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dstroot commented on Intel CEO Letter to Employees   morethanmoore.substack.co... · Posted by u/fancy_pantser
inetknght · a month ago
> why do all these business leaders all do the same things at the same time? E.g. Layoffs + micromanagement + cost focus etc... Is this truly about macroeconomic forces that every business is responding to? Or is it just following the latest fad?

I thought about this a lot over the years.

I saw something that piqued my interest last year though, and kind've helped connect the dots. I was on a cruise, and most of the ship was available to guests. One day, one room was cordoned off to an invite-only meeting. The windows weren't blocked, but on the screen was a presentation about AI investments, number of jobs saved (reduced), and etc.

I found one of the attendants later during the voyage and chatted her up. She was head of HR in some big company, and the meeting was supposed to be private. But it contained a lot more than just spreadsheets about AI investments. There was homework and whatnot, but the attendees weren't all from a single company. It was "direction setting". I don't think it was Intel (topic under discussion) but certainly some loosely related tech industry.

I'm convinced that it was nothing less than business collusion.

So, back to your question:

> why do all these business leaders all do the same things at the same time?

Because they're told to.

dstroot · a month ago
Here's an alternative take, but along similar lines. Many high level business leaders in large established companies loathe taking risks and sticking their necks out. Instead, they hire a management consulting company (think McKinsey) who do a study and make recommendations that said executive can take to the other execs, or to the board. If it works, executive takes credit. If not, it was those darn consultants. The thing is, the consultants are giving companies the same advice. In fact, it is even stronger when "competitor A and B" are already doing "strategy C" and they are ahead of you. I've seen this movie many times...
dstroot commented on Tesla launches robotaxi rides in Austin   techcrunch.com/2025/06/22... · Posted by u/codexy
AlotOfReading · 2 months ago
One example from the first day, where the vehicle spends a bit of time driving into oncoming traffic:

https://youtu.be/_s-h0YXtF0c?t=0h7m15s

dstroot · 2 months ago
Anyone who owns a Tesla with “full self driving” knows how this is going to go. Teslas using only camera vision just don’t have the sensor package and programming to actually perform self driving. I just don’t see this going well for Tesla as it’s more likely to reveal the weaknesses in their technology than be a showcase.
dstroot commented on Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to kick-start superintelligence lab   nytimes.com/2025/06/12/te... · Posted by u/RyanShook
paxys · 2 months ago
Spending $15B to hire a 28 year old to build you some AI is certainly a move. You can call Zuck many things, but "afraid to take risks" isn't one of them.
dstroot · 2 months ago
He was spending $5b a year on whatever the metaverse was supposed to be and even renamed the company. Does anyone here use it? I think he weathers what I consider failure well. Or, conversely he can take big risks without too much blowback.
dstroot commented on Frequent reauth doesn't make you more secure   tailscale.com/blog/freque... · Posted by u/ingve
twodave · 2 months ago
The people who need to read these articles are the auditors. Until they change their expectations, the many businesses who have to pass audits are still going to be stuck doing a lot of things that are industry-standard but also very stupid. This is the case even for small businesses in certain fields where security audits are valued. We have at least half a dozen measures in place that we know aren't actually helpful but we also know auditors won't budge on right now.
dstroot · 2 months ago
Came here to say this, upvoted. Both Apple and Microsoft have "corporate IT" settings that can be used to turn off "trust my device", "remember me", etc. Auditors and CISO offices tend to lean in on checklist security - in other words it doesn't matter if it's actually more secure, it only matters that it passes the checklist audit. Many of the settings are user hostile and incentivize users to work around them. Making real security worse of course...
dstroot commented on OpenAI releases June 2025 Threat Report   openai.com/global-affairs... · Posted by u/dstroot
dstroot · 3 months ago
OpenAI’s report shows how they are able to detect, disrupt, and expose abusive activity including social engineering, cyber espionage, deceptive employment schemes, covert influence operations and scams. With some interesting examples.
dstroot commented on Apple Notes Will Gain Markdown Export at WWDC, and, I Have Thoughts   daringfireball.net/linked... · Posted by u/robenkleene
dstroot · 3 months ago
Obsidian user here. BUT I also have a lot of stuff in Apple Notes. Have wanted to consolidate but always seemed to much of a chore. This is awesome for my use case. Kudos to Apple for adding this!
dstroot commented on Is “The Phoenician Scheme” Wes Anderson's Most Emotional Film?   newyorker.com/magazine/20... · Posted by u/prismatic
rafaepta · 3 months ago
I miss Rushmore’s plain approach. Just enough quirk, sharp acting, and visuals that back the plot instead of hogging it. Newer Anderson films look like photo shoots: pretty, but the story drags. Same story dev teams hit when designers chase pixel-perfect screens and users still wait on real features.
dstroot · 3 months ago
Rushmore is my favorite Wes Anderson film. I think you nailed it. It was a great film that was “enhanced” by Wes Anderson’s style. Newer films seem to be primarily delivery vehicles of his style, with a hint of story and plot to move it along.
dstroot commented on Tales from Mainframe Modernization   oppi.li/posts/tales_from_... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti
dstroot · 3 months ago
There are millions and millions of lines of old COBOL code. I’m surprised there isn’t a commercial “pluggable” transpiler product. Read in COBOL, output Java, Rust, Go… Many COBOL systems also have a lot of intelligence in the job stream order, and dependencies - so that needs to be converted too. This seems like a no-brainer to build a consulting practice and tools around. Oh, and the data has to be converted too.
dstroot commented on The FTC puts off enforcing its 'click-to-cancel' rule   theverge.com/news/664730/... · Posted by u/speckx
garciasn · 3 months ago
I think your comment is pedantic; while I appreciate pedantry, it's a bit absurd. It's a democracy; 'we' get what 'we' voted to have.
dstroot · 3 months ago
Unfortunately money seems to be able to buy votes. So it’s more like “they got what they paid for”.

u/dstroot

KarmaCake day1523March 10, 2012
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[ my public key: https://keybase.io/dstroot; my proof: https://keybase.io/dstroot/sigs/A3hLUBMYBnYt5O1PTbv84wt8soE43cciWWiUfOYcpQw ]
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