Welcome to the World of Software Defined Radio - <AUTHOR> https://www.robertputt.co.uk/2016/12/04/welcome-to-the-world-of-software-defined-radio/ <comment><USER2> SDR is fun and the way of the future. I'd say we're getting close to a very low cost SDR that also brings together usability and excellent RX/TX and filtering capability. We're not there yet and so my Kenwood TS-2000 and Yaesu 857D and 817ND still kicks the butt of low cost SDR's.

You'll find as you set up the base station your focus quickly moves to antennas. And then you become obsessed with antennas.

Definitely get into amateur satellites. [http://amsat.org/status/](http://amsat.org/status/) Go get a cheap handheld arrow dual band antenna with built-in diplexer to get started. I use macdoppler and also Ham Radio Deluxe's Satellite module. They are Mac and Windows respectively - I use them both for different things. Mostly I use macdoppler to make the doppler corrections automatically on my Yaesu 817ND and I use HRD for my TS-2000.

Also, build yourself a HF monoband dipole antenna tuned to 14.3MHZ and then listen in to the ham band from 14.00 to 14.150 for digital/cw and from 14.150 to 14.300 for voice. It'll cost you about 20 bucks for the coax and a few bucks for the wire. You don't need a balun if you're using low enough power for TX.

If you want to be a bit naughty (this is HN afterall) google around and learn about FLTSATCOM 7 and 8. It's an old US milsat that is basically an open repeater. They're geosynchronous birds that are used for encrypted comms but Brazilian criminal gangs periodically use them for free communication. They build antennas out of spare parts and use down-converters/up-converters to deal with the 250mhz frequency which is outside normal VHF/UHF. With your SDR you can build your own cheap home depot antenna and listen in without a converter. Just do absolutely not broadcast because you'll get arrested - someone already has. You can sometimes pick up used special forces directional portable antennas for a reasonable price on ebay for 250mhz.

I'm a radio amateur, callsign WT1J. If you're into this stuff and find yourself able to TX on HF or satellite, drop me a line and we can set up a schedule.

Mark.

<comment><USER3> I'm a noob and yeah antennas seem crucial. I wish there was some book I could read on the subject or some recommended websites. Maybe HN can recommend something. There are many tutorials how to build an antenna for specific purpose, but I'd like to gain some basic understanding of how do you design it.

<comment><USER4> Take a look at the _ARRL Antenna Book_

<comment><USER2> What he said. It's sitting on a desk next to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> SDR has been an endless source of fun for me. I have a half a dozen different rtl dongles hooked up to raspberry pis and my laptop at any one time. Most recently I wrote a program to read the 900MHz broadcasts from my electric and water meters [1]. I'm also using an existing program to monitor our gas meter [2]. rtl_433 is another fun one [3].

[1] [https://github.com/shaunhey/ea_receiver](https://github.com/shaunhey/ea_receiver) [2] [https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr](https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr) [3] [https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433](https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a super cool application for this, unfortunately our water meters and stuff in the UK are very basic mechanical devices in most cases still which sucks so none of this fun for me... This does remind me I probably should check out a few other things though, such as ZigBee protocol on my home automation stuff.

<comment><USER6> The SMETS1 and SMETS2 smart meters that you will be getting soon will have ZigBee.... but secured and tied down so although you will be able to sniff the comms... everything will be encrypted.

...We're far too privacy and security conscious in the UK to allow plaintext personal data go over the airwaves...

<comment><USER7> Been meaning to look into the smart meters here in the U.K. after having them fitted recently. I had horrible thoughts of it all being clear text, so it's nice to know that no one can snoop on my gas and electric usage. I had assumed they were at least working on the 2.4Ghz frequency as it'd dropped out a few times due to interference with other kit.

<comment><USER6> All comms are end-to-end encrypted, each meter has unique certifications and keys and the data also tends to be stored encrypted on FLASH. The certification also requires the standards authorities to view the source and have strict guidelines on security, robustness, sanitisation of data, etc.

<comment><USER8> > All comms are end-to-end encrypted... The certification also requires > ...strict guidelines on security...

So what you're saying is that, in the UK, your water meter and electrical appliances are required to have a higher level of security than your online browsing is _allowed_ to have?

Gosh

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encryption_ban_proposal_in_the...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encryption_ban_proposal_in_the_United_Kingdom)

<comment><USER6> hehe... effectively, yes, oh the irony....

You have to consider tho, that the smart meters don't operate on the public internet, its all on a proprietary WAN (government specified).

There are many, many wacky design decisions regarding the UKs smart metering design but they do at least make an effort regarding security and robustness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you like SDR, you should definitely have a look at GNU Radio Companion (GRC) [1]. A nice introduction into the methods of GRC is given by Michael Ossmann [2], which is really worth checking out.

[1] [http://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/GNURadioC...](http://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/GNURadioCompanion) [2] [http://greatscottgadgets.com/sdr/1/](http://greatscottgadgets.com/sdr/1/)

<comment><USER5> I can't recommend those videos enough, great stuff!

<comment><USER10> Pardon me, what videos?

<comment><USER11> [http://greatscottgadgets.com/sdr/1/](http://greatscottgadgets.com/sdr/1/), probably...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> ___" I'll be honest I have always thought radio related stuff is a bit of a strange and boring hobby, the electronics side fine, but sitting and chatting to people in a slow and often poor quality conversation didn't really seem that interesting to me"_ __

\---

You can send data over radio links and do other very interesting things... All without using a network! Just two nodes transmitting and receiving data via antennas at the speed of light. You don't have to talk at all. A lot of people don't get this when they think about radio.

Radio is not just old, retired guys talking about health problems on VHF/UHF repeaters. Rather, it's a world-wide network, that has no infrastructure dependencies, transmitting data at the speed of light.

<comment><USER2> What many people don't realize is that right now, as you're reading this, you're probably using radio. Either wifi or 4G cellphone. Seems like an obvious statement, but RF engineers have done such a great job at making IP over the air reliable with 802.11X and 4G/LTE that we can forget about the fact that we're using it.

The problem with this though is security. We tend to focus as security engineers too much on stuff riding on top of IP and forget about the underlying layer 1 protocols. And so that's for me what makes radio really interesting - especially dark corners that haven't been looked at for some time because they've been forgotten about.

<comment><USER3> If you have proper security on a higher abstraction layer you don't care at all how the data gets transmitted, who can listen to it or modify it.

<comment><USER4> Note that on the Amateur frequencies, it's illegal to "Obfuscate" your transmissions. You can't even use coded language.

<comment><USER3> Didn't know that. Surely some people tried steganography? Or is there too much noise to try something like that? (and thanks for the antenna book recommendation)

<comment><USER13> That would count as "obfuscation".

<comment><USER3> It's really hard to prove steganography if you are hiding encrypted data (which looks like noise if it's properly encrypted)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I really wish there were cheaper Tx capable SDRs, as they look like a lot of fun! The cheapest ones I've seen at the moment seem to be around $200 hackrfs from aliexpress.

<comment><USER5> While not SDR, there are some cheaper alternatives if you're just looking to mix code and radio transmitting.

[1] [https://www.adafruit.com/products/3076](https://www.adafruit.com/products/3076) [2] [http://www.ebay.com/itm/162086931088](http://www.ebay.com/itm/162086931088)

<comment><USER14> Yeah that's a good point I've got a module which uses [http://www.silabs.com/products/wireless/EZRadioPRO/Pages/si4...](http://www.silabs.com/products/wireless/EZRadioPRO/Pages/si446x.aspx)

The chip itself covers 119–1050 MHz, but the modules I have, have filters on to allow only narrower ranges.

<comment><USER5> I got excited there for a second, I thought you linked the Si468x, which I have been thinking about tinkering around with. It is just a receiver, but it does HD radio which interests me for some reason (it certainly isn't the audio quality :))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A fun way to use one of these is to decode images sent from weather satellites. We built a system to decode images from a Russian Meteor-M2 satellite by using a RTL-SDR, home made antenna and GNU radio (image gallery : [http://meteor.amphinicy.com/](http://meteor.amphinicy.com/)). Unfortunately, we are located in the city center with a lot of RF noise and interference so images are not as clean as they could be.

</comment><comment><USER16> Funny that, I've played all week-end with a RTL stick[0], and a £30 'weather station' thing from amazon[1]. Using rtl_433[2] it took no time at all to be able to receive what the sensor pods are sending over, it's really pretty cool!

I've also ordered some 433mhz wall/light switches, I hope to be able to receive/transmit and log all of that stuff, from what I can see, with a bit of tweaking you can integrate quite a few vendor's kit, and even integrate it with amazon Alexa for voice control.

Also started to 'explore' the spectrum using gqrx/gnuradio, I can see how it could become addictive :-)

[0]: [http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152142033580](http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152142033580)

[1]: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00SIZZBDK](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00SIZZBDK) [ whoops sorry went up in price, cyber week is over :( ]

[2]: [http://www.rtl-sdr.com/using-rtl-sdr-rtl_433-decode- various-...](http://www.rtl-sdr.com/using-rtl-sdr-rtl_433-decode-various- devices/)

</comment><comment><USER17> ...You can totally listen in to HAMs using RTL-SDR. 10m, 6m, 2m, 1.25m, 70cm, 33cm, and 23cm all fall within the ranges mentioned.

As much as the HAM radio is traditionally an HF affair, the easiest to obtain licence (Technician class) actually pretty much only allows for VHF and UHF transmission. Not only that, but even among Generals and Extras, 10, 6, and 2 are very popular, especially for local communication (usually through a repeater), whereas HF is more commonly used for DXing.

You can even listen in to APRS, which is message stream that carries a lot of interesting data (mostly GPS stuff, but you'll catch a few text, email, or general messages through it every once in a while).

<comment><USER2> Yes that's about right. For technician's 2 meters and 70cm are by far the most popular. Just tune into a local repeater using a $50 handheld and you can chat all day. You can also use echolink and IRLP to chat world-wide via your local repeater or even connect to a repeater from your smartphone or PC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I will leap as soon as I can get something like the [https://xtrx.io/](https://xtrx.io/) with a mini PCIe interface or expresscard interface. I want to do the processing on my laptop without the limitation of a slow bus.

Also I would love some solution to nicely expose the ufl connectors. expresscard would seem a better choice to me that mini PCIe, to connect antennas on the side of the laptop or the back of the desktop when using a PCIe to expresscard adapter.

<comment><USER19> I could only dream of having this in my thinkpad able to do some cool mesh networking/APRS strait in my machine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Think this bookmark of an intro to SDR is appropriate

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWfU1G3Jq4w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWfU1G3Jq4w)

</comment><comment><USER21> How do Ham radio operators feel about SDR? (In general)

Do they think it's interesting and cool, or do they reject it for being different and inferior vs. more expensive and sensitive equipment?

<comment><USER12> It depends on who you ask.

The younger generation who have ECE/CS degrees love SDR. So does the military and the commercial/corporate radio industry. Some of the older generation frown upon SDR as voodoo magic with too many computer/network dependencies.

There is a general distrust (among older hams) of computer/network technology and especially anything that depends on a non-human (computer program) to modulate or demodulate a message.

For example, you can send Morse Code with a Carrier Wave and a simple switch (on and off) that you built from wood scraps and copper. You don't need an external thing (program, software, device, etc.) to do that for you. So there are less dependencies and in general it is much simpler to reason about and use. When the shit hits the fan, you want simple, reliable things.

The problem is, most humans don't know Morse Code. So they can't decode a message anymore. Thus the reliance on computers and software.

The efficiency gains are hard to argue with as well. You can do things with SDR that would be impossible or far too costly in hardware... Like resurrecting and communicating with a 36 year-old satellite [http://www.rtl- sdr.com/rebooting-isee-3-usrp-software-define...](http://www.rtl- sdr.com/rebooting-isee-3-usrp-software-defined-radios/)

<comment><USER17> Pretty much. There's a lot of people doing cool stuff over the radio, but the conventional wisdom is that if it wouldn't work in an emergency, you can't rely on it. So while you can rely on computers somewhat, be prepared to jump on SSB/CW/FM in the worst cases (ie, you only have power for your radio, nothing else).

And relying on the internet for _anything_ is an absolute no-no, at least among the emergency people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just got my Ham license a couple weeks ago and picked up an updated version of the SDR dongle he's using a few days ago[0][1]. I've just started playing with it but even if you're not that into radio, it's worth $20 and a couple hours with to explore the invisible radio frequency world around us.

[0] Be sure to get one with a TCXO (Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator) which reduces frequency drift.

[1] His link actually goes to the newer, improved, Mini 2+.

</comment><comment><USER22> I am interested in using a SDR for exploring the PHY in software. This includes having to sniff the GSM, bluetooth etc. I have a Nooelec SDR USB dongle but I am yet to experiment with it. I have used to listen to FM radio and that's it.

I am thinking of starting decoding FM radio by myself to understand the basics.I do not want to use GNU radio except for better understanding. I would like to learn and have an understanding of things from scratch so that I get an intuitive feel when I am developing sniffers. Is this a good way to start? I really love wireless protocols but have worked from link layer upwards and would love to understand wireless PHY implementations.

</comment><comment><USER23> For those interested in ADSB#, I believe it was renamed ADSB Spy and is now included with SDR# available at airspy.com.

SDR# has a bit of a messy history and at one time was completely open source but was later closed after some dispute between the developers (to the best of my knowledge).

If you look hard enough you can still find the source code of the older versions of SDR# and ADSB# which is handy if you want to learn how they work, although its all C# .NET and there is some wild stuff going on to try and squeeze enough performance out of the code. This is where I started learning though being a .NET developer, and from there moved on to GNU Radio and now learning C++.

Fascinating subject.

</comment><comment><USER24> I have been through a number of SDRs - Softrock, RTLSDR, HackRF, and more recently I have a Red Pitaya ([http://redpitaya.com/](http://redpitaya.com/)) and am ICOM 7300 ([http://www.icomamerica.com/en/products/amateur/hf/7300/defau...](http://www.icomamerica.com/en/products/amateur/hf/7300/default.aspx)), which is a traditional looking radio with SDR at its core.

The flexibility offered by doing all the work in software is ground- breaking... really only limited by imagination.

</comment><comment><USER25> Apparently antirez is a radio enthusiast.

[https://github.com/antirez/dump1090](https://github.com/antirez/dump1090)

<comment><USER26> Yes, and contrary to the article it has a google maps display, too. Try "./dump1090 --net --interactive" and open localhost:8080. Would be neat if it could query some API to find out the flight's origin and destination, etc (flightradar24 maybe? do they have an API?)

<comment><USER27> The web interface on the dump1090 fork shipped by FlightAware has links to lookup flight information for each aircraft:

[http://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/build](http://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/build)

Google started blocking the mechanism used by the dump1090 map display. It might work if you have used it previously but not for new users: [http://discussions.flightaware.com/ads-b-flight- tracking-f21...](http://discussions.flightaware.com/ads-b-flight- tracking-f21/dump1090-google-maps-not-displaying-publicly-t37546.html)

The FlightAware fork now uses an OpenLayers map instead: [https://discussions.flightaware.com/ads-b-flight- tracking-f2...](https://discussions.flightaware.com/ads-b-flight- tracking-f21/announcing-piaware-3-t37681.html)

<comment><USER26> Thanks for the link, that looks nice! I used dump1090 for the first time this weekend and simply ran it from localhost, it worked fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> On Linux there's Cubic SDR (among others). [http://cubicsdr.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](http://cubicsdr.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)

Make sure to use it with a supported device. The device in the article is supported I think (by the SoapyRTLSDR module).

</comment><comment><USER29> I have a KiwiSDR going here on the HF band:

[http://126.96.36.199:8073](http://184.108.40.206:8073)

Also wrote a GNU Radio based scanner that will work with the SDR dongles:

[https://github.com/madengr/ham2mon](https://github.com/madengr/ham2mon)

</comment><comment><USER30> The University of Twente SDR is pretty neat too: [http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/](http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/)

</comment><comment><USER31> Can't you decode OTA TV? I know GNU radio was doing that years ago, but not in real time yet. I would think that's possible now.

<comment><USER32> The cheap RTL_SDR dongles are actually sold as OTA TV tuners. It's how I watch TV.

<comment><USER32> Edit: Apparently I'm wrong, and the DVB-T decoding is actually done in hardware.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/comments/368s1n/how_does_a_d...](https://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/comments/368s1n/how_does_a_device_with_32mhz_of_bandwidth_decode/)?

Nonetheless, you can receive TV with a higher-end SDR, ala [https://medium.com/@rxseger/receiving-atsc-digital- televisio...](https://medium.com/@rxseger/receiving-atsc-digital-television- with-an-sdr-76b03a863fea)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Snapshots depict sub -100dBm noise floor...on a $21 DVB-T receiver...mkay, sure.

</comment><comment><USER34> [https://www.crowdsupply.com/lime- micro/limesdr](https://www.crowdsupply.com/lime-micro/limesdr)

<comment><USER24> I look forward to seeing some end-user reviews of this device when it finally ships. I realise that there are plenty of pre-production reviews, but I believe that the final version will have broader matching networks, facilitating better sensitivity on HF and low VHF.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Strange that he couldn't find ADSB# - I used it just a few months ago. Perhaps it's been merged with another repository. If he wants the zip I used for installation I can send it to him, just give me an email address.</comment>


Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/05/citing-revenue-declines-airbnb-cuts-1900-jobs-or-around-25-of-its-global-workforce/ <comment><USER2> _Separated employees will receive 14 weeks of pay, and one more week for each year served at the company (rounding partial years up). The firm is also dropping its one-year equity cliff so that employees who are laid off with under 12 months of tenure can buy their vested options; Airbnb will also provide 12 months of health insurance through COBRA in the United States, and health care coverage through 2020 in the rest of the world._

That strikes me as a pretty generous severance package.

<comment><USER3> That's why when a yet another aspiring startup wants to hire me, I ask for a high sign on bonus as an insurance, monthly vesting cycle, at least 200k in base pay and high severance upon termination. Never been given that, but I don't regret: looking back, all those "just 1 year till IPO" companies are underwater.

<comment><USER4> I think I'm missing something here.. but how can one negotiate severance pay for termination.

I was under the assumption that companies offered severance pay as a means to save face.. and this is not part of the offer negotiation.

<comment><USER5> For some high-level positions, it gets negotiated up-front. You're leaving some other company, taking a risk, and there's a good chance you might not be right for the new company.

But if you're less high-level but rare and desirable, well, some situations, like moving cross-country, might make it a bit appropriate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If Airbnb is willing to pay 14 weeks (3.25 months) of severance, they must believe this is going to go on significantly longer than that. Or they're using this as an opportunity to cut underperformers at the same time.

Because if they believed things would start to recover by fall, wouldn't you just pay the people as normal and make a judgement call around then? You're spending the payroll money either way -- 14 weeks of severance and people stop working immediately, or 14 weeks of payroll and people are still working.

<comment><USER7> I personally suspect that travel related industries will be one of the last to recover, both due to consumer reticence and due to lower levels of disposable income during the recovery.

<comment><USER8> > lower levels of disposable income during the recovery.

There's also going to be a lot of pent-up demand from people who didn't lose jobs and had no outlet for leisure spending during the quarantine. I'm not sure which will win out.

<comment><USER9> The pandemic doesn't end simply because quarantine is lifted. People will seriously question flying or passing through airports, especially as case counts are getting worse while the restrictions are being lifted.

<comment><USER8> But the pandemic ends eventually, one way or another. The question is what happens at that point: bacchanal or hermitage.

<comment><USER10> Polio didn't stop. Smallpox is not extinct.

<comment><USER11> > _Smallpox is not extinct._

I beg to differ:

 _" Through the success of the global eradication campaign, smallpox was finally pushed back to the horn of Africa and then to a single last natural case, which occurred in Somalia in 1977. A fatal laboratory-acquired case occurred in the United Kingdom in 1978. The global eradication of smallpox was certified, based on intense verification activities in countries, by a commission of eminent scientists in December 1979 and subsequently endorsed by the World Health Assembly in 1980."_ (from [https://web.archive.org/web/20070921235036/http://www.who.in...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070921235036/http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/smallpox/en/) )

The Wikipedia page starts with "Smallpox was an infectious disease". I believe this is one of the most powerful sentences I've ever read on the Internet, and it gives me so much hope for what we can achieve.

<comment><USER12> Smallpox is not extinct:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_virus_retention_contr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_virus_retention_controversy)

> The debate centers on whether or not the last two remnants of the virus > known to cause smallpox, which are kept in tightly controlled government > laboratories in the United States and Russia, should finally and > irreversibly be destroyed.

<comment><USER10> Yep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm shocked that 2020 revenues will come in only 50% below 2019. I don't think anyone will be travelling for the bulk of this year, especially with the looming threat of potentially getting sick in a foreign country or away from your home.

It will take 5+ years for them to get back the same level of inventory/hosts/customers as they had in 2019. Many hosts will foreclose on their rented properties during 2020 or convert to long-term rentals. Airbnb may lost inventory for multiple years, not just months.

The second wave will be the nail in the coffin for a lot of companies, I think Airbnb is one of them unfortunately.

<comment><USER14> > I'm shocked that 2020 revenues will come in only 50% below 2019

This is a fair point, but it also suggests strongly that a significant minority of their business is month to month rentals, possibly in place of leasing.

And hey, being frank, I wouldn't mind considering going somewhere else for a few months now that I can work remotely for a while.

<comment><USER13> I would too, but the thing holding me back is if the shit hits the fan, and I need to do something like buy a freezer to store extra food, I can't conveniently do that in an Airbnb. And if I somehow get sick, I'm at the mercy of the doctors and hospitals in this foreign land. I'd rather be in my own home with the doctors and hospital system that I'm familiar with. I think more than 50% of people feel this way, which is why I think a 50% cut in revenue is too little, I would say its more like an 80-85% cut in revenue. This is catastrophic for Airbnb.

<comment><USER15> > This is catastrophic for Airbnb.

They have a functional system. If they can maintain it going on the cheap, they can pull themselves back up. Still, this gives times for alternatives to come and drink their milkshake.

<comment><USER13> They do have functional infrastructure but their business is suffering a catstrophic shift. As I mention, a lot of the hosts are either going to go into foreclosure or they will convert to long term rentals. A lot of people were buying condos and converting them to Airbnb because the revenues were so predictable. That won't happen in 2020 and 2021. It will take many years for inventory to come back up to 2019 levels and less inventory means less revenues, even if people started to travel again, which also is unlikely in the next couple of years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> My initial reaction is "wow, nice severance package!" My secondary reaction is they must think things are going to be very bad for a very long time for this kind of payout to make sense financially.

<comment><USER17> Good point. If they're wanting to part ways with 25% of the workforce now, covering 3 months of full salary and 12 months of expensive healthcare, they must be expecting fundamental market shifts.

Also, the debt they took on may have been partly to cover these lavish severance packages while also extending the runway.

And yes, this is extremely lavish. Paying severance that appears roughly equal to the median annual income in the USA.

<comment><USER18> It is generous by US standards, but it's just nice for many other western countries, where the _standard_ is a few months of salary, or e.g. one month salary for each year worked (that is, if you had worked for the company for 5 years, you get at least 5 months salary on termination -- Israel mandates that one by law, for example, and NOT paying it is considered a criminal violation performed by the employer)

<comment><USER19> Don't get the idea that those are free lunches. They are factored as an expected value in your total compensation for sure. It's part of the reason that median incomes in the US are much higher than Europe and everywhere else: less benefits requires higher cash compensation for the same marginal product.

<comment><USER20> To put some numbers on that, AirBNB compensation is no joke. They're paying senior engineers 200k+ base and nearly 200k stock. [https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Airbnb](https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Airbnb)

I have (regrettably) not found many companies in other countries which pay that well, except maybe Google Zurich, which is hard to get in I hear.

<comment><USER18> Link 404s for me. Do you know how many of their employees are in that range? And especially how many of those being let go are in that range?

<comment><USER20> Whoops, corrected: [https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Airbnb&track=Software%20Engi...](https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Airbnb&track=Software%20Engineer)

I don't know specific numbers at AirBNB or their layoff details but you would hit the equivalent L5 at other large bay area companies in about 5 or 6 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Predicted that weeks ago. AirBnb is super bloated, they have a similar amount of employees as the other major travel groups but only serve a fraction of the products and customers [https://thehftguy.com/2020/03/23/will-airbnb-go- bankrupt-and...](https://thehftguy.com/2020/03/23/will-airbnb-go-bankrupt-and- when/)

Good to hear that they are giving a decent severance package.

<comment><USER22> > the company said that 1,900 employees will be laid off, or 25.3% of its > 7,500 workers

Thought I misread that the first time through. What did those 7,500 do?

<comment><USER23> Ugh, to be honest I get tired whenever I see the "Why did company XYZ need so many people, they're just a website!"-type comments. While it is definitely possible AirBnB was bloated, it's not hard for me to imagine at all what all these people did.

AirBnB is a relatively high-touch business, so I imagine a huge number of those people were in customer support/customer relations, both for travelers and for property owners. AirBnB also operates in a huge number of countries, and each of those countries need (a) marketers, (b) people with regulatory knowledge (often at a level much more granular than the country level - and to head off any 'but AirBnB ignores the regulations!' comments, while that may be true, I guarantee they still have people that know what they are), (c) again, customer service people knowledgeable with the local language and customs.

<comment><USER24> It's a high-touch business but more and more that touch is someone to tell a traveler that the scammer that took their money gets to keep their money.

<comment><USER25> I would imagine that most AirBnB scams are in the other direction -- travellers defrauding property managers. If you are just a customer and you don't like the experience, you simply tell your credit card company that you aren't going to pay for it and the problem is solved on your end. Meanwhile, if you manage the property people can consume nights of service and end up not paying, and you're never getting that back.

I am sure there are horror stories where people didn't like their AirBnB, but I am also sure they didn't pay for that AirBnB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> While I don't want to seem like I'm wishing unemployment or hardship on anyone, the implosion of Airbnb is already causing a rent price correction that was sorely needed in many cities that have become severely unaffordable.

Wired published an article about this effect in London [1] and I've seen price drops as much as $500 for condos in the downtown core of Toronto on Zillow already.

[https://www.wired.co.uk/article/airbnb-coronavirus- london](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/airbnb-coronavirus-london)

<comment><USER27> It's pretty bold to claim any and all price drops are directly attributable to Airbnb when in the middle of a recession causing pandemic that is heavily impacting normal housing/rental market activity.

<comment><USER26> I admit that both my observations, and the ones in the Wired article I cited, are anecdotal. And it's certainly not the only factor driving those rent decreases. But it's oddly coincidental that the biggest and most immediate price drops seem to be concentrated in the areas that had the most Airbnb listings, at least based on what i've looked at in Toronto.

<comment><USER28> In LA, there are a lot of airbnb properties being listed for mid to long term housing on FB housing groups.

I also saw a lot of student rooms available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I can only imagine how much it sucks to be laid off and what a difficult decision it must be for Airbnb executives.

To me, the severance and exit benefits do seem to strike an employee friendly tone. Kudos to the leadership to striking a good balance on keeping the business alive and doing right by their people.

<comment><USER30> These are abnormal circumstances. I wonder if it is possible to delay the layoffs by cutting salaries - maybe instead of firing 5 out of 10 equally paid people, they can cut the salaries of all 10 people by half (or something like that).

Any which way these are hard decisions :(

<comment><USER31> Cutting salaries in half guarantees they lose all the top performers, and probably more than half, instead of the 5 they pick. I don't believe that is the goal.

<comment><USER30> Yes, during normal times. But these are not normal times - like, who is hiring now? If I were a top performer, I'd take a salary cut if it means saving my colleague's job.

I get what you are saying though. They are a business and I guess they're doing what is best for their business. The severance package is generous (relatively speaking), so there's at least that.

Edit : I guess I didn't word this properly. I was saying they'd lose top performers if their salaries are cut, during normal times.

<comment><USER32> > "If I were a top performer, I'd take a salary cut if it means saving my > colleague's job."

Would you, really? If you can get a job at FB/AMZN/GOOG/Netflix paying the same or more, would you really stay? Highly unlikely I think.

<comment><USER30> Yes, I would. Actually the higher the salary, the easier it is to give up a portion of the salary, at least for me.

I understand your skepticism, but I would - I am single and my needs are small, so it is not like my kids are gonna starve.

<comment><USER32> Good on you, but you are probably in the minority. Even if 1 in 10 people are as charitable as you, the company wouldn't want to lost the other 9.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> They are definitely doing right by their employees, which is commendable.

<comment><USER34> Agreed. Shoutout to AirBnB management who made the best of the tough situation and did the right thing.

<comment><USER35> I'll agree with that, even given how much I hate AirBnB as a company for what they've done to local housing in cities. They're at least doing the right thing here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It feels bad that this happened to one of the companies with a very good engineering culture. The stuff they have put out in the open either on GitHub or through their blogs is a testament to that. I think any company will be lucky to have these folks.

<comment><USER37> Good engineering culture...?

Airbnb is a simple CRUD app...it's hardly a shining example of hard deeply technical engineering problems that are fun and interesting to work on.

<comment><USER38> There's a great deal of recommendations, fraud detection, global payment complexity, etc. behind the CRUD app.

<comment><USER37> All solved problems. Or at the very least not problems other companies don't face as well.

<comment><USER23> AirBnB was really a leader in these types of consumer-to-consumer payments. While AirBnB has also changed their strategy WRT their mobile apps, I think it's certainly commendable how they were leading with the technical approaches they took.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> There are going to be a lot of tough decisions for people who have to decide whether to buy their Airbnb options or lose them. I bet a lot of people at Airbnb are wishing they went public before all this.

<comment><USER40> While Airbnb is clearly going through a rough patch right now, there is a clear bull-case argument for why Airbnb will emerge stronger than it's ever been after this:

\- Airbnb has sufficient cash in the bank to survive the crisis.

\- A significant % of hotels and budget chains will not survive the crisis --> decreased competitor supply

\- People will be looking for budget options when traveling --> increased demand for Airbnb

\- People will seek to make extra income to make ends meet --> increased supply for Airbnb

<comment><USER41> I honestly don't know what fraction of AirBnb's business still consists of indies renting out rooms to vacationers for short-term stays. But that market is simply hosed for the foreseeable future, if not forever. Complete lack of enthusiasm from guests and hosts alike. Driving strangers around in your car or having them stay in your home is never again going to seem like the great idea that it once did.

<comment><USER42> I think this is spot on. Every time I've been to Europe to stay in an Airbnb in the last 4 or 5 years, it's been a professional operation. Same with most of the properties in the states. These weren't people leaving their house for a weekend and trying to get some extra income. These were people who invested in real estate to get into the side-channel of psuedo-hotel business. They obviously have mortgages, likely not under the same rules of own-occupied that might potentially give them protections....

As far as AirBnb trying to get the customer base back, once the economy starts to open, even their new policies for having hosts have 24 hours between guests and rules for how to clean. How is AirBnb going to enforce that? Not to mention, their refund policy basically sucks right now, so I don't see me or my friends jumping back into using AirBnbs once travel does pick up, no way I'm committing to a vacation when we my have more surges coming, etc... I'll choose a hotel who I can cancel and not have to pay.

<comment><USER43> > Every time I've been to Europe to stay in an Airbnb in the last 4 or 5 > years, it's been a professional operation

my experience is the exact opposite, but maybe because I travel with family and rent bigger houses- do you ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> _Separated employees will receive 14 weeks of pay, and one more week for each year served at the company (rounding partial years up). The firm is also dropping its one-year equity cliff so that employees who are laid off with under 12 months of tenure can buy their vested options; Airbnb will also provide 12 months of health insurance through COBRA in the United States, and health care coverage through 2020 in the rest of the world._

Layoffs always suck, no matter what, but this is laudable behavior on their part.

</comment><comment><USER45> >According to Chesky's missive, Airbnb anticipates its 2020 revenue coming in under 50% of 2019's total

Very optimistic. They should be happy to get around 25% of 2019 totals.

<comment><USER46> Once places open up in a few months, I expect a massive short-term surge in demand for AirBnB lodging.

I know for a fact that by the end of summer (assuming places open up like planned), I will start traveling again. And I will be doing no less traveling this year than I would any other year. Of course, that won't be the case for everyone, but keeping that in mind, the 50% revenue drop seems like a pretty reasonable expectation.

<comment><USER47> Our CEO emailed today we are work from home until September. I'm told Amazon tech are work from home until October.

At this point I doubt I'll see my office in 2020. I definitely won't be travelling.

<comment><USER46> Good for you. For us, it was announced as an optional WFH, entirely at the employee discretion (unless they are in a role that has hard requirements of being in the office, like hardware engineering), until October.

To me, that sounds like a perfect opportunity to work remote on a nice beach during the day, and enjoy my time during the evening in a new place, without having to take days off for that. I get concerns of some people like you, and I am not trying to diminish your choice to stay at home. But your take on this is not representative of what everyone else will be doing (and neither is mine, hence why I expect AirBnB to still have that 50% revenue drop), so I wouldn't discount my original point based on that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I'm kind of surprised it took this long, honestly. It does suck if you're one of those affected so you have my sympathy if you're one of those. On the bright side, at least by US standards, this does seem to be pretty generous.

That aside, if this whole pandemic manages to kill or mortally wound AirBnB, I won't be upset. What AirBnB does to cities, neighbourhoods and the long-term rental market is atrocious and it needs to be reined in.

<comment><USER49> You can't blame AirBnB for cities failing to ensure their residents have access to affordable housing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Was a mystery to me why they waited so long to do an IPO. They must be kicking themselves now, will be a long long time, before they can match the kind of cash they could have raised anytime in 2019.

<comment><USER51> I wonder what the previous CFO is thinking right now. I believe he tried to take it to an IPO earlier but Chesky disagreed with him. This is rumor of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Does anyone know what percentage of the call centers are not actual employees but contractors? The contractors are usually demand based, therefore "invisible" in these stats.

<comment><USER53> A lot of tech companies have relied on BPO (business process outsourcing) like TaskUs for call center workers.

They try to take on fresh college graduates as employees in the Philippines for about $400/salary + benefits and try to resell them to companies as outsourced talent for about $1800/month.

<comment><USER54> I know a few people who work over at airbnb, they are very generous with who they call an employee. Unless things have changed in the past year or so security guards and food staff(people who make meals onsite) are all full fledged employees who I assume get stock, I think this is awesome as a lot of these folks come from low income backgrounds and having full insurance and a extra bit of cash via salary and stock options goes a long way towards improving their lives.

<comment><USER55> Things have changed (unless they changed back). Food hasn't been in house for nearly two years. Only a small portion of customer support are direct employees. Most physical security was outsourced too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I can only hope this leads to a backlash against high growth companies staying private for so long. Along with their jobs, I imagine many AirBnb employees have lost a majority of their (paper) net worth because they were not given the opportunity to sell and diversify.

<comment><USER57> I think if any employees were relying on that paper wealth... that's the problem.

IMO People need to understand what that really is (usually not much) rather than blame the company.

<comment><USER56> We're talking about a decade-old company with billions in revenue. If your job at AirBnb was your first chance to build any wealth, you never had the option to diversify. I don't think it's fair in that case to blame the employee.

I don't necessarily blame the management either. I do hope this reminds employees of private companies that their equity is only on paper until they are able to sell, and they should pressure management to give them the option.

<comment><USER58> Or, don't get lured in by a company offering you huge compensation that you can't actually touch (without realizing it's a gamble).

To be fair, even the cash compensation at Airbnb was supposedly pretty high. But I'm not sure whether that's much consolation now, after they've been dangling a golden carrot in front of employees for years.

<comment><USER57> Yeah that's kinda what I was getting at.

Education about what the value of something you can't sell seems a better route.

And granted, at Airbnb, maybe they all knew.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I'm wondering what's the ratio of IT folks to "others" in Airbnb, I suppose most of the workforce is customer service, human resources, legal and so forth? So maybe this cut won't touch engineering teams at all? After all dev teams can still do something during times like these (eg. trying to make other unicorns) but keeping big headcount in customer service is simply burning money...

<comment><USER38> Eng was hit hard-- particularly product-facing engineers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> 14 weeks of pay + 1 week / year seems like a silver lining in an otherwise bad circumstance.

<comment><USER61> The health insurance too. That's huge and really important for US employees, multiplied 10x in a pandemic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> The generous severance makes a lot of sense. Besides being the right thing to do, if the economy somehow does have a V shaped recovery, they may want to rehire a lot of these people.

It's a lot easier to rehire someone who still likes you than to try and find new people.

</comment><comment><USER63> The most famous unicorn bleeds today.

<comment><USER64> Acquisition target IMO. While AirBnb bleeds, the FANGs continue to pile up cash.

Google, Facebook, and Apple all have enough cash to buy several AirBnbs rn.

<comment><USER65> Don't be fooled by the Q1 results that only cover a few weeks of the shutdown - FANGs are hurting too.

30 M unemployed and growing means no disposable income for consumer businesses, which in turn are shutting down and shrinking their spending on B2B services. The latter is delayed and won't be fully visible until Q3.

<comment><USER46> >which in turn are shutting down and shrinking their spending on B2B services

You are assuming the scenario where consumer division was making a lot of money. For a lot of very successful B2B businesses, their consumer division exists mostly to make small gains, while acting primarily as a getaway or advertisement for their B2B offerings.

You would be surprised to find out how much more revenue (and profits) a company like Microsoft makes on their B2B offerings compared to the consumer ones.

<comment><USER65> Microsoft isn't FANG, and even then, who do you think Microsoft's B2B customers serve and get their revenue from?

Even those that are still B2B eventually need cash flows from consumer businesses. Hence the statement that we won't fully realize the losses until Q3. Less spending by consumers depresses all businesses, some sooner than others, but FANGs are definitely hurting.

<comment><USER46> >who do you think Microsoft's B2B customers serve and get their revenue from

The cool thing about B2B, as opposed to consumer offerings, is that the contracts on those are usually multi-year. Just because the client enterprise suddenly receives less revenue from customers, it doesn't mean that they would be able to stop paying MSFT until the contract term is over. Unless this current lockdown situation lasts multiple years, it shouldn't affect things significantly.

<comment><USER65> That's not how B2B contracts work. They have clauses for breaking them. They are not paid out in bankruptcy. They tend to scale per variables like users or calls.

AirBnB is now paying for 7000 less exchange accounts and office licenses, and you have yet to explain how FANGs are doing well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> _In an effort to keep both the demand and supply sides of its marketplace healthy enough to survive hibernation, Airbnb has allowed users to cancel some reservations without penalty, and provided financial succor to its hosts._

Unsure if this will ring true to most hosts. They were heavily penalized with full cancellations, while Airbnb issued vouchers.

Airbnb will have to make a lot of effort to win hosts' trust back.

</comment><comment><USER67> An official copy of the memo referenced in the Techcrunch article has now been posted: [https://news.airbnb.com/a-message-from-co-founder-and-ceo- br...](https://news.airbnb.com/a-message-from-co-founder-and-ceo-brian- chesky/)

(dang, I wonder if the company release is a better article to link to?)

</comment><comment><USER68> A lot of people playing in the public markets should thank their lucky stars that Airbnb did not IPO a couple of years back!

<comment><USER69> That is a nice way to look at it. It'd have been on my buy list if it were public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I'm glad the employees got a generous severance package, hopefully ISO's was misreported and the employees received RSU's instead, as it would be a burden on the employee to have to come up with cash to exercise during such a time. Its important to remember that Lyft and Airbnb also Uber are all heavily tied to travel which isn't happening now due to covid. With states reopening and warmer weather, plus a drug that reduces the duration of covid-19(remdesivir) things will hopefully be getting better. If and when a second wave comes more drugs could surface that show efficacy against the virus so it won't be all doom and gloom.

</comment><comment><USER70> This hit me hard for some reason and really put things in perspective. You can never take your career for granted and assume it's guaranteed.

The lesson I took from this is to always have a backup plan in case of unforeseen events.

</comment><comment><USER71> At least they aren't doing it the wrong way, like when some big companies need to clean house a bit, they move the office to a new location quite distant from the current one. In the process they reduce the office size from 50,000 seats to 30,000 because they've estimated that amount of people will resign rather than endure a 4 hours commute... But officially :

> totally you still have your job if you want, we are not laying you off, but > I need you in the office everyday... Or you could resign if you don't like > the new location...

</comment><comment><USER72> Maybe they could pay some UK corporation tax next

</comment><comment><USER73> Why not furloughs or temporary part-time? I thought this was a rocket ship. Why would they have even consider an IPO raise if they weren't looking to massively expand? Are they going to rehire all these people when business picks up? Not that I disagree, but it smells like vanilla-variety cuts for efficiency/performance.

</comment><comment><USER74> Not privy of their figures but what are they gonna do with the 75% of workforce? Maybe I'm biased related to where I'm sitting, but looks like everything has stopped, travel especially. And looks like 2020 at least will stay that way.

Of course they can't just shut down....they have to hope and be ready.

</comment><comment><USER75> Wondering what that means for their new Montreal office. They erected this whole new building in a trendy area.

<comment><USER76> if anything I can see them move more of their operations there and downsizing in SF where talent is still relatively expensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> I wonder how will the revenue drop be distributed globally. which countries, places will see the worst revenue drops. In such places there will be highest probability than some Airbnb landlords start selling off their properties - can be a good time for people who want to buy a place for themselves!

</comment><comment><USER78> They wanted to do this for a while. Airbnb would make good money if it wasn't so bloated.

<comment><USER79> Maybe, but just the last August bootcamp of new hires was north of 100 people. If Airbnb wanted to do this for a while, I'd imagine they would have hired less even around then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Other companies that've recently had significant layoffs: Uber, Lyft, TripAdvisor, Yelp, Eventbrite, Patreon.

Is COVID-19 the reason, or the excuse?

<comment><USER80> Excuse for Patreon but there's a common denominator for the rest that should give you an idea.

<comment><USER81> And patreon is the most discretionary spending there is. First thing that can be cut if a budget is hurting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> its a good time to cut the fat (but either way, that 25% probably doesn't include any of their real workforce, the landlords)

</comment><comment><USER83> Are we aware how many engineers were affected?

</comment><comment><USER84> If any iOS engineers from Airbnb are in this thread and looking for what's next, happy to chat. Email in bio.

<comment><USER85> PSA your email is not actually in your bio.

<comment><USER84> Ha! How stupid of me :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> I had a guest that destroyed thousands of dollars of property at my house weeks ago and it's still going through their claim process. They've been stalling for a while now and it's been extremely frustrating since no one in support seems to have any idea what's going on.

<comment><USER87> Can you elaborate? What and why did the guest destroy something?

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> Good. The faster Airbnb pulls out of my local housing market, the better for everyone else who lives here.

<comment><USER89> seriously wtf. 1900 people lost their jobs and you think that's "Good". Check yourself

<comment><USER88> These 1900 people were well paid SV employees, being well paid by working for a company operating in a zoning grey area that profits off of the removal of housing stock from the market. Only 45% of my city holds a job right now, and only 25% can afford the median house. I weep for these people struggling in my city, not the comparative handful of people who chose to work for a fundamentally degenerate company whose existence contributes to the housing crisis.

<comment><USER79> Many of these people are on work visas and will potentially need to leave the country. Some are new grads who have no savings and might not be able to afford rent. And the cut was across all roles, not just the ones that were well-paid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> Does anyone want to sleep at someone else's house they don't know??? At least not until there is a vaccine??

</comment><comment><USER91> Another unicorn with a flawed business model poised to trim its bloated company.

All signs are pointing to a bubble being popped. It's going to be interesting to see how the tech sector looks in 9-18 months from now

</comment><comment><USER92> Finally some good covid news.

</comment><comment><USER93> for everyone praising the severance package, laid off employees at kickstarter are getting even more severance and full healthcare (not COBRA) because they unionized: [https://twitter.com/ksr_united/status/1256382357311012871](https://twitter.com/ksr_united/status/1256382357311012871)

<comment><USER94> Doesn't look like more to me. Roughly same salary duration (would bet a pretty penny that Kickstarter doesn't pay nearly as much as Airbnb to begin with), significantly less health insurance, nothing about equity. That's what a union came up with for such a microscopic layoff compared to Airbnb? Sounds like the free market is better off deciding these things.

<comment><USER93> oh I might be confused about the COBRA situation actually. I can't tell if Airbnb is actually paying for COBRA.

aside from that, assuming that non-engineers get paid better at Airbnb than elsewhere is a big assumption.

<comment><USER94> Will agree on the point regarding non-engineers. I would bet all else being equal they do, but will not fight over it as it's just an educated guess.

With regards to COBRA, the premiums are certainly covered by AirBnb as COBRA is available to employees for 18 months by default and 36 months in California where AirBnb is headquartered.

<comment><USER93> right right, it was confusing to me that they mentioned COBRA but it does sound like Airbnb is paying, which is good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> It's possible that the contract with these employees requires 3 month notice period both ways. So, an immediate dismissal would require them to pay it in compensation (guess this would also depend on the legislation). Regarding the insurance, usually its already bought for a year or so, so they possibly let it run as there's no point in revoking it without getting a refund.

If the 3-month notice is true and the compensation comes with that, then its still cheaper to let go now than in 3 months as there will be other costs like bonuses, expense claims for phone bills etc, other mandatory govt insurance schemes in some countries, more leave accrued. I'm not too convinced that it was all a nice gesture.

</comment><comment><USER96> I called this 3 weeks [1] ago and no one believed me. Were are going to see A LOT of this the next 3-4 months as large companies experience bad quarters. These are the companies that were setup and run well (i.e. not day to day, burning stacks of money with no revenue).

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22901720](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22901720)

<comment><USER97> Such an odd 'I told you so' comment in a thread about thousands losing their livelihood.

<comment><USER96> I guess I was bitter because of the argument I got when originally discussing it on HN. I do feel validated. It sucks for these employees but everyone working for a VC fueled startup lives in this same boat. They had to know at any moment they might get tossed overboard, they were going to have layoffs prior to IPO as is.

And AirBNB has caused plenty of strife in the communities they operate in over the years, impact is always relative to ones perspective.

<comment><USER98> Now is a terrible time to be gloating about such things.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Miso (YC S16) offers high quality on-demand home cleaning in South Korea - <AUTHOR> http://www.themacro.com/articles/2016/06/miso/ <comment><USER2> Hi, I am Victor, another co-founder at Miso. Just arrived at SFO to take part in this summer's YC batch.

<comment><USER3> Would you mind speaking about your experience of joining YC and building a business in SK?

<comment><USER2> We don't have much experience with the program yet. We arrived in SF this morning and the first dinner ended about an hour ago.

There are some stressful aspects to building a business in SK and being in the Bay Area. 2/3 of our team will remain in Seoul while we are here. Relocating to a new area for 3 or 4 months poses its difficulties.

Despite that, we applied to YC for a reason and believe it will pay off. YC's network is great and the feedback so far has given us clarity as to what we should focus on. On a day to day basis, we plan on matching our hours with Seoul and will have Google Hangouts up to communicate better. We also brought office phones (VOIP) so we can continue to handle customer care as well as cleaner phone on boarding so we can continue to have a good grasp on what our customers want.

I will probably be able to offer more insights after a bit more experience in the program.

<comment><USER4> I was under the impression that one founder was allowed to remain "home" but the rest were required to relocate for the duration of YC. Is this not the case?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hi. I'm Haksu. co-founder of Miso. If you have anything to ask, I'm happy to answer.

<comment><USER6> I guess the big question for this concept is how do you avoid becoming another HomeJoy? What advantages does the SK localization/market give you?

Interesting that YC is willing to bet on this concept again.

<comment><USER2> I believe high quality is key. We have been able to receive high reviews from our customers even though we offer little hands on training. In April, our average review was 4.6 out of 5. We are also rolling out an insurance product that is not widely offered in Korea at the moment.

<comment><USER7> How will you maintain high quality if you don't train your workers?

<comment><USER5> We have review system to filter bad cleaners. When new cleaners onboarded, we thoroughly check their performance from our customers. Also we assign high score cleaners to more customers. That review system keep our platform in high quality.

<comment><USER8> This sounds like a recipe for basically asking the cleaners to underreport their hours to "go the extra mile" in exchange for high quality scores. How do you avoid this?

<comment><USER9> They're uh, probably counting on it actually. Explicitly or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _> > Unlike the USA which has worker classification problems, South Korea's cleaning industry is primarily comprised of freelancers._

That seems like the money statement there. Is this basically saying Miso can get away with paying cleaners the equivalent of a very low hourly wage?

<comment><USER2> Depends on your definition of low. In Korea, the minimum wage is around $6 while we pay $10 and up to $13 for empty homes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Do you see the evolution of iRobot-esque autonomous cleaners as a threat to your business? Are you planning on pulling an uber with all the capital you raise and pursuing R&D of said devices?

<comment><USER6> I think it's still enough of a long-term threat (I'd say 5 years for these to start to become an issue, 10 years to become commonplace) to not get in the way of growing their business, and maybe eventually they will employee a few of those devices themselves.

If anything, in Uber's case, the other players have shown it can be a wise choice to form partnerships rather than to take on the risky and capital intensive process of building up an in-house R&D unit.

<comment><USER12> Even then, self-driving cards are a single-purpose task (yes, that task is complex, but it's single purpose). Cleaning is the amalgamation of a number of tasks. Furthermore, anyone who's had a cleaner knows that a big part of home cleaning is 'neatening', i.e. pickup up and straightening material to make them more aesthetically pleasing. Machines won't be easily doing that for some time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What will the team be working on during YC? Adapting the model to the US?

</comment><comment><USER13> Oh yeah! I've been waiting for over a year for this HN username to pay dividends!

<comment><USER14> Next thing you know, your account will be hacked and taken away from you. ;)

[https://medium.com/@N/how-i-lost-my-50-000-twitter- username-...](https://medium.com/@N/how-i-lost-my-50-000-twitter- username-24eb09e026dd#.3rrbch1fx)</comment></comment>


My iPhone App: Power Happy Hour - <AUTHOR>

I've been following HN for a few years now and really love the solid community and great commentary.
My most recent project is an iPhone app called Power Happy Hour, which shows you all the happy hour specials happening near you location.  I've submitted it to Apple for review and I'm waiting for their decision, but I wanted to share it with the HN community in the mean time!
You can view the screen shots at the website and sign up to the email list if you want to be notified when it's officially available via the iTunes store.  Please blog/twitter it up if you like the idea!
http://www.powerhappyhourapp.com <comment><USER2> I like it. Does it work all over the country? I thought of doing a similar thing, but it seemed difficult to scrape this type of data from the Internet. If it's not your secret sauce I'd love to know how you're gathering the happy hour data.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've gathered about 7,300 happy hours from around the US. The trick I've found is that a lot of the data around the internet is outdated, but it's a good starting point. The app allows users to mark happy hours as outdated and users are also able to suggest new happy hours as well. So hopefully over time the database will evolve into a very current list, and everyone will get to benefit.

<comment><USER2> Smart. Are you planning to charge for it? What about recurring vs. non- recurring specials? I'm looking forward to trying it out.

<comment><AUTHOR> I plan on making it a free app for the first few thousand downloads, measuring what cities are most popular, and making sure the happy hour data is most up to date in those areas.

After that I'm still deciding if it makes more sense to charge for the app, or implement some other revenue model (ads, additional ways for bars and restaurants to promote themselves, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here is the active link: <http://www.powerhappyhourapp.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, any comments or feedback would be very much appreciated!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That's a lot of drink specials. Well done my man, I'll definitely try it out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep please do! If you join the email list I'll notify you as soon as Apple approves the app. They're reviewing it now.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I am writing a book on web design. Any suggestions? - <AUTHOR>

I am about to start a new side project and this time I am interested in writing a book on "Web Design". My primary target audience are hackers who want to get better at web design and use the knowledge & skills to develop well designed front-ends for their product. Here are my initial thoughts on how I would like to go about it :
1. I don't want it to be a 500 page HTML reference. There are many such texts available. That's why I want to focus only on HTML5 elements that are used in real life projects.
2. Teach CSS3 in a simple and fun way by focusing on fundamentals and using mini-projects to illustrate how it can be used in real life projects.
3. I also want to cover design concepts like typography, layouts, responsive design, color theory, etc.
I am looking for suggestions on what to include in my book. What are the most important topics that you would like to be covered in a web design book? <comment><USER2> you shouldn't avoid a glossary. and put in jQuery there as well, it is a vital component. it wont hurt to touch on responsive design across different devices. simplify that and you got a winner.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1\. Metanotational typefaces (FontAwesome to AlphaSymbolic — Blissymbols anyone?)

2\. Perspective-based grid systems (Grid systems to build basic interactive Webworlds, instead of Websites)

3\. Modular CSS Architecture (Using Grunt to compile CSS that lives with JS Modules, served on demand via RequireJS; a more meaningful folder architecture other than the dreaded "css" folder at project root[0]; I namespace my CSS/LESS/SASS as I namespace my Business Objects or Entities, and I namespace my CSS/LESS/SASS by module/state/verb.)

3.1 Modern Web DRY (Best way to package and create shareable front-end code?)

4\. UI Semantics for Accessibility (What else can we add as sibling to "Skip to Content"? — It really is an Accessibility Hook within a _list_. What about Accessibility Hooks _everywhere_?)

5\. Responsive/Adaptive Images by Cool URL[1] (Responsiveness as a Service?)

[0]: [http://www.jakobloekkemadsen.com/2013/07/css-abstractions- do...](http://www.jakobloekkemadsen.com/2013/07/css-abstractions-done-right/)

[1]: [http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html](http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html)</comment>


Chelsea Manning Responds After Top UN Official Labels Her Imprisonment 'Torture' - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/chelsea-manning-responds-after-top-u-n-official-labels-1840771479 <comment><USER2> There are many ex-prisoners who tell their stories about solitary confinement. For instance

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg4epUX7_Ew](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg4epUX7_Ew) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hWJSsTt6I8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hWJSsTt6I8)

It's very disturbing. Nobody deserves such a treatment.

<comment><USER3> Shaka Senghor spent seven years in solitary. Everything of his that I've watched / read / listened to is extremely thought provoking. Check out his recent appearance on Conversations with Tyler: [https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/shaka- senghor/](https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/shaka-senghor/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I haven't followed the case closely, are they really just holding her because she won't testify? Is she legally compelled to? What's the other side here? It's hard to believe that the US government is this blatantly tyrannical.

<comment><USER5> > It's hard to believe that the US government is this blatantly tyrannical.

You are not paying attention. This is normal for the US gov.

<comment><USER6> Whoever is downvoting the parent would you share why you feel they are wrong?

One example of US tyranny is that it has the highest incarceration rate in the world ([https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/largest-prison- populatio...](https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/largest-prison-population- rates-in-the-world.html)). Other countries with high incarceration rates are developing countries, often with struggling democracies. Just one of many examples I can think of.

<comment><USER7> That rate is because we have a high crime rate, combined with functioning law enforcement. The true tyranny is if you let crime go unchecked.

<comment><USER8> A "high crime rate combined with functioning law enforcement" is a contradiction in itself.

<comment><USER7> No it isn't. How do you arrest people before they commit crimes?

<comment><USER8> Law enforcement is much more than arresting people after the crime has already happened.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Practical Recursion Schemes - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jaredtobin/practical-recursion-schemes-c10648ec1c29#.od10bp1se <comment><USER2> Lovely article.

Hylomorphisms are actually Turing complete. Think about them as "build the call graph of the algorithm on this input" followed by "reduce the call graph of the algorithm on this input". Since your coalgebra can build a potentially infinite call graph, you can express even algorithms that don't terminate on certain inputs.</comment>


Google Lowered Taxes by $2.4B Using European Subsidiaries - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-19/google-lowered-taxes-by-2-4-billion-using-european-subsidiaries <comment><USER2> Just because something is legal doesn't mean that it's okay, from a values and ethics perspective. This is precisely why so many people are frustrated with the very notion of a corporation; it has most of the rights and none of the moral compass of a human. I find it troubling that so many folks here are quick to argue what distills to, "if it won't land you in prison and it's better for your shareholders, you pretty much have a responsibility to behave in an antisocial manner". Antisocial as in: short term profits over societally accretive goals for the future.

I feel comfortable in my position because corporations benefit directly and indirectly from infrastructure provided by all three levels of government; everything from roads to schools for their employees kids. A smart player would put money back into the public coffers so that people could be taken care of, not hoard it for the already-wealthy. Why? Because there needs to be a functioning middle class to buy your products (and click on your ads).

I'm reminded of Penn Jillette talking about how he rapes and murders exactly as much as he wants (eg. not at all) without needing a divine entity to tell him not to do those horrible things.

<comment><USER3> > none of the moral compass of a human

I find this notion laughable, that a "moral compass" prevents individuals from attempting to lower their tax burden as much as corporations. Individuals are no different than corporations in the desire to avoid paying taxes. The difference is that the amounts are smaller, so they can't afford as many lawyers, and the tax laws are less complex, so generally fewer loopholes are available.

If it was advantageous for individuals to set up European subsidiaries for tax purposes, I guarantee everyone would be doing it, "moral compass" be damned.

<comment><USER4> > I find this notion laughable, that a "moral compass" prevents individuals > from attempting to lower their tax burden as much as corporations.

Correct, I'd argue a functioning moral compass would keep a person from seeing it as a "burden" to begin with. Paying for what I take out and for the less fortunate (until it's my turn to be struck by misfortune) is not a burden, just like waiting in a queue until it's my turn is not an inconvenience. Being aware of the randomness of my own birth and having empathy doesn't require a moral compass, it requires intelligence; it _leads to_ having a moral compass.

That you can find that "laughable" you owe to the fact that you were born and cared for as a baby, creating a lot of costs and work for a lot of people, none of which with anything but their moral compass humming gently as a compensation.

<comment><USER5> If all you care about is paying in so you can take out, and to help cover unlucky people until it's your rainy day, you don't need any taxes at all, just insurance.

In practice taxes are used for all sorts of things which you may or may not agree with (e.g. foreign wars), and other things that you may agree with but maybe don't believe tax and government is the most efficient way to provide it.

The blasé assumption that tax == moral is just another form of the left wing assumption that people working for the state have a slight moral superiority over people working in the private sector (and who are therefore tainted by the desire for profit).

For some things, there aren't really any better options than paying taxes. Military spending comes to mind. For others, it's sort of an open question (roads and healthcare are cases where countries frequently strike different balances). For yet others, tax is obviously the wrong solution. Nobody these days thinks governments should be in the steel or coal businesses, except China.

Unfortunately the nature of tax is that it's rather hard to express your views about it outside of general elections.

<comment><USER4> > In practice taxes are used for all sorts of things which you may or may not > agree with (e.g. foreign wars), and other things that you may agree with but > maybe don't believe tax and government is the most efficient way to provide > it.

So? You can't evade taxes for A but not B -- if you evade taxes, you are actually more likely to hit, say, orphans, than, say, big business or war profiteers.

I can't respond to "may". If you think there is a better way, humor me, though even then I don't see how one should be allowed to "have the cake and eat it", namely profit from the infrastructure upheld in no small part with taxes, but then not pay taxes because there are better ways. Then make business and be a citizen where it's done a better way, or try to change it where you are.

And yes, I'm aware that taxes get spent on all sorts of crappy things, that doesn't invalidate the general idea or the social contract, and just because I think "trying to minimize taxes whenever possible by all means" is always immoral, doesn't mean I think all taxes are moral in all instances.

> The blasé assumption that tax == moral is just another form of the left wing > assumption that people working for the state have a slight moral superiority > over people working in the private sector

Except I don't have that assumption, so it can't possibly be a form of that. That simply doesn't parse.

Though we could discuss the meaning of "profit". Someone who voluntarily reads stories to children with cancer does profit from that, too, and furthermore they are also considering the profit others have from that. So it's still a "desire for profit". Hey, even Jesus asked "what does it profit a man..", profit in itself apparently not the issue, but rather what profit, and at what costs to whom or at what point down the road. Profit, in my books, isn't just measured in the amount of money or land something nets, but in everything it involved to get there.

<comment><USER5> What makes you think that if you minimise your tax payments, it's poor little orphans that get hit and not bloated military budgets or overweight bureaucracies? Isn't that just an assumption on your part? How can you know what governments would choose to spend less on, if they had less tax revenue?

Corporations normally do not profit directly from infrastructure provided by governments. The people who make them up benefit from them a lot, but they pay taxes already. The primary infrastructure corporations specifically use a lot is the courts, and arguably, patent/copyright systems. But these are relatively cheap to administer, especially as courts can charge fees and the patent system is actually a profit centre for government (in the USA).

Everything else (roads, schools, health, etc) is all about people, not the abstract groups they sometimes form. We'd still need them even if there were no corporations.

When I said "may or may not agree with", I meant that many things governments do are somewhat controversial. Not that I expected anyone to write an essay on all of them :-)

<comment><USER4> > What makes you think that if you minimise your tax payments, it's poor > little orphans that get hit and not bloated military budgets or overweight > bureaucracies? Isn't that just an assumption on your part? How can you know > what governments would choose to spend less on, if they had less tax > revenue?

Because that's what happens time and time again, from what I can tell when looking for information on that over the news I got to hear for all of my adult life. It has nothing to do with looking into a glass ball.

> Corporations normally do not profit directly from infrastructure provided by > governments. The people who make them up benefit from them a lot, but they > pay taxes already.

"Not directly", so? Without the people who need the infrastructure to live, there would be no corporations and no customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If people think this is wrong the same people should ignore taking any deductions on their personal taxes. If we want companies to pay their "fair share" then governments should institute international tax reform and have a tax treaty where signatories abide by whatever they agree to.

Here companies are rationally choosing ways to pay as low a tax burden as the laws allow. As they say, hate the game, not the player.

<comment><USER7> Deductions on personal taxes are intentional provisions to encourage certain types of saving/investment/giving. Weaknesses in tax treaties are not designed to encourage people to repatriate their profits to artificial entities in tax shelters.

Google pretending that sales are made in Ireland (and not by the revenue- targeted local salesperson selling local ads to local eyeballs) in order to enable them to deduct fictitious license fees owed to a subsidiary in Bermuda is not even in the same ballpark.

It's the equivalent of me donating most of my salary to a "charity" created for the purpose of paying my mortgage. I don't think many people here do that, or would consider it if their accountant suggested it.

<comment><USER8> The problem is with the laws. Poorly written, lazy or "bought-for" laws are being used _exactly_ as they are worded. If you want better laws, you need to write better laws - not just hope that people will follow what each law intended.

For the people that claim that the tax loopholes are something that the companies lobby for - again - it's interesting that people are upset with the _companies_ who lobby for this, rather than the fact that _politicians_ are receiving the actual money.

The problem is not with the companies - it's with the politicians that allow money to influence themselves. It's laughable to me that politicians denounce "money in politics" with one hand and are busy recruiting, fundraising and accepting it on the other.

<comment><USER9> The problem is definitely the companies.

They're the ones exploiting the system.

I'm not sure what your agenda is, but the problem is _definitely_ the companies.

If they just paid their fair share with a little bit of mild tax dodging no- one would give a fuck. But they're taking the fucking piss at the moment, generating billions in revenue and then not paying for any of the infrastructure which is supporting their business.

<comment><USER10> You have to account for competition.

Suppose there are two companies with the same business model, operating in the same countries etc. One files taxes "fairly" and one minimizes its tax burden as far as the law will allow. Which one do you think is going to be in business for longer? Which one would you buy shares in?

You can get as angry as you like at the companies, or the legislators, but in the end it's the system you need to be scrutinizing.

<comment><USER9> This is clearly nonsense, what serious competition does Google have in Europe? Or Apple? Apple are making billions in profits, they have no competitive need for lower prices!

Also this is an advantage only massive multinationals have, so again, complete nonsense as they're already past that stage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Something recently occurred to me. The fundamental problem here is that as companies have grown multinational, something that used to be mostly a one-to- many relationship (country contains many taxable entities) has become a many- to-many relationship.

It wouldn't be fair or logical to tax any multi-national as if it existed 100% in each country where it does business. So the question is how to write the rules such that a business's overall operation is taxed by each sovereign state in a way that is "fair" compared to the amount of operation / amount of benefit it is getting in each.

This might be obvious to most people but it was a new way of thinking about it for me.

<comment><USER12> What you're suggesting is a territorial tax system, versus the a worldwide tax system such as the one the US currently has. Using a worldwide system is actually very rare--only six OECD countries implement worldwide taxation rather than territorial. Part of the reason America-based companies seem to be trying so hard to avoid American taxes is because they are, compared to the other nations they operate in, much worse.

<comment><USER8> Making the US tax system more competitive worldwide is very rarely brought up.

Corporate taxes aside, I think the US is one of just 2 countries (the other being Eritrea) where you're taxes personally on the money you make based on your citizenship (not residency) no matter where you live. Stuff like that is why you're starting to see people give theirs up in favor of more favorable tax codes.

<comment><USER13> Does being US company afford these companies benefits that justify a tax premium?

<comment><USER5> No. Why would it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Basically everyone in Corporate America is doing this. Its not just Google. If the EU (or us, or whoever) doesn't like this, then we need to change the laws.

<comment><USER15> We do, no other country makes companies pay taxes on income earned outside their domicile. It's supposed to be taxed by the country where it's earned. That said, this double dutch or whatever is taking things to an extreme.

<comment><USER16> Google doesn't pay income in England on stuff they sell, because they claim the tax is due in the US where the IP (search, ad sense) is created.

They then don't pay the tax in the US because something something.

<comment><USER17> No they say the tax for European sales is due in Bermuda, which owns the IP. There is no tax in Bermuda, and no IP was created there.

<comment><USER18> As a Bermuda company, I could invest in sub-contract software engineers who create IP as a work made for hire (and that the Bermuda company would own). In that case, was the IP created in Bermuda or where the software engineers were pressing keys?

In a case where the IP was created in country X and later sold to a company in country Y, is country X owed a continuing taxation revenue stream after the sale closes (and any taxes due related to the sale are paid/accounted for)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This tells me more about how dysfunctional the EU is then Google being 'evil'.

<comment><USER20> > This tells me more about how dysfunctional the EU is ...

Exactly, the European Union was originally conceived as a 'common market' but individual countries can set their own corporate tax levels.

Google have had a lot of bad press here although most of it is badly misinformed. The bar for accuracy of reporting is generally set quite low for American companies operating in the UK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'd like someone to explain to me how this is not tax evasion. This is a US incorporated company that developed its IP in the US. It has its headquarters in the US and it trades on a US stock exchange. Moreover, a good portion of its revenue comes from the US. This business of paying some sort of technology license to a subsidiary you own in Bermuda to avoid taxes seems like outright tax evasion. Whether that is US tax evasion or European tax evasion where the earning were made. If Google is reporting billions of dollars in earnings to Wall Street and they get the benefit of that from the market, then Google should be paying taxes on that and not funneling it to a jurisdiction where they have no actual or tangible business.

<comment><USER22> IANATL (tax lawyer) but why can't they sell those US developed rights to Bermuda?

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

<comment><USER23> In this case why can't we hate the player? We apply similar hate to people who abuse the welfare system too. This is very similar.

<comment><USER22> The root cause is still the rules that allow the abuse. It's lazy on all our part to blame Google et al when it is really the rules that force them to do this.

See the '5 whys' for why we should look deeper: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys)

<comment><USER23> Nothing I said disagrees with that. But if you are on the side of "don't hate the player" you have to feel that way about all abuses of the system. You don't get to pick and choose when you take that stance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> ... and that boys and girls is called "tax planning".

But don't try it at home - for you, me and every other regular Joe Doe or small-business owner, this would be labelled as "tax avoidance".

<comment><USER25> I like the CRA's ([http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/gncy/lrt/vvw- eng.html](http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/gncy/lrt/vvw-eng.html)) categories:

\- Tax planning: within the spirit of the law

\- Tax avoidance: within the letter of the law

\- Tax evasion: unlawful

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't think those issues will be solved politically speaking, between countries.

Voters are consumers, and I don't think politicians have a lot of leverage against those corporations. If they hit corporations, consumers will complain. Even in a global economy, I don't think nations are enough organized to fight multinationals, since they might defend the corporation or their home country. Maybe the goal of the TPP is to fix exactly just that, to lay some ground rules about taxes, but if it fails, it will show how nations are unable to collect taxes.

That's my greatest fear, that people become dependent on corporations, so much that they would side with them. Today I'm sure people prefer their iPhone and internet than firemen, police, an administration, etc.

</comment><comment><USER27> Its interesting how many of these companies do business with the US government, yet continue to dodge taxes. (Any) Government in theory could choose a vendor using any arbitrary criteria, for e.g. manufacturing the product in the US, not funneling profits outside the country and many others. Unfortunately, its all about - Privatize the gains, subsidize the losses - these days.

</comment><comment><USER28> At some point taxes are irrelevant. That's the justification. But they are also an excuse and the reason we don't fund education and social services.

</comment><comment><USER29> There's an ancient saying worth meditating on, when statistics like these surface:

Hate the game, not the player.

<comment><USER8> Ah - the old ancient proverb :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's interesting how some of these companies are sitting on piles of cash but are still so tax avoidant. Many companies aren't doing anything with the money they're saving on taxes. I don't understand it.

<comment><USER31> The cash is factored into the stock price. Stockholders figure that sooner or later there will be a tax holiday or equivalent which will let companies bring this money into the US for free, or at least cheaply, and pay it out as dividends or share buybacks.

Also, lots of US companies use this overseas cash as collateral to take out low-interest debt from inside the US to fund US expansion (again, because those issuing the cheap debt know that Google etc * could * pay it off if necessary, it's just dumb to pay the 35% if you don't have to).

<comment><USER32> \+ they can use it do fund big acquisitions outside the US. Luxembourg based Skype, for example, for which Microsoft (probably, maybe) overpaid significantly was acquired with foreign reserves. Overpaying on a deal isn't nearly as bad if the alternative is to lose 35% of said money.

<comment><USER33> The money isn't really lost though. It would go towards services and infrastructure for everyone. Are those alternatives considered in the corporation's accountings?

Please, take this down to -4.

<comment><USER32> Absolutely, and they are completely irrelevant to a corporation. For example: a canadian pension fund doesn't care one bit about paying taxes in France; they care about hitting their targets and achieving a certain annual yield on their (tens of) billions of dollars under management for their beneficiaries.

If I'm said fund and a shareholder in a company, if I notice management paying excessive taxes somewhere, I will intervene and force them to reduce taxes as much as legally possible.

<comment><USER33> >Absolutely, and they are completely irrelevant to a corporation.

Why would a corporation account for irrelevancies?

A pension fund isn't really a typical corporation; it's more of a holding facility. If a Canadian pension corporation thinks that common services and infrastructure are irrelevant, they probably aren't going to be around vey long, as their civilization crumbles.

<comment><USER32> Pension funds hold controlling stakes in various companies (private and public) globally. It's not uncommon for a US or Canadian pension fund to hold a controlling stake in a private European business. Meaning they often have indirect influence over the actions of corporations. The same applies to hedge funds or investment vehicles controlled by activist investors.

Why would a US pension fund care about paying tax in France? I could understand why it matters if they paid tax in the US (even though a CA based fund probably wouldn't care about contributing in NY), but what do they have to gain by overpaying tax in France?

<comment><USER33> No one in this thread is arguing about overpaying.

>Why would a US pension fund care about paying tax in France?

As you said, they may have a controlling stake in businesses there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Outstanding. Tax competition is a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER35> Well, if Google keeps dodging taxes, I'll keep dodging any advertising and snooping they might employ. Not that tax-dodging was the only reason for that, but it could be a sole reason for it.

</comment><comment><USER36> If Google saved 2.4B then Apple must have saved 5 - 7 Billion. Where's that story, Bloomberg?

</comment><comment><USER37> <satire>

This makes me fucking sick. Google is a beautocratic monolith and doesn't deserve to be subsidized by the people. They should pay the government in full so we can finally get back to making progress.

I don't want to suggest Google would spend all that money on hammers(as this was largely a myth) but they certainly won't be spending it protecting the american people. Google should do the right thing here and pay up.

Almost 3400[0] people die from terrorism, if you include people in the middle east directly interacting with terrorists as well as domestic terrorism and also actual instances of terrorism. Does google really think 463billion is enough to protect America?

Leave the decision making to the people who are qualified cyber security is a big deal and I need a group with a success record to protect me.

</satire>

Edit: Made it clear this was in jest. While I regularly state we incur risk using google for everything pretty obvious it is a net good and even from a non-financial return on value, i would invest my taxes in google.

[0][http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/02/us/oregon-shooting- terrorism-g...](http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/02/us/oregon-shooting-terrorism- gun-violence/)

<comment><USER38> The article was about taxes. How did you go from taxes, to terrorism, to cyber security?

Never mind the fact that this is representative of EU disfunction, not Google "being evil".

<comment><USER37> While I don't love google, I thought I made the claim rediculous enough that everyone would be able to realize it os satire and google could probably do 10x of what any govt could with the money.

<comment><USER38> The /s went flying over my head.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Career in Cybersecurity Industry - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone. I think this is the first time for me to post a question in hacker news. Currently, I am an ICT infrastructure engineer for like 6 years. I feel that my knowledge is too general. I think it is time to develp my specialty. I am still interested in the IT industry. But there are too many areas of IT. I am considering about the cybersecurity and data science. But I am not sure how the career path and real job of cybersecurity and data science. Anyone can share your thoughts? Thanks! <comment><USER2> Both the Cybersecurity and Data Science are niche fields. You cannot go wrong by choosing either.

Regarding Cybersecurity, most of the companies are realizing the importance of incorporating security during the early phase of product cycle. Hiring is in uptrend with regards to security jobs. Having a certification similar to CISSP or CEH will help. Security has many domains, based on your experience you have to specialize in either network, web, systems, IAM, operations etc. Having experience in one of the language like python will definitely help. Good luck with your search.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for your reply Rasikjain! It is really helpful. Actually, I am thinking about a domain that I can work for the next 10-15 years as a specialty. So I am might be kind of afraid in a situation I need to start over again in the new domain 5-10 years later. So I am struggling which the domain/industry I am going to change. Thanks again!</comment></comment>


The Importance of Blockchains - <AUTHOR> https://theinvisiblecityproject.com/2019-03-31.html <comment><USER2> I usually think we should be pushing for more decentralization, not just on a network level but on an application level too. My ideal internet would be one where we all email each other using self hosted emails, and chat in small irc groups where the admin frequents the chat and listens to the users, and that would pretty much be the main usage of the internet, instead of huge centralized platforms being what makes up most of the internet usage. I don't ever see us going in that direction, so perhaps blockchains are the solution. creating automated centralized platforms on a decentralized network, not controlled by anyone entity. But I think that comes with some issues itself, centralized platforms drive innovation, as well as provide security updates and moderation better than a slow updating decentralized network could I think. what happens when someone finds a exploit, in the algorithms.

I'm not an expert on blockchains though.</comment>


Wolfram Alpha - Am I doing it wrong? - <AUTHOR>

Everyone seems to be doing these cool searches but everytime I try it it says it doesn't understand my input.  Here are some things I figured it should be able to tell me: 1.) How much interest do you pay in 3 days at 30% APR? 2.) Inflation USD may 2008 to may 2009<p>Any thoughts? <comment><USER2> Example of an interest calculation:

[http://www43.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=monthly+payment+for+a...](http://www43.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=monthly+payment+for+a+5+year+%24200%2C000+mortgage+with+5%25+interest)

<comment><AUTHOR> Can I get that for 3 days?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> r.e. your second query. "Inflation USD" produces the same issue, so it seems it cant handle the idea of inflation :P

(indeed it seems not to understand USD as $'s, I had to use "dollars" to get info on the currency) EDIT: scratch that last bit :) I had a typo ;)</comment>