Global coalition tells Facebook to kill its Real Names policy - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2015/10/06/global-coalition-tells-faceboo.html <comment><USER2> Facebook was made large by the fact that you can find people you used to know, or haven't spoken to in a while, or aren't that close to.

You can find anyone, it's easy.

Removing the real names policy does away with that, and I would say seriously threaten's facebook's business/growth/future. If you don't know your old girlfriend or your cousin or your highschool bandmate's username, how are you going to get in touch with them?

I'm not saying that's a bad thing, or that I think facebook should have real names, but I'm saying that I seriously doubt they are going to change that policy because it'd cost them too much in the long term.

EDIT: People, I understand the arguments against real names. Facebook's counterargument is money. Which argument do you think they support and will listen to?

Downvoting me is crass, I'm not even stating a position, I'm just stating the obvious reasons for Facebook's continuing denial of a chosen-name policy.

<comment><USER3> I was thinking something along those lines. I think the strenght of Facebooks is that people use their real name. I wasn't even thinking about searchability, but that's potentially going right out the window.

3rd. parties that are using Facebook for logins are frequently using/allowing Facebook precisely because you're relative sure that it's "a real person". I know that's one reason why we're using it.

I might be wrong, but it certainly seems like people are less likely to engage in trolling or extremely bad behaviour if things are linked to Facebook, and I suspect that the real name policies are the reason.

It's not that I don't understand some peoples need for privacy or the use of pseudonyms, but you are playing in Facebooks walled garden, they make the rules. You don't have to be on Facebook, nor are you entitled to a Facebook account. Maybe you would be wise to avoid Facebook if you have the need to hide your identity.

<comment><USER4>
      > certainly seems like people are less likely to engage in trolling or extremely bad behaviour if things are linked to Facebook

People do _jihadi recruiting_ on Facebook, despite obviously being under surveillance. I think we'd need figures to back up this idea that "real name" policies reduce abuse, rather than content policies, codes of conduct and IP bans.

<comment><USER5> YouTube tried this and it didn't fix anything about how awful YouTube comments were.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good, I'm glad this is getting traction. Seems like every week I read about another trans person or someone who uses a psuedonym in day-to-day life getting "reported" by some asshole and getting locked out of their Facebook, and Facebook seems uninterested in fixing the issue.

Honestly, it's heartbreaking, as someone who uses many Facebook open source projects, to talk to engineers at Facebook and find out how many don't know this is even an issue. It's certainly kept me from responding to FB recruitment emails.

<comment><USER7> I don't get this. This is a company, a product, which no one is forced to use.*

If you disagree, walk away and don't touch Facebook; there are trillions of other options out there to build community sites, some much, much better than FB. That is how you make a change, not by enforcing ideas on a company.

*ED. For some situations I understand that it's inevitable - even schools use it as a generic broadcasting media nowadays. But for that, you can clearly use your 'real' name, can't you?

<comment><USER8> I don't get why you think the only options should be to agree entirely or walk away. If a company has a product which you mostly enjoy but which you think could be improved, is it not reasonable to complain to try to get them to improve it?

<comment><USER7> Not really; the only way to force companies is by spending your money somewhere else. They just simply won't care while you're still making the same money for them.

<comment><USER9> > the only way to force companies is by spending your money somewhere else

Or, you know, enforcing new legislation that forces the company to do what you want...

<comment> minority-one I'm pretty sure pmlnr meant "the only way to peacefully/morally force companies is by spending your money somewhere else".

We all know violence and threat (what you suggest) works. Some of us are trying to decrease the amount of what you suggest in the world.

New legislation is a direct threat to companies, backed by the power of the government to fine and arrest those who disobey. Why go to such lengths when it's much easier just to stop going to Facebook? Only a perverse sadist would prefer legislation over ostracism.

<comment><USER9> > New legislation is a direct threat to companies, backed by the power of the > government to fine and arrest those who disobey. Why go to such lengths when > it's much easier just to stop going to Facebook? Only a perverse sadist > would prefer legislation over ostracism.

Right, this is why the US is such a shiny beacon of safe products, consumer- friendliness, and consumer rights compared to the horrible European markets... :)

I always find this sentiment on HN so amusing. "Legislation hurts companies, we should all just ostracise/boycott companies instead!" despite all practical evidence suggesting that legislation actually gets things done. Like, I can actually get fast affordable internet here, unlike when I was in the US :)

<comment><USER8> I do think that legislation should be avoided if it's not necessary. If complaining or boycotting gets the job done, then that should be the first option. I'll never understand people who think we shouldn't complain or boycott. Surely this is just an exercise of one's right to free association? (Not saying _you 're_ objecting to them. But a lot of people seem to think that it's somehow wrong.)

On the other hand, if an issue is important and legislation can get the job done, we shouldn't shy away from it. To describe someone as "a perverse sadist" for wanting to legislate pseudonyms on social networks is bonkers.

<comment> minority-one > I do think that legislation should be avoided if it's not necessary.

In other words: if legislation.necessary? then enact else avoid.

> On the other hand, if an issue is important and legislation can get the job > done, we shouldn't shy away from it.

In other words: if issue.important? and legislation.effective? then enact else avoid.

These two are contradictory. Which is it for you?

<comment><USER8> "Shouldn't shy away" does not equate to "always do it."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Imagine the uproar if Facebook forced you to have a profile pic that clearly shows your face, the sort that photo ids require.

<comment><USER5> Oh yeah. Just looking at my chat contact sidebar (is that what it's called? the thing on the right of the Facebook homepage), 3/15 friends aren't using their face in their profile pic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why bother with all of this? Why not just stop using Facebook?

<comment><USER12> This. It's not like being on Facebook is a UN-sanctioned human right.

<comment><USER11> Or a particularly enjoyable experience the last two years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> They should just re-introduce the ability that they removed about a year or two ago: ability to remove your name from being searchable on facebook, unless the user knows your actual facebook.com/url.

<comment><USER14> That's insufficient for all the people that _do_ want to be identifiable by the name they go by amongst people they do want contact with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This totally piques my "don't tread on me."

Facebook is a service you don't have to use. They're an American company. No one should be telling them to now run service, U.S. or otherwise.

I hope Zuck flips them the bird and then ignores them.

And this is from a person who doesn't have a Facebook account and generally doesn't care for them as a company.

</comment><comment><USER16> Someone mentioned that FB may want to be the world's identity broker. I personally hate the idea, but if that's the case, they'll hardly give up their policy. Governmental ID brokers have exceptions to protect someone's identity. If FB wants to be taken seriously they should implement similar possibilities. The next one will then be please send us a police report stating you are in need of etc etc.

<comment><USER17> But Facebook's policy ignore the law in many countries. In England I can use any name I choose so long as I don't have the intent to deceive.

I am legally allowed to be Ann and Bob simultaneously.

(admittedly that's a bit trickier when organisations "copper-bottom" regulations around identity, eg money laundering "Know your customer" regs.)

<comment><USER16> I am not well versed in law at all but that sounds pretty fair. I guess FB doesnt behave as an org you can apply with whatever name you want, but more as a gov which wants to keep track of its citizens. They can also do so because their members have few alternatives, just like citizens of countries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Global coalition tells Exxon to Reduce Gas Prices, and suggests that Raisin Bran and Snickers are also Too Expensive"

</comment><comment><USER19> The whole reason Facebook has any enforceable standards as a community is because of that policy. The community standards uphold themselves because there are be real-life social consequences for saying something hateful / sexually harassing somebody / posting pornography - the list goes on. Having to use your real name on Facebook is what keeps you accountable. If you want to see Facebook turn into a sewer, get rid of the real names policy. Witness 4Chan and YouTube comments.

They should make exceptions for certain cases, such as when someone is avoiding harassment, or has changed names due to being transgender, or lives under an authoritarian regime. But they can and should do so on a case-by-case basis.

<comment><USER20> No, no. Not having your given or legal name associated with your online presence does not automatically make you a troll, nor does having them associated make people less likely to watch what they say.

For example, me. I've been very careful about what I say even though my real name and my alias are not associated. I care about what people think about trajing, even if they can't trace it back to me in real life.

As for the second part, I've read facebook comments in political articles. I will never make that mistake again.

I don't use facebook, but I understand where these people are coming from and support them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> That's stupid. If you use a credible pseudonym, they will never ask you for your ID.

If they ask you for your ID, send a fake one. It has worked for me three times. They were laughably bad and they accepted them.

<comment><USER22> Just the fact that facebook asks an official ID is maddening. They aren't a governmental agency. In Portugal the official ID card has your SS number, fiscal number, and health number. I don't want facebook to know any of those, seriously.

<comment><USER21> And? You are not forced to use Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why? Anyone who disagrees with this had either already left Facebook or use something else for the communication, which, in my opinion, is good.

<comment><USER23> You're projecting a bit, I think. I disagree with their policy even though it doesn't affect me personally. For many communities there's simply no alternative to FB right now. Why should I just expect affected people to leave instead of expecting the problem to be fixed?

<comment><USER7> > For many communities there's simply no alternative to FB right now.

Make one. Work on it. Why would someone else make it for them/you for 'free'?

<comment><USER23> Why should I? That alternative is FB, without bad rules.

Facebook already won with features and has approximately all the people already registered. From the communities I know, nobody would consider switching to a different service. It would just be a worse FB with fewer people on it.

<comment><USER7> It sounds like you've never been a part of a forum or similar a decade ago. It's usually much better with less people.

For the why: because a, monopoly is bad; b, Facebook is broken on too many levels.

<comment><USER23> Yes I have. It works for tech communities. It works for topic discussions. It works for many things. What it would completely fail for is a worldwide group of people who have a lot of personal connections between them, organise and announce semi-public events (100s a year), have local groups (1000s), and share a lot of information within one of those relationships. Also ~100% of them are already on FB and successfully do all of the above.

So again, no. Monopoly is bad, Facebook is bad/good depending on use case, sure. But this is not possible to migrate to a forum. Very simplified situation exists for developers - with the personal part reduced and with very limited local groups you have this information spread over twitter / local boards / meetup.com / etc. anyway. If I wanted to check events in some area, it's actually not trivial. It would be also a complete pain to centralise. You know what I do for the other use case? Post to facebook, share it in a group that's approximately in the same area in the world, and I get all information I need in a few minutes / hours: links to specific groups, specific events, and if needed I've got FB messenger contact to people who posted it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: StumbleUpon for designer portfolios - <AUTHOR> http://stumbbble.com/

<comment><USER2> love it! i expected to spend a minute or two on it, but ended up checking out over a dozen portfolios. great job

</comment><comment><USER3> bringing back portfolio sites in a very simple way. great tool for getting inspired.

</comment><comment><USER4> console.log('cool')</comment>


Show HN: Comfygure – A small CLI to manage application configurations - <AUTHOR> https://marmelab.com/blog/2019/05/28/releasing-comfygure-1-0.html <comment><USER2> I have the feeling that most developers these days suffer from too much tooling in every area. And would be 2 to 10 times more productive without it.

Most friends that I watch doing their deployment would be way more productive by simply using rsync for file changes and raw database queries when the DB needs a change.

<comment><USER3> While that's true for a single dev, I think that quickly falls apart at scale.

The raw DB queries will invariably exist on someone's hard drive/in their head and be lost forever when they leave the team.

The rsync for file changes will result in developers stopping to ask each other "did this get rolled out yet?" multiple times a day.

<comment><USER2> Could be. I only know environments where every project has exactly _one_ team member who can push to production.

Usually the version control happens in git. And the person who can push to production is also the person in charge of the master branch.

I always structure teams that way. So I cannot speak for other structures.

<comment><USER3> I can see that happening as a result of some other requirement, but I can't work out why you'd purposefully structure a team so that only one team member can push to production. To me, the downsides (single point of failure) outweigh the benefits (ease of deployment.) Is there something I'm missing?

<comment><USER2> Well, each team member has their own set of skills.

Say ... Joe. Joe is good at looking at some mockup and turning it into html+css code.

So somewhere in the development process, Joe has an important role.

But why should Joe be able to push something to production?

<comment><USER4> I think the argument isn't so much that "everyone needs to be able to push to production" as much as "more than one person should be able to push to production". Bus factor is an important variable.

<comment><USER2> That's like saying a company needs two CEOs because of bus factor.

Somebody else can take over the role of being responsible for pushing to production any time.

<comment><USER5> Not if they've never done it before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At my work, we use an internal config store developed by another team for app config management, versioning and audit history.

It's a bit flaky so we've been looking to replace it but don't want to spend the company's money building it. We've been looking but have not really found anything OSS.

We're looking for:

\- store text/binary documents

\- full audit history of document versions

\- get/put like api to retrieve/replace documents

\- GUI to explore history/documents

\- easily deplorable on Windows (ideally without an app server)

Anyone got any (more) suggestions?

<comment><USER7> Hashicorp Vault hits most (all?) of these points

<comment><USER8> Vault is for secret management. If you are just looking at a key value based store or a service discovery tool, you might want to have a look at consul by Hashicorp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just wish there was more of a standard for for configuration files. Aren't all config files at some level going to be tree like structures? I know it is impossible for everyone to agree on one format, like yaml vs json, vs xml etc. but maybe there could be a common library and standard that could allow each application to load it's configuration from any of these types of files? That way if one organization or distro or whatever wanted to all use Yaml (for example) for all of their config, they could do that.

<comment><USER10> IMO most configuration should just be environment variables. How you get them there is up to you, but exporting env vars from a config file shouldn't be a super hard task.

Having said that, if your organisation _chooses_ to use YAML, personally a better choice would be to just burn the place to the ground.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hmm props to getting this out, but my way is has always been "bash is good enough" ja its not perfect a d feature rich but gets you 80% there and most linux based coders knows enough bash. I hate learning a new "language" just to deploy code or servers. Guess im just too old :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Bash is just fine, and if you don't need anything else to share configs with your team, it's totally fine :)

We built this tool because we had a need (everything is explained in the blog post)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does it have any features to handle inheritance / composition of configurations?

We usually have a slew of different environments that are mostly the same except for one or two parameters. I would like to find a solution that has the ability to control common parameters in one place without having to code the inheritance into every language / setting where the config is accessed.

In general it seems like simply storing your config in JSON or YAML and putting it in git provides most of the features of many config solutions and the overhead of deploying something separate to handle it rarely justifies the marginal benefit from that.

<comment><USER13> I didn't want to jump in with this earlier since comfy is the main topic here but [https://configrd.io](https://configrd.io) will do the inheritance you are asking about. It's not cli but also has an API, handles secrets and deploys on prem.

<comment><USER12> thanks! actually looks really cool, love the integrated support for storing encrypted secrets (even if not supporting many providers yet). Will explore it more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I love the really cute name!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> see also: [https://zookeeper.apache.org/](https://zookeeper.apache.org/)</comment>


Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Next Hackathon - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/kinvey/13-tips-for-having-a-great-hackathon

<comment><USER2> A lot of good ideas, but I'm not entirely sure why it had to be on Slideshare. The interface wasn't really intuitive to me right away, and I would've liked a paragraph for each heading; either to justify the point or provide examples. In general, being able to scroll down a page is better than clicking next, to my mind.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure I completely agree with 12:

"Hack first, learn second. Dont try to learn a new language, instead, hack something together with what you already know."

It probably depends on what you want to get out of the hackathon, but I find most of the fun being gaining familiarity with cool new APIs.

<comment><USER4> I know for myself I usually get caught up learning a completely new language. For instance, in the last GGJ I ended up making a game in C# on XNA and ended up barely being able to provide help for my team. However, when on game jams with CSS3 and Javascript at my disposal I can create some awesome things.</comment></comment>


Gmail Gets Graphic: When ;) just won't cut it - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/gmail_gets_graphic_emoticons.php <comment><USER2> groan</comment>


SpaceX- Standing down from launch today due to unfavorable weather in the flight - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1265739654810091520 <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322948](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23322948).</comment>


Kleiner Perkins Doubles iFund to $200 Million - <AUTHOR> http://www.kpcb.com/news/article.php?id=2010_03_31_ifund_doubled

<comment><USER2> And expands to not just cover iPad, but: "We expect all ventures to have an iPad strategy."</comment>


Show HN: TDB: A Visual Debugger for TensorFlow - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ericjang/tdb <comment><AUTHOR> Thanks to the HN mods for letting me repost this. I'm very keen on hearing your thoughts on this tool and how I could make it better (especially if you do research in DNNs).

I'll follow up soon with a more interesting LSTM layer visualization.

<comment><USER2> Looks very useful -- I thought the video demo showing the example visualizations was very helpful in understanding what it does, and made it more approachable. Thank you for sharing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is hopefully a first step towards more understandable deep learning networks. Great job!

</comment><comment><USER4> This looks great. I'm doing something similar, albeit not real time when learning about DNN right now and it helps hugely to understand what's going on.

Will definitely try it in the coming weeks. Thanks !

</comment><comment><USER5> Whoa that's pretty cool! I've been meaning to check out TensorFlow and this may help me better understand how it works. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER6> This is completely awesome.

How do you do the side-by-side notebook and display thing Jupyter? Is it the new Jupyter dashboard/widget thing?

<comment><AUTHOR> I use jquery to inject an entry div, then load React from there. I looked into ipywidgets, but it looks like that can only render one widget per cell. Jupyter Comm channels are used for communication with the kernel. Jupyter is an incredibly well-designed piece of software, which makes it pretty easy to extend the browser environment to do anything :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Sorry I'm new but how do I - <AUTHOR> Get notified when someone comments on something I've submitted from a few days ago? <comment><USER2> @dangrossman built this service: [http://www.hnreplies.com/](http://www.hnreplies.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I generally will check the "submissions" link on my profile. For replies to my comments, I scroll through the "threads" link.

</comment><comment><USER4> You don't :/

There were external services providing that, but I'm not sure if any are still active.</comment>


Which firms profit most from America's health-care system (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/business/2018/03/15/which-firms-profit-most-from-americas-health-care-system <comment><USER2> EconTalk has many great episodes digging into interesting aspects that are touched on here: why the US healthcare so expensive for so little extra value.

This episode about the Oklahoma group that has had low cost & transparent prices for surgeries for many years. [http://www.econtalk.org/keith-smith-on- free-market-health-ca...](http://www.econtalk.org/keith-smith-on-free-market- health-care/)

This one on why we get such expensive drugs with marginal benefit: [http://www.econtalk.org/vinay-prasad-on-cancer-drugs- medical...](http://www.econtalk.org/vinay-prasad-on-cancer-drugs-medical- ethics-and-malignant/)

This one on benefit management companies terrifying behavior: [http://www.econtalk.org/robin-feldman-on-drugs-money-and- sec...](http://www.econtalk.org/robin-feldman-on-drugs-money-and-secret- handshakes/)

(Also PS Russ Roberts on this show is a treasure. His way of thoughtfully engaging with others is something I try to learn from.)

<comment><USER3> Roberts is well-read and diplomatic, but I wouldn't exactly call what he does with his show thoughtful engagement. The very few instances he has guests that truly diverge from his ideological dispositions, he mostly dismisses their arguments without the same rigor that he defends those within his biases. His conversation with Elizabeth Anderson on workplaces as a form of private government is a good example of this:

[https://www.econtalk.org/elizabeth-anderson-on-worker- rights...](https://www.econtalk.org/elizabeth-anderson-on-worker-rights-and- private-government/)

<comment><USER4> Russ isn't 100% unbiased (is anyone), but what I like about his podcast (been a while since I last listened) is he is willing to bring people on with _very_ different views and let's them have the floor for a bit.

He also does a nice job of "O.K., this is where we have differing opinions". Unlike a lot of media that covers politics issues, it's much more civilized to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Every year America spends about $5,000 more per person on health care than > other rich countries do. Yet its people are not any healthier.

I think part of the reason Americans spend more on healthcare is precisely _because_ they're unhealthy. According to the American CDC the obesity rate has reached a staggering 42.4% of adults[0], which brings with it a slew of health problems. This accounts for an additional $147 billion in healthcare spending, or $1,429 per person (with obesity).

[0] [https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html](https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html)

<comment> dan-robertson A counter argument I see sometimes is that the reason Americans spend more on healthcare compared to other rich countries is that American consumers spend more on just about everything than most other rich countries (and also earn more money). I don't really know how much merit the argument has.

<comment><USER6> And as a result we have bigger homes, bigger cars, bigger TVs.... but worse healthcare outcomes? Seems like some of that excess spending yields us more returns than others.

<comment><USER7> The things you mentioned are almost all inversely related to better healthcare outcomes, to grossly oversimplify a contributing factor.

* Bigger homes means you feel more comfortable being lazy and spending all your time indoors

* Bigger cars means you are incentivized to drive 20 miles to a restaurant in comfort instead of walking over to a closer one

* Bigger TVs means you spend all day "watching the game" instead of going out and playing a sport.

Once again, these are grossly oversimplified, but should drive home the central point that spending on some things can actually worsen outcomes of others.

<comment><USER8> > Bigger cars means you are incentivized to drive 20 miles to a restaurant in > comfort instead of walking over to a closer one

For many (most?) people in the US, the idea of walking anywhere of consequence from their home is simply ludicrous. Restaurant, convenience store, grocery store, all are completely inaccessible except by car.

Suburb planning has explicitly disallowed that sort of living for most people. It has also made it nearly impossible to serve neighborhoods with any sort of reasonable public transit.

<comment><USER9> > Restaurant, convenience store, grocery store, all are completely > inaccessible except by car.

This particular aspect of USA struck me as quite bizarre whenever I visited on business trips. More so as I'm from India where it's almost a given that things that you need on a day to day basis (grocery, bakery, pharmacy, convenience store etc.,) are available within walking distance. Apart from an opportunity to get some fresh air it's also a good way to interact with my neighborhood community.

I assumed this is how it'd be in any developed country until I moved to Netherlands. It's not too different from India at all in that respect here.

So now I wonder, what factors lead to that kind of city planning in US. It was a real ordeal for me to get a meal outside in US, had to either walk for an hour or order taxi service (those were pre-Uber days).

<comment><USER10> Initially U.S cities were built according to a grid plan (grids being the most efficient means of urban planning at the time). This also made public transport easier. Grids however do not work well for cars. In response to increasing car ownership, T junctions were introduced to improve flow of traffic. The car also made it possible for people to live far from their place of work, thus the popularisation of suburbs. Other countries followed suit.

<comment><USER11> > Other countries followed suit.

What other countries? The US is very much an outlier. The only one I can think of is maybe Australia?

<comment><USER10> The UK and Republic of Ireland.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I recently got a shock when I went for a tooth extraction. A nurse and a surgeon spent an hour to complete the procedure. It came out to ~$6000. I had to pay for $700 for calcium grafting right then and there and they were going to get back to me for the remaining after consulting with insurance plan. I am still waiting for the call, albeit terrified of the possibilities.

I understand there are many parties in the food-chain. Still $6K for two people for an hour, feels like ripped to the gills - almost dirty.

<comment><USER13> reminds me of an old joke: 15$ for positioning a screw, 10.000$ to know where to put that screw.

If the US wants to tackle its healthcare costs, it not only has to get rid of the pointless middlemen everywhere and the notion of uninsured people whose bills have to be picked up by the rest, but also enlarge its supply of new doctors, and reduce the student debt they have to pay off.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> from Wikipedia: The classic example of rent-seeking, according to Robert Shiller, is that of a feudal lord who installs a chain across a river that flows through his land and then hires a collector to charge passing boats a fee to lower the chain. There is nothing productive about the chain or the collector. The lord has made no improvements to the river and is not adding value in any way, directly or indirectly, except for himself. All he is doing is finding a way to make money from something that used to be free.

<comment><USER14> This feudal lord probably have invested in an upkeep of few knights who enforce that chains stays in place. And then lobbied at the court against complaints from merchants and peasants. He might have also have to bribe few judges.

Also historically feudal lords had been constantly in debt spending more on representation then they have earned. Some moneylenders might have taken all this rent from river chain. Or the feudal lord have spent that income on luxury items stimulating demand for art or trade with far away corners of the globe.

This is an example of how economist have no idea how making money works..

<comment><USER15> If I offer you the opportunity of not having your kneecaps broken in exchange for only $100/month, is this potentially completely fine because I could spend the money on "stimulating demand"?

<comment><USER14> Many great American companies started exactly from that. Time Warner comes to mind.. :-)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinney_Parking_Company](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinney_Parking_Company)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just got the bill yesterday for my "free" Covid test. $250, insurance pays $105, you owe $145. (The test was free, the office visit was not.)

<comment><USER17> Who is to blame?

The government for not collecting taxes from you and using that money to pay the doctor?

The doctor for billing too high for the visit?

The insurance company for not covering more of the price?

Personally I would seek to understand why the doctor is billing so much and how that can become more fair for everyone involved.

<comment><USER18> A big element here is that the free market is being choked out. Consumers walk into healthcare facilities without any idea what they will be paying when they walk out, and therefore have no ability to choose one facility over another based on price.

Because that ability doesn't exist, there is no downwards price pressure anywhere at the consumer level for medical services.

I think we'd see a lot more results if we asked 'why aren't these facilities putting more efforts into reducing costs' rather than asking 'what makes this so expensive?'

<comment><USER19> > A big element here is that the free market is being choked out.

Given that every developed country has much lower per capita and per GDP costs, and pretty much none have more of a free market in health than the US, I'm pretty sure that's not the problem driving US prices high. I get that free market fundamentalism is one of the most influential religions in the US, but it's popularity doesn't make it contentions true any more than the popularity of Christian fundamentalism does for young earth creationism.

<comment><USER20> Most developed nations have highly regulated healthcare systems, and part of the government involvement is in setting prices.

The U.S., through everything from safety regulations to IP laws to insurance regulation has destroyed competition, but outside of medicare isn't involved in determining prices. The result is predictable.

Markets work great when the incentives are right. It's hard to get incentives right in healthcare and most nations want medicine to be part of a government safety net, so they go the direction of socializing healthcare. Almost anything would be better than the system the U.S. has now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _In the case of health care, consolidation has probably made things worse by muting competition. There are now five big insurance companies, three big wholesalers, three large pharmacy chains and three big benefit managers. In the case of health care, consolidation has probably made things worse by muting competition. There are now five big insurance companies, three big wholesalers, three large pharmacy chains and three big benefit managers._

<comment><USER22> As I see it consolidation isn't the root cause. The central problem is that pharmacy benefits manager have been allowed to invert the normal market. Normally for someone arranging the "resale" of a product from a producer to costumers would make more money if the price got negotiated down. But since PBMs have forced rebates of 70%+ that means that they are making most of the money on a drug sale. So even thought they are representing the buyers at the negotiation table, they want the prices as high as they can be. Producers are sitting down at the table and outbitting each other not on how low the price could be, but how high they are willing to make it, it's absurd. And you'd think the insurance companies or pharmacies would object, but often they are owned by the same group so they all just share the proceeds from ripping of the people.

<comment><USER23> Pharmacies, PBMs and insurance companies being owned by the same group is all an effect of consolidation.

Source: worked for an independent specialty pharmacy that was purchased by a PBM that in turn merged with a major national insurer

<comment><USER22> I mean sure it's an effect in the sense that when it happens we call it consolidation. My point is that none of the groups owning the insurance companies are buying up the pharmaceutical companies. And why should they? They are pulling home 2/3 of the profits of the price hiking campaigns they are driving and go about blaming it all on the companies who's day-to-day is focused all about how we can make these drug cheaper, yet that never reaches the consumer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > Everyone hates pharmaceutical firms, but their share of health-care rent- > seeking is relatively trivial, especially once you include the many midsized > and small firms that are investing heavily.

This article misses the point.

People hate pharmaceuticals because of ridiculously high drug costs, and that's about it. If they can't produce drugs at profit without gouging potential end users then it should be nationalized or subsidized.

<comment><USER25> Developing new drugs takes over a decade and costs billions. European countries are free loading of US drug research.

[https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/how-other-countries- freeloa...](https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/how-other-countries-freeload-on- u-s-drug-research-1487722580)

<comment><USER26> (I'm using 2015 figures because they were the latest available the last time I challenged this bullshit)

Nope, drugs sales in the EU alone are enough to cover pharmaceutical R&D costs worldwide. What they aren't enough to cover is Marketing costs, but that's OK since most EU countries don't allow direct marketing of drugs.

That's what the US covers. Not quite so noble sounding that you're covering the cost of advertising though, is it?

Pharmaceutical R&D spending in 2015: USA $47B, Europe: $33B.

Total drug sales Europe 2015: $190B

<comment><USER27> Good points but you should differentiate between generics and novel therapies that make up for the 190B USD in EU sales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What's missing is the Bender solution: "I'll make my own system! With blackjack! And hookers!" Barriers to entry are too high for a really free market to emerge.

<comment><USER6> Are the barriers too high? I've seen a lot of "modern" medical offices pop up in recent years, like One Medical and Carbon Health. Not to mention the scores of startups that specialize on more narrow parts of healthcare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> [https://web.archive.org/web/20200426011358/https://www.econo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200426011358/https://www.economist.com/business/2018/03/15/which- firms-profit-most-from-americas-health-care-system)

</comment><comment><USER30> > The excess profits of the health-care firms are equivalent to $200 per > American per year, compared with $69 for the telecoms and cable TV industry > and $25 captured by the airline oligopoly. Only the five big tech "platform" > firms, with a figure of $250, are more brazen gougers.

wow!

</comment><comment><USER31> This paper says 4% of cost goes towards "excess profits". I accept this without reservation.

But it remains unsatisfying.

What about the other overheads? Marketing, customer acquisition and retention? Health plan negotiators? Payment processing? Executive compensation? Etc, etc.

Many others have guesstimated USA healthcare costs 50% more per capita than Canada. So eliminating administrative overhead would whack 1/3rd of the costs, right?

Advocates for single payer could better emphasize all the unnecessary inefficiencies of our Freedom Markets™ health care system. All those "bullshit jobs" David Graeber has been telling us about.

</comment><comment><USER32> I didn't see anyone mention physicians.

The base rate of the profession is around 250k per year. Specialities are not included in that calculation.

Specialities are closer to 400k to 500k per year.

This is not natural. This is 130+ years of regulatory capture. Other countries pay their physicians half as much.

Not to mention outcomes are basically the same.

<comment><USER33> Actually, you are wrong. PCPs start at 90-100k salary. If you are quoting gross income before expenses then its about 200k. The overhead of running a physicians office is high. In terms of specialists, it's come down quite a bit. Just check the ads in the back of professional journals. 400k is more like the 70s.

Also you can look at the training of all the recent physicians, - many are from abroad. Same thing that the Silicon valley industry has been doing , hiring foreigners at lower pay. Education for physicians abroad is FREE. Whereas here you have to go to college (>50k a year tuition x 4) AND medical school (60k a year x 4) and then training 3-7 years at low income (40k a year) and crap life style.

<comment><USER32> Please post a citation

<comment><USER22> Perhaps you could post a citation yourself before asking it if others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The U.S. health system is what happens when corruption goes on so long you just call it the culture. "All professions are a conspiracy against the layman." was said by either G.B. Shaw or Ambrose Bierce, depending on your reference point.

It's a form of business that is orthogonal to producing things people want, where instead it's mainly in the business of depriving people of what they need. Rent seeking is what professions and institutions are designed to do, to create scarcity in exchange for a promise of quality, but somehow that latter part gets lost.

Some years ago when "disruption" was the popular idea, I put together a list of vulnerable industries. The sharing economy was an attack on businesses whose profits depended on a regulatory bar to entry (Uber/AirBnB etc.) The list was based on the presence of labour unions and professional associations, using the hypothesis that their existence creates a price premium that tips the economics of their industry in favour of automation, or at least in favour of economic substitution away by customers to a new tech that meets %80 of their need. Maybe we have the technology now to create an economic rentier map that lays out parts of the economy that have artificially propped up rent- seeking groups, as a means to develop new tools to avoid them.

Regarding the rentierism of the health business, I've noticed an anecdotal trend among some aging boomers who are rejecting that system altogether, and choosing palliative care and to die at home instead of in the hallway of a hospital, or worse, spending years in a long term care home. The best thing that could happen to healthcare is that instead of seeing it as broken, we should recognize that it looks like that because works for someone where we can't see who or how, and the goal is not to problematize and fix it, but to make it work for everyone else.

<comment><USER35> > either G.B. Shaw or Ambrose Bierce, depending on your reference point.

I googled it, it's from Shaw's _Doctor 's Dilemma_. (I'm a big fan of both those guys.) Only 3 hits on the internet saying it was Bierce - all 3 are your comments on HN! hehe.

<comment><USER34> That's hilarious. I'd swear I read it in the Devil's Dictionary it in a fortune file somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I can't read due to pay wall, but have a guess. Data systems, such as Epic, seem unnecessarily close walled. Is Epic the big winner, pharma, or something else?</comment>


Mathematicians Solve The Topological Mystery Behind The "Brazuca" Football - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/mathematicians-solve-the-topological-mystery-behind-the-brazuca-world-cup-football-2e11ab1f4391 <comment><USER2> The title is horribly misleading. I think that the research article has a better title: "From the "Brazuca" ball to Octahedral Fullerenes: Their Construction and Classification"

In fullerenes, all the molecular bounds have (almost) the same length. It's very strange that in the new molecule the length of the bounds are very different. Is this molecule really stable? Is this molecule possible?? Perhaps this is not a molecule, but only a mathematical solid.</comment>


Should You Fire Your Bad Customers – Or Not? - <AUTHOR> http://helprace.com/blog/why-good-startups-fail-they-cant-fire-bad-customers <comment><USER2> A bad customer is something like a bad employee. They both cause friction (requiring extra energy for the most day-to-day pedestrian of company activities).

There is a simple observation (among many) one can make to determine if a customer is noisy/bad/a distraction: "Does this customer (new or old) engender scope creep on the main company product or make demands of the workforce to such a degree that it diminishes the attention available to keep existing customers happy?"

Quite often, especially in a subscription-based model, where there is monthly or annual recurring revenue, the damage done to the business will not be noticed until the existing customers are screaming or walking, by which time it is too late to catch up.

There can also be the temptation to go after new customers by expanding or changing the product line, and quite often this is a condition of securing the new customers' business. This can be seen as the route to the "big time", however one must always remember that without the small-time, there is never going to be a "big time".

In short, prevention is better than cure. You wouldn't hire a toxic employee. Don't bite off more than you can chew by taking on a demanding customer whose needs don't match your services.</comment>


Steve Jobs's response after getting a Google employee fired. - <AUTHOR> http://pando.com/2014/03/25/newly-unsealed-documents-show-steve-jobs-brutally-callous-response-after-getting-a-google-employee-fired/ <comment><USER2> This article is so sensationalist. They could have just reported the facts without the histrionics and it would have been so much better.

This, especially: "The language is brutal, and as you'll see, there's an almost sadistic, military glee on all sides with the way in which the Google recruiter is 'terminated'"

The email following that description was exactly what I would have expected. "Yes, this person screwed up. We have a clear policy that they failed to follow. We're checking to see if they did this more than once. We've fired that person. Please apologize on our behalf, it won't happen again."

Making the story about "brutal" this and "sadistic" that is senseless, naive, and detracts from the real story, which is that they had these (illegal!) policies in the first place. Stop buzzfeedifying the news.

<comment><USER3> Well it is brutal and sadistic because such a policy is neither moral nor legal, as you pointed out, even though the email masks it with "professional" language. Here comes another example of Godwin's law.. the quick termination of Jews in WW2 was done very professionally by the day's standards. Sometime readers (especially the young ones) need to be spoon-fed for a while before they start understanding and interpreting facts on their own, qualifiers that you mention are most likely meant for them.

And, had we had a completely objective article we wouldn't have had little gems like this - "apologizing and grovelling to Steve Jobs is a recurring theme" \- which I find very accurate.

Also - "Please make a public example of this termination within the group". I guess when you go work for Google you need to leave your moral compass at the entrance.

<comment><USER2> Don't be shrill. They "lost their moral compass" because they fired someone who violated a clear policy and wanted to make it clear to all employees that such behavior is unexpected? Give me a break.

You are right that professional execution of unconscionable policies is itself unconscionable. But this isn't that. It's just illegal. There are degrees. Whether current Google recruiters should be blacklisted from further jobs for enforcing a policy that they should-have-known-better about is an interesting question that I don't see anyone asking... because the tone of this article engenders polarized arguments, not reasoned debate.

Lastly, I couldn't disagree more with your assertion that "sometimes readers... need to be spoon-fed." That's not your job, nor the press' job. I do _not_ _not_ _not_ want anyone's interpretation of the facts mixed with reporting of the facts. Save the paternalism for your kids.

<comment><USER4> Firing someone who didn't follow your edict to break the law (by action, or by inaction) is immoral, absolutely.

<comment><USER2> Let me be clear: I agree. What they (the mid-level HR people) did was immoral. Obviously.

My point is that there's no need to compare them to war criminals, or for the dramatics in an ostensibly "news" site- "sadistic," "brutal," et al.

When we do so, we displace a conversation about the real story: a tech cartel that colludes to depress salaries, and the secondary but still very interesting question of how their mid- and lower-level employees who enforced the policies should be treated.

<comment><USER5> > What they (the mid-level HR people) did was immoral. Obviously.

"Geshuri's decision to "terminate within the hour" the recruiter was enthusiastically seconded by Google's VP for Human Resources, Shona Brown ..."

There's nothing mid-level about the VP of HR. She should have known this was illegal, certainly was responsible to know that it was illegal, and was responsible for either advising the company that it's illegal or leave the company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> October 7, 2009: Eric Schmidt, responding to a question about why Google would not go the same way as Microsoft now that it is so large and powerful.

"There are many, many reasons why we are not going to be like Microsoft. The first has to do with the culture of the founders, the culture of the company, the value systems. The second has to do with the majority of the users, and usage is one click away from moving to a competitor, which is not true of more embedded platforms in high tech. It is very difficult to move out your database system, it is very difficult to move out of Windows, for technological reasons whereas it is quite easy to move out of these online services.

"The third is that, having taken such a strong position as a company, if somehow we went into a room with the evil light, and somehow evil came all over us and we exited that room and we announced an evil strategy, we would be destroyed. We would be destroyed in reputation, we would be destroyed in consumer behaviour, consumers would mass against us, and so forth. There is a fundamental trust relationship between Google and its users.

"And the fourth is that none of us would ever want to go through the kind of legal proceedings that would then follow in enough countries to make it painful. So there are positive reasons and there are good negative reasons, plus I do not think any of us are going anywhere and we have not yet found the evil room on our campus."

For those keeping score on the timeline, this quote is two years after the incident mentioned in the pando.com article.

Reference: [http://blogs.ft.com/businessblog/2009/10/eric-schmidt- thinks...](http://blogs.ft.com/businessblog/2009/10/eric-schmidt-thinks-that- microsoft-has-an-evil-room/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I previously had a lot of respect for the Google founders, and figured they were decent human beings.

That behaviour from Steve Jobs I can kind of expect - he's fairly consistently shown that he's basically just a bad seed.

However, the behaviour from Brin also sounds like pretty a*sehole behaviour.

Curious is anybody can confirm if they're actually like this?

Or was this all taken out of context?

Surely he's actually nicer than this in person?

<comment><USER8> He knowingly participated in a scheme that suppressed the wages of every engineer in the Valley. That should tell you enough.

<comment><USER9> I'm bouncing back and forth between "ah shit, and I thought they were cool..." and... Well, engineers are finicky and will bounce back and forth between companies each time they're offered a few grand more... Why don't we just avoid that?

<comment><USER10> Is a man not entitled to his own worth and value? I see nothing wrong with that, if your engineer can easily be sniped by a competing company willing to offer enough salary increase to convince somebody to move out of his job and jump to a new platform/environment/learning process, maybe you should be paying him more. You're not willing to? Well maybe that single engineer wasn't that vital to your company after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Although I get that these sorts of agreements may well have been illegal and unethical, all this outrage over the attitudes of the executives seems overblown to me.

Try putting yourself in Eric Schmidt's shoes: from his perspective, the greed of an individual employee to generate recruiting commissions by violating a strict policy endangered a key strategic relationship. This could obviously not be tolerated and the lack of a strong response would make enforcing the whole landscape of mission critical policies harder. These guys HAVE TO think of the system before the individual or the system will not work.

And in general, in any industry and any role, if you start a fire that the senior management team 10 levels up has to put out... you will expect harsh treatment.

<comment><USER12> The behavior is not acceptable. This is a cartel to "fix" the wages of workers - esp. when these tech companies claim their workers are the most important resource.

Now, I am not surprised the book price fixing Apple did with the publishers.

But both Apple and Google get a pass - think if it is done by Oracle or MSFT, well we would be talking about Evil Empire and Death-star

<comment><USER13> First, Apple and Google haven't been getting "a pass" they've been called out as the primary perpetrators every single time this story has come up. Which has been many times, for several months now.

Second, you don't need your hypothetical: Oracle and MSFT _were both involved_. And, if anything, _they 're_ getting "a pass" because their involvement has always been a secondary data point under the headlines about Apple and Google.

In any case, if the board or geeks in general had any special reserve of outrage for those two companies, that should have surfaced by now, right?

So where is it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'll refer to my previous comment [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7463419](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7463419)

There are many other things that disturb me about this.

\- the HR professionals who participated in this illegal non-solicitation scheme. I mean really, nobody raised their hand and said, "FYI, this _is_ illegal". I'm sure they say it all the time about other HR issues where companies try to eliminate expenses and maximize profit.

\- what's the story on how Steve came to know about the solicitation? Did the Apple employee raise the flag to their boss (who should have also known that this was illegal) or where their emails being read? smells like fish.

\- what's the word on the wrongful termination lawsuits that must be in the works?

</comment><comment><USER15> Are people surprised when tech executives act like other power hungry execs?

The worst part of it was "make a public example of this termination". This doesn't make it any more or less illegal but it shows how drunk on power on he is.

<comment><USER16> "Make a public example of this termination" was written by by Google's VP of HR, not Jobs.

<comment><USER17> _Make a public example of this termination_

WTF? When did this become feudal Japan?

<comment><USER18> There are two cases where the "obey me without question or else" atmosphere is particularly useful:

1\. In the military, where debates and disagreements could create fatal communication problems and delays

2\. When the people in power need to suppress a truth that would otherwise be outed in the normal course of discussion

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The smiley at the end is rough. However, I'd like to point out that Google took the action of firing the employee so quickly and strongly. Job's simply asked that Google's recruitment department please stop.

<comment><USER20> _> "Job's simply asked that Google's recruitment department please stop."_

Hardly.

When one executive contacts another directly the intent is implicit. If destroying this person was not the clear desire this communication would have taken place at another level.

<comment><USER21> What you said is just made-up nonsense. You can claim that when somebody says X they really mean Y, but without evidence for that, it is a bogus claim.

Sipmle logic states that Steve Jobs actually cared about maintaining the scheme he had with Google and couldn't care less about one particular Google employee.

Why would he? If he really were some kind of perverted power-luster he had plenty of his own employees to torture, but he just wasn't like that. He was always pursuing HIS GOALS ruthlessly, he wasn't out to get his rocks off by hurting people or exercising power.

(None of this is from direct experience, but it's evident from public information.)

<comment><USER6> But alas, we don't live in a world of simple logic.

It's important to remember that Schmidt was on Apple's Board of Directors at the time this occurred (he joined in the fall of 2006.) The Board was hand- picked in its entirety by Jobs.

These are power guys, and if Schmidt doesn't do something strongly, he will be perceived as weak. The implicitness in this email was a basic alpha-male locker-room challenge for Schmidt to show if he had any balls.

To me, this looks like a survivalist-move on the part of Schmidt to show Jobs he is "in charge" at Google. It's obvious Jobs knew how to push his buttons; otherwise, why would he (Schmidt) jump when the CEO of another company (Jobs) said "jump"?

<comment><USER22> > show Jobs he is "in charge" at Google

Such locker room / schoolyard pissing contests show lack of leadership, creativity, compassion and humility. Very Wall Street.

Without a source of what was in the policy manual it's really hard to armchair quarterback, but such 1 strike and you're toast really sends the wrong message to everyone.

The message back to Jobs should have been, It's taken care of. Won't happen again.

Internally, IF the policy said violate A,B or C and termination applies, I can't quibble.

Otherwise, people make mistakes and should be handled as such. That what makes companies "Great Places to Work" and not the next job to pull a paycheck before the next one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> In plenty of companies I've seen people get off with warnings for at least their first few offenses of sexual harassment, being drunk or stoned on the job, and abusive language towards others. Yet here is something the execs should have known is _clearly_ illegal and they're firing employees on the first offense. Supposedly recruiters were given a briefing about it but you have to wonder how much it was emphasized or written down, especially if their supervisors realized it was illegal.

</comment><comment><USER24> _" If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."_

 _\- Eric Schmidt, 2009 as CEO of Google, on concerns about privacy and Google 's insatiable appetite for info_

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric- schmid...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmidt- dismisses-privacy)

Yes, people bring up this quote all the time so it seems cliche to do so ... but I don't care. I say choke him on his own words for being so casual about it in the first place -- when it affected others, that is; he had a very public hissy-fit when someone publicized details about him, even blocked Cnet.com from Google for a time if I recall right.

</comment><comment><USER25> We are in a new society where the Information Technology brings enormous increases of productivity. The gains go to a small group of people. The capitalistic way to share this new wealth is to increase the workers wages. The middle class societies of Europe and North America were created this way.

Google and Apple are extremely lucrative companies, seeing them conspiring to decrease salaries is really sad. A sure path to a worse world.

On the other side, to see the American judiciary system attacking this evil behavior shows us why the United became the greatest nation in the world.

</comment><comment><USER26> None of the language in the emails seems that shocking or "brutal" (as the article says) to me. I guess the smiley face is a little strange, but I don't think it was particularly malicious.

<comment><USER27> Yeah I agree. A smiley face just means "thanks" or "good", not "MUAHAHAHAAA". It doesn't mean this is all OK, but the article really goes over the top trying to drum up emotions (warning: the next email you're going to read will scar you for life and possibly kill you). It's almost cartoonish.

<comment><USER18> Steve Jobs's reply was almost cartoonish.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Does this employee now have recourse to sue for wrongful termination since she was fired due to failure to comply with an illegal policy?

<comment><USER29> She should contact a labor attorney and probably has a strong case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Brin's reaction is hilarious... and scary at the same time. I never imagined that these people could have so much contempt toward their employees.

<comment><USER31> Employees who endanger relations between tech giants by trying to poach employees even though they've been specifically asked not to by their superiors.

I mean, I agree that the treatment is rough, but the employee really was at fault for going rogue.

<comment><USER32> Are we sure she knew about it?

>violating the secret and illegal non-solicitation compact

It doesn't say anywhere whether she actually knew about this. That would change my reaction from completely horrified to just utterly disgusted.

And 'rogue' is a... unique way to put it. It's not like she disclosed it to the press so it's a pretty tame rogue.

<comment><USER33> > "In general, we have a very clear 'do not call' policy (attached) that is > given to every staffing professional" ... "Unfortunately, every six months > or so someone makes an error in judgment, and for this type of violation we > terminate their relationship with Google."

The recruiter knew from the how the Google HR to Eric Schmidt email reads. The 'secret' part of this agreement is being over emphasized, if you're going to have a non-poaching agreement your staffing employees need to know or it's utterly pointless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This kind of thing is the reason I like working at smaller companies. People do stupid stuff at those too, but there seems to be less of this "just following orders" herd mentality.

<comment><USER35> I enjoy working at smaller companies because I actually feel like I make a difference. How little do you actually contribute to your company if you can be fired within the hour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> What is most remarkable is a lot of software developers love Google because they are so open and against patents and all of that, yet Google, Apple, and others are all working together to screw software developers out of getting paid more.

For as much flack as Microsoft took over the years for being evil, I can't say that Google or Apple have done much better, even for their own people.

</comment><comment><USER37> Are non-solicitation agreements between companies illegal? I'm guessing blacklisting people is illegal, but is not actively soliciting employees illegal?

(I'm not commenting on morality here, just legality.)

My last employer had a non-solicitation agreement in place with partner companies they were working with. Is that illegal, I wonder?

<comment><USER38> Was the agreement between the employers or between the employees? In some jurisdictions it is completely fine to have non-compete agreements and they very often are used to prevent vendor/customer poaching.

<comment><USER37> It was between the employers, who were also working together on business projects. They asked us to help enforce it, by telling them if a recruiter reached out to us from one of our partners.

Felt questionable to me.

<comment><USER39> It probably varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but in many cases a non- compete agreement is between the employer and the employee. Meaning that you can't quit one company to go work for a competitor. Most of the time the reasoning is because you may know trade secrets that you then may share with the company's competitor, which may be why they hired you away. Sometimes these agreements hold up in court and sometimes not.

A non-compete agreement between your employer and another company without your consent or input will likely not hold up in court and could be illegal depending on local laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Don't be evil.

</comment><comment><USER24> What hit me the most is how Google and Apple had this illegal, secret agreement in place (for some reason I've never heard of it 'til now; it ought to be publicized more, for all the good PR these companies enjoy it'd be nice for more people to see the full story) ... and how Jobs (Apple, a.k.a. "cool" incarnate) and especially Brin (Google, known for "don't be evil") are so arrogant about it.

</comment><comment><USER41> There has been a recurring argument about whether Steve Jobs became successful _because of_ his behavior or _despite_ his behavior. Few days back, I came across a compilation of facts on imgur images[1] which will immediately make you hate Steve Jobs. I also read the tumblr post 'What I Learned Negotiating With Steve Jobs'[2] which is also on the same lines. And then I read NY Times article that Jobs family has been secretly donating money to charity for past 20 years anonymously[3].

One thing is clear. The world is fascinated by Steve Jobs.

[1] [http://imgur.com/gallery/neGNG](http://imgur.com/gallery/neGNG) (couldn't verify accuracy of facts)

[2] [http://heidiroizen.tumblr.com/post/80368150370/what-i- learne...](http://heidiroizen.tumblr.com/post/80368150370/what-i-learned- negotiating-with-steve-jobs)

[3] [http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/laurene-powell- jobs...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/laurene-powell-jobs-and- anonymous-giving-in-silicon-valley/)

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady This has very little to do with Jobs. It sounds like the employee broke a known rule and Google reacted once they were informed (although I'd argue they acted too harshly).

<comment><USER42> > _a known rule_

That "rule" is an illegal collusion that's probably worth billions in salary, ISOs, bonuses, etc. That is, the totality of the crime here is that the participants in the collusion literally stole billions of dollars from salaried employees.

How obsequious the HR people are in this is a minor factor. This is a Bernie Madoff-sized crime. What Madoff did was a more visible crime, so he was punished like a common criminal. But if you shave a few tens of thousands of dollars per year off a few tens of thousands of engineers' salaries and your motto is "Don't be evil" (or if you do something really big, like diddle the LIBOR rate) people think different, for some reason.

<comment><USER27> > This is a Bernie Madoff-sized crime.

Really? Equivalent to a $50 billion ponzi scheme in which thousands of people lost their pensions and become destitute? That's the same as denying a few thousand dollars to already very highly compensated engineers? I'm not excusing what they're doing but the Madoff comparison seems off.

<comment><USER42> Is it a smaller crime if you take smaller amounts from more people? Had these been outright unpaid wages, the answer would be clear. The dollar value here is probably similar.

<comment><USER27> They're not poaching each other's workers, so let's say that Tom works for Apple and makes $90,000 per year. Google could attempt to recruit Tom and offer him $100,000 per year, but they don't. So Tom loses $10,000 per year. This is probably the worst-case scenario for an individual engineer. Of course, Tom is still earning a very nice salary over that time, and who knows, maybe he actually ends up making more, but let's envision a worst-case scenario in which an engineer loses $100 grand over ten years, because of this policy.

In order for the dollar value to be similar to what Madoff stole from people, that scenario, or a higher wage loss, would have had to happen to five hundred thousand engineers. All working at a handful of companies.

Does that still sound plausible to you?

<comment><USER42> Or to 100k employees for 5 years. Or if it's not just cash but ISOs and bonuses that are also depressed, maybe just 50k employees. Multiple large tech employers are involved, over a span of perhps longer than 5 years. It adds up quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I can't help but wonder who the recruiter was. I was going through Google's interview process right around this time, knew the recruiter that I was working with had connections to folks at Apple, and one day she was mysteriously no longer with Google. It makes me wonder if it was the same person...

<comment><USER44> Apple layed off a bunch of HR people around 2009-2010 as well. I knew one of them.

Why would a company with so much cash layoff part of a single division? It's incredibly suspicious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I was indifferent towards all the hate/worship Jobs got. But seeing that smiley in response to some one getting fired makes me think he was a douche. He could simply have said that Google handled it the way he wanted. No need to take such pleasure in this matter.

</comment><comment><USER46> I just wonder how did Steve find out this email? Did the employee hand it in? Did Apple have a scanner on their email server?

</comment><comment><USER47> Do all the HR people in this email thread still have jobs? The only people who should still be employed is the original recruiter from google. Everyone else is complicit in these illegal actions.

</comment><comment><USER48> There is mounting evidence Steve Jobs was a sociopath. Corporations select for these traits in their CEOs and Google is no expection. Not surprising, not shocking, but sad.

<comment><USER49> Well who would be naive enough to think you can make it to the top and play with the big boys by being Mr NiceGuy? Being acquired by Facebook/google/Microsoft/apple is probably what saves a lot of "founders" from becoming the next "charismatic" sociopaths...

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I think English dictionaries should redefine "don't recall" as an idiom meaning "find it convenient to pretend not to remember" :)

<comment><USER39> In Congressional hearings it's a common method to avoid invoking the fifth amendment which could be cause for further investigation. If they don't recall, maybe there's nothing to it; if they invoke the fifth, there's likely something there and you just have to find it elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Could the fired employee seek damages for wrongful termination? I dont recall what brought about this whole non poaching case.

</comment><comment><USER52> I think Google should make a public example of Sharon by making her do the perp walk between the building and the cop car.

<comment><USER5> Actually that's probably similar to what they'll eventually do, and the big three will fly off into the sunset.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Colluding to keep down wages, which would attract more people into programming, and then always complaining that there are not enough software developers while, also illegally, discriminating against expensive older programmers. Shows money is the main factor with respect to programmers ability.

<comment><USER54> The real complaint is that there are not enough programmers that they can pay cheaply. The idea that there are not enough programmers is just bs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> In the counterfactual world in which Eric Schmidt were aware that the no-poach agreements might be violating antitrust laws, I doubt that the outcome between Apple and Google would have been any different.

Google and Apple had a friendly business relationship at the time. Apple was using Google search as the default on Safari. They were collaborating to make Maps and YouTube apps on the iPhone. When a recruiter tried to poach the Safari team while the companies were collaborating, I think it was right for Jobs to be angry and tell Schmidt that it jeopardized the collaboration between them, and it was right for Schmidt to stop being rude to a partner.

</comment><comment><USER54> "Don't be evil." Should have been read as "Don't be evil, unless it helps Google get ahead." This all brings up the age old question..... how much money is enough?

</comment><comment><USER56> So, now you know why I like neither Google not Apple.

If these were foreign countries, we'd have invaded them and set up puppet democracies.

Morons. Like they couldn't figure out the public would find out eventually...

</comment><comment><USER57> How that lawyer can suck that much? He let someone who wrote an email get away in questioning by saying he was CCed and don't recall it. He wrote emails on the thread dammit.

</comment><comment><USER58> I don't think we should pile on these tech execs. It happens elsewhere. I'd speculate it's rather widespread.

I worked for a Fortune 500 market research / consumer data company and I know for a fact that the Senior VP of our office would call Fortune 500 clients and kindly request they not "poach" our employees.

Most of it is done casually and "innocently". I doubt most execs even thought they were breaking the law before this came to light.

<comment><USER42> Add up the cost to salaried employees. It's a multi-billion dollar crime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I think people are overreacting in the sense that non-solicitation agreements are not illegal per se and exist almost everywhere - tons of corporate partnership/vendor/contractor/etc agreements include such language because sometimes it's difficult for companies to work together closely in good faith without such agreement in place.

The main reason that the agreement is deemed illegal here is that they were made with a specific intent to manipulate the market at large and because they are deemed to have kind of market power, being a cartel of large employers. Also, the nature of the agreement is far too broad and the companies involved is far too numerous for them to argue in good faith that their intent was much more narrow.

I completely agree that they overstepped and should be held liable, but some of the outrage seems misguided. The HR executive involved, for instance, may or may not be in position to know that the policy is part of an illegal scheme and the fired employee certainly was not. Also, unless you're one of the star programmers who were highly in demand, it's quite unlikely that your salary was all that depressed over this. If anything, the impact may have been slightly positive for average employees - at a lot of places, superstars aren't necessarily substitutes for average employees, but rather complements and lowering prices of superstars can boost rather than depress wages of average employees:

[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html)

On the whole, this is kind of the replay of the Microsoft anti-trust trials. Bundling web browsers with operating systems is not illegal - the illegal part was the context in which such action occurred. It was seen as an abuse of market power. Sports leagues openly collude on this kind of stuff without most people caring at all or pointing fingers at those involved. Government can have strong interest in such matters in the interest of encouraging a healthier market - though political and career motivations of lawyers/prosecutors involved also play a large part - but to seeing this as a clear morality play is not wise.

Edit: actually this covers the legal issues better:

[http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/258600/Antitrust+Compet...](http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/258600/Antitrust+Competition/How+to+Legally+Keep+Competitors+from+Poaching+Your+Key+Employees+Antitrust+Law+and+NonPoachingNonSolicitation+Agreements)

Assuming the article is correct, having a general agreement without any specific, legitimate purpose is illegal, but on a limited basic it can be legal. Still it seems far-fetched to assume that the HR executive in question had to know that such an illegal agreement existed, because for all he knows, a much more limited, legal contract could have existed due to their partnership and Google may have had a broader policy to ensure easy compliance. We now know that that's not the case, but I don't know why we can assume that the HR executive necessarily was aware of all this.

<comment><USER42> Contractor agreements are like agency agreements. The contract employee is a party to the agreement.

This is like colluding to set the price of LCD displays or chips. That's illegal. Even an HR director should know that.

<comment><USER59> You're usually not party to a non-solicitation agreement in which others are not allowed to solicit you. If you as an individual contractor sign such an agreement with your client, your client's employees whom you're not allowed to solicit were not party to the agreement.

Even if you somehow forced everyone to be part of the agreement, it's irrelevant - whether Apple's and Google's employment contracts had language that forced the employees to agree to what's going on here is not exactly relevant consideration.

Edit: part of the irony of this whole "non-solicitation agreements are illegal" chorus is that I think most people complaining probably have signed such agreements in the past as they are quite routine. Granted, most of the time, it's just handed to us and we have to sign or gtfo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> This reads like a UK tabloid article. (the internet should never feel that way)

As in, you're told what to think in advance of all info.

</comment><comment><USER61> As with the Snowden leaks, I have to wonder if the number of fully aware collaborators in this crime would be more easily counted in tens, hundreds, or thousands.

I previously thought in this specific case that it would be tens, but if entire departments were being lectured about the penalties for deviation - were hundreds of people aware?

</comment><comment><USER62> This is something people would have thought happened at Wall Street company, just shows that tech is ruthless to.

<comment><USER63> Wall Street is, in general, much more employee-friendly than your typical F500. It's the result of most of the big investment banks having been partnerships rather than corporations until relatively recently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> If you're trying to make us feel sorry for a tech recruiter, you may have come to the wrong place.

<comment><USER65> I hear you, but do you know how many people would kill to have people stalking them with job offers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> These companies are run by cutthroat persons. I'm not too surprised this stuff happens. They all want to compete and dominate their market, and that requires working together at times (even though its still competition...so maybe oligopoly).

But Steve's response is great :)

</comment><comment><USER67> Hmm... the cold and ruthless way Google deals with its own employees is more shocking than Jobs's "brutal" response to it.

 _" make a public example of this termination"_

And they're calling Jobs's smiley brutal?

</comment><comment><USER52> Steve Jobs was a sociopath. there is nothing surprising about this at all.

</comment><comment><USER68> What an odd spin on this story. Job's response is just a detail, the policy is agreed upon between both companies which is clear from the correspondence and Google's actions here.

</comment><comment><USER69> "Do no evil."

When will geeks learn there are no good or bad corporations?

<comment><USER70> When you learn the slogan.

<comment><USER54> Glad to see Paul Graham's pending comments machine is working so well here.

<comment><USER71> They didn't happen, although perhaps they are what is needed: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7475834](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7475834)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Wildly successful people exposed as utterly ruthless shock

</sarcasm>

</comment><comment><USER73> Regardless of the overarching policy, this brief exchange is being brought down to tabloid level discussion by pando, it's really nothing that terrible.

</comment><comment><USER74> I'll avoid the legality of the suit, but I think the smiley face is being spun a bit by the article.

Jobs wasn't sending the smiley face as some sort of grave dancing gesture, he was sending it as a "here, I took care of this problem for you" gesture to the team member that more than likely brought the issue to his attention. HR had a problem with something Google's HR did, so to cross borders they needed the boss to make the comment.

It's still sort of callous, but I don't think the author's framing this the right way.

</comment><comment><USER75> Can we ask Elon Musk to get rid of Arnnon for being involved in this? Or is Tesla too holy and doing too much good, so they get a pass?

</comment><comment><USER76> The sociopathic CEO stereotype is affirmed once again.

I look forward to the coming Apple/Google/XXXX apologists vs. Lucid observer comment war.

</comment><comment><USER77> I get all the hate. But seriously big companies are run by ruthless people. Benovalent dictators are very rare..

</comment><comment><USER78> It's strange that Google was so worried about placating Steve on this issue, yet they went on to redesign Android to be more like the iPhone, after it was announced.

[http://mashable.com/2013/12/20/android-iphone-start- over/](http://mashable.com/2013/12/20/android-iphone-start-over/)

<comment><USER79> For an earlier example, does anyone remember Google expressing actual outward praise (better yet, free marketing posing as ass-kissing) to Apple? [http://i54.tinypic.com/rw6np3.jpg](http://i54.tinypic.com/rw6np3.jpg)

<comment><USER24> Thanks for that ... triggered some nostalgia to see a screenshot of Google.com circa 2005. I kinda miss those little icons letting you choose which "engine" you wanted to use (i.e. web / images / maps / video / etc)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> We can determine from this story that Apple's corporate email system in 2007 was wholly insecure. If one user can view and forward another users email, the system is broken.

</comment><comment><USER81> I admire and despise Jobs completely.

<comment><USER82> I despise Jobs completely. FIXED.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> SJ was such a lowlife. Seriously...

</comment><comment><USER84> I understand that this particular case happens to be considered illegal. However, I am not convinced that a law banning this practice will not make things worse for most people.

A cartel involves an arrangement where members REFUSE TO OFFER a better deal than the others - a pricefixing arrangement. On the other hand, this is very clearly about not going blatantly on each other's turf to solicit / poach.

Consider this ... how did Apple find out about this? Was the employee called during work hours?

How come recruiters - internal HR or external agencies - can be instructed to not advertise job openings in venues like porn sites, but - it seems from all this outrage - cannot be instructed to not advertise on their competitors' websites?

Why can't companies decide that the cost of reprisals for poaching key members is too high, independently and internally, before agreeing not to do it?

To sum up - I do not see this as a cartel AS LONG AS neither company turns away candidates who applied on their own, based on a mutual agreement. To be fair, Google did have such a policy and to the extent that this policy existed, that WAS a cartel. But NOT if the agreement is limited to not advertising offers to each other's key employees. Those employees can easily find out job openings and average salaries just like everyone else can.

If you are going to make the argument that recruiters calling certain key employees of the other company to lure them away will give the majority of employees a better sense of how much they are worth and everyone's salary if going to go up, you'll have to work pretty hard to show the connection. Poaching key members of a team (e.g. to sabotage a competitor's project) seems to mostly benefit those key members. It increases the cost for everyone else including the companies involved. And that cost is very likely to be passed on to the other employees. You would also have to show that the companies will always choose not to pass on the cost of poaching to their employees -- because otherwise, you will have to admit that LESS poaching might actually lead to LARGER salaries. And in fact, the data seems to show this. (Once again, by poaching I mean reaching out and specifically cold calling key people in rival companies to advertise positions that they could have found on their own.)

UPDATE: In fact, in many states the poaching itself of key members can be illegal. Please consider this before you participate in the overblown outrage:

[http://knowledgebase.findlaw.com/kb/2009/Oct/64552.html](http://knowledgebase.findlaw.com/kb/2009/Oct/64552.html)

Here is a court case of the exact opposite of what you are outraged about:

[http://blogs.findlaw.com/tarnished_twenty/2010/07/tennessee-...](http://blogs.findlaw.com/tarnished_twenty/2010/07/tennessee- titans-sue-uscs-lane-kiffin-for-malicious-interference.html)

Here is another example of tortious interference

[http://corporate.findlaw.com/human-resources/interference- wi...](http://corporate.findlaw.com/human-resources/interference-with- contractual-or-business-relations-the-business.html)

</comment><comment><USER85> :)

</comment><comment><USER86> Getting fired from your cushy silicon valley recruiting job is far from the end of the world. He probably had another one in a week. Who gives a shit? :) was a fine response.

<comment><USER87> I assume this wouldn't be your reaction if you were at the receiving end of this reaction for an "illegal" deal in the first place.

<comment><USER88> Well, I'd say that if you violate company policy about who you can and cannot contact you should expect consequences.

The fact that the policy itself may be illegal is secondary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I previously thought the Google heads were pretty cool guys.

However, if you can believe the tabloids, it seem Sergey Brin is engaged in some messy affair with another Google employee:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2579067/Google- CEO-L...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2579067/Google-CEO-Larry- Page-stopped-talking-founder-Sergey-Brin-affair-younger-employee.html)

[http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2014/04/sergey-brin- amanda...](http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2014/04/sergey-brin-amanda- rosenberg-affair)

If you combine that with his pretty callous behaviour in those emails, maybe he really is a bad character.

<comment><USER89> We're getting off-topic, but...

I suspect a decade living like the normal rules don't apply to you will make you think that the rules don't apply to you. Brin, like most executives, probably has an group of people around him invisibly smoothing out his problems and shuttling him past all sorts of obstacles.

I'm basing this on a couple conversations with a retired telecom CEO (Charles) I used to know. Here's what he had:

-If he mentions that someone is bothering him, that person is removed from his presence. (Charles wasn't even aware that this was happening for the first five years of his tenure as CEO--his wife pointed it out to him.)

-There are people who prepare him and make him look good in every conversation. If he doesn't know the answer to a question, he says, "I'll get back to you." Someone else writes the question down and a thoughtful, well-formulated answer appears on his desk the next morning.

-A medical plan that includes a 24/7 on-call doctor. The doctors in his plan specifically take very few patients so Charles and his family can get appointments almost immediately.

-If there's a line or waiting list, he is ushered around the line or someone waits in line on his behalf. Charles literally never waited in line for anything for 15 years.

Charles was thoughtful and empathetic and was lucky to have a wife who kept him grounded. (She would say some variation of, "Don't screw it all up today," as he left the house each morning.) I suspect that most people wouldn't be able to keep a healthy perspective.

Edit: removed an extra word

<comment><USER90> In this case, I wonder if Schmidt being responsible for handling the legal stuff didn't help here.</comment></comment></comment>


Liberating the Smalltalk lurking in C and Unix [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwicN2u6Dro

<comment><USER3> If you are running Mac OS X and this is something that intrigues you, you should spend an afternoon or two playing around with F-Script[0]. It's a Smalltalk inspired language the runtime of which can be injected into running processes so that you can dynamically explore the process data structures in memory. For example this screenshot[1] displays the data structures of a running programming that you can explore à la Chrome devtools (the UI is a tad overwhelming at first). There's also this Automator script called F-Script Anywhere which adds an Automator service that let's you inject the F-Scipt runtime into a running process with a single click. It was originally made by Silvio H. Ferreira but I've made some tiny changes to make it run on Mavericks and Yosemite[2].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Script_(programming_language...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Script_\(programming_language\))

[1] [http://www.fscript.org/images/screenshots/objectBrowser.jpg](http://www.fscript.org/images/screenshots/objectBrowser.jpg)

[2] [https://github.com/adamnemecek/FScriptAnywhere](https://github.com/adamnemecek/FScriptAnywhere)

<comment><USER4> The first part doesn't intrigue me at all, because I can easily import an objective C-class into an AppleScriptObjectC app.

I guess something like that works for Swift as well.

AppleScript in itself, can't do that, but I can call everything that is in Say Foundation, and the other frameworks (AppleScript version 2.3), and AppleScript is quite SmallTalkish. ;)

<comment><USER3> If I understand it correctly, you can only do this if you have access to the source, correct?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you found this interesting, you will probably also appreciate Cling - <USER2> JITing C++ REPL for LLVM-Clang.

[https://root.cern.ch/drupal/content/cling](https://root.cern.ch/drupal/content/cling)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoIuqLNvzFs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoIuqLNvzFs)

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't want to liberate the smalltalk, I want to punch it down like a sore thumb.

<comment><USER7> With what sort of Golden Hammer ?; )</comment></comment>