> They ran out of novel things to say which is expected of anyone because there’s only so many non trivial things one could say. But then unlike normal people they didn’t stop talking because being rich they are bored and they want to be in the limelight all the time. So they end up talking nonsense.
Why do they always feel like they need to pull stuff out of their butts to make themselves sound like they know what is going on? In some ways I think it's related to the stock market "just meet the next quarterly goal" kind of thinking. Who cares if you don't come up with something pithy to say for a few years. Have big impacts over time instead of tons of little ups and downs all the time.
a) most people achieve social capital through relationships. Rich people gain it by distinguishing themselves among their already distinguished peers. Even if being obnoxious is what’s making you famous, you’re still more famous than anyone you know.
b) The cadre of rich people you’ve actually heard of self-select for craving attention and validation. Like most people, they aren’t good enough at anything to be famous organically, and like many of those people, are also insecure about their profound lack of specialness. But, few people have the money to buy the attention they crave.
> Why do they always feel like they need to pull stuff out of their butts to make themselves sound like they know what is going on?
Massive, unconstrained egos? They think they're hot shit, because they surround themselves with yes men.
I'm reminded of this:
> Beneath the grand narrative Musk tells, when he takes things over, what does he actually have the people under him do? What is the theory of action?
> He has people around him who are just enablers. All these Silicon Valley people do. All his minions. And they are minions — they’re all lesser than he is in some fashion, and they all look up to him. They’re typically younger. They laugh at his jokes. Sometimes when he apologizes for a joke, which is not very often, he’ll say that the people around him thought it was funny.
> When he was being interviewed at Code Conference once, he had a couple of them there. He told a really bad joke, and they all went like: Ha-ha-ha-ha. And I was like: That’s not funny — I’m sorry, did I miss the joke? And they looked at me like I had three heads. (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...)
My mom got to test one of these for like 3 months. While only a 2 seater, it was a super cool car. For the time it was very modern. And it was very quiet, it had a gentle horn you could honk so that people knew you were there. She let me drive a few times and it was also very quick.
If it wasn't for laws stating "horns should only be used in emergencies", I really wouldn't mind a softer "caution" horn... although it'd get abused and annoying.
Trams in e.g. Amsterdam have it, single bell 'ding' for caution, 'ring' for "get the fr*dge out the way now"
Isn't part of it the dealer network as well? They've existed so long on service money, they were actively pushing people away from the Lightning because the service needs were so low and they wouldn't be making money off them.
Yeah, Ford realized that early on and had once raised the idea of building their EV division as a direct-to-consumer more directly competitive as a Tesla-rival, but as soon as that news floated the dealers had a fit and one of Ford's ancient problems is that the dealers are also often its largest shareholders. That's been a recipe for Ford's many little disasters since 1919 (where the Dodge Brothers were dealers and shareholders and convinced US courts to force Ford to pay more profits to shareholder dividends than reinvest in R&D, those dividends then helping to finance the Dodge Brothers' next business, the Ford rival Dodge; the terribly broken concept of "fiduciary duty to shareholders" comes almost directly from that 1919 lawsuit, if you've ever wondered how American businesses became the quarterly-focused way that they are instead of longer horizon focused).
This has been my experience when trying to buy any EV in the US. They technically exist, but finding one at a dealership is hard. Harder still is finding one that they actually have charged. Finding one without massive dealer fees is impossible. They use the forced scarcity as an excuse. Chevy dealership told me I was better off buying a Tesla. Hyundai told me “this isn’t really an EV kind of city”
I've had the same issue and go so far as to remove the streaming stuff from my Pihole to make sure it wasn't a DNS filtering issue. Paramount+ app still is sketchy as hell sometimes. Usually won't work on my AppleTV, but works on phones and stuff.
Not sure about yours, but many extractor (vent) fans will just suck the air over a very loose filter and throw it back into the room. Many in the US are part of the over stove microwave and rarely vent at more than 250cfm (~7 m3/min) where specific vent fans that go outside can move upwards of 700-800cfm (20m3/min).
Many times its easier to look back over a period of time and see the differences than when you are gradually exposed to those things over time. Thats kind of how I'm understanding her recollection about it all. I do tend to take things with a grain of salt, not all Americans are as ridiculous as some of the people she makes us out to sound like. She does paint broadly with the "international community is all good and Americans are all morons" brush, again grain of salt.
About the money thing, I think she was probably compensated better at some point, probably when she was more involved with sandberg and zuck. But also sounds like she was working constantly so she may not have had time to worry about it or worry about spending it. I'm only ~20 chapters in, when they move to MP.
Overall I like the author/narrator, we all tell our stories from our perspective and I just keep that in mind.
I feel like its unfair to say every single direct manager doesn't care about their folks. I care about each and every person on my team, I care if they are engaged and if they can do their job. I care if they get sick and give them the time to make sure they feel better. I care about their career and try to help them along. Maybe I'm the minority, but I think that lots of managers of ICs should and do feel this way. As you go up the ladder, i can see that going down as the scope increases, but thats why you have managers, to keep attention to those details. Now i've had directors and stuff that do not care about their managers. I've also had managers that aren't great and don't care.
You are 100% correct though, we are all cogs in the machine. In the end, the people at the top don't care about anything below them if it isn't making them an the shareholders more money. If they do, they are a unicorn and i hope everyone gets to work with someone like that.
When I was laid off from RAX, it was a super emotional time. I had a job where I got to hang out with my friends and good people doing good stuff, and we also did some work (the work we were doing was so enjoyable most of the time, it didn't feel like work). I've never been able to capture that since and it has contributed greatly to my desire to get out of leadership roles.
> its unfair to say every single direct manager doesn't care about their folks
That's not the claim being made, by my reading. The quote was, "Your managers, or your managers managers, or their managers don't care about you" -- which to me means, it's not clear exactly at what level, but at some point people stop caring about you as an individual. This may be at the direct manager level if you have a shitty manager. Or it may be much higher. But at some point up the chain it will become true if you're at a megacorp.
Former racker here. When RAX laid me off, I was told there was no other place for me to go (which was not true). I loved my time there and the people I learned so much from and loved working with. It hurt. I had fantastic managers who did care, but the company changed and looking back I shouldn’t have been surprised. Cog in the machine. When I was a manager elsewhere I tried to show the same care my previous managers did. I cared even if those at the top didn’t.
Why do they always feel like they need to pull stuff out of their butts to make themselves sound like they know what is going on? In some ways I think it's related to the stock market "just meet the next quarterly goal" kind of thinking. Who cares if you don't come up with something pithy to say for a few years. Have big impacts over time instead of tons of little ups and downs all the time.
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