On other ways to commute: You assume that people who commute by car do so because they want to, instead of going by train. I don't think that is the case.
On people who refused to get a good WFH setup (e.g., WiFi): I bet those are terrible people to work with in the office, too.
>On people who refused to get a good WFH setup (e.g., WiFi): I bet those are terrible people to work with in the office, too.
Huh? That's some crazy generalization Batman. Many people who rent have little control over their home office setups,. especially in a bad housing market.
I agree, and my "favorite" title is Thought Leader.
In my experience, people who call themself leaders, are often not performing very well in their main role, which usually happens to that of a people manager.
>Is thought leader the next evolutionary level of the "idea guy"?
With 40 years and counting in this particular sub-field of anthropology, it's been fully confirmed that the so-called "Thought-Leader" (Ignoramus Rex) does not fall within the evolutionary branch of the now-extinct "Idea" man (Traumus Pieintheskii) whatsoever.
On the contrary, Ignoramus has now been shown to be an evolutionary dead-end that arose from lower-intelligence forms than those which gave rise to Traumus. As we have seen from intact specimens, Ignoramus is simply not capable of achieving the level of sophistication in its natural environment as Idea Man once exhibited during the brief epoch when it was thriving.
Yes, I would say so, nice observation.
I also think that many "idea guys" are doing the performative role of "the leader", i.e. the idea guys doing the corporate/business drag of the "thought leader".
It's a horrible suggestion that everyone is going to have to pretend to agree with whatever nonsense that person has hyped themselves up on that week and they'll bully people into doing so.
Whereas Linux Torvalds is a leader by default because he had to be. There's also no need for him to say it anywhere. He just did it and was it.
In the case of Linus Torvalds and others like Guido van Rossum, I think is fine to consider them leaders, because they are leading their projects - to a certain extent these projects are not theirs (only) anymore, nonetheless they IMO they can claim or get the leader title.
Yeah that seems closer to my experience. From my perspective, 2016ish was peak. At least thats when I had to to argue the most against trying to needlessly break up services.
> Elon is a fake person created by VCs to fulfill their goals.
I'm gonna give you a bucket full of benefit of doubt and assume you mean nothing negative by this. I'm all for fake people fulfilling VCs goals if that means we can have better and more exciting future (which Musk has delivered to date).
It's worth mentioning that many other "real" people with "no" hidden agendas have done ... jack shit over the past 20 years. :)
Ok, his rich family gave him some money to invest and got lucky with paypal. Then he became a hypeman for Tesla and routinely lied about full self driving in order to keep Tesla from bankruptcy and produced unsafe and poorly built cars. Then lied about trucks, roadsters, and solar roofs. He's speed running the history of tunnels and trains and will find out that, yes, putting independent cars in a tunnel is a dumb idea. Hyperloops? Seriously? Buying twitter blue checkmarks only to introduce another checkmark for verificaiton. Hm..Space-X is sorta futuristic? He hasn't proven reusable rockets have saved orders of magnitude of money.
and Zuckerberg is somehow real and authentic? First time i've ever heard that one.
Realistically this cut was probably done in time to offer a decent severance without hurting things on the corporate side -- to compare this to Twitter's post-Elon crash-plan is disingenuous, and i'm not even a Musk fan.
I laughed so hard at this comment, thank you for a little bit of humor in these ominous times.
Its kinda true though. He's been the poster "white night entrepreneur", egged on by every other nerd who still believes in the exceptional founder myth. That myth motivates a ton of folks to give up their lives and time to try and build something on pretty bleak terms.
i would never trust Elon's word and he has some big flaws as a person but his goals are so ambitious and risky, small thinking VC's would never invest in those , all VC's want are relatively safe software (SAAS) companies.
The past years I used to travel each year to US, in different parts (Dallas, Chicago, Seattle etc...) and I always had the impression that USA is way more expensive - from the perspective of someone who goes to a restaurant and enjoys good food and a good bottle of wine.
Also health insurance is cheaper here, and my coverage is very good.
US big cities are expensive, but there are plenty of places in the US that you haven't visited that are quite affordable to live in. You can't judge the whole US by NY, LA, and Chicago.
> there are plenty of places in the US that you haven't visited that are quite affordable to live in.
Sure, but almost none are nearly as affordable as the parent poster's example.
"Hamburg - Apartment, 1 Bedroom, City Centre - $823/month"
I'm in the so-called "affordable" Midwest, and there's not a single apartment even remotely close to that price, in any city anywhere within 400 miles here. In Michigan, for example, that same apartment will cost at least $1,200/month. This is true despite the fact that our average income is roughly identical to what Numbeo lists for Hamburg.
>I'm in the so-called "affordable" Midwest, and there's not a single apartment even remotely close to that price [$823], in any city anywhere within 400 miles here.
I am in the definitely unaffordable Bay Area, and you don't have to go 400 miles to rent a 1 bd apt for under $800. Its not going to be in a desirable city and probably not a very nice apt, but they certainly exist. Literally the first listing I found on craigslist was $775 (in Modesto, about an 80 mile drive to San Jose).
> Its not going to be in a desirable city and probably not a very nice apt,
That's what the comparison is though, it's using "city center" apartments, apartments inside urban areas. Of which, there aren't any anywhere near that price, in almost any city in the US. (Even somewhere like Detroit).
If you want to look at crappy apartments way outside of town, the comparison still holds up:
> Dresden - Apartment (1 bedroom) Outside of Centre - $392/month USD
That "affordable" Modesto apartment is still about 2X the cost of a comparable unit.
There's cheaper places like Wichita, KS but they don't have many good paying jobs which keeps many of the nicer townhomes and larger apartments in good neighborhoods out of reach unless you work aircraft. It's a weird situation that basically we got plenty of housing here but none of it is accessible to the average citizen at a cost effective price.
Wichita is an order of magnitude smaller and more provincial than Hamburg though - even the Kansas City metro is.
The right comparison for Wichita is an equally provincial mid-sized town in Germany, say Halle an der Saale. And I'd wager rents get quite similar again, if not cheaper in Germany...
Most affordability indexes only focus on housing costs. When adding in transportation, most places in the US become very expensive (relative to local income): http://htaindex.cnt.org
Health insurance and healthcare in some areas, specifically rural or remote, is extremely expensive and noncompetitive. Just like ISPs, some areas just have ONE insurer!
Many cities in the Midwest are growing and fairly cheap. I was talking to someone from Des Moines and their rent was really low compared to larger or coastal cities
Des Moines is great. Cheap, good jobs, big enough to get decent concerts/theater tours, and small enough to feel a sense of community. Only downside is ~1-2 months of brutal weather in the winter.
In response to the parent comment, the reason it's largely escaped these effects is that the economy is anchored in insurance and financial services rather than manufacturing.
There's also a big ag-tech sector and growing bio-tech industry if you include Ames which is a university town about 30 miles North.
^^^ No, the big coastal cities are outliers in America. Most Americans do not live near one of the big expensive cities.
Growing, thriving cities like Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Atlanta, Charlotte, Phoenix, Minneapolis, etc. are all relatively inexpensive. As are numerous smaller cities like Nashville, Orlando, Salt Lake City, Jacksonville, etc.
The median price to purchase a home in America is ~$240k IIRC, hardly expensive.
On people who refused to get a good WFH setup (e.g., WiFi): I bet those are terrible people to work with in the office, too.
& I agree with your last point.