It's not the "be all end all" deal, but an objective measurement of progress (or lack thereof) nonetheless. The question might be "what's his 100m dash time" or anything else really.
Nothing in that article indicates any positive improvement as a result of this self-imposed IF for no apparent reason :)
The idea that uber will replace public transit in NYC is laughable. Sure, there is a group of rich yuppies (and their parents) that will gladly give uber their business, but NYC's transit system serves a much, much broader demographic of customers that cannot and/or will not to pay ten dollars or more every time they want to get around the city.
Public transit is a system. Uber will never put the subway out of business, but an Uber bus or other uber services could well nip at peripheral bus lines and make them uneconomic to operate.
This ultimately results in less feeder traffic for the subway, higher subsidy requirements and is overall a bad thing for the system.
Über's valuation is all about the market clout they are building. The fantasies of robot cabs are just a veneer.
What is the unsubsidized price of an NYC transit ride? For example, the unsubsidized price of a MUNI ride in SF is $10. So there is an edge case where a subsidized uber-like service would be cheaper than MUNI for the state.
"The theory of disruptive innovation was invented by Clayton Christensen, of Harvard Business School, in his book “The Innovator’s Dilemma”. Mr Christensen used the term to describe innovations that create new markets by discovering new categories of customers. They do this partly by harnessing new technologies but also by developing new business models and exploiting old technologies in new ways. He contrasted disruptive innovation with sustaining innovation, which simply improves existing products. Personal computers, for example, were disruptive innovations because they created a new mass market for computers; previously, expensive mainframe computers had been sold only to big companies and research universities."
Have you ever been to NYC? Do you have any idea how much extra vehicle capacity would be necessary for Uber to supplant the subways? A subway track has capacity of roughly 25000 people/hour (112 people per car, 10 cars per train, 20 trains per hour) in each direction; that's as much as 10 freeway lanes. Manhattan has 20 subway tracks across its width (5 lines, each with express and local, in 2 directions), so that's at least 200 extra lanes of cars for Uber's disruption to innovate out of nowhere.
Just got back from a trip last month, amazing city and I had an absolute blast. Took subway and Uber while I was there (no medallion cabs this time, but plenty in past trips). No doubt that the world-class subway system imposes substantial competitive pressure on cars in general.
I'd arguing that Uber has the potential to pose a disruptive threat to taxis, not subways. And to lots of transportation systems in plenty of other cities around the world.
Okay, but Uber literally cannot put enough cars into the city to move five million people around every day, and they're sure as shit not going to dig their own tunnels.
They raised just North of a billion dollars [0] in September, the 2nd Ave Subway is expected to cost $4.5b [1] for 1.5m of track, three new stops, and a new entrance at an old stop. So yea, you can be sure as shit they're not building their own tunnels. At least not here.
Uber replacing public transit is not a case of disruption as defined by Christiansen, though, since Uber is more expensive. It's not even disrupting street hails per se. Uber is disrupting taxi dispatch, and in doing so displacing street hails by making them less relevant.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."
I always describe this to "non-mathy" people when they ask what could possibly be fascinating/beautiful/etc about math. I'd like to think I've changed at least a mind or two.
I cringe to bring up such a trivial example, but it would seem like it's this easy to expose how ludicrous this opinion is...in whose ambulance, on whose roads, and in whose building would you receive treatment for any kind of medical emergency?
I don't see how you think that question exposes anything. Unless you hold the unsubstantiated opinion that ambulances, road and buildings can't exist without being funded by the government.
And, even if they couldn't, my answer would only be to say that I don't hold that I'm entitled to a road, an ambulance, or a hospital.
Those fly-by-night establishments are what keep a neighborhood vibrant at night, though. I understand that's not what everyone is looking for, but all else being equal, a populated neighborhood is safer than an empty one.
In my neck of the woods, population density is not an issue. The decision by condo developers to dedicate the bottom floor to small retail storefronts has surprisingly become quite disruptive!
I don't consider pawn shops and e-cig shops keeping things vibrant. Nice bars and clubs, restaurants, and unique retail do. Personally, I think pawn shops and payday loan stores are predatory and should be highly regulated if not eliminated. High margin junk like that edges out nicer stores because condo associations just want to go with the quick cash. For example, a lot of women here would love more boutique stores but the rent these stores can afford is being edged out by the guy selling $50 e-cigs. Then the e-cig market will normalize, crash, and these guys will go away, but we've chased off the boutique crowd and our neighborhood is now known for e-cigs, pawnshops, and tattoo parlours. That isn't terribly appealing, especially in Chicago where we have world-class tattoo artists within a short CTA ride away. Why go with the local shady scratcher on the corner? In other words, we are already vibrant.
I do very much like that we have mixed zoning bringing some unique things like a very nice comic book shop and lots of interesting small restaurants that would otherwise have a hard time renting a proper stand-alone brick and mortar store. I think this is all working itself out or will in the long run. I've already seen multiple shady convenience stores go out of business, but that's largely because we won't give them liquor licenses as there are already enough liquor outlets within walking distance. I think one of the vape lounges died recently too and newer development seems to be attracting a higher caliber of business. Maybe the low end high margin stuff is maximized for our neighborhood at this point? Or maybe condo associations are learning that its within their interests to be more discriminating and vetting businesses that might affect their property values, the neighborhood feel, neighborhood safety, etc.
I'm okay letting the market sort it out, but I think its fair to say that all this sudden cheap retail space in an gentrifying urban neighborhood can be disrupting in a bad way until things get sorted out. The argument above that the suburbs should accept this model without criticism is weak sauce. I've lived in poorer suburbs that saw their city counterparts do well with heavy retail and became more liberal with business licenses and now these suburbs just became liquor store, payday loan, and fast food havens. Large blocks of residential with no retail in the suburbs is a feature, not a bug. They're trying to avoid these and other problems (noise, traffic, etc) by segregating the two. Its actually a smart approach if you have the land and the roads to pull it off. If you guys are unhappy in the suburbs because of that, then come join us in the city.
> High margin junk like that edges out nicer stores because condo associations just want to go with the quick cash. For example, a lot of women here would love more boutique stores but the rent these stores can afford is being edged out by the guy selling $50 e-cigs.
I don't understand, you just claimed the rent is too low, now you are saying it's too high for boutiques.
> I'm okay letting the market sort it out.
You just wrote 4 paragraphs on why you're not ok with letting the market sort it out. The "market" (people who live in your neighborhood) is obviously supporting this "high margin junk." Maybe your neighbors aren't interested in overpriced boutique crap?
> Or maybe condo associations are learning that its within their interests to be more discriminating and vetting businesses that might affect their property values, the neighborhood feel, neighborhood safety, etc.
Let me tl;dr your post for you - "I don't like poor people."
Sure, but coding doesn't apply to the position you applied for. Fermi questions are a good way of determining cognitive ability and problem solving, especially when coding or algorithmic questions aren't appropriate. I've gone through both PM and SWE interviews at Google, and am currently a SWE and interviewer. My PM interview had a Fermi question, and thought it was enjoyable and appropriate for the position.
So I'll try to respond to this with as little bias as possible considering I was an interviewee and you have self-identified as an interviewer.
I am not debating the utility of Fermi questions, I can see how they might be useful and/or might be harmful during the interview process. My statements have been simply that my experience differed from what others have been saying, in that I definitely had that type of question during an interview with Google, so clearly they cannot be "against the rules" or anything like that.
That said, these types of questions are a bit like any standardized test (such as the SAT/ACT, etc.), which may or may not be strong indicators of cognitive ability/problem solving depending on who you ask. I think there is enough controversy over standardized testing to be able to at least say that solely relying on such methods, especially in a high-stress situation or even due to cultural differences, might come with some drawbacks and not be an accurate indicator for all candidates.
Lest I forget, Google is a business, and if such tools are what help Google find the candidates it wants, then so be it. It might also be an indicator to candidates about what kind of organization Google is. As a business, the organization will usually prioritize its desires/needs/benefits over those of the candidate - it's not a charity, and I get that. All I am saying is, it may just be that they are excluding certain diversity or individuals unnecessarily without realizing it. Perhaps that is the motivation behind the reported change in attitude towards such types of questions, I'm not sure.
It may or may not be that coding skills were relevant to the specific position. That said, in my experience, product management in software companies in particular is not stovepiped in such a way that you need not have any experience in coding. In fact, I think that some of the best product managers in such companies have coding experience, business experience, hardware/software/etc., and/or cross-disciplinary skill-sets. Perhaps such strong candidates don't fit the standard model, I'm not sure.
I am in the same boat as you. Though web development is not my primary job, this is how I learn it in my spare time. Would love to hear from others.
a) Learn fundamentals and working of JS (right from event loop), How modern browsers works as full blown runtime, single page applications, Functional programming paradigm etc.
b) Be able to categorize and put opensource I come across frequently, into problem buckets they solve. Started with libraries, frameworks and tools and am going one level down now
c) How massive development is now possible on browser side with kind of tooling available
d) Picked up Angular and Node for "Hello World" and some small apps for learning
e) I follow related subreddits like- r/Javascript, r/AngularJS, r/webdevelopment etc and of course lurk on HN
I'm not an academic so I won't profess to be an expert about papers, but it struck me as odd that it was written in the first person. Felt like a blog post with lipstick.
I'm under qualified to address the paper itself, but it was an interesting read.
