Category Archives: Business

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs

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…are becoming oligarchs:

Like the moguls of the early 20th century, who bought and sold senators like so many cabbages, the new elite constitute a basic threat to democracy. They dominate their industries with market shares that would make the old moguls blush. Google, for example, controls some 80 percent of search, while Google and Apple provide the operating system software for almost 90 percent of smartphones. Similarly, more than half of Americans, and 60 percent of Europeans, use Facebook, making it easily the world’s dominant social media site. In contrast, the world’s top 10 oil companies account for barely 40 percent of the world’s oil production.

Like the Gilded Age moguls, the tech oligarchs also personally dominate their companies. Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, for example, control roughly two-thirds of the voting stock in Google. Brin and Page each is worth more $20 billion. Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, owns just under 23 percent of his company; worth $41 billion, Forbes ranked him the country’s third-richest person. Bill Gates, the richest, is worth a cool $66 billion and still controls 7 percent of his firm. Newcomer Mark Zuckerberg’s 29.3 percent stake in Facebook was worth $16 billion as of July 25, according to Bloomberg.

This combination of market and ownership concentration needs to be curbed.

…Conservatives, for their part, can only face up to the new “axis of evil” by stepping outside their ideology strictures and instinctive embrace of wealth. The increasingly monopolistic nature of the high-tech community, and its widespread disregard for the privacy of the individual, should concern conservatives, as it would have the framers of the Constitution.

This seems related to this.

Business, Science And Society, Social Commentary

Introverts

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…in the workplace. This part struck me:

“At the heart of it, introverts and extroverts respond really differently to stimulation,” Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can’t Stop Talking, tells The Huffington Post. “Introverts feel most alive and energized when they’re in environments that are less stimulating — not less intellectually stimulating, but less stuff going on.”

Many workplace set ups undermine introverted employees by failing to accommodate their personalities and productivity styles — over-stimulation and excessive meetings can easily stunt their full brain power. One study showed that when introverts and extroverts are given math problems to solve with various levels of background noise playing, introverts do best when the noise is lower, while extroverts perform better with louder noise, Cain told Harvard Business Review.

Ignoring the business implications, this might explain why some people like loud restaurants, while others (e.g., me) detest them. I can be social when I need to, but my default setting is introversion, and if I’m with a group that wants to go to the Hard Rock Cafe, I have no qualms whatsoever about saying “No way.” There’s not going to be any useful social interaction when I can’t hear myself think, let alone someone else talk. I can’t imagine why anyone would ever want to do that, but EPID.

[Via Althouse]

Business, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Mandate From Hell

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Can it be fixed?

Kevin thinks it will be easy, but I don’t see it. Do we get rid of the employer mandate, which will be super expensive? Do we raise the limit to 35 hours a week, which would probably result in somewhat less dumping, but would still cost a bunch of money? And which program would Democrats like to cut to pay for the extra expense? Because Republicans would definitely not be on board with raising taxes for it.

This isn’t just politically hard; it’s actually hard.

One of the many reasons the legislation is such a disaster.

It’s like squaring the circle. Of solving a Rubiks cube that’s been taken apart and put together the wrong way.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Technology and Society, War Commentary

The Coming Commodity Bust

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Bad news for Russia. And there’s this:

…the US needn’t be too complacent either. The shale boom has been partly stoked by the same forces, which are now potentially waning. Oil prices have gone from $20-28 per barrel at the start of the decade to a sustained $100-$105 today. Right now, these prices are being held up by chaos in Middle East and Libya. If circumstances change, price shifts could give US drillers major headaches.

Oil over a hundred a barrel has always been unsustainable over the long haul.

Business, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

iPhones

6 Comments

One more reason not to get one. #WarOnPhotography:

Apple has patented a piece of technology which would allow government and police to block transmission of information, including video and photographs, whenever they like.
All the coppers have to do is decide that a public gathering or venue is deemed “sensitive”, and needs to be “protected from externalities” and Apple will switch off all its gear.

Smart move, Apple.