JakeTheAndroid (u/JakeTheAndroid)

JakeTheAndroid commented on Silicon Valley's best kept secret: Founder liquidity stefantheard.com/silicon-... · Posted by u/mooreds

ditonal · a year ago

This is the “startup myth” that lets the scam perpetuate.

The world has changed. Google IPOed just a few years after it founded. Now Stripe, objectively one of the most successful startups ever, still hasn’t IPOed after 15 years.

Liquidity preference Dilution

Even the F in FAANG had a major movie made about early employees getting shafted by dilution!

FAANG is 5 companies founded a long time ago. Since then VCs have completely rewritten the rules of the game. But they’ll still point to extreme outliers in the old rules. The fairy tale of the Google masseuse has probably cost tens of thousands of engineers millions in compensation.

You need to get things in writing and do the math and startups make it as difficult as possible to do that and then the math never adds up. So they resort to fairy tales.

JakeTheAndroid · a year ago

I don't agree it's a myth. Is it an extreme risk? Yes, of course. Do people view the risks to be way too low? Yes. But I worked at Cloudflare pre-IPO, got shares at 1.73, and at one point CF was at 200 a share. That was more or less what I was "promised" from the equity.

Stripe is one example of a successful startup not going public, but there are tons of startups that are going public. And there are many startups that wish they could go public, but they simply don't have the finances or business to do so.

I don't think VCs changed much from when Google went public until COVID. We were seeing massive overvaluations of tech companies for years. Once through 2020, VCs got scared and now the landscape is a bit different. But the AI craze has started to get VCs back out of their shells taking bets on risky projects.

So, yeah, idk what I agree with this assessment. At least it's not been my experience in tech over the last 8+ years.

JakeTheAndroid commented on Thanksgiving 2023 security incident blog.cloudflare.com/thank... · Posted by u/nomaxx117

mardifoufs · 2 years ago

Ah I think I'm just not used to those then, I hated the whole checklist busywork that we had to do even though we were barely related to the sales infra. But yeah, it was a bit like soc2 in that regard. Is there any certification that isn't just checklist "auditing"? That involves actual monitoring or something? Not sure if that's even possible

JakeTheAndroid · 2 years ago

PCI is the most checklist framework around. SOC 2 can be a checklist audit, depending on how much effort your internal compliance team puts into it. I've never had SOC 2 be really a checklist in the way PCI is. SOC 2 requires you to design and write your own controls and scope in or out different aspects of the business. SOC 2 does include monitoring and stuff like that.

The difference really is point in time vs period over time audits. PCI is a point in time audit, SOC 2 is a period over time audit. So for SOC 2 you do need monitoring controls, and then they test that control over the entire period (often 6-12 months). So you are monitoring the control effectiveness over a longer period of time with SOC 2. And even PCI has some period over time controls you need to demonstrate.

From the outside all compliance will seem like checkboxes to most people once controls are established. Because really the goal for most of the business is to make sure the control they interact with doesn't break, and the compliance team will likely give a list of things that the business can't afford to have broken. Which does seem like a checklist similar to PCI. But really, only PCI is straight up a checklist, as you don't really get to decide your controls.

JakeTheAndroid commented on Thanksgiving 2023 security incident blog.cloudflare.com/thank... · Posted by u/nomaxx117

nimbius · 2 years ago

Then, the advertisement worked.

- Insist that you have better integrity than your competitors

- share a few operational investigations after your latest security event

what cloudflare doesnt do is provide their SOC risk analysis as a PCI/DSS payment card processor. Cloudflare doesnt explain why they ignored/failed to identify the elevated accounts or how those accounts became compromised to begin with. They just explain remediation without accountability.

They mention a third-party audit was conducted, but thats not because they care about you. Its because PCI/DSS mandates when an organization of any level experiences a data breach or cyber-attack that compromises payment card information, it needs to pass a yearly on-premise audit to ensure PCI compliance. if they didnt, major credit houses would stop processing their payments.

JakeTheAndroid · 2 years ago

I am not sure where you're getting your information on requirements for PCI service providers. There isn't anything inside of PCI DSS that requires some sort of SOC report to be generated and distributed to customers. And Cloudflare does make their PCI AoC available to customers.

They clearly defined the scope of impact, and demonstrated that none of this impacts systems in scope for PCI. There was no breach to change management inside of BitBucket, and none of the edge servers processing cardholder data were impacted. They will have plenty of artifacts to demonstrate that by bringing in an external firm. So I am really not clear why you're bringing up PCI at all here. They made it clear no cardholder data was impacted so your perspective on the required "on-site" audits is moot.

Cloudflare operates two entirely different scopes for PCI; The first being as a Merchant where you the customer pays for the services. This is a very small scope of systems. The second is as a Service Provider that processes cards over the network. The network works such that it is not feasible to exfiltrate card data from the network. There are many reasons as to why this is, but they demonstrate year over year that this is not something that is reasonably possible. You can review their PCI AoC and get the details (albeit limited) to understand this better. Or you could get their SOC 2 Type 2 Report which will cover many aspects of the edge networks control environment with much better testing details. After reading that you can then come back to the blog and see that clearly no PCI scoped systems were impacted in a way that would require any on-prem audit to occur.

And they are not a card network. They are a PCI Service Provider because cards transit over their network. They are not at risk of being unable to process payments or transactions for their Merchant scope even if there are issues with their Service Provider scope. Because, again, these are two separate PCI audits that are done, testing two different sets of systems and controls.

And, as an aside, Cloudflare effectively always has on-prem PCI audits occur. Because the PCI QSA's need to physically visit Cloudflare datacenters to demonstrate not only the software side of compliance, but the datacenters deployed globally.

JakeTheAndroid commented on Rolls-Royce calls off bets on electric planes, says low-carbon fuel is future electrek.co/2023/11/29/ro... · Posted by u/burkaman

ramesh31 · 2 years ago

>That's without accounting for any additional infra that might be needed to support a 10x or 100x in traffic.

The TSA requirement is nil for 10 person flights and these would be VFR only anyways. You would avoid a vast majority of the need for added ATC by operating between uncontrolled fields and relying on enhanced automation. The traditional airport model doesn't really apply when flights can be made so casually. Imagine a world where tiny runways that only service EVs are integrated into the city and you can hop between them as easily as catching a bus. Crosscountry travel would be also be possible via smaller hops, and cost less than a direct long haul jet liner ticket.

All of that is enabled by the orders of magnitude reduction in operating costs. EV Alice is claiming $200/hr to operate an aircraft that has the equivalent performance to a $1k+/hr turbine within the range limitation.

JakeTheAndroid · 2 years ago

> Imagine a world where tiny runways that only service EVs are integrated into the city and you can hop between them as easily as catching a bus.

I mean, that sounds like a massive shift in infrastructure and city planning. I am not sure how efficient and affordable this would need to be to achieve that level of integration into daily society. Currently nothing, in the US at least, is setup to function this way. Whereas rail and roads are already deployed.

And again, this ignores any of the issues brought on by scale. If this is the way we want people traveling at a 10x or 100x rate, the airspace is going to be busier and likely will need some sort of coordination, whether ATC or some other mechanism.

JakeTheAndroid commented on Rolls-Royce calls off bets on electric planes, says low-carbon fuel is future electrek.co/2023/11/29/ro... · Posted by u/burkaman

majormajor · 2 years ago

It's hard for me to imagine (in the US) the government allowing an explosion in small commercial flights w/o TSA and all that rigamarole. If you get 10x, 100x the volume today, with a less upper-crust passenger base, the perceived security/terrorism risk probably starts getting talked about.

JakeTheAndroid · 2 years ago

and there is already a massive shortage of ATC employees right now. At minimum this would need to be addressed and more than double the workforce of ATC. That's without accounting for any additional infra that might be needed to support a 10x or 100x in traffic.

JakeTheAndroid commented on Twitter has officially changed its logo to ‘X’ techcrunch.com/2023/07/24... · Posted by u/pallas_athena

TheCaptain4815 · 2 years ago

That's a pretty ridiculous notion to pit illegal content such as death threats and real libel with free speech. No one of any significance on the right who advocates for free speech believes in that and it's just a cheap trick / wordsplay.

>The fact that the word CIS gender is considered hate speech on the platform[0]. That's a decidedly moral perspective and one that comes with an entire political movement.

CIS IS a slur, used to marginalize non-transgender people. I totally disagree with banning the term, but labeling it under "hate speech" alongside anti-transgender wording is perfectly logical IMO.

>yet he still bent the knee because he wanted his platform to stay up in a country so that he could continue to benefit from the user base.

Again, he has no choice here. Either shut twitter down or follow the countries laws. The choices tech giants make in authoritarian countries is pretty meaningless. It's the choices they make in free countries that count and shows their true colors.

JakeTheAndroid · 2 years ago

A lot of words to say that you are fine with curtailed speech, and that Elon's Twitter/X is not doing anything unique in regards to speech. Which is fine, the product needs to be for someone I guess. But don't pretend that Twitter is a safe haven for speech when it's not. It's just another social media site where moderation is done at the whim of those in control of the platform.

> That's a pretty ridiculous notion to pit illegal content such as death threats and real libel with free speech.

I am not the one that chooses to call myself a "free speech absolutist" and I am not the one that is claiming that Twitter is a place for free speech. If we're only looking at what is considered free speech in the US then Twitter had completely free speech before Elon took over. My usage of illegal content was in response to the claim that there were no laws around censorship in the US. Clearly there is, and you agree; Illegal content does need to be censored. I am fine with that, but is a "free speech absolutist"? If so, they aren't an absolutist.

I wasn't making a claim on whether or not that was reasonable content to take action on.

> CIS IS a slur.

No, it's not. It might be able to be used as a slur but that is true for most adjectives. You feeling like it is a slur says a lot more about you than it does about people who use that word. And this is just another example of where someones personal perspective is influencing the moderation on Twitter/X. You agree with Elon that its a slur, which is fine I guess. Elon says thats going to get banned, and that's not a free speech issue for some reason. But when people bring up the usage of the N-word or anti-Semitic language, Elon is oddly quiet. Again, I guess that is fine, it's his platform, but clearly slurs aren't wholesale banned, so then how is that free speech? Oh, right, it's not. It's the exact same as Facebook or Reddit or any other website. As if Elon isn't doing anything unique but selling you on the idea that he is.

JakeTheAndroid commented on Twitter has officially changed its logo to ‘X’ techcrunch.com/2023/07/24... · Posted by u/pallas_athena

TheCaptain4815 · 2 years ago

There are no censorship laws in America. Under Elon's twitter, no sitting president of the united states will get banned. That alone is enough of a change. Please show me some examples of new Twitter increasing political censorship of people he disagrees with. The reality is new twitter has vastly expanded the amount of accepted speech, which is never a bad thing.

The flight trackers thing (from what I understand) ended up being a security risk with NON PUBLIC information beginning to appear there (people actually following cars and reporting). Not saying I agree with it, but in those circumstances I'd imagine most social networks would have done the same.

Turkey thing is not a choice of his. Not all countries have free speech like America, either they comply or get banned. The real test is censoring in free countries like Facebook, Instagram, old Twitter, etc have been doing.

JakeTheAndroid · 2 years ago

> There are no censorship laws in America.

Yes and no. There are libel and slander laws, and there is definitely content that has to be moderated, such as illegal content. Which, if we're being strict on the idea of free speech absolutism, then complying with the laws is still censorship. Which is sort of the issue with the entire idea of "free speech absolutism" in general.

> Please show me some examples of new Twitter increasing political censorship of people he disagrees with.

The fact that the word CIS gender is considered hate speech on the platform[0]. That's a decidedly moral perspective and one that comes with an entire political movement.

> The flight trackers thing (from what I understand) ended up being a security risk

You understood wrong. There is no risk, period. The flight trackers aggregated public data which literally anyone can go look at. And they didn't validate whether the plane being tracked had anyone on it, and they didn't follow the people on-board around telling you their destinations once they landed. There was no real risk, full stop. Musk and other people with private jets have many ways to remove themselves from those trackers and simply chose not to do it.

> Turkey thing is not a choice of his.

Weird, now it's not a choice when he decides to censor stuff, but it is a choice when he decides to not moderate people using other slurs AT individuals. Is Musk located in Türkiye? No. Is the Corp offices for the company located there? No. Do they have employees there? No. Türkiye has no power over Musk, yet he still bent the knee because he wanted his platform to stay up in a country so that he could continue to benefit from the user base. Just like Zuck does with FB and Dorsey did with Twitter before that. Musk could have said eff you to Türkiye because he truly believes in free speech, but he didn't because he doesn't.

[0]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1671370284102819841?s=20

JakeTheAndroid commented on Twitter has officially changed its logo to ‘X’ techcrunch.com/2023/07/24... · Posted by u/pallas_athena

TheCaptain4815 · 2 years ago

I do wish Elon fulfilled his promise of 'free speech absolutism', but unfortunately it's not possible with advertising today. The problem is we have no choice here given the censorship of other social media companies so anything is better than what we had before.

JakeTheAndroid · 2 years ago

It's almost like there is a bottom line and laws and stuff that require sites to moderate content. Elon will either follow suit or he'll pay out a ton of money and go broke taking Twitter/X down with him. Twitter is really no different than Facebook or any other social media site, the censorship still occurs and by and large along the same lines. The primary difference is that Elon is fine with the extreme right voices not the extreme left. But there is still a boot on the throat.

Flight trackers are not allowed on Twitter. Why? That's clearly free speech, and it's not political in nature at all. Elon just doesn't like it.

Censored in Türkiye because like every other platform he will crumble to government pressures.

He's doing the same shit that he tried to call out in the "Twitter Files", the ONLY difference is which views he supportive of compared to say Zuck.

And overall it's fine with me. A platform built around free speech absolutism is doomed to fail. No one wants to be associated with the most extreme voices, unfettered and in some cases even promoted. It's just more embarrassing when Elon says he wants to establish true free speech values, then his platform doesn't represent those values, and he tries to lie to your face telling you it is.

JakeTheAndroid commented on Twitter has officially changed its logo to ‘X’ techcrunch.com/2023/07/24... · Posted by u/pallas_athena

TheCaptain4815 · 2 years ago

Very interesting no one had an issue with twitter when they were mass censoring (even the sitting president of the united states!), got hacked by a 17 year old to have all types of celebrities and politicians tweet a bitcoin scam, were chock full of scam bots, etc.

Twitter today is freer and on the path towards improvement, much like the original twitter. Who remembers the Iran revolution and the "stop or i'll tweet" motto?

JakeTheAndroid · 2 years ago

Yeah, it's so free the word CIS is considered hate speech. It's so free you can't see tweets without logging in. It's so free Elon gave insider information to hand selected journalists to build a misleading narrative. Maximum freedom for sure.

We all know why certain people seem to like Musk, they just won't admit it because they know the reasons make them look bad.

Also, there are still scams, still fake accounts, still tons of bots, etc lol.