even had custom plugins for their messaging boards where they could use BBCode to offer multiple words and the forum software would present a different combo of words so that if someone copy/pasted it then they could narrow it down either right away or with a few examples. As in they would have 4+ words in an announcement that had multiple variants and would record "We showed User A the following 1:1, 2:3, 3:2, 4:3..." (variable-word-instance-index:variant-index).
Also, I can’t seem to find a source for it but there’s also a technique used where screenshots have the logged in user’s ID encoded in the background of the screenshot by using hex colors that effectively look the same.
Getting a VC usually sounds like a good idea and is definitely the myth that we were all told that without a VC you cannot succeed.
This is actually not true. If you have clients and your having enough money to pay yourselves a little bit, ride that wave. Focus on growing your business with more satisfied clients and building a brand. VC money can be useful if you see a small but very lucrative opening that will get you to get 10 to 100 folds more return and your clients cannot advance you money for that.
If you’re lean enough and running a tight ship, building only features that have great value for the customers; have great channels to grow your customer base; and are financially sustainable; then why a VC?
And remember, the longer you run your company without external funding, the better the return is later for you and your friends, whether you decide to sell, IPO, or get VC. You will always own more of your company.
But if you’re close to bankruptcy, because of your burn rate , and you’re still growing, then maybe start raising money when you have 6 months or so worth of runway left.
PS: I do have some doubts about the 2 startups though. If you’re running 2 at the same time, then you’re not in any of them 100%... And that’s not in the best interest of your startups
Apologies, I should have been more clear. I have two companies, however one is the main focus (the enterprise one) whereas the other c-corp is a mobile gaming platform I do in my free-time. You are right though, there will surely come a time where hard decisions must be made.
