I don't know how SolarCity makes any money. The last time I looked into purchasing panels from them, it was 20 years to break even on your purchase. What a joke.
Interestingly, I see a pattern of a strong anti-network effect in play.
Network effects are premised on the value of the network increasing in value as more users join. By definition then, the value of the network drops as people drop off.
While the speed of adoption might always be > speed of deletion, there is certainly an auto-catalytic effect to people deleting FB, or not using/posting to FB as much.
My Uncle is a researcher and has one of those famous checks from Knuth for pointing out an error in the book. Needless to say, he never intends on cashing it in, and treats it like a little trophy.
This just feels like propaganda from the meat industry. For every bit of scientific research touting the demerits of industrial-scale farming, the meat industry is incentivized to fight back.
How can you "wipe out" your account if you don't close a spread? AFAIK Robinhood does not allow for naked calls/puts or selling strangles without a collateral upfront.
If you don't close a spread prior to it expiring then it's possible for a execution of the option by the counter party. In that situation you can be forced to either provide the securities (if you sold calls) or forced to buy the stock (if you sold puts). As it happens at the expiration of the option you no longer have the option to exercise the other half of your spread.
As the margin required for a spread is substantially less than the full price of the security (which is the whole point of the spread), you can end up in a situation where you're forced to buy more stock than the total liquidation value of your portfolio. Plus this happens at the close on a Friday (as that's when option expiration happens) so you can't liquidate the stock until Monday morning and you're at the mercy of the opening price. If the quantity of options sold is large enough and the price moves against you far enough, you can get completely wiped out.
It's your responsibility to close out your spreads prior to close. FYI, this situation can happen even if they're out of the money as the counter party to the worthless option could still choose to exercise it.
The situation I’m describing is when the sold option expires in the money but the purchased cover does not. It won’t automatically execute and you’re left with essentially a naked short.
As impressive as it may sound, this is pretty shocking for the state of the industry.
An innovative, new upshot getting sucked up/ blatantly ripped off by an established player with more muscle, money (and in this case - users) to throw at the problem is not a great incentive for entrepreneurs.
Consolidation at this level resembles communism more closely than the kind of free market innovation we should be seeing.
But that's fair. Facebook started out as a startup and it grew over time and eventually become a tech giant. So should Facebook not respond to a business threat from competitors now? Is Snapchat the only one allowed to implement the feature? That's the tone I am hearing.
Let's be fair. The product team and the developers working on the Stories product did an amazing job. Also, not every well-established players do well trying to replicate / model after its competitors. Google is known to be one of them, when it comes to her attempt to rip FB apart. Several times more massive than Facebook's size and money pool, but Google failed to make a real den in the market. Facebook is one of the few tech giants today capable of engineering execution that can bring business some values. Disclaimer: I have not seen anyone in my circle using Stories on Facebook yet, but on Instagram plenty.
Innovation is competition. Think of the glory 50s - 80s of technical innovations. Something motivates somebody to do something different. Innovation does not necessarily equates to breakthrough. Diversify your product line and product features is innovative.
Yes let's be fair. It's fair to say that Facebook did not threaten coercion on anyone, and simply responded to market demand for a certain type of service. It's also fair to say that Facebook is in a unique position to be able to use it's considerable platform to absorb mind share away from competing platforms.
It's also fair to question if this is a good thing for the ecosystem of technology, and more specifically market technology from many different points of view - namely power distribution.
The trend here is that no matter what you do in technology, or how successful you become - you'll never beat Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft or Amazon. So, is that good, neutral, bad? I think probably bad, but I'm not sure.
Or maybe the answer is simply that Snapchat is really just a feature that got out of hand and is vastly overpriced.
I think it is absolutely fair to question. I thought it was not fair when OP stated big brother throwing fist at smaller company (and Snapchat isn't a startup / small player anymore).
> you'll never beat Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft or Amazon
But Facebook is the youngest. Apple did fail and almost vanish until Steve Jobs came back. Microsoft was sucking on its Windows license and losing so top talents, it came back with Azure and better Windows and Office product. Amazon diversified its product in 2005 and continued to do so now it has so much more capital to invest.
But Google destroyed Yahoo, MSN and AOL, and other web directory websites out of business.
MySpace is sold. Yahoo is sold. Tumblr's ability to make profit is questionable, and will likely fail eventually. Blackberry failed to come back. Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia all sold after Android came along and too late to adopt (from Seamian to Android). Google's first smartphone was a big step up. Wii U sale wasn't good. I can go on with many examples. Sony's digital music products were doing well then Apple's iPod came along. But was Apple's success a pure luck? A pure technical ingenious coincidence? Sony was much bigger than Apple at the time.
The business world is funny because the "too big to fail" will eventually fail one day, either through merge or complete bankruptcy. I predict Uber is too big to fail, but it might eventually pull back its main business back to NA. But that's my wild guess.
So the question is fair, but I think there's a question on leadership. Why some big company fail and others strive? Pure luck? Luck is 30%, 70% is people.
But I share the sentiment that Stories is not as exciting as hearing a robot can talk to me like a normal human. That would be a huge breakthrough, big innovation, and a whole new business venture. Was Facebook's AI messenger great? No, it was a poor experiment.
Everything you say makes sense, but I have to add that I think Machine Learning changes the landscape. We're a ML company in the true sense, and I can't tell you how fucking hard it is to compete with these behemoths on AI - and I see it in my fellow startups.
ML is becoming literally part of every business process across industries, and guess who is at the center? Google, Amazon, Facebook.
So yea, I think this time it's different. They have learned how to adapt as fast as Startups but retain the size of a Fortune 500.
Yes, I agree AL is pretty unique. I've seen some new startups like Clarifai trying to win the SDK/SaaS market. Moreover, many of the new startups in AI are generally folks from research division at Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Amazon, and IBM. AI is quite a selective field, more dense in terms of complexity comparing to building a web application.
You could argue that the healthiest thing for the ecosystem is to build highly defensible, technology-driven businesses. In that sense, Snapchats shouldn't exist at all.
On the other hand, giant companies like Facebook are the only ones who can really afford to just steal stuff and make it high performance. A startup's main premise can't be "technology-driven" in the most traditional sense of high performance. A startup will be out-performed by companies with more resources, like giant corporations.
Instead, think outside the box: what if you distribute data in a decentralized way, like BitTorrent? What if the bank is distributed, like Bitcoin? What if content wasn't ALLOWED to make money, like CC-NC? What if you organize the world's information by empowering authors, like Wikipedia?
People think Google has all the power and all the information, and they forget how much better Wikipedia is at achieving Google's own goals, at 1/100,000th the cost!
Wikipedia might not have a mapping product like Google's, and they don't index your e-mail, and it doesn't have as nice of a collaborative editor. Wikipedia is playing a different game altogether.
Google thought, well, let's copy/acquire these things that Microsoft does (Office, Exchange, Maps). Google is Microsoft's Facebook. Nothing is going to happen to Microsoft just because Google copies tons of their products, giving them away for free. Is Google bad for the ecosystem? Microsoft (and Snapchat, for that matter) are powerful companies.
Baidu copies Google features too—are they bad for the ecosystem? It's not obvious, because our dislike of these giant megacorporations and our assessment of their contributions to society are all colored by politics and opinions.
I think we're more interesting in protecting Wikipedias. In my opinion, Wikipedia is beating Google handily in the world's information department. Someone will figure out an unassailable (though not necessarily lucrative) answer to what Facebook and Snapchat attempt to do.
> On the other hand, giant companies like Facebook are the only ones who can really afford to just steal stuff and make it high performance. A startup's main premise can't be "technology-driven" in the most traditional sense of high performance. A startup will be out-performed by companies with more resources, like giant corporations.
I think it is an excellent point, but I also believe we find a balance. I see your point. Big corporation can spare money to experiment. This is Google's strategy. Throw a hundred developers and $50M investment and if fail remove the project from its catalog two years from now. Move on to the next item.
Unfortunately, I think luck being 30% in measuring success is a real deal breaker. Sometimes, your best idea (very profitable) just doesn't take off until the right moment, even if we have the best product team, the best sales pitch, the most intuitive platform. Sometimes it's playing Russian roulette. I recently read about Foursquare - that's a good example. The luck of finding the right people leading a new vision.
This was then. Imagine how Facebook will respond to any threat now. The tenor and the impact of their response is evident in the Stories rollout.
One might argue, in favour of Snapchat that this is a one-off situation and that Facebook will succumb to the same organisational stasis that big corporations fall into. Facebook falling into stasis doesn't seem likely. If someone has viewpoints to the contrary I'm all ears.
Snapchat will have a real tough time fighting Facebook.
Right, and that's how I would respond as a CEO. What choice does he have? Let Snapchat grow and Facebook and Instagram failing to attract younger users?
But back to my point. Even Google couldn't win Facebook with all that cash flow. But is size the real reason? No. It's the execution that matters. The thing I hear a lot about Google is that there could be multiple version of the same "product" competing for final launch, Google+ was like that. In the end I feel that's a bit of a hackathon-ish competition. Lots of defects, unclear product vision and perhaps low morale.
Anyway, small company can still win. There are many examples of that out there.
<At Facebook, even then and certainly later, you got along by going along, and everyone sacrificing his or her entire life for the cause was as much about self-sacrifice and team building as it was an actual measure of your productivity.
Thanks for sharing this. A quote I won't forget. Seems unreal, really.
Facebook offered to acquire Snapchat for $3B cash in 2014. [1] Snapchat declined the offer, then went on to have a successful IPO with NO VOTING RIGHTS for common shareholders (a first). Snapchat is a successful company, Evan Spiegel is a billionaire, and any entrepreneur would gladly follow in his footsteps.
What happens now between Snapchat and Facebook is largely irrelevant, the original Snapchat team found a wildly successful exit. Sure, it might suck for the majority of Snapchat's employees if the company goes under due to competition from Facebook, but the lesson for entrepreneurs is pretty clear.
Also, one company copying another's product with no government or legal protections would occur under a purely capitalist system. A move towards communism would entail the US gov. stepping in a nationalizing Facebook/Snapchat...which is way off base here...
Which highlights a fundemantal problem with capitalism: it tends towards giant monopolies as industries mature. Capitalism only works with a strong government righting the ship. But even that eventually fails when the government gets captured by the most powerful companies.
>An innovative, new upshot getting sucked up/ blatantly ripped off by an established player with more muscle, money (and in this case - users) to throw at the problem is not a great incentive for entrepreneurs.
>Consolidation at this level resembles communism more closely than the kind of free market innovation we should be seeing.
An established player pushing out a smaller startup sounds very much like capitalism, not communism. You could maybe argue it is consolidating into a monopoly, but not that it is communism.
'Pushing out' by using superior innovation/market advantages? Or by currying favor with the governments of the world? In effect, creating that monopolistic structure.
FB is very clearly in the latter camp. That is communism.
Communism implies government ownership. Crony capitalism, maybe. They still competed and this time Goliath won; we often forget what makes that story special, that David is not the favorite to win.
> An innovative, new upshot getting sucked up/ blatantly ripped off by an established player with more muscle, money (and in this case - users) to throw at the problem is not a great incentive for entrepreneurs.
These two things aren't the same. The former is complaining about larger companies copying features (where no legislation exists) and the latter is complaining about incurring legislation that impedes competition.
So what do you want? Legislation or not? You can't have both.
> is not a great incentive for entrepreneurs.
There are plenty of opportunities for entrepreneurs to create new technologies, but the gold rush for creating the next big social app may indeed be over.
Here's to hoping new entrepreneurs are motivated by something more than getting rich off the next hot walled social garden, where innovation is a gimmick like self "deleting" messages, 140 characters, or "micro-apps".
I think you're assuming a lot by saying "entrepreneurs" there. It's not like we pump "entrepreneurs" out of some sort of cadet school, and then some of them go on to join the Dark Side. People become entrepreneurs (i.e. found businesses) for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is because they want to get rich quick. Social walled gardens are a good path to that, if you can manage to build one. The people who do so might pretend to be participating in the "hacker ethos"—but they're not members of our community able to be swayed by our social mores. They're just businessmen, of their own kind.
Of course, I only mean I wish that people starting new ventures are motivated to create new products that aren't walled social gardens, and hopefully have some better positive externalities of the kind we all hoped the internet would bring in the 90s.
I don't care if that happens by social being not a way to get rich anymore, or by a class of entrepreneurs being inspired to make something else, as long as it happens.
Totally in agreement here. I think this is actually a much bigger deal than anyone imagines.
It shows that even if you create a HUGE new thing, you're probably going to get killed by the big ones. There is no competing anymore - you either assimilate through acquisition or get squeezed to death on the back end because the incumbents have the cash, data and talent.
So what the hell is venture supposed to do in this landscape? I'm genuinely curious. If the goal of venture money is to build IPO level companies - not one off acquisitions - then what is the move here?
Re-read The Innovators Dilemma. Startups built on just having better technology or product rarely ever work. You need to compete on an axis that the incumbent can't compete on. The incumbent should be looking at your startup, be aware of what you are doing, and be unable to copy it because doing so would break their existing (profitable) business.
If you are relying on outcompeting the incumbent directly you are in for a really tough fight.
Really the point I am making is that they have the ability to cover all axes because the information they have about each is so deep and their tentacles are everywhere in some form. Remember too, they don't need to brand a product with "Google" to be dominant in it. They just need to make sure that whatever startup is playing in the space is using a google product, be it GoLang, Tensorflow, etc... or has investment from GV
I don't know maybe you are young and new to the technology sector, but theres probably more stories within tech of the big corporation copying a new innovative startup and failing than there are of them succeeding.
Well I think to make this argument, you'd have to provide more points other than snapchat. In this case as many other have been pointing out, Instagram is just out executing them in terms of quality.
What other examples do you see this to be applicable ?
Right, except those big companies are WAY ahead of everyone on that too. Their patent portfolios cover literally everything conceivable. It's quite astonishing really. I mean far future stuff like nanodrug delivery methods, brain computer interfaces etc...
It's going to take tens or hundreds of millions in "seed" investment in the future to compete with one of these behemoths - and even then they all have venture arms so you better find money that is not associated with one of them - impossible probably.
I don't think it changes really it's just the next huge successes will come from a direction that will blindside the current incumbents. Either that or the model is dead as the ladder gets pulled up behind the winners.
Probably make something truely innovative and/or patentable, not just pictures that syndicate differently from how other platforms pictures syndicate. Getting a competitive moat from Goliath was in all my buisiness classes in college. VC's must think/know something we don't, that Snapchat has a plan to build such a moat or otherwise stay 1 step ahead. Or they were looking for the greater fool.
To me the thing that is shocking is that a buggy app with crap UX and only the network effect as their moat against competition could be valued at $29B.
If you build a product that can be cloned trivially, you should expect others to clone it. If you are relying on the network effect to beat off competitors, you'd better not have competitors with a bigger network.
The question is, can Snapchat use their newly obtained war chest to make a counterplay that differentiates them from Facebook/Insta. If I had cash to gamble I'd short Snapchat and bet no, but we'll see.
Or maybe, you should not invest in products that could be a feature that could be easily added to an incumbent and companies who focus on these kinds of products tend to fail, just as intended by the free market.
> An innovative, new upshot getting sucked up / blatantly ripped off by an established player
If you're getting "ripped off by an established player", then you know you've made it.
The challenge then is making sure you have a strategy for co-existing with the incumbent (e.g. being more nimble, expanding the market), being acquired by the incumbent, or building a moat (e.g. expanding into a vertical that the incumbent can't touch; innovating faster than the incumbent can copy you).
I'd agree with the ripped off part (although I'm sure there are companies that did something similar in the past). However, I'm not sure what muscle and money has to do with it. It's not like Instagram/FB were advertising for Stories (at least I didn't see any).
Muscle/money is also equivalent to rallying resources to quickly rip off features. Let's not forget that builder (engineering/design/product) resources in small/medium size companies come at a premium.
It doesn't take a large engineering team to add stickers to a picture. I'm being facetious here, but let's be honest, FB/IG/Snap are not building a space shuttle.
I agree that it seems unfair but maybe the lesson is that the innovation needs to be more than a feature that doesn't present any technical difficulties for larger players to copy?
No, you are not stuck at all. As long as your intent - and the intent of your employer - at the time that your green card application was filed was to work for the company in the sponsored position, you can leave at any time after getting your green card.
Wow this is such a great news to hear! Thank you so much!
Just one more thing, then does this mean all the "it will be problematic when you apply for citizenship unless you stay for 6 months" just an internet myth?
Pre-AC21 that was the general advice to avoid questions at the naturalization stage but that all ended with AC21. It's also a borrowed misunderstanding from the general GC portability requirements (which don't apply here) which allow one to "port" one's GC application after one's I-485 application has been pending for 6 months.
I don't have citizenship yet, I have the GC right now. I needed to provide documentation regarding the company like business model, certificate of incorporation, bank statements and financial situation.
Basically they're saying it's ok to leave immediately as long as you don't apply for citizenship. The problem arises when it's time for citizenship and they blame us for being a fraud. Were you aware of this?
Yes, I am aware of it. Peter has already clarified the issue above. What matters is the intent. One friend of mine switched jobs less than a month after obtaining his GC and he didn't run into any issue whatsoever.
"No, you are not stuck at all. As long as your intent - and the intent of your employer - at the time that your green card application was filed was to work for the company in the sponsored position, you can leave at any time after getting your green card."
Hey there - It's a huge catalog of tracks which contains all content from both emerging and established creators. The full details of which can be found on https://blog.soundcloud.com/
YMMV then, because their catalog is the only reason I want this. Soundclouds service in general kind of sucks, but they are the only place to get a ton of new smaller niche music very quickly. If you're really into electronic music stuff like spotify just doesn't cut it. This is a godsend for me, I've been begging for years to pay them a monthly fee to cache/not have ads.
Where in the article does it say you have be exclusively on this platform? The word is exclusive is mentioned twice and both times in relation to Tidal.
That's the only thing that really separates these services. They all have similar catalogs and features for the most part.
The issue I have is with the exclusivity deals that come up
as part of them trying to compete with each other. It annoying for the customer, and ends up with less money for the artist as most people will inevitably just go torrent their work if it's not on the one streaming service they're using.
