dougweltman's comments

InfoSum | London, UK | Full-time | Hybrid

InfoSum is building data collaboration tools for the modern enterprise. This is a privacy-friendly way to power identity on the internet, otherwise known as Data Clean Rooms. Currently we're working in adtech.

Available roles: - Enterprise Sales Director - London - Customer Success Associate (Italian-speaking) - London

Apply here, and mention Doug Weltman: https://www.infosum.com/company/careers

Enjoy it!

Infosum.com | UK | Hybrid | Full-time

Infosum is a series B-funded business focused on building privacy-friendly infrastructure for data collaboration -- when two or more organisations want to make their data useful for one another without sharing any of the underlying data.

We're adding the following roles to our team:

Backend Engineers

- Basingstoke-based (hybrid)

- Golang, or Java cross-train to Go

IT Security and Compliance Officer

- Basingstoke-based (hybrid)

- SOC-2, ISO 27001 experience needed

- AWS experience needed

Outbound Business Development Representative

- London-based (hybrid)

- We have a complex sales process for a technically demanding product and need help executing on opportunities for this.

More details on our website, infosum.com/company/careers. Feel free to email me for details: douglas (dot) my_last_name (at) infosum dot com.

1. Because beliefs around WFH have changed. 2. Investors aren’t thinking about tactical stuff like office amenities, free lunches and WFH.

None of it makes a dent on the valuation in the way that better focus and execution do, and investors expect the managers to set up the culture to do that without having to make a determination about the specifics of WFH in Amazons particular circumstances.

That is exactly what Amazon thinks it’s doing. Yes, costs are getting cut, but by far the more significant impact would be 5 or 10% better execution on stuff that really moves the needle than a 2% cost reduction.

When margins are high the returns to growing revenue are much greater than cutting costs.

At some margin, this is right of course, and rising rates move us closer to that margin.

My point is this behavior is better explained by the actor’s belief in something like the following proposition:

“The present value of the opex avoidance is dwarfed by the present value of a leaner org’s ability to focus, ship and execute.”

Did you stop reading the comment after the first line?

Very few people are needed to run the technology elements of these businesses (let’s exclude warehouse/logistics in Amazons case). So why is there an order of magnitude more staff than what’s needed to run those?

There’s this idea that tech companies are laying off folks to boost their stock prices by cutting operating expenses. This reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of investors think about these types of companies and what determines their worth.

Unlike other kinds of businesses, these companies face very little pressure to control costs. They can overhire, and do. They can overpay employees, and do. They can incinerate cash on wacky projects, and do.

This is not because the fundamental constraints of accounting don’t apply to them, but rather because they’re able to optimize for other outcomes because their critical personnel costs are such a tiny portion of what they’re able to bring in: they’re hoarding human resources, they’re trying to develop second acts, they’re able to tolerate bloat and process if they think that’s worth it.

When Amazon turns up the heat, it’s not primarily because they’re worried about costs. It’s because they want to get people out of there who don’t belong there, and because return to office in their minds is a good way to make the org more productive over the long term.

These companies are trying to get a culture they perceive as being a little over staffed, too bureaucratic, maybe lacking in focus, to turn around.

Fixing that has a much bigger impact on long term shareholder value creation — it’s the exact same rationale as overpaying staff, over staffing and spending generously on wacky new bets. Ship faster.

InfoSum | infosum.com | London | Full-time

InfoSum develops a unique, privacy-preserving cloud resource that lets organizations connect their first-party data in a compliant, private and secure way. We power data collaboration across household names. Privacy, security and governance are central to our value proposition with our clients, many of who are highly regulated and work with consumer data.

Open Roles:

- Director of Security (London, UK or Basingstoke, UK)

- Information Security Compliance Analyst (London, UK or Basingstoke, UK)

To learn more, please reach out to [email protected]

InfoSum | Technical Support Specialist | Full-time | London, UK

InfoSum provides data clean rooms, a privacy-enhancing technology that powers identity online.

If you’re a wiz with AWS, GCP, know your way around SQL and databases, and have some familiarity with adtech, then get in touch with me at douglas (dot) weltman (at) Infosum (dot) com.

I want to talk to you about our Senior Technical Support Specialist role in London.

InfoSum | London | Customer Success | Full-time | www.infosum.com

InfoSum develops privacy-enhancing technology to power the data economy, and works with leading brands, publishers and agencies in the US, UK and Europe.

We are hiring in London a commercially-astute Customer Success Associate with some adtech or enterprise SaaS experience to help our clients get maximum value from the platform.

If this sounds interesting, get in touch with douglas (dot) weltman (at) our_domain.

InfoSum | Senior Technical Account Manager | NYC / hybrid-remote | Full-time

InfoSum solves the privacy challenges that organizations confront when trying to make their first-party data useful outside the four walls of their organizations. Our clients include major enterprises, advertising platforms and other identity providers.

We're looking to bring on board a senior technical account manager with a proven track record in customer-facing engineering support.

Shoot me an email (douglas dot my last name @) to learn more!

TOTALLY

> As a country you also can enforce restrictions/taxes onto the whole supply chain, as a initial measure…

Isn’t this an extremely hard problem, possibly unworkable, when trade is in assembled goods with complex, global supply chains?

That a carbon tax is a source of information about the highest leverage areas we can change is a great framing.

Unfortunately, the main barrier to implementing a carbon tax is how we treat imports, which is the key to getting the whole thing to work. Failing to solve this means importers deindustrialize in favor of countries with more lenient carbon pricing regimes.

“Do I have to spell it out for you? Just implement a border-adjusted carbon tax!” they’ll retort: “that will cause exporters to harmonize their standards with the markets they sell to.”

I can see how this works for plastics (producing PTFE in <Exporter> would have a carbon tax of $2/ton), but what about complex, assembled goods like cars with complex supply chains, like a Hyundai assembled in S Korea with parts from more than 60 countries? The Americans need to trust the S Koreans to tax that, and the S Koreans need to trust the Chinese, Indians, Canadians and Japanese to be implementing theirs properly. Every major component in an assembled good becomes a problem.

Carbon tax works when all countries implement it, but what’s the equilibrium given current starting conditions?

InfoSum | Backend, Frontend and Infrastructure Engineers | UK | Full-time & Contract

InfoSum is building a decentralized identity infrastructure to address the future of privacy and data collaboration. We have just raised $65 million Series B and are looking to build out our extremely talented tech team based in the UK.

We use Golang but are happy to cross-train you.

Jobs: https://www.infosum.com/company/careers

For more information, send an message over to douglas {dot} weltman {at} infosum {dot} com

How much energy is stored in the chemical bonds of the materials that make up a camera? Or a Garmin GPS? Or a newspaper?

InfoSum | Multiple Positions | London, UK & Basingstoke, UK | Full Time & Contract

InfoSum (https://www.infosum.com), backed by the world's leading technology investors, is building privacy-first technology that lets businesses connect their customer records, without ever sharing the underlying data. We are rapidly growing and are hiring for roles in both North America (NY) and Europe (UK).

We’re solving fundamental issues of consumer trust and transparency. There are many applications for InfoSum’s technology.

We are hiring roles in Engineering, Product and Implementation Consulting. Our backend tech stack includes Go/Golang, Protobuf, gRPC and PostgreSQL:

- Software Engineer (mid-senior levels, cross-training to Go is available)

- Backend Software Engineer (all levels)

- Frontend Software Engineer

- SRE / Infrastructure Engineer

- Software Architect

- Data Scientist

- Platform Product Manager

- Technical Implementation Consultant

You can find more about our roles at https://www.infosum.com/company/careers.

Please send a brief email introducing yourself with your resume/CV attached to douglas [dot] weltman [at] infosum [dot] com.

>Early on, one person got symptoms consistent with typical vaccine side effects, but it was determined that the person had a previously undiagnosed, unrelated disease. Second, there was the highly publicized case where a patient suffered temporary spinal inflammation and recovered shortly. It is unclear if this event is related to the vaccine, ...

This seems rather worrying as these Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials are pretty small, no? What are the odds these patients got this from the vaccine vs whatever else they had going on?

I just can't shake the fact that this particular vaccine seems to have some safety issues. We'll see in Phase 3 if this shakes out, but I would like to understand why governments feel safe about these developments.

It would be helpful if we spoke about highly uncertain estimates like these differently, as the 2 degree rise is a middle-of-the-road "best guess" scenario in a complex system.

Their "best guess" isn't very good. What's your best guess for the number of COVID cases in your area in 2 months?

Things could be significantly worse than IPCC's estimate, or not that bad. We really don't know. From that uncertainty we should begin to think about things we can do to limit risk.

When there's relatively unbounded downside, you buy insurance (of various forms, financial, operational and other).

Minor correction that does not detract from your point:

DMV actually nets out a surplus in most states given the fees it collects.

When states cut its operating budget, it's because they're looking across the budget for ways to cut costs. This is only irrational from a budgetary, as opposed to service delivery, POV if the cuts somehow undermine revenue collection, like reducing the number of IRS auditors.