H.P. Hovercraft posted:

when i was single and living in a studio i just ate at my computer desk every single night

born on a buy you posted:

don't gently caress with opec

Elder Postsman posted:

sad

Metrication posted:

i eat my computer every night

Farecoal posted:

actually you are just a bad poster

Luigi Thirty posted:

a company that makes "environmentally sustainable" paper plates valuing itself at 2.5 million dolalrs

Luigi Thirty posted:

a company that makes "environmentally sustainable" paper plates valuing itself at 2.5 million dolalrs

Luigi Thirty posted:

a company that makes "environmentally sustainable" paper plates valuing itself at 2.5 million dolalrs

Luigi Thirty posted:

a company that makes "environmentally sustainable" paper plates valuing itself at 2.5 million dolalrs

Luigi Thirty posted:

a company that makes "environmentally sustainable" paper plates valuing itself at 2.5 million dolalrs

fits my needs posted:

wouldn't it be more environmentally sustainable to just make, i dunno, actual plates? that you can reuse. lmbo

fits my needs posted:

wouldn't it be more environmentally sustainable to just make, i dunno, actual plates? that you can reuse. lmbo

BONGHITZ posted:

reminder: we dont know how bad Fukushima was, it might have been pretty bad

BONGHITZ posted:

reminder: we dont know how bad Fukushima was, it might have been pretty bad

theadder posted:

im the plate

infernal machines posted:

infernal machines posted:

infernal machines posted:

computer parts posted:

hey now, canada has oil and housing

BONGHITZ posted:

reminder: we dont know how bad Fukushima was, it might have been pretty bad

BONGHITZ posted:

reminder: we dont know how bad Fukushima was, it might have been pretty bad

infernal machines posted:

depending on where you are the housing bubble is because of the oil market.

the good 'ol one-two punch

Necc0 posted:

how do we not know how bad it was? did a spill teleport somewhere else?

Cold on a Cob posted:

i'm still trying to figure out what's fueling high housing costs in southern ontario

the insurance industry? banking?

lol

VLADIMIR GLUTEN posted:

well we can just NEVER KNOW MAN we just CANT

Luigi Thirty posted:

a company that makes "environmentally sustainable" paper plates valuing itself at 2.5 million dolalrs

quote:

Amid Scrutiny, Uber Says It Will Focus More on Safety
LOS ANGELES — Uber promises to focus on rider safety amid increasing concerns that its drivers are not adequately screened for past criminal convictions.

In a blog post Wednesday, Uber's head of global safety defended the company's safety record but also wrote that "as we look to 2015, we will build new safety programs and intensify others."

quote:

Massachusetts Ride-Share Driver Accused of Rape

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A Massachusetts Uber driver is accused of sexually assaulting a woman who had summoned the ride-sharing service.

Authorities say 46-year-old Alejandro Done was arraigned Wednesday in Cambridge District Court. The Boston man pleaded not guilty to charges of rape, assault to rape, kidnapping and two counts of assault and battery.

....

The driver allegedly told the woman that he would need a cash payment, so he took her to an ATM.

Authorities say he then drove her to a secluded location and sexually assaulted her.

quote:

The $41 billion valuation for the ride-sharing service Uber may or may not be a bubblicious number, but it certainly shows that the venture capital industry is in a bad place.

To understand, you need only peruse the startling valuations for other companies that have received venture capital funding in the last few weeks. Here are some of them:

■ Instacart, a same-day grocery delivery service based in San Francisco, began a $100 million fund-raising round valuing it at $2 billion.

■ WeWork Companies, a company that provides shared office space (think Uber for offices), closed a $355 million funding round valuing it at $5 billion.

■ Stripe, an online payment company, completed a $70 million investment round that valued it at $3.5 billion, double its $1.75 billion valuation earlier this year.

■ The mobile games maker Kabam announced that employees and investors were selling $40 million in shares to a group of investors. After an earlier round of investment last summer, the company was valued at more than $1 billion, up from $700 million last year.

.....

It is not just about apocalyptic valuations. Companies are going from zero to billion-dollar valuations faster than ever before, despite a lack of revenue and, perhaps, even a market plan. In the frenzy, ideas that once were discarded as failures are being recycled into billion-dollar start-ups. Remember, same-day grocery delivery is nothing new. Kozmo.com and Webvan were same-day delivery services that failed when the dot-com bubble burst, losing hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet Instacart, a company with service in only 15 areas, is hurtling toward a valuation in the billions.

The high valuations have gone beyond old ideas and new ones that want to be the Uber of office space or dry cleaning. In the past few weeks, Vox Media, the Internet media start-up, closed a funding round that valued it at $380 million, $130 million more than Jeff Bezos paid for The Washington Post, while Change.org, the online petition service, raised $25 million at an undisclosed valuation from a number of investors, including the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, the Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, the Twitter co-founder Evan Williams and others. When media start-ups can raise millions just because they are new companies, rather than the old struggling ones, you know the froth has spread.

.....

Still, the spree of billion-dollar valuations in the past few weeks shows us that something more is going on. That is where the terrible business of venture capital comes in. In the last five years ending in 2013, according to Cambridge Associates, venture capital’s returns trailed the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index by 5.4 percentage points, earning 12.5 percent a year against the S.&P. 500’s 17.9 percent. Venture capital trailed private equity firms even more, failing to justify the 10-year lockups and other fees that investors in venture capital funds must agree to.

In this world, the top 10 percent or so of venture capital firms, the elite, are the only ones that consistently perform well. That includes Andreessen Horowitz and Accel Partners. But even the storied Kleiner Perkins is struggling to keep up.

Yet every venture capital firm is trying to stay alive and in the game. And the only way to do so is to ride the herd and hope that you have the next Facebook. More than 40 percent of venture capital’s investment so far this year was in software — mainly apps, according to the National Venture Capital Association. Venture capitalists are rushing to get in on the new, new thing, which just happens to be mostly apps and Uber knockoffs.

In this market, the crazy valuations are just the price of survival for venture capital firms. That’s how an online grocer like Instacart or WeWork can have billion-dollar valuations. These companies may have ideas that work, and if they do, the payoff is perhaps another Facebook. But more likely, everyone is overestimating market share and pushing assumptions to even get the privilege of investing.