You need to figure out why you and your project only get to 25-50% completion. Address the issues on your side and pick projects you're more likely to finish. The biggest motivator is doing something you like. The biggest "demotivation" nowadays is being young and used to constant rewards for doing tiny tasks (or nothing at all)- of course you'll find hard work with no reward over a long time horizon impossible to do.
>Hardware can be capitalized, which means you can push it to the balance sheet (for tax or valuation purposes)
Can you say a little more about this? Not sure what you're getting at.
I think he means this: that hardware goes to your balance sheet, then it depreciates by a certain amount over those 3 years and that loss may be tax-deductible.
In other words: on your bank account it looks like an upfront cost, but because you could sell the servers at any time they really look more like a rental in your books, with capital slowly draining away each year as they become worth less.
Correct. Depending on what accounting principals you use, this is typically 3-5 years. It's akin to an airlines buying a Boeing plane. It'll cost them $1B let's say, but it'll actually hit their income over 35 years ($1b / 35), which means on their income statement, only ~$28M shows up per year (simplified example). Most companies are valued and taxed on their income, so this is important to understand.
Exactly. Even if you don't want it for yourself you could at least milk Facebook for some good purpose.
But as I said in an earlier comment, there must have been some negotiation between them and FB
