HCDevid

On US healthcare bills there is:

Billed Amount - what the provider/health system tags as the “billed amount” Allowed Amount - what the insurer sets as the actual total $ allowed to change hands for the visit Patient Responsibility - the portion the patient is responsible for.

The Billed Amount is supposed to exceed the Allowed Amount by 2.5-5x typically so that the Allowed Amount the insurer/provider has negotiated “saves” money thanks to Insurance ostensibly in how the bill is displayed.

Put differently, your provider/health system is supposed to per the billing contract put in an inflated value well in excess of expected payment so your insurance company can reduce it so you can “save money” superficially on your bill. It is as smoke and mirrors as it sounds. Sounds like your provider / HS forgot healthcare billing 101 in this case.

The Billed - Allowed Amount value is also usually called Contractual Adjustment

Although there are separate China & non-Chinese apps, you hit the nail on the head for why a potential acquisition both has serious risk and is going to be a fire sale of TikTok given the 45-day deadline. These are issues which normally would take months to resolve at minimum and would also need a period post-close where operations were slowly separated and Bytedance was still involved for knowledge transfer.

If the acquirer, can make it work, it will be the greatest tech M&A deal since Facebook acquired Instagram in terms of long-term return.

Anecdotally, although I still rate TikTok's algorithm as better than youtube, the real difference is the long-term engagement. TikTok is always able to deliver content that is interesting to me......Youtube recommendations have a habit of delivering "stale" recommendations for long-term users.

Were you trying to persuade the coworker, or trying to persuade your boss with your coworker being against?

It's definitely a dangerous attitude, this is also the problem with anecdotes, we all start postulating strawmans.

I would point out though that in the financing-focused case you gave, although you have a definitive slow down from technical debt, it's still an open question whether or not it's actually a net slowdown vs the "status quo" scenario.

In practice of course, every individual company, with different teams and different contexts, has to find the right "cognitive bias" for themselves.

So I'm probably getting blinded by availability bias bc you said finance, but these T-shirts look solid. I can't really think of anything etsy-like that would fit. I'd assume he's a fairly cynical guy:

www.zazzle.com/financial_adviser_banker_investment_broker_gear_tshirt-235389425685067728

http://www.zazzle.com/rated_aaa_tshirt-235431658033842966

Alternatively, screw the finance part and just go for something cool. How does he feel about drones?

Original WSJ article here:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/tencent-buys-stake-in-u-s-game-m...

Tencent bought a 14.6% stake in Glu Mobile less than 15 days ago.

UoP is said to be for global expansion (especially in the Chinese market)

You're crazy man. Where do you get these ideas?

Next you'll tell me that my opinions formed after 10 minutes of perusing a forum are subject to cognitive bias.

Interested in market/economics as in he's a professional (or extremely serious individual investor), or interested as in he's a hobbyist who likes reading finance news and occasionally making "cool" investments?

What do you think of this extension of your analogy:

Financial debt has an interest rate, but you take it out because you believe the return on the proceeds raised adds more value than the cost.

Technical debt is meant to (ideally) be the same. As long as it's outstanding and compounding, it should be because your return on business value will be lower if you "pay it back", then if you do not and spend time/resources elsewhere.

if your discount rate is 30%+ per annum, this makes for some counter-intuitive conclusions about when it's smart or not to "finance" with technical debt.

While I agree with you on time vs. shortcuts, I do think it's a question of valuing explicit time vs. opportunity cost that's a depper issue here.

My opinion is that whether it's programming or general white-collar work, most cases of doing it "the right way" vs. "the dirty way" tend to be about investing the "certainty" of lost time immediately for the "promise" of savings.

For some things, the tradeoff is pretty decent (taking time to improve core knowledge or relevant skills that are related to goals).

But for a quickly growing company, how many situations are there where a "hack it out" fix that costs time in the long run is a net win in opportunity cost and hence long-term value?

If a shortcut that will cause you headaches in 9-18 months also allows you to add critical features at an accelerated pace for the next 6 months, is it: (1) inefficient because you net lose man-hours or (2) efficient (a) maximizes your near-term growth trajectory, (b) thereby increasing potential access to resources and hence long-term growth

To be clear, I do agree with your statements about shortcuts usually not saving time especially when you deal with teams/setting standards.

My point is more that while time saved/lost is easier to mentally calculate, it alone is not really what's driving value in many situations.

There's also the inherent problem of using qualitative terms that mean different things to different people.

But hey, that's part of the fun on the internet.