cHalgan

I think the only way how this can be fixed it that they pass SOPA since western democracies seems to be broken beyond repair.

This bill will severely affect the very last growth engine in the US (that is internet) and the US (and the rest of the world) will sunk into even deeper recession. In other words, this bill will slow down or even prevent "paradigm shift in the economy" which is needed to start recovery of the global economy.

And this prolonged deep recession will fuel occupy WallStreet and similar movements and eventually, after a lot bad things (wars, riots, etc.), the new version of democracy will arise: the democracy were the constituents are people and not corporations.

This is my pessimistic view but history seems to be on my side :(

On a separate note (by reading your comment), isn't funny how you need to be lawyer in order to find out whether you are breaking the law or no for trivial things as this one.

USSR perfected that approach but we are getting there.

I wonder why there are no internal talent in HP to replace CEO (you know, the second in command which will take control of the ship if CEO is hit by a bus).

Is there a company which is actively working on internal talent pool capable of replacing the acting CEO? (I can think only of Apple, but they are not typical corporation).

I completely agree that startup should minimize chance on hiring wrong people (that is reason I'm arguing that pay in startup must be market rate (no 20% less as many startup try) - otherwise your are gambling with the most important asset you have).

Yes, without a portfolio, you're guessing, but the problem with requiring candidate to have portfolio is that you will narrow the search to consulting/freelancer group which might not be the best pool of candidates.

Also many intelligent people which had startups or consulting end up working for corporations (Comcast, Apple, Oracle, etc.) because... because they are very very good and corporation pay with gold to get these kind of guys.

This is so funny. A while ago recruiter (expensive one) which was working for me to fill up a senior position in my team (I was a dev manager in a big company) sent me an email trying to recruit me...

Regarding design candidates, there are some very very good designers working in big corporation and they don't have online portfolio or personal site (in many cases because HR does not allow it). For example, as far as know, designers working at Apple (which are probably people you want to hire) will not have online portfolio or personal blog site.

I think the main problem is that in brave new world of "connection is everything" landing job is really really hard if you just sending resume thru HR/normal process. If nothing you should always edit resume based on the job posting (so you can match lingo used in the posting) - but chances that the resume will land on managers desk is near zero (it like sending unsolicited business plan to VCs...)

The most efficient way to land the job it to establish direct contact with hiring manager (or somebody in the team). I.e., pay $50 for linkedin so you can send email directly saying exactly what you want ...

Microsoft did something here: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/farsite/

Not really. Actually, my friends in other professions with similar education (lawyers, public servants, marketing, advertising, hedge funds) have no problems saving for a house. In other words, real estate market in San Francisco seems to be healthy: people are buying houses. It is just not for programmers.

Stupid me. I was honestly thinking that AOL's market cap is about 20B. Wow...

I think the problem is that good jobs (you can save to buy house) are gone. Basically, in SV, you can get 150K salary with 20 years experience and PhD only at Facebook, Google, Oracle, etc. However, these companies are extremely picky and positions like that are rarely open.

Smaller companies (and startups) are just looking for programmers - preferable fresh from college.

I predict this trend will continue: low end of programming business will grow and salaries will be suppressed because level of entry will be lowered as time goes. The high end of programming will shrink and it will be available only in big corporations.

If Yahoo! is acquired by AOL, then I think there might be some bright future for Yahoo! and for AOL.

For example, they could focus on Yahoo! Finance to be the place for investment, stocks info on internet.

In order words, it is too early to predict whether Yahoo! will be sold to PE firms.

EDIT: Stupid comment: AOL is way smaller than Yahoo!

You really think D.C. is the place were decisions are made? Really?

Anyway these Anonymous are just kids and I don't think they understand problem - let alone the solution to the problem.

I just want to point one thing: As China is becoming the super-power (engine of the world), their view how copyright should be handled will become prevalent.

In other words, the majority of money to be made will be in Chindia and not in Europe and US. We need to prepare for that.

Excellent site.

On general note, this site really emphasizes how fucked up is health system in US. There is complete lack of correlation how much a plan costs and how much benefits you get.

There should be version: WhyHealthInsuranceinUSSucks.com

I'm sorry, but I don't think you can say that "startup failed" if you haven't even quit your day job and focus 100% on your startup. Maybe you can say that investigation/discovery phase didn't yield desirable results.

May I ask you what is an average vacation time per year in your company?

Reasoning goes like this:

- If a company is really about "we don't care about how much vacation you take", then why not to give me minimum vacations? It seems intellectually dishonest.

- How I do know how much of vacation I can take and whether that amount is preventing me of getting raise/bonus/promotion?

- This policy means that my vacation will vary depending on manager and current project. I cannot commit to travel with my kids, I cannot commit to visit my parents... because who knows: I might have a different manager next month.

- If I take two weeks vacation and none of my teammates are taking vacations, am I going to be fired? Are they going to consider me that I'm not a team player?

- I can lose a job after working for year or so without taking any vacation, but if I did accure vacation I will get some money (kinda reward for working hard for a year and not taking vacation), while in case of "flexible vacation" I get nothing.

I actually believe that lack of democratic institutions and lack of regulations is enabling rich (either rich by inheritance or self made) to become more rich.

I'm not sure how large corporation has influence to this because at least, in Eastern Europe, raise of inequality (tycoons and such) goes hand in hand with lack of democratic institutions (sometime outright corruption but in many cases everything is "legal") and lack of regulations.

Unfortunately, regardless of reason of increasing inequality, history showed us that inequality is often fixed by events which are not part of capitalism teaching (revolution, war, crazy people end up leading the country).

I just want to comment that policy like this will cause you problems in recruiting a certain type of talent. Of course, that will be imposible to measure, but I can tell you none of my friends (we are little older but not so much) will not work for a company which has a policy like that. We just had a beer talk last Friday about that.

Hmmm... I like the idea 'take some' but then why not accure vacations anyway and 'force' people to take vacations before accuras expires?

Actually, in one of big companies developing world class mission critical software, my manager would send me an email saying something like "please take vacations since we are making Mercedeses and not Pintos".

Yes, there were pople working really a lot and not taking vacations, but it ended up that their designs are not well thought and implementation sloppy (yea, it is done faster than planed but locking was just not performing on SMPs), so they were passed during promotion / bonus time.

You really think that republicans and democrats are two different parties? (sorry for being sarcastic... I'm just frustrated with politics in US... It seems so corrupted beyond belief)