I was more interesting in learning about the $3T/year number. Turns out that it is eye-catching but the math here is very dubious.
They have several factors - the primary being their taking a few very specific instances of companies, declaring these companies' manager-employee ratio be the ideal, and then computing how much other companies would save if they had similar manager-employee ratio.
This is just wrong.
By the same argument, given that Apple's retail revenue is $5,500 per sq feet while Target is only $300, we should conclude that Target is wasting retail space and it should save money by shutting down 94% of its locations.
That is of course completely incorrect - these are two very different businesses. The same problem exists with the original analysis.
The Board has a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders. They can say NO to a "serious offer" only if they can claim with confidence that the offer is undervaluing the assets, or if there is another better offer. Neither was true for Twitter.
The "native" location data that Telcos have is not very precise - think of accuracy of a few city blocks. That is good enough precision for traditional subpoenas, but not for the kind of application the author described.
Also telcos only have data for their customers - this gets them access to competitors' customers.
With 4G the problem has been "what lane are you in?". One of the things that can be done with that data... If you can figure out what lane a user is in, you can target (visually) digital billboards to that lane, covering all lanes with different images/ads, through some weird refraction. I knew of a company that was working on that problem 8-10 years ago out of the South. No idea if they solved the problem.
A mind-bending digital info screen, developed in partnership with Misapplied Sciences and dubbed Parallel Reality, will debut in beta form on June 29 near the Delta Sky Club in Concourse A of the McNamara Terminal.
According to a news release, numerous passengers can look at the same screen at once, and each passenger will see personalized flight information that the other people looking at the screen will not see, because they'll be looking at their own personalized flight info.
The Parallel Reality display conveys the same sort of stuff you find on traditional airport screens—about departure times, gate numbers, baggage carousel locations, and so on—but you don't have to scan lists of data because the screen semi-magically shows you only what you're looking for, while up to 100 other people are simultaneously looking at the same screen semi-magically showing them what they're looking for.
Since at least 3g there is a capability to request the phone to report GPS location to the telco. There is even a capability to override disabled GPS before doing that, presumably reserved for law enforcement/search and rescue.
Sometimes this does happen - VCs and acquirers behaving badly.
It has been my experience that in the vast majority of the cases, the VCs and the acquirers behave honorably, and do the right thing.
This is due to several factors:
1. They are ethical and/or more concerned about their reputation, esp. for future transactions.
2. The decision makers do not personally gain from such poor behavior (the $ flow to the organization, not to them).
3. The decision makers on the acquiring side are concerned about making enemies with others from the acquired companies.
As several others have pointed out, the primary reason is the concern/fear of legal liability. All the information is already put together for the Hire/NoHire decision, and the entire Interview Team is usually aware (though this may differ depending on the company).
If you are working with a recruiter, it may be useful for you to ask them - as a Hiring Manager, I shared candid feedback with the recruiter so that they could provide better candidates in the future. Alternately, if you connect with someone in the Interview Team, you may be able to get them to give you "off-the-record" feedback.
Please remember to accept all feedback without getting defensive or pushing back, even if you believe the Hiring Team didn't do the right thing. If you want to set the record straight, it is better to do so in a separate conversation.
This accurately covers the area: ask your recruiter / someone else you might have met, and unfortunately it's very possible you'll never get a response or get something vague like "they were looking for someone with more experience".
About setting the record straight: you'll never "overturn" a rejection; it would set the wrong precedent for every other hiring decision and also would create a very weird work environment. It's just never worth the trouble. Reapply in a year, many places will give you a totally fresh attempt (which I think is actually a bit charitable).
To echo other anecdata: I've been mildly confronted by previous interviewees who I've rejected and it was always very uncomfortable. The decision is almost never personal, and in one of these cases I actually voted for hire, but was overruled.
Agreed!! I have also tried many different CO2 meters (all consumer-grade) and Aranet has been consistently the most accurate among the CO2 meters I have used.
I measured the CO2 levels in one room using several different CO2 monitors - under similar conditions (steady-state with one person in the room, windows partially open) on different days; Aranet readings were the most stable and consistent, while matching the "expected ppm".
I also tested the monitors by exhaling directly on them, and confirming the change in readings.
I was at Sun Labs at that time - Ousterhout's group was internally regarded as one of the top groups there. I was in a different group.
My recollection is that the concerns were not around technical merit:
a. Tcl and Java were positioned as competitors,
b. Sun saw Java as a critical weapon in its fight against Microsoft,
c. Java won the internal battle, which led to Tcl/Scriptics spin out.
In the 90's Java did have technical merit because the Tcl of that era didn't have a bytecode interpreter. It wouldn't have been practical for the sort of low level embedded devices Sun was aiming to support with Java processors. The resources needed for dynamism is also a handicap for such platforms.
To be fair, there are at least three distinct groups:
1) Employees being let go
2) Employees continuing
3) Students - current and prospective
Any statement has to balance the message across these three. For example, a statement that's "too negative" about future prospects risks spooking people in #3 - causing further damage to the business, as well as to people in #2.
I'd never experienced that before, or heard of others who had experienced it.