Why Are the Highly Educated So Liberal? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/opinion/why-are-the-highly-educated-so-liberal.html <comment><USER2> To start off, "liberal" is hard to define, really. I identify as "classically liberal," but that can greatly differ from modern liberal, progressive, etc.

Friedrich Hayek tried to answer this in the 40s, when "intellectuals" were into communism and eugenics (this video is not from the 40s obviously.)

[http://cafehayek.com/2014/10/hayek-on-intellectuals-and- soci...](http://cafehayek.com/2014/10/hayek-on-intellectuals-and- socialism.html)

To be frank, I think it's because those who are highly educated often believe they know what's better for a person than the person does; economically & politically speaking.

In terms of acceptance of minorities, especially (gay, trans or just ethnic) I think that liberal mindset comes from an academic need to include minority opinions into discussion.

I do think there is a bit of a shift happening and that's many professors, etc standing up against "safe spaces" on campus. The irony of course is that many young people vouching for these areas often identify as liberal, but yet suppressing the ideas of others is anything but. So...you really have to be careful in how you define "liberal," as it appears the title is shifting a bit due to millennial deposition.

<comment><USER3> I admit I don't understand the protesting against safe spaces. My university is probably one of the largest of my state and we have a safe space called the "wellness office". It gives out free tea, lip balm, hand sanitizer, and fruits. In the evenings it lets specific people from the LGBTQA+ spectrum come and talk about things. E.g. "Bisexual and pan sexualities" or "Queer men" or "LGBTQ People of color" would all have their own weekly schedule to meet.

I've actually been to a few to see what exactly is going on and what I found was that those meetings tended to talk about issues that are very specific to those groups and therefore there couldn't be much in the way of discussion for people not in those groups. It's not too dissimilar from a meetup of people who want to discuss specific algorithmic proofs in that it's a "safe space" for people in that field and in that education and the quality of conversation would be less productive for the people there if someone not in that field or education arrived and joined in with a bunch of confusion or lack of education about what algorithms are.

I really am confused because I've yet to encounter a "safe space" in which I felt that there was a plan to censor people or order people that they can't say certain things. Meetings hosted by the "safe space" at my university have come off to me as a space to intellectually discuss topics more or less pertaining to a demographic who would otherwise not have as productive a conversation if they had to explain what sexuality is. I've also experienced similar environments in editor's meetups in literature and research groups in STEM.

Could you provide me with a study or article regarding how the existence of an isolated space for the discussion of topics is wrong or bad? I don't mean to attack you or say that "safe spaces" are a good thing. I just don't see the difference between "safe spaces" for minorities differs from spaces of intellectual discussion in STEM.

<comment><USER4> In a meet-up I can actually call out the BS of the presenter or at least thoroughly ask honest questions. In a safe space, even if my question is honest and to the point, its validity is determined by the state of mind of the responder. So, that is there. The concept of safe space is nothing new, people usually call it home or club. But to impose safe space in the center of town square is the problem.

edit: also safe spaces promote acceptance of dogma over free thinking, which Universities claim to be centers of.

<comment><USER5> Have you ever been to a safe space and tried to participate in discussion? I think the grandparent comment is spot on. Honest questions in good faith are honored, even when they come from ignorance. What's _not_ honored is people looking for a debate that involves "calling out BS". It's not the safe space's responsibility to educate you on social issues. The whole point is to exclude people who deliberately lack context and understanding so that the discussion can be had on more complex topics.

Also, as a straight, white person myself, I understand that there are some discussions where my opinions are irrelevant and unwanted because I simply haven't experienced what others have and am unable to understand and empathize as intimately. Excluding my opinion isn't a slight against free thinking, it's a shortcut because I have nothing to contribute.

<comment><USER6> "The whole point is to exclude people"

That's pretty much it. Also to actualize through the echo chamber.

<comment><USER3> Well, yes, if a prestigious research team in MIT excludes people who don't do computer science at all to participate in their research, is that also an actualization of an echo chamber? Should it also be protested?

<comment><USER6> This is silly. If anyone not trained in computer science and not at MIT still found a way to submit evidence or proof invalidating a hypothesis by said research team, they would not only embrace the evidence, they'd probably be pretty happy about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't buy this piece's claim that the American left follows a "culture of critical discourse": There is a disturbing trend in the modern American left of suppressing and punishing people whose opinions do not confirm to the liberal consensus. Free speech law blog Popehat is a good source of concrete examples [1] [2] [3] [4].

I recently saw an article here on HN which did an excellent job of expressing this concern [5]. Sadly it didn't get very many upvotes.

[1] [https://popehat.com/2015/12/08/no-safe-spaces-for- conservati...](https://popehat.com/2015/12/08/no-safe-spaces-for- conservatives/)

[2] [https://popehat.com/2016/04/22/how-inanely-censorious-can- co...](https://popehat.com/2016/04/22/how-inanely-censorious-can-college- administrators-get-university-of-wisconsin-superior-will-show-you/)

[3] [https://popehat.com/2015/09/23/lets-applaud-wesleyans- studen...](https://popehat.com/2015/09/23/lets-applaud-wesleyans-student- censors-for-honesty/)

[4] [https://popehat.com/2015/09/14/a-market-solution-to- academic...](https://popehat.com/2015/09/14/a-market-solution-to-academic- snowflakes/)

[5] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11545169](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11545169)

<comment><USER6> College liberalism is - and has always been - an extreme form of liberalism. Safe spaces and censorship on college campuses is not a reflection of the real world.

It definitely spills over some, but it's hardly representative. That's probably why that article didn't get much love. Many here identify as liberal (like me) but not at all with the ridiculous censorious behavior and right to not be offended found in many of your examples (also like me).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A variation of a common refrain these days that I found funny and a little insightful is that: "Reality has a well-known center-left technocratic recovering-neoliberal bias."

[https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/703722154815156224](https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/703722154815156224)

Much of what comes under "liberal" in the united states is often our best response to evidence of what works mixed within a more general western liberal political tradition broadly enabling through both negative and positive liberty all public/private behaviours unless harm to others can be clearly demonstrated by evidence. And much of what comes under "liberal" within in the United States is the centre ground in Western and Northern Europe.

<comment><USER9> I suspect this is more of a signalling game. Elites became socially liberal to distinguish themselves from the unsophisticated middle class, in a time when wealth wasn't a good signal. Now that everyone has a bachelors, the middle class is dying, and liberalism is trendy among those who would previously have been part of the not-college-educated middle class, I expect elites will become more conservative.

Though we really need to define our terms here, there are many dogmas associated with liberalism that are just as antiscientific as conservative dogma, denying the predictive power psychometric tests, the very, very large role of genetics in life outcomes and education, the implications of this on class, the obvious benefits of nuclear power and genetic engineering, the importance of modern agriculture over "organic" alternatives, the dressed up faith-healing that is alternative medicine.

<comment><USER10> > uneducated middle class

The very idea that the middle class might be uneducated is... odd.

<comment><USER9> Factory workers in the 1960s were not college graduates and often not highschool graduates. I've edited this to be more clear.

<comment><USER8> It is very much an American phenomenon calling factory workers Middle Class. Elsewhere in the world the middle class refers to members of the professions - doctors, lawyers, academics, politicians, senior civil servants, successful managers of medium and large businesses. To be middle class refers to _working_ people of usually very high non-manual skill, high cultural and societal status, and usually university educated. The middle class might not own the country, but they certainly run it.

A factory worker in say France, UK or Germany is member of the working class, and in terms of their skill, status, and economic and political power aren't really distinguishable from a US factory worker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Everyone has different views on what Liberal vs. Conservative means, but if you were to use these definitions:

Liberal: Promote group-oriented solutions to address economic disparities and historical social injustices.

Conservatives: Promote individualist-oriented solutions to create wealth and entrepreneurship.

... you'd start to see that the author's argument is a little circular.

'Education', in the author's sense of the word, refers to group-oriented institutional education (e.g. traditional universities).

So really what the author is asking is 'why do people educated in group- oriented educational institutions promote group-oriented political solutions?'

I think it would be interesting to know where 'self-taught learned people' sit on the political spectrum?

<comment><USER12> After pondering self-described conservatives and liberals for decades now, I've recently concluded that they're more or less the same. Both groups seem to highly value their families and seek to promote their interests and protect them from threats.

The only thing that seems to differ is the definition of 'family'. At one end, the definition is more strict and exclusive (with a family of one being the most extreme), and on the other end, the definition is less strict and inclusive (with a family of everyone being the most extreme).

<comment><USER13> That's a pretty big difference, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a bit of a flippant piece. Steven Pinker has a much better analysis. He talks about the 5 realms of morality, and how they play into political life (referenced in the blank slate, and our better angels, but i'll link to you here in an NYT article):

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.ht...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.html)

>The exact number of themes depends on whether you're a lumper or a splitter, but Haidt counts five — harm, fairness, community (or group loyalty), authority and purity — and suggests that they are the primary colors of our moral sense. Not only do they keep reappearing in cross-cultural surveys, but each one tugs on the moral intuitions of people in our own culture.

The politics comes in here:

>The ranking and placement of moral spheres also divides the cultures of liberals and conservatives in the United States. Many bones of contention, like homosexuality, atheism and one-parent families from the right, or racial imbalances, sweatshops and executive pay from the left, reflect different weightings of the spheres. In a large Web survey, Haidt found that liberals put a lopsided moral weight on harm and fairness while playing down group loyalty, authority and purity. Conservatives instead place a moderately high weight on all five. It's not surprising that each side thinks it is driven by lofty ethical values and that the other side is base and unprincipled.

I think this is a better illustration of how the topic should be approached then just talking about the politics.

</comment><comment><USER15> "there's ample evidence of the professional class using its economic and educational capital to preserve its advantages"

i do think that this is a part of it. degrees and certifications are largely an exercise in compliance. that's not to say they aren't hard work, but that hard work is often busy work. what makes it hard is that it's not interesting nor informative and thus is kryptonite to the intellectually curious.

people who have spent considerably and pushed through that menial task of compliance have bought into the system that tells them that they are now more useful to society and, therefore, deserve elevated status in our cultural and literal hierarchies.

part of left-leaning ideology is a belief that the smart and well-educated (the intelligensia) are better able to make decisions for the body politic than the chaotic "invisible hands" of various complex systems left to their own devices.

with that in mind, the question can be re-phrased "why are people who have spent a large amount of time and money to increase the perception of their own value to society more willing to give authority and power over to those who spend a large amount of time and money to increase the perception of their own value to society?"

<comment><USER16> There is a whole book on this phenomena with a kitchy title: [http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party- People/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party- People/dp/1627795391)

The book was really enlightening and went through some of reasons of the rise of Donald Trump. The one in the forefront being liberals have removed all protections from the working class in the form of NAFTA and other measures like welfare reform. Instead of champanioning New Deal style policies and safety nets they champion more education putting the responsibility on the individual.

Also from my own view, liberals seem more concerned with transgendered people and global warming than families with no opportunity torn apart by opiate addiction and deindustrialization. The hatred of liberals in those circles seems to come from a rational place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Education doesn't translate to intelligence and being "liberal" is a pretty wide catch all bucket. There are big differences between socially liberal and fiscally liberal.

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure the term "fiscally liberal" describes a consistent set of beliefs as they're held by a group of people in the United States. For that matter neither does "fiscally conservative."

<comment><USER19> For example, why do a lot of "fiscal conservatives" support wasting trillions of dollars for decades in wars with no goal?

<comment><USER18> I think that's the trouble with so-called "fiscal conservativism." It holds that government should only be spending money on "the important stuff." What comprises the important stuff is anybody's guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Because you see where blindly following your instinct judgment, (even when conservatives glued arguments to them) got us. It might have been a good survival trait for ten thousand years - but the last 200 years, they almost got us killed. So you become liberal- because you know your limits, you know how little you know, how wrong you can be, and how easy it is to stomp what could feed your family tomorrow into the ground - just because they didnt liked the color.

And yes, there are conservatives "technology investors" who dip there toe into tested tech and distribute it. But they are never the guys to fling themselves out into the void without safety net.

The reason why i have become a liberal - though raised by extremely conservative parents- is because i was so wrong, so often back then. Its not the usual youth rebellion to conservative realism dichotomy, quite reverse, the longer i live, the more i realize how destructive one can be with how little - and all that just for some retarded irk in my guts, that kept a monkey alive 20000 years ago? Better control that irk and let that strange guy in my neighborhood build his steam machines in the middle of the night.

<comment><USER21> _you know your limits, you know how little you know, how wrong you can be_

This really doesn't describe the liberal mindset, which is absolutely certain of its own righteousness.

<comment><USER6> That's everyone, sir. Conservatives calling liberals righteous is some inappropriate first-stone-casting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's because once you are highly educated, you realize that you are no longer in competition with your fellow humans for resources: you'll get a job pretty easily, and it's no longer a matter of survival.

<comment><USER3> I would disagree. If one is highly educated in a specific period of history, or literature, or some other field with poor job prospects despite being highly educated, there's still high competition. Also, given that so many people with phD's want to become professors, the competition for those positions is extremely fierce with the "publish or perish" mindset that academia has been in.

I don't think its just a lack of competition that causes people to become more liberal. Academia is highly competitive.

<comment><USER22> I didn't say you could get _any_ job; just that you could get _a_ job, so it is no longer a question of survival.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The problem is that religious fundamentalist, xenophobes, racists, misogynist, and bigots took over conservative movement. It is not that republicans and conservative thinkers endorsed these people but they made them comfortable under "conservative tent". But slowly they took over everything: and Trump is result of that.

So maybe the right question should be: what happen to conservatism in US?

<comment><USER16> Or maybe those things took over because of lack of opportunities for healthy identity in terms of meaningful contribution to society.

Ship away everyone's opportunity for self esteem building work in locations with little wealth for self esteem building side projects and they cling to something to preserve identity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> People have a disposition toward being either narrow-minded and bigoted, or open-minded and generous. Among those who are not educated, those who are not naturally narrow-minded or bigoted can nevertheless fall into the trap of that kind of thinking anyway. When they become better educated, they can change. Some of those who are predisposed to narrow-mindedness and bigotry by nature will use higher learning only to entrench it deeper. I suspect those whom education improves in this regard are more common, so it appears that education liberalizes, on the whole (even if not in particular cases).

</comment><comment><USER25> The highest result of education is tolerance - Helen Keller

<comment><USER26> Let's remember that tolerance is not an absolute good. Indeed that phrase is almost meaningless unless qualified.

. . . presumably those downvoting will tolerate just about anything and leave their discriminatory faculties to rot. That's pretty much how many folk behaved in Europe earlier in the 20th century and look where that got us.

In her essay 'Optimism' Helen Keller provides the context for her oft-quoted statement. The retailing of phrases outwith a context then presented as some kind of ultimate truth is strangely disingenuous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Let's be honest - this is a fluff piece written to make NYT readers feel good about themselves. It doesn't belong here because there's no actual point to debate.

</comment><comment><USER27> It's because the education systems are liberal. Before anyone but the wealthy were able to afford college, most institutions had a conservative slant.

<comment><USER28> That's a circular argument. Why are education systems liberal?

And where's your evidence that earlier "most institutions had a conservative slant"?

<comment><USER29> A public, tax-funded university exists by coercion. This is going to attract the people who are results-driven and be repulsive to an ideology-driven person. Therefore, it can reasonably be expected to suggest coercion as an allowable tool for solving any problem.

<comment><USER26> Under socialist ideology all universities are public and tax-funded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Related, what sort of effects does this cause?: [http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/05/10/academe-is-overrun- by...](http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/05/10/academe-is-overrun-by-liberals- heres-why-that-should-disturb-you/)

</comment><comment><USER31> Seems to me it's the other way around. Liberalism was born in academia and has spread from there.

<comment><USER3> Could you provide some sources or suggested reading regarding this topic? I haven't encountered this opinion before and I'm quite curious how this came about.

<comment><USER32> Nietzsche's whole opus documents this quite well. You can google him or look him up on amazon maybe.

<comment><USER3> Does Nietzsche record the spreading of liberal views from academia to the greater mainstream and confirm liberal views were born in academia first and foremost?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Because modern American conservatism is strongly aligned with anti- intellectual sentiments: the pathos of nationalism, xenophobia, racism, sexism, "traditional views" on religion and the role of science, and a craving for simple categorization into Manichean good or bad, male or female, okay-to- say or not-okay-to-say, us or them, yours or mine. Onto this we lay a matrix of Ayn Randian property-rights-fetishists and aging anticommunists & libertarians (the previous generation's right-wing intellectuals, now bought off or shouted down), as well as the remnants of the the-Confederacy-should- have-won enthusiasts, dressed up in strict constructionist clothing. Driving the parade is an endless stream of corporate lobbyists trying to get a return on investment in the simplest way possible.

These sorts of stereotypes are observations about the net behavior of large groups of conservatives rather than being ubiquitous in individuals, but occasionally I talk to a certain flavor of conservative friends about such topics, while taking care to avoid being dismissive of their chosen tribe. They become _viscerally infuriated_ not so much at the positions, but at acknowledgement of the nuances ("But they're Muslim. They're at war with us. They say they're at war with us.") and the notion that improving everyone's situation ("How the hell can you say it doesn't matter whether they deserve it") could be a goal of all of us. They are looking for politics to simplify, not to complicate, their thinking. It's not complete ignorance of the tricky bits, it's a desire to disregard them.

This is not the stuff that a career as a lifetime thinker is made of. The letters 'PhD' stand for 'Doctor of Philosophy', and appreciating complexity has to be a part of extended research in any field. An explicit disavowel of 'experts' or or 'academics' or 'scientists' is quite common on the right, usually with airquotes to indicate that the speaker disbelieves these people's expertise and doesn't consider them worth the speaker's time, because the speaker is busy Doing things (necessarily simplifying reality) and they merely Think about things.

The best of the GWB Administration:

"The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.""

</comment><comment><USER34> People who are highly educated are also more likely to be well-off.

<comment><USER21> Indeed, the article should say more likely to be limousine liberal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The conclusion of the article isn't anything new -- progressives have been saying this since at least 2004. (Read the article itself, please. It's not actually about the question in the title.)

</comment><comment><USER36> Why Are the Fish So Wet?

</comment><comment><USER6> Because they're highly educated?

Boom!

</comment><comment><USER37> Understanding of stochastic nature of the Universe, fundamentals of genetics, biology, actor model, evolutionary strategies and competition, equilibrium- based self-regulated adaptive systems (ecosystems, markets and societies), cultural and social conditioning of intellect (languages, religions), philosophical systems of Buddhism and existentialism, etc.

</comment><comment><USER38> The article doesn't mention one of the most important factors – in the US, Conservatism often comes with a heavy side helping of religion. As a result, highly educated people tend to move away from conservatism even if they may be generally for Conservative policies, because they don't want to be associated with people who believe the earth is 5000 years old and that anyone who isn't a Christian needs "saving".

The current Republican primaries are showing that this link may be weakening, with Evangelicals no longer being a heavily significant factor in deciding the vote. So maybe the highly educated won't be 100% liberal in a decade or two.

<comment><USER39> It wasn't so long ago (Carter) that Evangelicals were a major liberal constituency.

<comment><USER40> Basically what happened is the Republicans rounded up the evangelical leaders and said "those dem's are weak on communism, vote for us or Russia will kill God" and it worked.

One of the 'interesting' side effects is that when Republicans decided to become anti abortion to get Catholic votes it forced a bunch of previously pro choice or neutral evangelical groups to become virulently anti abortion out of percieved duty.

<comment><USER41> There's also the idea that evangelism is mostly a southern thing, and Republicans tend to play heavily into the sort of racially charged politics that resonate with southerners.

<comment><USER40> Well from what I understand this was largely started concurrently with the southern strategy which was when that particular play started.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> It could also be because in the US there is no alternative. You do have the Republican party that calls itself conservative but is so only in name. Conservative means cruelty, hate, and stupidity in America. These are people who pride themselves on being stupid, who hate the idea of anyone but themselves getting anything out of the government, and espouse cruel values like support for torture and oppression of minorities. Of course highly educated people do not want to affiliate themselves with cruelty, hate, and stupidity by their very nature and definition.

The article acts like this is some great mystery when it's incredibly obvious. Actual climate scientists do not seriously take the views of idiotic climate deniers. Actual doctors who care about their patients do not seriously take the views of anti-abortionists or their incorrect claims about life. And in general, though not exclusively, educated people do not support the cruelty of torture or racism. These are the things supported by conservatives in the US. Is it any wonder that people with half a brain abhor these horrific ideas?

</comment><comment><USER21> Consider the economic model of academia - you apply for a grant, you do some work, if you get a useful outcome or not no-one really cares, you apply for another grant and if you play the game right you get a sinecure. In addition in many academic fields there are no right or wrong answers anyway.

Nothing like that really exists in the corporate world, which is results and return-on-investment oriented. You produce, or you're out. Such a world seems like a nightmare to someone who is used to the safe, cosy academic world.

Of course the elephant in the corner of the room is that academia only exists because of wealth generated by grubby commerce...

<comment><USER40> >Nothing like that really exists in the corporate world

 _cough_ pitch deck _cough_</comment></comment>


Fashion hacking or how the biggest fasion company screws indy designers - <AUTHOR> http://www.thefashionlaw.com/home/zara-comes-under-fire-for-copying-indie-artists-designs <comment><USER2> I think Zara's intimidation tactics are despicable.

That being said, and as I have written elsewhere, I am not so black-and-white on copyright and IP.

A lot of people called for the end to old business models of copyright and IP rights when it comes to 'greedy' music studios, Hollywood movies, and other IP vehicles.

Then in reverse logic, they think an indie artist has copyright or IP rights. I understand the emotion of the individual against the big bully corporation, but I am still personally struggling with the morality of copying or buying a pirated DVD, and turning around and saying she deserves her share due to those same laws many others violate.

How does that work ethically?

Most likely it was a low-paid designer out of thousands who copied the work off the internet, who will now lose their job, Zara will be fine.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> In a nutshell: "You artist are not famous enough, so we, big co, are okay to blatantly rip your designs off"...</comment>


What makes developers bad at business? - <AUTHOR> https://qotoqot.com/blog/blind-spots/ <comment><USER2> These are all strawmen in most cases. Most businesses operate software systems that are perpetually at critical breaking points, riddled with tech debt, long-unfixed bugs that severely degrade quality and actively make customers unhappy but are not prioritized.

The business and product side always say things like not choosing projects based on technical challenge, but that's so extremely far away from the case of reality that it's just FUD to better politically control things.

Most engineers I have worked with are really clever generally and can quickly grok sales or business considerations at a higher level than the sales or business people can. They want to build things that customers care about and don't need anyone from sales or product hierarchies to "make" them follow that priority. They only want to test new tech stack choices in careful, isolated ways, not betting the farm on a new toy.

These are basically made up, misunderstood myths that business people tell because they're insecure that smart engineers are good enough to make both engineering and business decisions.

And the flip side failure mode, where engineers are raising alarms about serious tech debt issues or inflexibility / incapability to innovate, and business people dismiss the seriousness of the issues in a genuine business sense, is rampant.

As an engineer one of my most frustrating experiences is when, _after taking business concerns into account very carefully_, my expert opinion that the business outcome is at high risk of failure due to lack of engineering investment and basic quality focus is just dismissed because "I'm not a product person" or some similar bullshit self-preservation from soft-skilled people writing Powerpoints all day while dismissing the idea that engineers can learn the business (usually very quickly).

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, you are not the first person to describe the article like "myths that business people tell". But I've never worked around the "business people": I'm a developer who has always been freelancing and bootstrapping. All my previous clients were 1-10 person teams, mostly staffed with developers.

This article is the result of my experience of trying to do business myself, watching other developers trying, and talking with ones who would like to try it one day.

But I agree, engineers can learn many of these skills quickly. My goal was to list the biases.

<comment><USER2> I can totally agree there are segments of the software industry where these issues exist more meaningfully, like in your experience.

Internally to tech companies though, I think this sort of thing is trumpeted around too much to try to shift the balance of decision making power away from engineers. Sometimes of course engineers are not the ones in the position to know all the relevant factors for decision making. But often they really are, and if they tell you we can't over-promise to the customer on XYZ because our legacy code is reaching a critical failure state, it needs to be urgently believed and trusted, but most of the time is not.

There's often a fundamental incentive struggle between parties who get bonuses or commissions because of a binary outcome (closed the sale, shipped the feature, lost the customer, revenue less than the target), and people for whom the binary event translates into long-term service requirements (support the feature and backwards compatibility, deprioritize a critical version upgrade, grow support capacity without being granted more headcount, etc.).

Ideally it should be based on situational evidence and technical details (both business tech and engineering tech), and hopefully not just generic principles (often invoked via confirmation bias or argument from authority) like in this article.

<comment><AUTHOR> Understood, thank you for the explanation.

I think I should have named it "bad at _starting_ a business" or something similar. My intention was to help founders of startups or self-funded projects, I don't know much about the dynamics in larger companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I recently read an article, basically it said that we normally think we can code and make a nice product but forget about marketing.

Marketing is the 3rd essential component in a product, and finding savvy marketers is as hard as finding a really good engineer for your product.

As well, when hiring, a big mistake startups make is to hire samers. You should be hiring people that don't do exactly what you've been doing, as they're also going to be bringing creativity to your business in a way someone doing your same craft cannot bring into the table.</comment>


Show HN: Korabo – splitting proceeds has never been easier - <AUTHOR> https://www.korabo.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks for stopping by.

At the moment, unfortunately, the app is directed towards those with a US bank account and will require a Stripe account.

Thanks a lot.</comment>


Ask HN: Recommend a Recruiter - <AUTHOR> Recruiters don't get much love on HN (rightfully or wrongly I don't know, I've never dealt with them). However I've started a transition in my career and have heard from some coworkers and friends that have had a decent experience with recruiters.
I thought maybe it'd be an interesting idea to see if any HN readers have used recruiters and, if the recruiters have done a good job, would like to give a shout out so the rest of us may have another path or two towards a new job.
So I ask HN, do you have any recommendations for recruiters you've personally worked with? It'd be best if recruiters themselves didn't post in this thread (at least not at the top level), just your standard HN reader that has personal experience.
Personally, I'd love any recommendations in the DC area. Thanks HN! <comment><USER2> This thread didn't get very active, but I'd love to get some input as well. Specifically for recruiters that work with management (selfishly, director- level and upward) folks. Any ideas there?

</comment><comment><USER3> Pinnacle Group - [https://www.pinnacle1.com/Home](https://www.pinnacle1.com/Home)

They've been straight with me and got me my current gig.</comment>


Boostrap retro theme Geo - <AUTHOR> http://divshot.github.com/geo-bootstrap/

<comment><USER2> I am sorry no one, absolutely no one on this planet, can beat my favorite site by Govind Tiwari:

<http://govindtiwari.blogspot.in/>

And this _is_ (gulps) his site, genuinely.

<comment><USER3> Even worse: <http://www.karl-fritsch.de/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's actually impressive how well you executed that look.

</comment><comment><USER5> Needs background midi music playing Mortal Kombat

<comment><USER6> That would be the icing of the cake!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> 10 points to the person who converts the grid system / divs to a GIANT table layout ;)

</comment><comment><USER8> This is also an awesome website (genuinely quite cool imo). <http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/jam.htm>

</comment><comment><USER9> This is so well done! I just sent it to my team asking if anyone minds if I switch our apps to use this theme instead of our custom theme.

</comment><comment><USER10> I tried to run the site through the GeoCitizer <http://wonder- tonic.com/geocitiesizer/> but it didn't turn out too well. Love the theme though, it just needs more animated gifs and it'd be perfect!

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice execution.

I'm sure some folks in here are too young to remember those days...

</comment><comment><USER12> This is absolutely fantastic. Reminds me of: [http://www.constellation7.org/Constellation- Seven/Josiah/Ind...](http://www.constellation7.org/Constellation- Seven/Josiah/Index.htm)

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks like the Huff Post Labs site:

<http://labs.huffingtonpost.com/>

But less atrocious.

</comment><comment><USER14> I lol'd. <pedantic> I believe that Comic Sans wasn't available in those days. Everything was in Times New Roman for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER15> Needs more <blink> tags.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is just fucking amazing.

</comment><comment><USER16> Really horrible. Thank you

</comment><comment><USER17> I cracked up when it came to the primary action buttons.

</comment><comment><USER18> I so much hoped to find some dancing bananas in there...

</comment><comment><USER19> Wow, I am sooooooo using this!

</comment><comment><USER20> It's a little busy for me.

</comment><comment><USER21> My head hurts.

</comment><comment><USER22> Oh, my eyes...</comment>


Ask HN: Any Solutions to the "Porn Problem"? - <AUTHOR>

I have a close friend who claims to be 'addicted' to internet pornography.  He has been trying to find software or any service to help prevent access to these types of websites.  In his search, he has found that all the one's out on the market are quite easy to bypass and are usually built with a "parent administrator" in mind.  He approached me to see if I knew of any software or could build something to prevent his access to porn.
As a hacker (still consider myself a beginner), this is quite a lot to tackle, but I am honestly intrigued by the challenge.  Personal views aside, I took a purely technical approach to this.  One of the biggest weaknesses with current software is the ease of disabling it, proxy bypassing, and the massive lag it sometimes causes on computers.
Now, despite your views on the issue, I was wondering what creative solutions fellow hackers may have. Is there any way to create a fool-proof anti-porn software or service?  Are there any startups that work in this space and are coming up with solutions to this? <comment><USER2> One slightly un-orthodox solution to that problem is to find a (porn) site that has what you want, get a 1-year subscription, and consciously force yourself to feed your habit exclusively from that one site and never look at any of the other sites again. (This will be easier than it sounds at first, because you have a bowl of paid-for, high-quality content right in front of you).

Most of the addiction behaviour comes from the inconsistent reward schedule that you get when searching for content and sometimes finding some and sometimes not. If you switch this over to a behaviour where, if you feel like it, you look at some content for an hour and then be done with it, you will find that this is not any more addicting than TV or a netflix subscription.

Note that from a cultural/moral standpoint, you may prefer either of the solutions (including getting a filtered DNS connection) - it's really multiple ways to reach the preferred goal (i.e. getting rid of the addiction behaviour) and a matter of taste which one you like best.

An alternative would be to write a proxy that (i) bans all video content outside a handful of whitelisted domains, and (ii) transforms all images outside a handful of whitelisted domains to grayscale.

This will be minimally disruptive to your web browsing experience when it comes to news etc. (since news is just as good when it has only grayscale images) while it should strongly limit the appeal of any primarily visual content.

</comment><comment><USER3> Its not a software issue. The solution is not to self-prescribe a filter, but to self-prescribe alternative (social) activities.

And move the computer to a public place such as hallway, if possible.

</comment><comment><USER4> Using a software filter to "cure" a porn addiction is like hiding drugs from a heroin addict. It's ineffective, because the addict will just find another way to get their fix, and it doesn't address the underlying problem.

Treatment of addiction is relatively uniform, regardless of the object of addiction. The best advice for your friend would be to seek assistance that isn't technical. There are groups like AA for pornography addiction. Getting past the social stigma will be difficult, but once he's past it, I'd imagine things will get a lot easier.

</comment><comment><USER5> Assumption #1: he has an internet connection of his own, using the typical cable/dsl modem => home router => his computer(s) setup.

Assumption #2: there is porn that is not to his taste and he really would prefer not to see.

Fun solution: convince him to give you unsupervised access to his computer and network so you can (you tell him) install filtering software. Tell him you want unsupervised access so that he won't see exactly what you install, so it will be harder for him to disable it.

You then in fact install filtering software on his computer. No doubt he'll find this and easily bypass it. That's OK, because during your unsupervised access you ALSO install custom firmware on his router.

This custom firmware looks for porn, but does _not_ block it. Instead, it randomly replaces a small fraction of the images with images of porn your friend finds disgusting. For instance, if his interest is straight porn with no kinks, get images from some fetish site that features naked fat men defecting on masturbating barely legal boys, or something worse. Go wild here.

This should greatly reduce his interest in porn sites (or greatly broaden his tastes...so I guess there is some risk!).

</comment><comment><USER6> If he is not very technical you could just block the top XXX porn sites using his hosts file.

For that to work he obviously shouldn't be able to change the hosts file (or know about it). He also shouldn't know that you could just as simply access the site using the IP instead of the domain...

Edit: you must obviously block all porn sites that he would try for this to work. You could automate that by just blocking the first 400 results google returns for "porn"/"free porn"/whatever.

</comment><comment><USER7> In The Netherlands there are certain "Christian" ISP's that provider Chinese "Great Firewall" type services and customers of the ISP choose them voluntarily. Could your friend use a similar service?

</comment><comment><USER8> If you set up his router with OpenDNS, they provide filter categories for porn/adult content etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> A social sharing service that shares your entire browsing history on facebook (or any social network), would probably help. Or even just sharing you search history.

</comment><comment><USER10> 1\. Set DNS to OpenDNS with porn filter on.

2\. Watch for attempts to change DNS, then change back.

Not perfect (nothing will be) but should be good enough.

Bear in mind that ultimately if he wants to, he can uninstall the product, get his porn on and put it back on. Maybe charge per install activation?

Having said that, it doesn't sound like his problems are going to be solved by technical measures.

</comment><comment><USER11> A: Get a girlfriend. B: if he is really that hopeless, enable a child filter on his browser, and just lose the password, to make a re-install of the browser mandatory.

Sounds like he just needs some therapy in the end.

</comment><comment><USER12> I suggest you buy your "close" friend some "sandpaper" gloves, and then tape them to his wrists: [http://www.amazon.com/Gloves-Sandpaper-Finish-Wrist- Dozen/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Gloves-Sandpaper-Finish-Wrist- Dozen/dp/B0001YXNEU)

That should put him off... well, hopefully, unless he develops a sandpaper gloves wanking addiction ;-)

</comment><comment><USER13> Consult a therapist

</comment><comment><USER14> Software / Service is just treating the symptoms, not the underlying problem.

</comment><comment><USER15> Does have any children? That cures some, especially having a daughter.

</comment><comment><USER16> get a girlfriend.

</comment><comment><USER17> Ask "him" to read chapter 4 of "how the brain changes itself". I think deprivation alone will not be a long term solution. It's important to know how this addiction progresses. There are many non-preaching forums about porn addiction. I don't think it's a software problem.

</comment><comment><USER18> A "close friend"... cummon, its anonymous enough here, just say "me" next time.

DD-WRT is good, set some filters on it and then enter a pass of random text. You'll think twice about all the effort of having to reflash it to get on those sites.

Doesn't work though since the real problem is stimulation addiction. As soon as I avoided porn for a few weeks I was seeking fresh web sites on my hobby (language learning) click click click filling up the same hours and accomplishing nothing productive by never studying anything in depth but just continuing the "hunt".

</comment><comment><USER19> bitches? that's kind of expensive</comment>


Sex with Pepper the Robot Prohibited by Creators - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/no-sex-of-any-kind-for-pepper-the-robot-say-creators/ <comment><USER2> "Buddy, they don't even let me fuck it" says spokesperson.</comment>


Shared Workforce - On-demand Human Intelligence to Moderate Content - <AUTHOR> http://www.sharedworkforce.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> This product has been out for a little while, but its the first time I've come across it.

They are still in beta (no pricing listed yet), but I especially like the fact that the turnaround time is so low.</comment>


Ask HN: Principle of Least Privilege in Rails? - <AUTHOR>

Hello, I'm still flushing out a migration from php to rails and was wondering about security practice of "principle of least privilege"
In php we ran apache under apache:www, we had a deploy user called deploy.  All files/folders would be deploy:deploy for ownership.  Whenever an application required write access to a file or folder (like logs, user uploads, caches, etc) we would `chmod g+w some_file_or_dir` and `chgrp www some_file_or_dir`  The idea being you strictly control what is written should someone exploit apache/your web app.
I was able to set this up with Passenger by specifying `PassengerDefaultUser apache` and `PassengerDefaultGroup www` after disabling user switching.  Again we are not hosting other agency's, all apps are owned by us hence our single deploy user.  I also set /var/www/.passenger folder to be owned by www.  Finally for all the rails apps I had to set the group to www for the logs folder.  If there were some file uploads I set www to that folder as well.
I'm a developer first and foremost and don't claim to be a system admin, this was just a practice they beat into me over the years of php dev.
Does anyone do a setup similar to this?  Would this have limited the recent YAML exploit?
Is this a valid practice or being overly concerned, thoughts?
I have not looked into this for unicorn based deployments like rbenv/37signals suggests and I believe github/twitter also use unicorn.  I started with passenger since that was a similar setup to php/apache vs nginx/unicorn <comment><USER2> It's possible to mount the file system containing the production build of a Rails app (after "rake assets:precompile") completely read-only. In fact, Heroku, one of the more common cloud-management providers for Rails apps, does exactly that --- which means that if you want to support file uploads, you've got to stick the contents somewhere other than the file system. (Amazon S3 buckets are one popular choice.[1])

[1] <https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/paperclip-s3>

That said, this sort of setup might have made the recent YAML bugs somewhat more awkward to exploit, but it wouldn't defang them. What those exploits allow an attacker to do to an unpatched app is cause it to run arbitrary code immediately and directly; there's no second step. Even if they can't write the file system, they have any number of ways of getting information back to the attacker. So... get patched, I guess.</comment>


RAND Study Examines 200 Real-World 'Zero-Day' Software Vulnerabilities - <AUTHOR> http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1751.html <comment><AUTHOR> Many highlights in this thread on Twitter:

[https://twitter.com/dguido/status/839843696078127104](https://twitter.com/dguido/status/839843696078127104)</comment>


Zoom Has a Dark Side – and an FBI Warning - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2020/04/03/826129520/a-must-for-millions-zoom-has-a-dark-side-and-an-fbi-warning <comment><USER3> The ability for someone to crash your Zoom meeting was _extensively_ discussed here yesterday, and Zoom already has all the necessary tools to prevent it, but people aren't necessarily aware of them:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22762173](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22762173)

But a fear-mongering article like this has no place on HN. A "dark side"? "FBI warning"? This is pure propaganda and sensationalism -- that if someone joins your unprotected Zoom meeting, they can stream whatever they want (obviously) which could include pornography.

You might as well issue an FBI warning about phones because someone can randomly dial you and say gross stuff.

I don't have a problem with HN articles about legitimate security concerns around a newly popular tool, but linking it to pornography is pure fearmongering at its worst.

This article doesn't deserve to be here.

<comment><USER4> Just today it comes out that _Safari_ would let sites silently spy on users through the camera and microphone.

Orders of magnitude worse than anything Zoom ever did. Will it be reported with the same level of hair rending?

<comment><USER5> You're right that that's bad. For me it comes down not to mistakes but to intentions. I might be wrong, but it seems like it's in Apple's DNA to do their best to provide privacy and security, while Zoom so far seems to me to have a Facebook-like "growth at all costs" mindset. I can forgive mistakes – every tech company (and all humans) will make them – but their shenanigans with the installer, for example, seems less like a mistake than a decision made with bad intentions.

That said, I also agree with some of the sentiment here that it feels like there are a dozen articles per day posted about Zoom that are nothing more than hyperbole or worse, simply an aggregation of links to articles posted earlier in the week. I say this as someone who has argued against Zoom being used in my workplace and who refuses to install it on my machine (I use it through Chrome): I've simply started to roll my eyes each time I see a new Zoom post.

<comment><USER4> I agree with everything you wrote. The salient point for me is that it's no longer a question of the technical merit, it's just a political judgement against Zoom being Good or Evil.

It's easy for technologists to forget that video-conferencing was terribly, horribly broken not because of some terribly difficult technological challenge, but because the average user simply couldn't get it to work.

Security always involves either bootstrapping of an existing trust, or some level of ease-of-use trade off.

For example, the calculus for "I need this meeting to start on time" and "My meeting password needs more entropy against brute force attacks" necessarily comes down on the side of starting the meeting in most threat environments.

But in the end I just don't see Zoom as the evil empire, and I'm deeply suspicious of articles which try to convince me otherwise. I'm not sure where your perception of "growth at all costs" comes from.

From what I can tell, they make one of the best conferencing products on the market in terms of quality and usability. I think the privacy and security issues are significantly overblown.

For example, why refuse to install their client software? It seems highly unobtrusive, it's not malware, nor spyware, nor adware... it doesn't ever nag me or get in the way, or randomly start sapping CPU or give annoying update prompts. It's quick and simple to install and uninstall. Overall it seems nicely written.

I see the "dirty tricks" they had to pull to make their install simpler overall as reasonable hacks aimed at improving their end user experience and increasing the percentage of users who are successfully able to get into a meeting.

Again, I think we tend to underestimate how hard using computers can be for so many people. Making video conferencing accessible to quarantined populations is pretty crucial right now.

Zoom doesn't have a monopoly position to leverage like some do to pre-install their product on billions of devices. So they need every little bit they can find to make on boarding fast and easy.

They screwed up on their marketing of end-to-end encryption and should be fined by the FCC for that. I never saw that marketing claim, but nor would I stop using their product knowing that it's not decentralized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This has been a better study of media behavior than investigation of zoom.

Apparently there isn't enough going on in the world so every outlet feels the need to repeat previously disclosed information with less detail and more pearl clutching. At least npr was decent enough to link to some of the better sources.

Meanwhile we still get another few potential RCEs in Windows every month and the same editors are like "whatcha gonna do, bill gates amirite."

<comment><USER7> It's attacking the 'new' leader. Windows had its moment in the sun, in terms of shitty practices. I remember when Bill Gates's philanthropy was attacked because he did such shitty things at microsoft. Hell, M$ is still an appropriate abbreviation of that company in some places.

Now it's zoom, last year it was facebook, next year it will be someone else. Don't know what value this comment adds, just an observation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't understand this bashing of a fairly good tool. There are worse tools (when it comes to privacy, especially when it comes to privacy)

<comment><USER9> It's because people are insisting on it's use.

e.g. College Lectures giving online lectures. Employers hosting meetings.

Normally you pick software to your preference but things like social media have strong network effects. This is the battle thats being fought.

If you're going to make me use something I'm going to push back if it's not up to scratch. Otherwise I wouldn't care.

<comment><USER7> But it is being used because of the networking effect. Just to speak from higher education - do you think colleges had zero connection to zoom before this?

Anecdotal, sure, but I'm betting it's a good indicator - I work at a small, small, small, under-resourced community college in 'average' America. Zoom has been a thing on our campus for at least two years. We never really used it, because we didn't _need_ to. Until about three weeks ago.

We chose it during our crisis planning sessions, because they were already in our space. They got in our space years ago through clever partnerships and integrations with our learning management system (online course delivery platforms). They were the 'preferred provider' according to the LMS teams, both on campus and nationally. They have automatic integration with our accessibility tools for live transcriptions/captions and interpreting. They were the suggested provider by our professional organizations related to disabilities, under-represented students, and ease-of-use technology. Therefore, we use them exclusively now.

Students never saw any of that back-end conversation, because it is literally irrelevant to their experience. But it was there, and it 100% impacted our conscious choice to move to zoom for live meetings.

If we were targeted for all of this, with a student population of <2000, I guaran-damn-tee larger institutions were.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So far, those open AA meetings had all their access tokens advertised on the web - as open AA meetings do. Yes, there's a "WarDialing" app that can find Zoom calls, but I've seen no reports of calls that had passwords set being accessed or bombed. I don't follow the big media that much, but looking at the other links on the page, NPR seems to be in major "Hair's On Fire" mode - <USER2> that typical? I guess that's how to get clicks.

<comment><USER7> Generally NPR is slower and cleaner in their reporting (except when it comes to fair coverage of political candidates). This is disappointing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Schools seem to be moving away from it in droves, warranted or not. My 5 year has a whole-class zoom today and if someone nefarious dropped by it would be seriously bad news. The teacher said this is the last one though before they move to MS Teams. Yes, they could just lock it down, but that is onerous for a big group (I am guessing, haven't tried it), and also the teacher wouldn't feel confident about it without experience. Which they won't get because DC public schools has already sent out a memo recommending to discontinue usage.

</comment><comment><USER12> Is William S. Sessions coming for all of us now?

</comment><comment><USER13> This is really hammed up by NPR. The "FBI warning" is more or less "don't use open calls if you don't want random strangers to enter your call".

A couple days ago, more scrupulous reporters were able to explain this succintly and help people avoid it.

Yes, Zoom should amend their bug bounty policy to allow for responsible disclosure, rather than _non-disclosure_ , but it's not like they're alone in that failing, nor most of the other failings involved in this dogpile.

I like it when vendors are held to account, but the way that this has been reported over the last few days has seemed like more of a shakedown than a genuine consumer reporting effort.</comment>


Offensive campervans and some interesting "information" - <AUTHOR>

This company offends me:  http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/john-webb-founder-wicked-campers-eliminate-misogynistic-and-degrading-slogans-and-imagery<p>Interesting: http://www.wickedcampers.com.au/administrator and an "au" username: JSite -> dispatch() @ /home/au/public_html/index.php:42  and then there is https://wickedoz.wickedcampers.com/cgi-sys/defaultwebpage.cgi and also https://wickedoz.wickedcampers.com:2083 as well as MySQL on port 3306, open to the world. <comment><USER2> In homage to the "keep reddit on reddit" comment posted earlier today, I feel the need to reiterate this here now:

NYPA.</comment>


The Internet plans net neutrality 'day of action' on September 10th - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/4/6104505/reddit-kickstarter-and-others-plan-net-neutrality-day-of-action

<comment><USER2> Reddit thread where Katie from pornhub announces that porn sites will join: [http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/2fg8ky/large_us_tech_f...](http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/2fg8ky/large_us_tech_firms_plan_go_slow_day_in_protest/ck8zhi5)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Find the widget at [http://battleforthenet.com/sept10th](http://battleforthenet.com/sept10th)</comment>


Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-16/travis-kalanick-is-getting-out-of-his-uber-holdings-uber-quickly <comment><USER2> From TFA:

> The 43-year-old's remaining stake in the ride-hailing company now > constitutes about a fifth of his $3 billion fortune, according to the > Bloomberg Billionaires Index, down from about 75% before the lockup.

To be fair, if I had 75% of my net worth in a single asset, I'd also try to diversify. My wife and I both have lots of stock in the companies we work for, due to RSUs and employee stock purchase programs; and although we both believe our companies are a good investment _overall_ , we regularly sell shares just so that we don't have so many of our eggs in those two baskets. 20% is a perfectly reasonable target I think.

<comment><USER3> Although you make a good point about general portfolio diversification, the difference between a "normal" employee and a co-founder is fairly large in this instance. Co-founders are supposed to have confidence in the business they built - if they don't, why should other investors?

<comment><USER4> I don't agree with this logic: you can be confident but prudent. Self- confidence leads to bias, I wouldn't consider it a bad sign that the co- founder stays prudent.

However, going from 75% to 20% means that something changed, and _that 's_ not a good sign

<comment><USER5> What do you think changed for the worse beyond he's no longer part of the company, no longer party to the 'inner circle' decision making, and no longer has a vested interest in maintaining the perception everything is perfect?

<comment><USER6> Uber's stock price has been steadily falling since it went public. There are many people who believe it still has a long way to fall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's to be expected. He was ousted from the company, has no control now so there's little reason why he should be bullish on a stock run by other people.

Plus, the future isn't so clear and the markets are at all time highs and he has other company that may require liquidity in the coming years. Better be in cash.

<comment><USER8> _the markets are at all time highs_

Isn't the world economy built on the idea that markets will always go up? Every year should be an all time high, otherwise we're in recession which is (apparently) tragedy to be avoided at all costs, no?

<comment><USER9> It's not just that it's at all time highs. PE ratios are also at all time highs: that's the Price to earnings ratio. There's a number of indicators right now that are at all time highs like the Warren buffet ratio (GDP/earnings), all pointing saying this market is really expensive.

This is the most hated bull market ever. None of the experts are buying heavily into this market (it's all stock buybacks that's driving this market up).

So, you can see why everyone is uneasy about these extremely high PE ratios.

<comment><USER10> Since you mention Warren Buffet, I will say that what makes me most nervous about the market is that collectively everyone seems to be concluding that it's overheated. By the time the hordes figure it out, it's already happened.

<comment><USER11> This recession talk seems to be happening suspiciously close to an election year. It's almost as if someone is trying to concoct a self-fulling prophecy.

<comment><USER12> This was the case last year too... In 2017 and 18, there was discussions of melt up and then melt down...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My questions about the viability of Uber aside, I stick to the story I've heard repeated in many forms "executives sell shares for any number of reasons, but only buy for one reason".

Accordingly I don't put much meaning behind stories about an executive selling.

<comment><USER14> What would be the only one reason for executives to buy?

<comment><USER13> They think the stock will go up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Travis Kalanick and Adam Neumann should co-author a book entitled "Making Billions - No Profitability Required".

<comment><USER15> Your company doesn't have to make a profit for it to be (legitimately) worth a lot of money...Amazon is a great example.

<comment><USER3> Amazon does make a profit though. And when they weren't, it was by choice and they were not burning billions in investor dollars to do it. But yes, I probably should've said "Viability" instead of "Profitability".

<comment><USER16> Every unprofitable growth company says they're doing it "by choice". And every unprofitable growth company burns investor dollars (where else would the dollars come from?). During Amazon's unprofitable years many people were saying the exact same things about Amazon that people say about Uber now.

Of course that doesn't mean every unprofitable growth company is Amazon, but Amazon's success means companies won't stop trying to emulate it.

<comment><USER17> > _During Amazon's unprofitable years many people were saying the exact same > things about Amazon that people say about Uber now._

Maybe "people were saying" the same things about Amazon then as Uber now, but that doesn't mean they are correct. Completely different business models. Amazon had _billions_ in free cash flow going back to 2005, just no accounting profits. Uber has negative free cash flow. We hear the same thing about Tesla ("they're reinvesting profits!"), but they have something like $10B _negative_ free cash flow since inception.

All profitable companies are alike; each unprofitable company is unprofitable in its own way.

<comment><USER18> People look at profits with a narrow focus. It's entirely possible for a widely profitable company to have no future than a company reporting a narrow loss. It's also possible that a company has reached it's end of days for lack of a way to _sustain_ profits.

Hypothetically speaking, if there were a reporting mechanism that clearly separated operational expenditure from re-investments, Amazon and Uber would likely be in two different ends altogether. More importantly, Amazon didn't just reinvest into existing products, they were also adding entire new categories of businesses (AWS), new models of operation (2-day shipping) and relentlessly adding new categories (wider selection) - all at the same time.

It's possible that Uber might be doing something similar, I'm just not that aware of the breakdown of Uber's expenditures and losses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> He's moving his investment over to CityStorage Systems

[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/city-storage- systems](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/city-storage-systems)

</comment><comment><USER20> Steve Jobs dumped all his apple stock when he was ousted in 1985

<comment><USER21> I was thinking about this also. Perhaps he will come back in when it hits rock bottom

<comment><USER20> He's been dead for more than three days so I doubt he'll be back.

Of, you mean Kalanick. I doubt it but who knows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is not shocking at all. Anyone surprised by it has not been paying much attention to Uber and or Kalanick over the past 18 months (I am not saying that's a BAD thing!).

</comment><comment><USER23> I wonder what the tax rate on his windfall, 50%?

<comment><USER24> Try 15%, at a maximum.

<comment><USER25> 20%, you mean, for federal long term capital gains.

Plus 3.8% for Net Investment Income Tax.

Plus, he resides in CA, so tack on ~12% (he's making so much marginality doesn't _really_ affect things) in state taxes.

~36% in total, which is a lower effective tax rate than many people here, but not quite as outrageous.

<comment><USER26> There's actually another 1% in CA on income over $1 million in California, so it's 13.3% + 23.8% = 37.1%

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Actually getting fired by the VCs might have been a blessing for him.

He can liquidate his holdings without worrying much about misleading the market and a potential law suit from shareholders if he was still the CEO or a director.

</comment><comment><USER28> While there may be more upside to this market, the probability of his fortune being halved are much higher than them being doubled in the next 12-24 months. He could always buy back in now that he's liquid, but when the bottom drops out of the market and there aren't any bids (especially for unprofitable monopoly plays like Uber) he could find himself a lot poorer really fast.

</comment><comment><USER29> A bit meta, but I wonder how this became a story. Is someone constantly analyzing data for this kind of thing? How did it get surfaced? And, in general, what kinds of news services trigger off of polling public data?

<comment><USER30> Large insiders have to send forms to the SEC of their purchases/sales of equity in their company and then the SEC makes it public

</comment></comment><comment> enahs-sf I wonder what his effective tax rate will be on these sales.

<comment><USER30> Tax rate is 20% on long term capital gains. Will be a nightmare to figure out the cost basis for everything

<comment><USER31> There is a startup exemption for investments that happened below $50 million valuation, that he might qualify for.

<comment><USER32> That's only on the first $10M of gain, so it's not a huge percentage for him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I wouldn't want to think about how a company is doing that kicked me out. I would sell it ASAP and focus on the future.

</comment><comment><USER34> At first I didn't understand what the title meant, then I remembered the original meaning of uber.

<comment><USER11> Yes, journalists and editors can't resist puns these days. To me it cheapens their credibility on that particular article, like I shouldn't take it too seriously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I would too. I can spend money, I can't spend shares.

</comment><comment><USER36> Interesting that the currrent CEO is buying Uber stock while founders are dumping it.

It's unclear whether the stock Dara Khosrowshahi is buying comes at a discount, though.

<comment><USER3> Seems pretty reasonable. Travis is no longer steering the ship, so he gets his money out. Dara is in charge and presumably has confidence in his own abilities, so he buys shares at what are probably a low (given all the controversies and hiccups in the past two years), assuming Uber can actually get to profitability.

<comment><USER37> Hundreds of people who are not Uber CEO's are continuing to hold Uber stock. Not controlling a company is not a common reason to sell.

The article's implication - that Kalanick is simply pessimistic about his investment in Uber - seems more reasonable.

<comment><USER3> Diversification. Having 75% of your wealth in a single asset is a terrible idea for anyone _except_ the co-founder/CEO of a business, for whom continuing to have a skewed portfolio can be a signal of confidence.

Once you're not longer the person running the show, it makes a lot more sense to diversify, as you probably don't give a damn whether you're signalling confidence or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Isn't that just the money he would need to pay in taxes??? So he has to sell?

<comment><USER39> The United States doesn't have a wealth tax (yet). Once you have something, you pay no taxes on it forever.

<comment><USER38> When the stock vested at IPO sometime earlier this year, he had to pay at least 30% taxes on it - in the US. That is not money he could have had without actually selling some. No?

This is a serious question, so I'm not understanding the downvotes.

When the company i worked for IPO'd I had to pay taxes on the stock when the paper money turned into real money.

<comment><USER40> > When the stock vested at IPO sometime earlier this year, he had to pay at > least 30% taxes on it - in the US. That is not money he could have had > without actually selling some. No?

You generally don't have to pay taxes on stock options until you actually have income from them - ie sell. There are some exceptions, and in some cases paying at-vest can actually reduce your overall tax burden (by excercising options you don't intend to sell right away, you can start the clock to turn them into long-term capital gains when you do).

<comment><USER38> Did the Uber guy have options or restricted stock units? For restricted stock units one has to pay tax at time of vesting/IPO afaik. But as founder things are probably different...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> man knows when to jump ship. not a big surprise indeed.</comment>