We're in the Pets.com era of AI for sure. There is 0 guarantee the current providers will be around in 5-10 years. I keep thinking they will have to lean in to government protection to do so.
I think this is capturing the current need - solo vibe engineers that need structured task tracking. Since I pop between machines for various reasons, I tend to keep this info in the project itself, but an MCP server could go a long way. Tracking this project
How much are worktrees benefitting you? If I can describe the work so clearly that it can be done in parallel, I find Claude can typically one shot so parallel work isn't needed.
Even at a quick glance this doesn't make any sense. The census is literally how they get the data. Where else would it come from? Drones? Every computer being hacked Michael Bay style?
I don't work in this industry so I don't know their secret sauce, but I would be surprised if census data is not used as a baseline for what they're selling. It doesn't make sense to not want to use it if your next best sources are relying on everyone in the household having an app that sells their location to your network constantly. I see outdated data about me on the public versions of these sites all the time, so I know they don't have omniscience.
> Title 13 provides the following protections to individuals and businesses:
> Private information is never published. It is against the law to disclose or publish any private information that identifies an individual or business such, including names, addresses (including GPS coordinates), Social Security Numbers, and telephone numbers.
> The Census Bureau collects information to produce statistics. Personal information cannot be used against respondents by any government agency or court.
> Census Bureau employees are sworn to protect confidentiality. People sworn to uphold Title 13 are legally required to maintain the confidentiality of your data. Every person with access to your data is sworn for life to protect your information and understands that the penalties for violating this law are applicable for a lifetime.
Violating the law is a serious federal crime. Anyone who violates this law will face severe penalties, including a federal prison sentence of up to five years, a fine of up to $250,000, or both.
I worked for Data company for a year. We absolutely used Census and ACS as baselines and checks. In fact, there was some talk about getting rid of ACS in Congress and we got emails about "EMAIL YOUR CONGRESSIONAL PERSON, DEMAND ACS STAY. Here are talking points."
I am indeed sworn to not reveal lots of data I knocked on doors for. My memory isn't that good, especially compared to the database it went into, anyway.
I hope it's not a baseline for individual records, but my assumption was that the census data would be pretty useful as a baseline for aggregate information, especially when it comes to comparing to private sets they're working with.
100% agreed. I saw it somewhere else that the tech industry has burned all the transformative good will it had earned over the years and is now seen as the key villain in joblessness, societal discord and loneliness. What the fuck did happen? Edit: this isn't just an old man thing, this is the new generation saying this
Technologists don't control technology, and many technologists foolishly think that staying out of politics is some kind of virtue, just like how people scientists should only science. Then we find that scientists don't control science anymore.
To be terse but generalizing a bit, technologists used to want to solve problems and make things easier. At some point, under the influence of MBAs it became how do we make loads of money leveraging technology’s network effects?
I think that technologists are doing themselves a disservice by blaming the problems within their industry on MBAs. Many of the problems we see in the tech industry, and the reason why public opinion is not exactly positive, are primarily due to ideological factors. Whether you call it Californian ideology or whatever, many people in the tech industry think only in terms of efficiency and value. And if something isn’t efficient or doesn’t add value, it should be streamlined away and made obsolete, whether it be systems, processes, markets - or humans.
The MBAs exploited and greatly exacerbated the ideology factor by making ever increasing demands for monetary performance. In the beginning it's usually just about the tech, but soon it becomes how to make more and more money in any way possible with the tech because "the more money you have, the more tech you can buy or make".
Who are the folks leading their finance organizations? Also who compose their boards of directors?
Also Google buying double click was an inflection point. Ads were kind of annoying up till then but they had not become the gross monstrosity that now exploits users and corrupts business.
Sandberg built the company that polluted everything with this cynical influencer economy. Schmidt built the company that turned users into the product.
At least in the US, most tech leaders and middle managers never did an MBA. Most are engineers who climbed the ladder into management.
Edit: Can't reply
> “Making money off of shareware” is no longer enough
Based on this I am guessing you are at least 10-15 years older than me and probably grew up in the 1980s and experienced the 1990s internet
> how do we make this company into an investment multiplier
> It’s a different mentality. It about unicorns or bust now
This is how startup funding has been since the beginning. You sure as hell weren't raising from Bessemer or Sequoia in the 2000s without also being able to answer whether you had a path to successful monetization.
Why would anyone give you their money if you cannot justify how you would make them more money?
Could be so but once their companies get on the path to getting listed they get advice from their banks or investors and either or both have one thing in mind: how do we make this company into an investment multiplier? Also often founders are paired with business types to make companies more viable.
“Making money off of shareware” is no longer enough (never mind that it’s a non-starter now that everything is needs to be saas these days.)
It’s a different mentality. It about unicorns or bust now.
I’m pretty certain they are not a moderating force. I think the lead-up dot-com bubble its subsequent burst and the following hunt for unicorns was begot by a different breed of people than those pursuing the technology sector before them. After the Netscape IPO more people started going into CS as a way to get a foot in the door to massive riches rather than the pursuit of technology as a way to solve human problems. The Woz vs Zuck, for example.
The Netscape IPO happened 31 years ago. Over half of all Americans alive today were either in elementary school or not around yet.
It's the equivalent of someone in the 2000s trying to enforce standards and norms from the 1950s-60s.
The reality is, the tech industry has essentially always been like this, and any period in the 1980s or early 90s that y'all look back to just isn't actionable in 2026 and fails to understand how different Americans are today versus when you started in the tech industry.
Generally the MBAs and money have been in control since before the 1980s, maybe since 10 years ago in web tech. A difference in 2026 is the politicians allow them to do whatever they want.
Which they should. I've been lucky enough to work at places that had great non-technical managers that promoted based on great execution, as well as highly technical managers that also promoted based on great execution.
Now I'm at the other kind of place and it sucks. They'll fire the performative engineers though during layoff season. It's almost like they like playing politics until it really matters.
I am definitely for services respecting customer privacy, but I can't help if this is different. I recently saw a thread where a person was bragging that frontier providers were blocking their attempt at what looked like to be social media de-anonymization and blackmailing app.
Maybe this isn't different than using something like Google Sheets to keep a list of people to dox and blackmail, but the leverage certainly makes it feel different.
Not nearly enough animated gradient dropshadow. Check out googles AI Mode button and the same loading button status thing while waiting for responses in AI Mode. Please add it so I don't have to prompt for it - I can't tell if I'm joking.
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