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mildbow

Re:Uber's SVP of engineering is out on Monday February 27, 2017 @05:57PM (#13749312)
That's a good point. Thanks for bringing it up so I can clarify my position :)

It's not about calling one person a liar vs the other. Rather, it's about accepting that there are multiple sides to every story. Without an unbiased third party, it devolves into he said/she said.

If formal charges aren't brought forward (which would allow for more facts/third party analysis), then why should one person be denigrated? Should a hint of an accusation, sourced by third parties, be enough to fire someone over? If so, what does that firing actually solve?[0]

Anyway, I understand this is a trigger issue, esp. after Susan's post, but to over-react is as bad under-reacting: you want to fix the problem, and you can't do that when you are busy scapegoating.

[0] I'm talking about this specific case, not sexual harassment cases in general.

Re:Uber's SVP of engineering is out on Monday February 27, 2017 @05:28PM (#13749026)
It's not just for the courts: I do believe in innocent until proven guilty.

Why? Golden rule: given a role reversal, I would like the same consideration.

Please note that the "headache" this seems to have caused is purely an external optics one. Not sure how great of a team you would have if you cut off members at first sign of issues.

Maybe the sort of dysfunctional mess Uber seems to have.

Internal, not external, optics are vastly more important in a company.

Re:Uber's SVP of engineering is out on Monday February 27, 2017 @03:32PM (#13747672)
Yeah, I agree it should have been mentioned (literally my 2nd and 3rd lines)

But, this firing has the smell of being one for appearances, rather than actual culpability.

But then again, I don't know the actors so if anyone with additional info confirms that it's a fair firing, I would be happy to listen.

Re:Uber's SVP of engineering is out on Monday February 27, 2017 @03:03PM (#13747426)
idk.

Should he have disclosed it? Of course, because that would have lessened the impact when it did come out.

Maybe he thought it was over and done with. And, since it was an allegation vs proven maybe he didn't want to muddy waters.

However, to say that an allegation must be reported when taking a new job is pretty harsh. Innocent till proven guilty surely?

>> "Uber execs found out about the situation after Recode informed them of the chain of events between Singhal and the search giant this week."

Punish the person responsible in Susan's case. If anything, this feels like a person's career was taken down due to a witch hunt.

To me, this action by Uber's executive team is not one of cleaning house: it shows a lack of spine.

Problem is those staff are seen as fungible and the onus is on them to show up. Didn't show up enough times? Well, you are fired. That's a pain point.

A colleague didn't show up: well crap now you have to be a team player and cover for them. That's a pain point.

A staff member didn't show up? That's an annoyance.

Wasn't trying to cast aspersions/take anything away: I think it's great that you are open sourcing anything. Kudos.

I was just pointing out that this infrastructure might have been great to start, but you guys moved to a very different, in terms of architecture , v2.

Keep in mind that this is the version 1 so might straddle the line between pet project and production.

IIRC, they built a version 2 due to various issues.

But, yeah, version 1 should definitely be built using tech that comes easiest to you.

There are a bunch of competitors and SMBs very much care about the price tag so 100s of dollars is a massive stretch[0].

Note that this alleviates the pain of the staff, not the business ie vitamin for the entity paying for it, but pain killer for their part-time workers.

But, I do agree pricing is out of whack. I would probably try to charge directly based on the number of staff managed (eg: $1/staff member/month).

[0] I run a startup selling to SMBs in the service sector. Upfront dollar amount is a massive hurdle. However, upsells/elastic pricing based on users is easier.

Re:Two Indian engineers at Garmin in Kansas shot, one killed on Friday February 24, 2017 @12:55PM (#13725890)
It's not about saying everyone or even most people in the US are racist. It's about considering whether a visit would be marred by the current miasma of (institutional?) racism/anti-immigrant sentiment.

For example: would you, as a US citizen, choose to visit Iran vs going somewhere else?

Re:Two Indian engineers at Garmin in Kansas shot, one killed on Friday February 24, 2017 @09:32AM (#13723928)
Alcohol doesn't kill people, people kill people? :)
Re:Two Indian engineers at Garmin in Kansas shot, one killed on Friday February 24, 2017 @09:31AM (#13723911)
Rationally?

No, you shouldn't drop your plans of visiting.

Re:Two Indian engineers at Garmin in Kansas shot, one killed on Friday February 24, 2017 @09:20AM (#13723826)
Easier still.

Checkout http://www.armslist.com/. The first time I bought a gun it was eye-opening: email a random person, give them cash, drive back with a gun.

So easy it's scary.

Re:Two Indian engineers at Garmin in Kansas shot, one killed on Friday February 24, 2017 @09:14AM (#13723789)
Why?

Why bother risking personal harm to visit a country that expressly doesn't seem to want you?

Edit: Would down-voters like to comment on why this isn't a valid stance?

Re:Two Indian engineers at Garmin in Kansas shot, one killed on Friday February 24, 2017 @09:09AM (#13723747)
You need to be a special kind of idiot to actually think that increases safety.

Is the fix to some countries having nuclear weapons that everyone has the right to nuclear weapons?

Or, have we come to the conclusion that non-proliferation is the answer?

Re:Airbnb finalizes deal to buy social payments startups Tilt on Thursday February 23, 2017 @07:39AM (#13713397)
This is one of the benefits of being a founder with YC/well-connected VCs.

Even if you burn though millions without figuring out a market, you will land on your feet (if you are on the executive team). Your employees? Not so much.

My words may sound negative, but my point is: most people who are working at startups should seriously consider starting one instead.

Re:What I Heard from Trump Supporters on Tuesday February 21, 2017 @04:48PM (#13700370)
2. That makes sense.

4. Definitely a horrible situation to be in. What do they/you think Trump has promised to do that might make an actual difference?

Re:What I Heard from Trump Supporters on Tuesday February 21, 2017 @02:32PM (#13698890)
I agree. iirc, turnouts were average for Republicans, but the Democrats lost the election by not voting.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:What I Heard from Trump Supporters on Tuesday February 21, 2017 @02:29PM (#13698858)
1. Why do they hate her?

2. Do they consider him not racist/sexist because they are a little bit too? (Not trying to be inflammatory)

3. I hate it too.

4b. Why are they hurting? Why is median household income so low?

Re:What I Heard from Trump Supporters on Tuesday February 21, 2017 @02:24PM (#13698788)
Self-labeled smart people are the ones with the biggest blind-spots.

Also, how would being livid help?

Re:What I Heard from Trump Supporters on Tuesday February 21, 2017 @02:20PM (#13698730)
I might be missing the point, but a lot of the responses sound emotion driven, with the overwhelming emotion being the fear of change. So, it seems patronizing to attribute any sort pro/con formalism. Basically, Trump has a lot of fear driven rhetoric, and if you heard one of your fears, then regardless of the validity, you felt that someone was taking your side.
thanks, I appreciate the links :)
Re:YC Annual Letter 2017 on Thursday February 16, 2017 @01:10PM (#13662127)
Not to me.

percentage of women who apply ~= percentage of women who get funded.

Sounds plausible that it's more distracting, but I'm not convinced that the difference is more varied than found among different types of passengers (back-seat driver/kids/dumb friends/audiobook(?) etc)

If you have a few studies that show more than that, I would be glad to check it out.

I think GPS is secondary: you can easily get a mount for it.

Based on experience, the most likely explanation is texting or voice calls. When I got a new car with bluetooth calling, all of a sudden I was fumbling a lot less. A call is now about the same level of distraction as having a passenger or 2.

Texting however, I have no idea. Maybe something that moves texting to voice, but I haven't seen anything actually make that work. And, it's distracting enough that I just don't text while driving: sending ETA updates or w/e isn't worth risking my life over.

Re:Would You Pay $5 to Apply for a Job? on Wednesday February 15, 2017 @03:45PM (#13655206)
The problem is some people give good feedback, other people don't.

Even if you pay the $5, it doesn't mean the person giving you feedback is any good at it.

Made-up feedback is worse than no feedback.

Re:Would You Pay $5 to Apply for a Job? on Wednesday February 15, 2017 @03:43PM (#13655195)
Hahaha.

I think you would be selecting the exactly wrong applicant. Why would one pay for a chance to make you money?

Anyone you want to hire probably has enough other places where application is free.

If anything, you should be paying people for the time they spend interviewing. That would 1) make sure you are incentivized to only bring in people who have a good chance, 2) give you a chance to woo great people who might already be happy where they are.

Re:Algorithms on Wednesday February 15, 2017 @03:04PM (#13654939)
Recursive might be harder to grok to someone new because of the implied stack.

However, once you understand the iterative version, it's probably easier to understand how the recursion is actually working.

Re:Staffjoy is shutting down on Wednesday February 15, 2017 @10:40AM (#13652710)
From the outside, it seems like the founder saw a bigger opportunity and decided to move on.

So, the primary motivation isn't shutting down this startup. The primary motivation is moving on to the next startup which they believe is a bigger opportunity.

Not too awesome for current employees: hope they are getting taken care of.

Re:Raising the American Weakling on Tuesday February 14, 2017 @11:44AM (#13644827)
I've been considering a training board, but it's too much hassle to put up. So, I've been using towels over my pull-up bar, but this seems great for $30.

Thanks. Bought!

Guinness? Are you calling them stout? :)

Anyway, the point should be you want to get people who are skilled. Maybe/maybe not that means English fluency. But, that's another matter.

It seems most abuse[0] happens due to random Indian body-shops. Since Trump is so carte-blanche maybe he can just blacklist the ones we know to be obvious abusers.

Maybe a better answer is to require all H1-Bs be actual full-time employees of the company, rather than being under contract through a third party?

[0]I define abuse as using H1-Bs primarily for cheap labor vs skilled labor.

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