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NESguerilla posted:I'm thinking that it was some sort of fakeout (not necessarily on their part but the show itself) That was my guess as well. I was actually expecting the fakeout to be that they roll into the office with their masterful scheme in hand and Jack immediately tells them that he's independently had a change of heart- maybe because he got wind of the competing platform. It was kind of odd that the clueless sales guy took one glance at a page that said "skunkworks" and immediately comprehended the power struggle between Jack and Richard and the conspiracy afoot. Avasculous fucked around with this message at 05:30 on May 9, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 05:28
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Echo Chamber posted:I like the constant making GBS threads on business school. I'm exploring consulting as a career option now, and the 'conjoined triangles of success' is exactly my problem with so much of business education: take 5-6 painfully general buzzwords, put them on an arbitrary graphical design, give them an air of reverence and some credentials behind the author, and you can sell it in a $40 paperback book to aspiring tycoons everywhere. Even consulting feels like it's contemptuously dismissive of half of this stuff for exactly that reason and unironically fanatical about invoking the just-as-arbitrary other half. Jack is well done and is starting to give off a distinct Jobs vs. Wozniak vibe. In the first 1.5 episodes, he comes across as the rare genius who ardently supports engineering vision and has the business savvy to make both work, even if it is rooted in some heartbreaking pragmatism. He smoothly wins over Bachman and Richard with flattery and Dinesh and Gilfoyle with bribery. Then in episode 3 the mask starts slipping and we see private flashes of anger. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth time he orders Richard to his office and points to the triangles to settle a protest, it becomes clear just how empty they are and that his true genius is just manipulation bordering on psychopathy. Avasculous fucked around with this message at 16:57 on May 9, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 16:54
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EugeneJ posted:I have good news! Thanks, I've actually been meaning to read that for a while and kept forgetting. Just ordered it. Chris Knight posted:You should watch my other favourite Sunday show, "House Of Lies" I don't know that one but I like the name, I'll check it out. Solice Kirsk posted:Then again, this is the same show that didn't describe the Schroedingers Cat thought experiment correctly so maybe not. What did they get wrong with Schroedinger's Cat? I'm not an expert at all and just skimmed the Wikipedia page, but wasn't their description basically right?
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May 10, 2016 02:18
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DrunkPanda posted:Consulting is literally the most useless industry ever. Honestly, this is more or less my core reservation about it. I really like the problem solving nature of the work and I can see the logic in startups or companies diving into new areas wanting to purchase expert insight to avoid blunders. It's much harder for me to wrap my head around how management at major corporations can justify routinely hiring consultants, which just feels a lot like outsourcing their own job. Solice Kirsk posted:Basically the entire point of the experiment itself. The original is a canister or vial of poison that would be released if whatever subatomic occurrence you want to make fun of occurs and triggers the mechanism. In the show they just dumb it down to poison food. One you are leaving it to subatomic change (the whole point of the thought process joke) the other you just poisoned a cat in box and left it closed. Yeah I see what you mean, that does kind of mangle it. I've heard that most of the engineering they present on the show (including the basic premise of a 'new' compression algorithm) is also bullshit and even Jared's night outbursts were called "worse than Google translate", so I'd say it's in good company. SnatchRabbit posted:Or it may set up a sneaky way for Richard to reveal that the Hooli guy's are up their rear end on a platform and might eat their lunch before they can even get a box to market. It's sort of a misdirected strong arm tactic where Barker is backed into a corner and wouldn't technically be showing weakness to Richard. But why not just tell him that? It's market information that Barker didn't previously have (exactly what he demanded from Bachman), so he doesn't look weak to change his mind over it. Communicating it this way would just make Richard look terrible to both Barker and Raviga for needlessly concealing a critical piece of information in addition to the whole faking the product that we're selling plan. panda clue posted:Thinking that it happened because "well since they mentioned oceans 11 and this other thing, using historical context we can see...." is just pants-on-head retarded. They didn't just 'mention' the Haversack, it's the name of the episode. And the kind of fakeout you're describing is literally a major plot point of Oceans 11- tricking both the villain and audience into thinking they'd been thwarted mid-heist. Community's Oceans 11 satire episode did the same thing. Avasculous fucked around with this message at 18:27 on May 11, 2016 |
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May 11, 2016 18:24
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You Lost fanboys sure are reaching if you think the main character letting his plans fall into his enemy's hands might have been a ruse just because it happened in an episode directly named after a historical event where fake plans were allowed to fall into enemy hands as a ruse.
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May 11, 2016 19:02
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King Vidiot posted:I'm putting my bet on "it's a ruse, but their plan will inevitably get hosed up anyhow". Agreed. I don't see now how a ruse would help them, but I also wouldn't have seen how losing the case would help them at the end of last season. This isn't a fairplay whodunnit, it's a comedy. It is absolutely consistent with the Oceans 11 reference for the characters to appear to fail to both Jack and the audience, only to reveal in a later flashback that the whole thing was planned to go that way. That's probably the most distinct part of Oceans 11 vs. any other heist movie, besides that it stars Julia Roberts. It is equally consistent with the show itself for in that moment of triumph, something to go horribly and genuinely awry, because Richard and Co. never quite manage to achieve the genius that they aspire for. I'd call that a reasonable prediction even without knowing the episode name. Avasculous fucked around with this message at 19:35 on May 12, 2016 |
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May 12, 2016 19:30
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Mortanis posted:It seems I have a massive amount of poo poo on my face over the intended drop of documents. Me too. But we in this thread understand that incorrect is merely "pre-correct. " Good episode, but in retrospect the board meeting was a stretch. Aside from Jack's open arrogance, someone saying "you have to approve this new deal right now " has got to be a huge red flag to anyone that negotiates contracts. For Laurie to admit that she overlooked that she was giving up control of the IP for five years and then capitulate instantly to that pressure (and what is the urgency anyways?) just makes her look terrible at the one thing she's supposed to excel at. The bulldog scene was great though. Also how has no one commented on: "gently caress me sideways." *blink* "indeed." Avasculous fucked around with this message at 21:55 on May 16, 2016 |
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May 16, 2016 21:51
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Veskit posted:IT'S ONLY ACCURATE TO SERVICE THE COMEDY DUMBSHOE HOW DO YOU NOT GET THIS. When you start brining up ohhh this would and would happen I just want to stab your mouth shut. Um, I do? It's a character-driven comedy and I thought that the writing for one of the characters was off in that scene, but it was otherwise a really good episode. I didn't realize posting that in the thread for the TV show would send anyone into rage seizures, but I can stick to "haha mean jerk time" if that's safer.
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May 16, 2016 22:56
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GobiasIndustries posted:I didn't see it as that far out of character for Laurie. Despite Jack acting like a shithead, she's a pragmatist and is managing partner of a VC company. Sometimes you have to eat some poo poo. Oh no, I think you're right and that part was totally fine for her. I meant more that Laurie's supposed to be a cold, clinical, consummate investor- who here admits to overlooking that the contract surrenders the IP for 5 years (which seems like kind of a big deal) and is then willing to vote for it ten seconds later anyways because the used car salesman in front of her said that she has to "right now." A counterexample for angry drunks that I thought was good writing: Gavin and his sycophants not recognizing any of the people he employed for 7 years and fired a week ago was totally unbelievable and totally great because it perfectly suited him. Incidentally, does anyone recognize the chair and is it not $8,000? I kind of liked it and I could use a new one.
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May 17, 2016 03:11
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I don't think she is on the board by name- I think she was just a representative for Raviga's seat under Peter Gregory, and then Laurie let her stay on because richard requested her when he accepted the funding. Laurie bought 2 additional seats for Raviga from Russ which she took over. Presumably, Laurie can replace her at will from Raviga's end, just not mid meeting. Edit: beaten like a red haired stepchild
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May 17, 2016 19:57
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Cojawfee posted:What's the point? is it just to make a really quick buck while someone else handles marketing and whatever? I'm sure there's other possible reasons, but remember that Jack earlier predicts that tech is in a bubble and Richard's 4 years to market plan is unworkable. Passing the buck and cashing out makes perfect sense in that context.
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May 17, 2016 23:10
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Cicero posted:Non-competes are generally illegal/unenforceable in California. Actually, this is going way back, but that was something that confused me a little from the end of season 2. So Jared, Richard, and 20% of Hooli's employees have an illegal non-compete clause in their employment contract. Would that really invalidate the entire contract? I thought that when that kind of thing happened, only the unenforceable bit got thrown out, plus possible penalties for whatever time/cost enforcing it caused.
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May 19, 2016 01:03
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Usually I think you guys are too hard on Richard, but Jesus Christ this episode.
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May 30, 2016 06:18
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Echo Chamber posted:So how long until we get a character or storyline based on Elizabeth Holmes? Forever, I'd guess, because the show has already been under a ton of fire for basically accurately representing the gender ratio of the tech industry and some of its lovely attitudes about women. If they introduce a billionaire female CEO who is a total fraud, the actors won't be able to leave their houses for three years.
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Jun 2, 2016 02:48
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kiimo posted:less Big Head. Heresy.
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Jun 3, 2016 04:06
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sticklefifer posted:Throughout all the scenes about sending beta invites to other techies, I kept thinking to myself that they totally made a platform that's by engineers for engineers. The wide release of the beta is going to crash and burn with the general public because Monica's right - non-engineers are going to hate it. This sort of reminds me of the Coke II launch. Coke did market testing in which 87% of the group loved it. 13% didn't care about the flavor and were just enraged thar they were changing the classic, good old American Coke formula. They were so vocally negative that they started turning some of the 87%. The execs famously disregarded the 13% as a fluke and launched. The exact same thing happened in the general population and a product that seemed like a slam dunk from testing went down in flames. I forgot how amazing Jin Yiang is.
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Jun 6, 2016 09:03
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Illinois Smith posted:Was kind of surprised we got through her scenes with Richard without another nerd meltdown but I guess they're saving it all for next week when the world at large drops a steaming pile of poo poo on his genius creation. I was preemptively wincing when he confronted her in the hookah bar. So with Bachman's despondence at the end of the episode, they were implying that he was forced to sell all of his shares, but the outstanding debt they alluded to was 1 million (?). Based on Gavin buying Endframe for 250 million, shouldn't Bachman's 10% be worth ~25 million? Arguably more since they're much further in the pipeline than Endframe? Even if he lost 10/20/50% of the value by selling it, that seems like a huge gap. I wonder if they're just setting up a repeat of Russ Haneman's overdramatic "I'm financially ruined!" sequence where Bachman is just being wildly overdramatic about dropping from 10 to 9%.
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Jun 6, 2016 18:04
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tarlibone posted:Well, just because Pied Piper could now be potentially worth $250 mil, Bachman was selling his shares (at least some of them) to another investor who had inside knowledge of the general state of the project. She also could very well be aware of his financial situation, and even though she's a robot, she wouldn't necessarily buy him out for exactly 100% of the company's supposed potential net worth. Hell, she wouldn't really have to be anywhere near that because of Bachman's situation. All of that seems reasonable, and maybe that is where they're going with it. Doesn't Laurie already control the board though, since she can replace Monica at will? Is there some additional benefit to having 80% of the seats (or 75% if Bachman's seat is simply eliminated) vs. 60%?
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Jun 6, 2016 22:24
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The Dave posted:How old are you? I'm genuinely asking that. From what I've seen older people seem to only think of snapchat as a sext app, but younger people use it as a primary means of communication. They pivoted a year or two in. Even the original concept arose from one of the founders wanting to send self-destructing dick pics to a new girlfriend. I remember being surprised at how casually one of my friends was talking about Snapchatting with her mom and siblings. "Like how Chatroulette started as a way to talk to strangers, and then became a playground for the sexually monstrous." Toplowtech posted:It's like a "irc for PROFESSIONALS" (because it's marketed as such) so companies don't feel poo poo using such tools because they can spend money on it and there is a "For PRO" stamp on it (and someone to blame if there is a problem). This is a huge frustration for me in Biotech. There's a host of powerful, open-source tools that do everything imaginable with sequencing data if you can spend 20 minutes picking up basic Unix commands. Yet somehow almost every lab in my department is paying $2-5000/per license annual for a commercial program with: less transparency, way less functionality, proprietary file type bullshit, and a GUI.
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Jun 7, 2016 22:04
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Guys? I don't have any sort of programming or engineering background. I didn't follow virtually any of the tabs v spaces debate a page ago. When I say "basic" I mean literally "move to folder where the program is, run program." Stuff that isn't any harder than figuring out which of the 50 drop-down menus on the visual GUI has the specific tool you're looking for buried in it. Edit - Honestly I don't think it's about the usability, transparency, or even functionality. If there's a program that costs $5,000 per user annually, it flat out doesn't occur to anyone that there might be an even more powerful option for free. I was guilty of that too until someone rubbed it in my face. Avasculous fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Jun 7, 2016 |
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Jun 7, 2016 22:45
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Keyser S0ze posted:Oh I thought the advisor only blew the last $3m or something. 35% (7 million) was spent on taxes, 7 million was stolen by the business manager, leaving 6. We know Bighead rented a Palo Alto mansion, filled it with rented toys and antiques, hired an assistant, and moved a swimming pool 6" twice. Bachman spent 1.5 million on the party and the blog, was renting a helicopter, and bought 3 of what I assume is a $10,000 juicer. So yeah, that sounds about right.
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Jun 9, 2016 22:35
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withak posted:Something about the board getting to approve sales of shares, and the board basically being her. So she shot down the $5M deal with Russ and paid Erlich the minimum that he could accept for all of his shares. Russ had written in a provision that the board (Laurie, in effect) had to approve of all transfers of stock. When Bachman went to see her with a "business proposition", he was seeking approval to sell half of his stock to Russ for 5 million dollars. She vetoed this and any other sale to anyone but herself, then offered Bachman 713k (the exact amount of his debt) for all of his stock. Basically it was a huge dick move on her part that left Bachman with nothing. Edit - Except half of Code/Rag, which his insider scoops on his own incompetence has put on the path to being a multi-million $ powerhouse. Avasculous fucked around with this message at 06:43 on Jun 13, 2016 |
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Jun 13, 2016 06:40
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emanresu tnuocca posted:Erlich screwed the company way too many times and while it's true that Richard was not being a good friend at first he was also right in being angry, ultimately keeping Erlich around but off the board and with a limited influence is the best choice. I suspect that if you parsed it out, he's equal or slightly better than Richard on the ratio of "times saved the company":"times screwed the company". A big part of the humor in his character is that while he's almost intolerably pompous and vain, someone like that is a lot better equipped to navigate business negotiations than a neurotic tech nerd. Not to mention that he's essentially provided rent-free living and working space to the entire company in one of the most expensive areas in the country on pure speculation.
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Jun 13, 2016 18:30
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kdrudy posted:I kept expecting it to drop that Jack was taking Gavin's job, I still suspect that might happen... I think so too, especially since the language that Hooli's board used was almost identical to what Laurie said to Richard when she replaced him (with Jack) as CEO: "You're not being fired. We're... transitioning you to a role more suitable within the company."
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Jun 14, 2016 16:39
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kiimo posted:Linked In is loving worthless (or 26 billion I guess). Has anybody ever gotten a job with it? ever. In my field, it seems to be a thing. I don't know about for cold offers, but at the few recruiting events I've gone to, I've been asked for mine repeatedly. I think recruiters would much rather leave with a pocket full of business cards (with a link on them) than a pile of stapled resumes, and it's much easier to link someone from there to applied work like publications or Github. I'm skeptical that that's worth 26 billion dollars, but here we are.
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Jun 14, 2016 22:14
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BIG HEADLINE posted:I still think that potato gun's going to spur the idea for some low-cost micro-satellite launching system. The Hooli Spudalite System, and they'll be forced to pay Bighead royalties. Especially when it looked like Bighead was going to replace Gavin as CEO, I thought he was going to salvage his co-director's project (the bionic monkey prosthetic) to give actual legs to his moonshot proposal of the brain computer interface for Nucleus and be trumpeted as a true genius to Gavin's fuming consternation.
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Jun 17, 2016 20:25
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What the hell do CEOs on rollerskates have to do with Silicon Valley? Is there a connection?
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Jun 17, 2016 22:10
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Pope Guilty posted:I would guess there's an essay somewhere that explains it. I hate having to dig for these things.
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Jun 17, 2016 23:17
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Accretionist posted:Edit: ^^Booo, it was hilarious! Also, TJ Miller's being overused. He's fat and depressed and his character sucks. He had barely any lines this episode, and his plane crash speech made me laugh out loud. quote:I'm with the terminator guy. The way Pied Piper's network functions, it sounds like some kind of World Brain whose long-term memory is your file storage. I think that was pretty much just cloud computing and machine learning as explained by someone trying to sound as hobo crazy as possible. I liked the "We all know what's in eggs...? Electrons!"
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Jun 20, 2016 07:26
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Shooting Blanks posted:This is exactly what I took away from it. Yeah, after they showed Pipey, I was expecting the twist/solution to be replacing it with her as a digital assistant. Something that confused me about the tech was a few episodes ago, when Gavin was showing the beta to his engineers. He said that PP gets faster/better as you put more files on it, and this was referenced one or two other times as a benefit of the neural net they were adding. I can see why having more users (devices rather) could make it better, but how would more files help? I know it's a show etc, I'm just curious if there's some basis for that.
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Jun 20, 2016 15:42
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emanresu tnuocca posted:Machine learning, it finds similarities and patterns that allow it to compress files even further. You're probably right, I think I took it to mean that Gavin's copy of the beta was getting better before his eyes as he went from 4->5 files. It makes a lot more sense if he's talking about the network as a whole and millions/billions of files. PostNouveau posted:Is what Jared's doing fraud since he's doing it to hit funding targets? I believe so. Reporting product sales to fake customers (either made up or real but with undisclosed massive discounts/bribery) definitely is. I'm not sure how it works with free apps (which Pied Piper appears to be), but I would guess that what Jared is doing is explicitly prohibited by the contract. It also should take about 10s for Gilfoyle to catch on since they implemented the godview.
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Jun 20, 2016 20:49
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bawfuls posted:Erlich's shares weren't tied to the board seat. She bought the shares because she had the leverage to get an obscene deal on them. But he's right, if Laurie only bought Ehrlich's shares and didn't touch his board seat, then how could Richard take it away from him? I don't think we've actually seen Jared on the board, so maybe that was just bluster on Richard's part.
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Jun 22, 2016 17:30
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waitwhatno posted:Only a negligible fraction of egg mass is actually electrons. I've found that plotline extremely unrealistic because a techy character like Richard would known better. It ruined my immersion. WOW ok, if you just want to totally gloss over their contribution to the coulomb force like a complete rear end in a top hat. We wouldn't even have eggs/yogurt if it weren't for electrons.
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Jun 22, 2016 22:32
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Solice Kirsk posted:The bad part is this definitely means a Monica/Richard love story is going to be shoved down our throats. They said a whIle ago that this was the intention in season 1 until they realized how contrived it was. Richard's really awkward date invitation at the end of season one was meant as a permenant death knell for it. I actually really like that the show hasn't bothered with the cutesy, someone-for-everyone love stories that every other sitcom seems to go for. I think (hope) they stick to that and Monica's shift is just a reply to the common complaint that the show doesn't give her enough to do.
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Jun 28, 2016 17:54
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GobiasIndustries posted:Lets gently caress this thing right in the pussy! "Now THAT is a man I will pay you to gently caress!" Even for the Pied Piper failure rollercoaster, it was a pretty weird decision to have the guy famous for defrauding VCs performing the abduction/sales pitch, and not even rename the company to buy them 30 seconds.
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Apr 25, 2017 04:48
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PostNouveau posted:You think they'll go all season before they need to buy him out for some of his new internet tech or just like 2 episodes? 2 episodes seems about right for everyone to be back in starting positions. I'm disappointed that they didn't follow through on Monica being fired and joining the team, but the bathroom view office was great.
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Apr 25, 2017 16:50
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Zero One posted:Has any company ever been in trouble with COPPA? Yes, for pretty much the exact mistake as in the show. Xanga was infamous for largest violation/fine for a while, I don't know if anyone has surpassed them. "Perhaps it was another chat format. Could you acquire Skype or Facetime and check them as well???"
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May 1, 2017 05:27
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Boris Galerkin posted:So I guess the next problem is going to be another slap fight about who owns Pied Piper IP. Hooli might be able to shelter and pay the fine 21 billion dollars? Could even Google manage that? I was expecting Barker to oust Gavin last season, maybe it will happen now. priznat posted:Erlich's constant frustration at Jian Yang is entertaining as hell to me. Especially when Jian Yang keeps getting the better of him. That and Gavin's insanity are probably my favorite parts of the show. Certainly way more fun to watch than Richard. "Octopus?" "It's a water animal!" Avasculous fucked around with this message at 22:42 on May 1, 2017 |
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May 1, 2017 22:37
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Jack Barker: "Why don't you go ahead and take a seat, Gavin?" Subtle reference to Chris Hansen, because of the COPPA violations? Avasculous fucked around with this message at 05:39 on May 8, 2017 |
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May 8, 2017 05:36
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VagueRant posted:Thought Richard's little rant about CS being the exclusive domain of nerdy loner outcasts was a bit...miserable and nasty and Big Bang Theory-esque for this show. Just seemed more mean-spirited than I expected, rather than the show's typical cynicism. A great way of putting it. Even their original reaction to Bryce felt pretty out-of-place, since his point that they should at least look at the other option before dismissing it wasn't objectively bad at all. For Richard to triumphantly discover that he didn't have a CS degree and that Gavin shouldn't respect his ideas felt pretty tone deaf, even without the 'domain of the ugly nerds' speech. I laughed out loud at the parabiosis reference though. For the record, Gavin is actually right about it having really promising (mouse) evidence, although human studies are just getting started.
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May 22, 2017 18:52
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