billsossoon's comments

> Go in my opinion is the best proof that our industry is fashion driven.

Go itself isn't flashy or trendy or fashionable. It doesn't introduce exciting new concepts. It's as notable for what it doesn't include as what it does include. It is, in my experience, an extremely practical and pragmatic language. Saying it's proof of a fashion-driven industry is like saying the Honda Accord is proof that the automobile industry is fashion driven.

I believe some of the initial interest in Go was due to its newness and its affiliation with Google. But traffic-baiting bloggers have moved on to the next thing, as have programmers who are more focused on the process of programming (i.e., "I want the act of programming to be fun") than the results. I think it's settling into a comfortable role as a practical choice for teams who want to get work done.

[1]: http://www.littletikes.com/content/ebiz/shop/invt/612060/612...

In my town, many parents put their newly-licensed teenage children behind the wheels of enormous SUVs in the name of safety, simultaneously reducing the safety of everyone around them. If tanks were street legal, we'd probably have 16 year old kids barreling down the road in them.

Internet Explorer, as usual, screws everything up. No support in IE8 and IE9, limited support in IE10.

From a co-worker perspective, yes, I'd rather work short-term with someone talented. From a managerial perspective, I'd first choose the talented employee who has demonstrated an ability to commit, then I'd choose a less talented (but with potential to improve) employee who I believe has an ability to commit, then it's roughly a tie between someone mediocre and someone talented who will likely abandon their project in the lurch. Those last two are both pretty lame options.

There are so many interesting things to learn, and they're all readily accessible to us. I find myself discovering a new fascinating subject I'd love to learn about each day, and by now the list of fascinating things has grown unmanageable. Asking "why?" can be a good means to to make sense of such a list.

At a younger age, I was able to sustain great focus and effort on learning something without ever asking myself why. This approach helped me earn a doctoral degree on an obscure, esoteric topic without ever stopping to ask why. I assure you, I personally wish I'd asked why.

Years later, I continue to enjoy learning. But since there are so many things to learn, I have the choice of learning many things superficially (the default when something new catches my interest daily), or really digging in and learning something in depth. At this stage in my life, with many things competing for my time and attention, learning something in depth requires considerably more motivation. And (for me) having an answer to "why?" helps me sustain that motivation.

Investors care about making a return on their investment, plain and simple, so they invest in companies that resemble other successful companies. Silicon Valley investors saw the success of Facebook and Twitter and they want to replicate that success.

Not only that, but social network companies look like good investments because they're relatively inexpensive to build, and signs of their eventual success or failure show up at an extremely early stage.

The problem isn't that VCs are evil or stupid or fame-hungry or conspiratorial. The "problem" is that social media companies still look like good investments. You could accuse VCs of being uninspired and unoriginal, trying to repeat their last big success over and over, but that's how it works. And as long as college kids are building the social media apps that get initial traction with other college kids, they're going to get funded.

Complaining won't do anything. As long as social media looks like a good investment (i.e., until it deflates or until something better comes along), VCs will continue to milk it. Once it becomes a bad investment, they'll all go chasing the ball to wherever its headed next.

I agree, it's unfortunate that the money isn't being funneled into something more innovative or meaningful. Rap music annotations and disappearing photos and a website that helps you rent out your spare bedroom are being heralded as some of our greatest tech success stories. Frankly, that's pathetic.

> First, he's a bad writer. He'd barely get a C in a freshman English class

> Any lepers need cured?

And you probably spent as more time writing your comment than Spiegel did writing his email.

> Given that a 40-year-old CEO who wrote an email like that would (and rightfully) be considered somewhat off-the-ball

No. Maybe all the 40-year-old CEOs who privately email you write exceptionally well, but that hasn't been my experience at all.

Flipping coins suggests everybody is playing the same game with roughly equal odds.

So what is the game here? Releasing new consumer products randomly and hoping they become popular?

When Apple really broke out, PC and electronics manufacturers were still competing with one another based on spec sheets (MHz, RAM, GB, benchmarks, etc. -- whoever has more wins).

Apple went in a different direction, putting more effort into product design and user experience and marketing than its competitors. So it wasn't really a case of coin-flipping, because Apple started playing an entirely different game.

Or perhaps the coin flipping is at a higher level, e.g. trying different broad strategies to get ahead (like putting greater emphasis on design/UX)? Again, nobody else was really trying new strategies, everyone was playing the specs sheet arms race. So, in this case, there weren't enough people flipping coins to invoke the metaphor.

Regardless of Yahoo's recent results, Mayer seems to have alienated many people and made decisions that increasingly seem unlikely to achieve the long-term goals. Really, what has been accomplished?

- She went all-in on playing the app lottery by developing new apps in-house, and I don't think any of Yahoo apps have been real winners. However, she bolstered the app engineering force, which may pay off down the road as the mobile software landscape continues to evolve.

- She bought up a bunch of expensive start-ups seemingly at random. I figured these purchases might make sense in retrospect, when some grand design is revealed, but I'm still waiting.

- She made a big bet on online media that doesn't align with what people want to watch.

Google can afford to throw spaghetti against the wall because Google's search revenue is footing the bill. Yahoo seemingly adopted the same strategy in an attempt to identify its core business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY

It starts off kinda weird, you gotta give it a few minutes.