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The early Disney company had several near-death experiences, some due to exogenous shocks and some self-inflicted (bad labor practices, weird technology choices), and all through it, a power struggle between "Roy people" (finance) and "Walt people" (tech/art).
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https://t.co/7LQvTEh60D
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Annual Passes grew too successful, selling so well they crowded out vacationers on a once-in-a-lifetime trip.
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Then came the pandemic...and the end of the Annual Pass program altogether.
https://t.co/PrbdFsnS4U
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Most of the problems generated by Annual Passholders aren't that extreme, of course.
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More from Cory Doctorow #BLM
There are lots of problems with ad-tech:
* being spied on all the time means that the people of the 21st century are less able to be their authentic selves;
* any data that is collected and retained will eventually breach, creating untold harms;
1/
* data-collection enables for discriminatory business practices ("digital redlining");
* the huge, tangled hairball of adtech companies siphons lots (maybe even most) of the money that should go creators and media orgs; and
2/
* anti-adblock demands browsers and devices that thwart their owners' wishes, a capability that can be exploited for even more nefarious purposes;
That's all terrible, but it's also IRONIC, since it appears that, in addition to everything else, ad-tech is a fraud, a bezzle.
3/
Bezzle was John Kenneth Galbraith's term for "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it." That is, a rotten log that has yet to be turned over.
4/
Bezzles unwind slowly, then all at once. We've had some important peeks under ad-tech's rotten log, and they're increasing in both intensity and velocity. If you follow @Chronotope, you've had a front-row seat to the
* being spied on all the time means that the people of the 21st century are less able to be their authentic selves;
* any data that is collected and retained will eventually breach, creating untold harms;
1/
* data-collection enables for discriminatory business practices ("digital redlining");
* the huge, tangled hairball of adtech companies siphons lots (maybe even most) of the money that should go creators and media orgs; and
2/
* anti-adblock demands browsers and devices that thwart their owners' wishes, a capability that can be exploited for even more nefarious purposes;
That's all terrible, but it's also IRONIC, since it appears that, in addition to everything else, ad-tech is a fraud, a bezzle.
3/
Bezzle was John Kenneth Galbraith's term for "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it." That is, a rotten log that has yet to be turned over.
4/
Bezzles unwind slowly, then all at once. We've had some important peeks under ad-tech's rotten log, and they're increasing in both intensity and velocity. If you follow @Chronotope, you've had a front-row seat to the
The numbers are all fking fake, the metrics are bullshit, the agencies responsible for enforcing good practices are knowing bullshiters enforcing and profiting off all the fake numbers and none of the models make sense at scale of actual human users. https://t.co/sfmdrxGBNJ pic.twitter.com/thvicDEL29
— Aram Zucker-Scharff (@Chronotope) December 26, 2018
I've just read one of the most lucid, wide-ranging, cross-disciplinary critiques of cryptocurrency and blockchain I've yet to encounter. 1/
It comes from David "DSHR" Rosenthal, a distinguished technologist whose past achievements including helping to develop X11 and the core technologies for Nvidia.
https://t.co/tkAMShno4k 2/
Rosenthal's critique is a transcript of a lecture he gave to Stanford's EE380 class, adapted from a December 2021 talk for an investor conference. 3/
It is a bang-up-to-date synthesis of many of the critical writings on the subject, glued together with Rosenthal's own deep technical expertise. He calls it "Can We Mitigate Cryptocurrencies' Externalities?"
The presence of "externalities" in Rosenthal's title is key. 4/
Rosenthal identifies blockchainism's core ideology as emerging from "the libertarian culture of Silicon Valley and the cypherpunks," and states that "libertarianism's attraction is based on ignoring externalities."
This is an important critique of libertarianism. 5/
It comes from David "DSHR" Rosenthal, a distinguished technologist whose past achievements including helping to develop X11 and the core technologies for Nvidia.
https://t.co/tkAMShno4k 2/
Rosenthal's critique is a transcript of a lecture he gave to Stanford's EE380 class, adapted from a December 2021 talk for an investor conference. 3/
It is a bang-up-to-date synthesis of many of the critical writings on the subject, glued together with Rosenthal's own deep technical expertise. He calls it "Can We Mitigate Cryptocurrencies' Externalities?"
The presence of "externalities" in Rosenthal's title is key. 4/
Rosenthal identifies blockchainism's core ideology as emerging from "the libertarian culture of Silicon Valley and the cypherpunks," and states that "libertarianism's attraction is based on ignoring externalities."
This is an important critique of libertarianism. 5/
More from Business
I love Twitter.
It’s truly the Town Square of the Internet.
But finding the diamond in the rough voices can be tough.
Here are 20 of my favorite people to follow:
1. Alex Lieberman - @businessbarista
Alex writes extensively about the Founder journey.
The cool part is he’s lived everything he talks about - starting from $0 and selling for $75M with hardly any outside capital raised.
My favorite piece:
2. Ryan Breslow - @ryantakesoff
Ryan is a Top 1% founder.
This guy is a machine - he’s built 2 unicorns before the age of 27.
Ryan spells out lessons on fundraising, operating and scaling.
My favorite piece:
3. Jesse Pujji - @jspujji
Jesse is who I think of when I think “bootstrapping.”
He bootstrapped his company to an 8-figure exit and now shares stories about other awesome bootstrappers.
He’s also got great insight into all things growth marketing:
4. Post Market - @Post_Market
Post puts out some of the most thoughtful investment insights on this platform.
It’s refreshing because Post cuts through the hype and goes deep into the business model.
Idk who he/she/it is, but the insights are 💣.
It’s truly the Town Square of the Internet.
But finding the diamond in the rough voices can be tough.
Here are 20 of my favorite people to follow:
1. Alex Lieberman - @businessbarista
Alex writes extensively about the Founder journey.
The cool part is he’s lived everything he talks about - starting from $0 and selling for $75M with hardly any outside capital raised.
My favorite piece:
A life well-lived is a life-well planned.
— Alex Lieberman \u2615\ufe0f (@businessbarista) July 14, 2021
5 steps to build your own "Life Map" \U0001f9f5
2. Ryan Breslow - @ryantakesoff
Ryan is a Top 1% founder.
This guy is a machine - he’s built 2 unicorns before the age of 27.
Ryan spells out lessons on fundraising, operating and scaling.
My favorite piece:
The biggest lesson I\u2019ve learned in building a $4B company:
— Ryan Breslow \U0001f57a (@ryantakesoff) September 23, 2021
It\u2019s all about the people.
I\u2019m thrilled to announce today that Bolt is the first tech unicorn to officially shift to a 4 day work week.
Here\u2019s why we did it and how we came to the decision \U0001f447\U0001f447\U0001f447
3. Jesse Pujji - @jspujji
Jesse is who I think of when I think “bootstrapping.”
He bootstrapped his company to an 8-figure exit and now shares stories about other awesome bootstrappers.
He’s also got great insight into all things growth marketing:
Welcome new followers!!
— Jesse Pujji (@jspujji) September 16, 2021
Thanks for joining my entrepreneurial community.
To learn more about my journey, listen 2 my convo with @patrick_oshag.
I tell my story about bootstrapping, marketing, DTC and building a culture with conscious leadership. https://t.co/BSg6hCEE0L pic.twitter.com/gH4tAjfFBx
4. Post Market - @Post_Market
Post puts out some of the most thoughtful investment insights on this platform.
It’s refreshing because Post cuts through the hype and goes deep into the business model.
Idk who he/she/it is, but the insights are 💣.
Sweetgreen, ~$400M run-rate in sales (RLM% of 16% in 2019) and 140 units (+20-25 per year).
— Post M. (@Post_Market) October 25, 2021
Lets say 400 units by 2030 @ $3.5M AUV ($2.5M today) and 21.5% RLM. $300M RL EBITDA less $200M in G&A less $25M in maint. capex. is $75M in 'owners' EBIT
Last round at $1.6B. Yikes.
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I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x
The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x
Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x
The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x
It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x
As someone\u2019s who\u2019s read the book, this review strikes me as tremendously unfair. It mostly faults Adler for not writing the book the reviewer wishes he had! https://t.co/pqpt5Ziivj
— Teresa M. Bejan (@tmbejan) January 12, 2021
The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x
Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x
The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x
It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x
I think a plausible explanation is that whatever Corbyn says or does, his critics will denounce - no matter how much hypocrisy it necessitates.
Corbyn opposes the exploitation of foreign sweatshop-workers - Labour MPs complain he's like Nigel
He speaks up in defence of migrants - Labour MPs whinge that he's not listening to the public's very real concerns about immigration:
He's wrong to prioritise Labour Party members over the public:
He's wrong to prioritise the public over Labour Party
One of the oddest features of the Labour tax row is how raising allowances, which the media allowed the LDs to describe as progressive (in spite of evidence to contrary) through the coalition years, is now seen by everyone as very right wing
— Tom Clark (@prospect_clark) November 2, 2018
Corbyn opposes the exploitation of foreign sweatshop-workers - Labour MPs complain he's like Nigel
He speaks up in defence of migrants - Labour MPs whinge that he's not listening to the public's very real concerns about immigration:
He's wrong to prioritise Labour Party members over the public:
He's wrong to prioritise the public over Labour Party
