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WeWork founder remains a billionaire even with firm’s bankruptcy | The Straits Times
  • I kept pushing for my vision, which would have taken a bit of patience, but the shareholders kept pushing for faster returns within unreasonable time frames. The other founder was CEO at the time and he didn't dare resist the shareholders impatience.

    The other founder kept changing the company strategy after pretty much every prospect he talked with, because he wanted to make a faster return, which, against my constant back-pressure to get stuff properly done, made us move in all directions without ever really committing to a single strategy or even properly finishing work. We had a period of fast growth for a while, mostly due to a smart sales strategy and a slick story (based on my vision), but then all the unfinished loose ends kept creeping back and we lost a lot of customers to quality issues and an inability to deliver on our promises. Every customer wanted something else and since we were building a platform we could in theory do everything, but in practice we had only a certain amount of developers, so we just couldn't make them all happy. There was also a real pressure from sales to make prospects and POCs work, but there was very little pressure to make actual production systems produce value, so it seemed we were never really working on the things that our customers actually wanted, but always on features that prospects like and may sell well.

    After years of fighting to get the company aligned on a single product strategy, the other founder and I finally got it to that point, but we had lost a lot of business and had to fire nearly 30 people (half the company size). A relatively new power hungry product manager basically did a bunch of shareholder ass kissing behind closed doors. He then got elected as the new CEO, when the old CEO (who really wasn't very good) got demoted. His true narcisistic/sociopathic nature was then revealed. At that point I couldn't handle it anymore. The company still exists and I wish them well, but I am so happy to not be involved with it anymore.

    It all got started with a lofty vision, but greed for money, status and power basically fucked it over from all sides.

  • WeWork founder remains a billionaire even with firm’s bankruptcy | The Straits Times
  • I was a founder once and I had a very lofty vision for the future. I was very surprised when people started asking me for my exit strategy. What the hell, yo? I am trying to make the world a nicer place, not just fill my pockets.

  • Seek relief
  • I heard some doctor say during a podcast that these medicines are really bad for your microbiome. Apparently this is still not common knowledge in the medical science and the effects may be much more devistating than once thought.

  • How in the hell
  • 100% agreed.

    I am actually a vegan activist, so I am somewhat used to shaming people. Although that is never the purpose. The purpose is to stop people from exploiting animals (killing, breeding, enslaving, using for testing and entertainment) when in today's world 99% of it is unnecessary. It is very cruel and also is a major factor of climate change.

    I digress, what I wanted to say is that this thing that you and I are talking about should have activists too. Money grubbing needs to be shamed endlessly. I just don't know exactly how. I feel like going onto the streets with thousands of activists like I do with veganism, but I lack a clear movement, message and organization.

    I honestly don't have a systemic solution, like with veganism, which may be the crux of the problem. I just believe people need to be held accountable for what they are or are not bringing to the world.

    Do you know of a movement? Perhaps degrowth?

  • How in the hell
  • I cringe everytime money grubbing is normalized. Bloomberg is now building an AI like chatGPT to do their forecasting. They are super proud of that, but instead they should be deeply ashamed. What value are they providing? People are just lining their pockets and other people applaud these people. This is a serious culture flaw.

  • ‘It’s quite soul-destroying’: how we fell out of love with dating apps
  • Sure, but even so you're nudging people in a direction that may or may not be the right direction. Some justification for advice is in order, right? I don't know, perhaps @figaro@lemdro.id is a social psychologist who has spent years researching this topic?

  • ‘It’s quite soul-destroying’: how we fell out of love with dating apps
  • I don't know. Some justification for your advice maybe? I know you intend well, but I am genuinely wondering how you know whether your advice is right and why you feel qualified to give advice.

    Just one thing, you can say dating apps all suck, but I found my wife on a dating app, so maybe weave that into your story as well if possible :)

  • Study: 100% of meat and dairy companies have lobbied against environmental and climate policies
  • Wow, I never had heard of salicylates. If you combine that with your other allergies that indeed leaves you with a very restricted diet. What I understand is that you could still survive on a vegan diet, but you'd be extremely limited in what you can eat and perhaps have a hard time meeting your daily requirements. Are supplements working for you? I understand your point of view. Thanks for sharing.

  • InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)KI
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