so, why is google paying you an absurd comp still. what exactly do you bring to the table that your pm can't order argon to do?

i'm actually curious on what your view is despite the snarky tone.

I am basically a tech lead to the AI's junior dev swarm. It can do a lot of things, but still needs signoff and occasional hand holding.

If you looked at that arrangement and said "we don't need tech leads, we just need nontechnical managers and junior devs" you'd be sorely mistaken.

I do anticipate a future where it will be better than me at applying taste, knowing best practices, and having domain familiarity.

ability to find workarounds around other disfunctional people with absurd comp to unblock progress.

i'm usually not one to defend europe's (over-)regulation, but having ownership of such data and being able to direct it to other providers for easy switching is one of the pillars of a lot of data related regulation

so either they can forget about their moat or forget about the continent with those practices

the global innovation index is such a bad proxy / misinterpretion of "startup scene"

we score high on innovation rankings because of 1) large corporates (e.g. pharma) and 2) strong universities.

while we have deep tech spinoffs profiting from this, it is not a 1:1 correlation and the startup ecosystem (in the SV interpretation) in switzerland is extremely weak (lack of VC appetite, low risk culture, high cost of living, small domestic market with high cultural/language barriers, no startup visas for high potential foreign graduates, etc) compared to its potential

sure, as long things go up, smart. when things no longer go up, they will take the whole economy down with them akin to the banking crisis in 2008 or the dotcom bubble before that (which both had far less circular incestuous activity going on) and will shamelessly act surprised after the fact.

as long as things go up people conveniently ignore the lessons from the past.

we are long overdue for a correction and given the fear mongering oligopoly shenanigans we must be very close.

"our burn rate is insane, let's all calm down collectively, fortify our moat so we can do regulatory capture & rent-seeking for the next 50 years"

fear is still the best tool to get masses to agree with whatever plan you hatch for yourself

> Nearly everyone building these systems is outspokenly concerned about grave consequences. Existential.

That is what they are claiming. I do not believe them.

Then you aren’t following researchers or know anyone working at these companies

the story really comes full circle for me now. i've read the book in the 90s and recently listened to hess's POV via a ccc talk (https://youtu.be/USDNMWZsR5o auto subbed/dubbed video here)

great nostalgia for when the internet was still amazing

it's time for a worldwide reset on tipping culture / assumptions.

america was always weird - the tipping practice leads to over-the-top fake service, is abusive to staff and only benefits restaurant owners. and they turned all that up to 11 over the last few years. how americans can cherish and even defend this, i can't get my mind around it.

meanwhile in europe, american practices are imported by way of POS terminals asking in outrageous use cases for outrageous amounts of tips. no, im not tipping 30% for an item i pick from a shelf in a store. add to that the awkward interaction at a bar or so when you have to select a tip under the watchful eye of the server.

people are shamed into tipping in all manners of ways and let those abusive practices plow over them.

it's a disgrace.

i wish for a world where all prices, including tips & taxes, are on the label / menu when i buy them and asking / giving anything on top is illegal. we would all be better off, even though americans for some reasons can't accept it - i have little trust in the headline of the linked article becoming a bigger phenomena.

wasn't that always the reaction historically whenever people felt like their livelihood was threatened by new technology?

over the last few years there was a huge demand for analog synthesizers again after them being mostly replaced by digital synths since the mid 90s for 2.5 decades with users demanding from the traditional companies to re-issue the classics

they are classics for a reason and subtractive synthesis is mostly "done", so it's more about bringing classic sound characters due to subtle differences in components / architecture back