News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on $400M in assets to bankrupt in 45-minutes because of a failed deployment (2014). Parent comment

Re:$400M in assets to bankrupt in 45-minutes because of a fa... by pxmpxm on Sunday September 10, 2023 @09:16PM (#37461742)
Actually it's one of the few truly intellectually-pure endeavors. Everything else is the same pursuit with extra steps:

Make a trading strategy to make money

vs

Make a cutting edge machine learning classifier to back out latent meaning in search queries to produce better search results to drive more traffic to google to sell ads to make money

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:$400M in assets to bankrupt in 45-minutes because of a fa... by hgomersall on Monday September 11, 2023 @02:18AM (#37463548)
You're not wrong, but the problem is those steps are also the steps that produce food, or improve health, or solve climate change or solve any of the innumerable problems we face as a society. As you identify, there are plenty of pursuits other than finance that are not particularly socially useful - it's not a very exclusive club.
[ Parent | on HN ]