I have trouble imagining workers actually expressing enthusiasm for having that dude as a boss / leader. I've only seen the first episode of Super Pumped so far and I can understand the workers sitting around fucking off and getting paid, or doing their tasks in the background, but actually enthusiastically cheering for dude's speeches?
― sarahell, Sunday, 10 April 2022 07:36 (two years ago) link
Yet we see it happen. WeWork was notorious for it, the “fuck you Carreyrou” chant at Theranos occurred, people do buy in. It’s goofy as hell but there ya go.
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 10 April 2022 13:48 (two years ago) link
Once a company reaches a certain size, you get a number of employees where their role isn’t easily connected to what the company actually sells, and bizarre corporate sloganeering pops up. I think the majority of people at non-startups just kind of passively ignore it, but there are outliers who latch on to that internal marketing to justify their work livesMy impression is that startups, especially ones that don’t turn a profit, push that company culture bit a lot harder because the company doesn’t necessarily do anything yet!
― mh, Sunday, 10 April 2022 15:12 (two years ago) link
i just wonder about the people who buy into it. the followers, as it were. otoh ... idk why i have trouble accepting this since Hitler and Trump but ... sometimes i have to be reminded
― sarahell, Sunday, 10 April 2022 17:15 (two years ago) link
I think the majority of people at non-startups just kind of passively ignore it
yeah, this attitude I understand ... like, clerks at Walgreens don't seem really gung-ho about "Team Walgreens"
― sarahell, Sunday, 10 April 2022 17:19 (two years ago) link
Companies regularly place more demands on their workers than even a good, conscientious worker can satisfy. I always figured if I delivered somewhere between 90% and 95% of 'perfection' I was not just earning my pay, but an excellent employee. I totally ignored the motivational hoo-hah and quietly met my own standards.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Sunday, 10 April 2022 18:36 (two years ago) link
I totally ignored the motivational hoo-hah and quietly met my own standards.
Yup.
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 10 April 2022 18:44 (two years ago) link
Well you're hardly going to get yourself a waffle party with that attitude, are you?
― kinder, Sunday, 10 April 2022 18:46 (two years ago) link
I feel better already.
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 10 April 2022 18:48 (two years ago) link
;) I'm enjoying Severance
― kinder, Sunday, 10 April 2022 18:50 (two years ago) link
Having a couple of times in my life been around cultish professors or bosses and gotten taken in by them (though nothing to those extremes) I found myself kind of willingly suspending disbelief just because (1) it was sort of fun and (2) it can be self-serving to do so, since true believers tend to reap benefits. I always maintained a little bit of psychic distance and had almost a split consciousness about it, but I get it.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Sunday, 10 April 2022 23:49 (two years ago) link
Sucks that the main takeaway from Steve Jobs' story is that everyone thinks you have to be an asshole cult leader to be an effective CEO.
― Elvis Telecom, Monday, 11 April 2022 02:55 (two years ago) link
Now speaking of cults
Elon has decided not to join our board. I sent a brief note to the company, sharing with you all here. pic.twitter.com/lfrXACavvk— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) April 11, 2022
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 11 April 2022 03:25 (two years ago) link
Perfect.
VC Marc Andreessen has railed against cities like San Francisco for failing to build more housing. But when his own hyper-rich, manicured SF suburb proposed a zoning change to allow a small number of multifamily homes, Andreessen and his wife wrote this. https://t.co/YzqdfSV20q pic.twitter.com/Aq9HhDpKPk— Will Oremus (@WillOremus) August 5, 2022
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, 5 August 2022 14:59 (one year ago) link
the egg man is bad
― mh, Friday, 5 August 2022 15:01 (one year ago) link
This guy on Hacker News is buying up the entire town of Pine Bluff, Arkansas for reasons that seem unclear even to him. Someone please help him go home to his children pic.twitter.com/6wO0JIyxQ1— Brooks Otterlake (@i_zzzzzz) August 15, 2022
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, 15 August 2022 21:02 (one year ago) link
His twitter handle is the same as his username there, it's just post after post of him getting robbed by Pine Bluff tweakers.
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 15 August 2022 21:58 (one year ago) link
a new wrinkle I didn't see yesterday
oh. pic.twitter.com/TFiddlxQAA— Amy Hoy (@amyhoy) August 15, 2022
― papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 15 August 2022 21:59 (one year ago) link
Pine Bluff thing is like one of those great, long, self-owning threads slowly documenting a guy's deranged and ill-informed home renovations, or hapless efforts to establish a utopian compound or whatever.
― Doctor Casino, Monday, 15 August 2022 22:03 (one year ago) link
that falls under the reddit DIY-fail thred or whatever
― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Monday, 15 August 2022 22:03 (one year ago) link
lol great minds xp again
twit’s creek
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 15 August 2022 22:31 (one year ago) link
this is like if something from the SA forums got VC money
― mh, Tuesday, 16 August 2022 15:08 (one year ago) link
lmao max phoned this guy
https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-man-who-bought-pine-bluff-arkansas
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, 16 August 2022 21:54 (one year ago) link
my "read max" subscription money going to good use
― mh, Tuesday, 16 August 2022 22:35 (one year ago) link
omg of course he's a utahn
― (grim) pump track (wales) (map), Tuesday, 16 August 2022 22:39 (one year ago) link
I enjoyed this bit:
New York was terrible, in the ‘80s. Everything they’re saying about Pine Bluff now they were saying about New York in the ‘80s! And I sure wish I could have bought some real estate in New York in the 80s!”
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Wednesday, 17 August 2022 09:00 (one year ago) link
he comes off more sympathetic in max's interview than I expected, but the initial plan of just buying a huge warehouse for a maker space/entertainment venue/place for his existing businesses without making sure it's close-ish to a population center is wild
a lot of cities have those amenities, so the target market is... people who want to drive 45 minutes from Little Rock to do stuff?
we need pplains in here for the arkansas view
― mh, Wednesday, 17 August 2022 14:07 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3c_pJ_CLJQ
― papal hotwife (milo z), Wednesday, 17 August 2022 15:48 (one year ago) link
the initial plan of just buying a huge warehouse for a maker space/entertainment venue/place for his existing businesses without making sure it's close-ish to a population center is wild
it's been done before by various people with various levels of success ... on the one hand you have Las Vegas and the current incarnation of Burning Man ... on the other hand you have this guy, as well as stuff in between like the guy who bought a town in Nevada and then there was a fire that burned like 90% of it ... though that guy had done something similar in an urban area and had gotten displaced, so he had an existing community of people as well as some experience
― sarahell, Wednesday, 17 August 2022 18:40 (one year ago) link
I was just randomly reading a reddit thread of purported real estate investors discussing (celebrating really) that arkansas is the most landlord friendly state in the country. Fucking bleak stuff. I believe one of them said it was a crime with jail time to stay in an apartment without paying the rent.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Wednesday, 17 August 2022 19:05 (one year ago) link
Texas is also very pro-landlord. Like, if you look at the civil code related to residential tenants and tenants rights, and you are only familiar with the laws in states like California and New York, you would be shocked and/or confused.
― sarahell, Wednesday, 17 August 2022 19:10 (one year ago) link
sometimes this site really delivers pic.twitter.com/dJmlYRF4ZZ— cathode ray theory (@said_mitch) August 18, 2022
― (grim) pump track (wales) (map), Thursday, 18 August 2022 21:19 (one year ago) link
so apparently the guy who bought a bunch of real estate in that arkansas town has recordings and transcripts from the city meetings where he was trying to pitch his plans on his own website
it's him trying to get someone to walk through and tell him what he'd need to fix, and they keep explaining that it's a change in zoning, he needs plans signed off by an engineer and completed, etc.
I mean, there are areas of the country with less stringent building and occupancy codes, but dude bought a giant warehouse and adjoining buildings and wants to use them for commercial purposes!
― mh, Thursday, 18 August 2022 22:04 (one year ago) link
― sarahell
this is one of the settings for _summer fun_, the trans brian wilson book i'm reading for my book club...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceport_America
― Kate (rushomancy), Thursday, 18 August 2022 22:46 (one year ago) link
I think buying abandoned real estate and attempting to use it as-is is different from building an entertainment city mostly from scratch or building a temporary city in the desert, though? This isn’t “if you build it,” it’s “if I get them to turn electrical service back on” or at least it was until someone stole his wallsUnless we’re not talking about the Arkansas guy
― mh, Thursday, 18 August 2022 23:54 (one year ago) link
― mh, Thursday, August 18, 2022 3:04 PM (two hours ago)
this is a lot of what the org I work for does tbh. part of this guy's problem is the way the system works ... like, it is highly unlikely one person will be able to tell him everything he would need to do, and there's a lot of if/then at play ... if you want this, the process involves x, but if you are willing to do it somewhat differently, you could maybe avoid doing x, but you would have to do y. the existing structure / condition / etc of the building would need to be determined to meet certain criteria in order for him to do x, but a licensed engineer would have to actually do a study and calculations and find out if it does meet those criteria. If it does, then the process involves x, if it doesn't, then, before you can even think about doing x, you would need to do z, and maybe, instead of doing z and then doing x, you might want to re-think the whole thing ...
― sarahell, Friday, 19 August 2022 00:46 (one year ago) link
yes, the absolutely basic thing is to make a proposed plan, and hire an engineer
he seemed to just show up to meetings and propose completely different things every time with no blueprints or engineering assessment, just “hey guys but can I do this instead”
I mean, the way the system works may be convoluted beyond that, but that’s entry level “how do I shot occupancy”
also every time he describes the site it reminds me of an EPA superfund site in my city that’s getting slowly developed with so many caveats
― mh, Friday, 19 August 2022 03:09 (one year ago) link
"an" engineer ... dude, you might need structural, mechanical, and civil engineers depending on the project ...
― sarahell, Friday, 19 August 2022 03:39 (one year ago) link
generally, the first person you go to is an architect
― sarahell, Friday, 19 August 2022 03:40 (one year ago) link
yes
― mh, Friday, 19 August 2022 12:59 (one year ago) link
move fast and break stuff amirite
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, 19 August 2022 14:54 (one year ago) link
everyone otm re pine bluff itt. ((man alive also getting points for knowing about the state's criminal, not civil, penalties against renters (which is a whole other subject.))
I can't talk about Pine Bluff. It's sad, it's tragic, it's a whole damn city that's dying a slow death.
But man. I won't say I enjoyed that man's misfortunes, but I sure did enjoy reading about them.
― pplains, Friday, 2 September 2022 03:35 (one year ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/4M7pRYt.jpg
A few years ago, the paper had a story featuring the mayor pointing at different piles of rubble in town, going "You see this shit?"
― pplains, Friday, 2 September 2022 03:37 (one year ago) link
I know, I know, in the UK they point at potholes.
― pplains, Friday, 2 September 2022 03:38 (one year ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/GODvMDN.png
Town so damn broke, the mcdonalds only got one arch
― pplains, Friday, 2 September 2022 03:41 (one year ago) link
That's some pretty impressive rubble.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 2 September 2022 03:43 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55lqCerTvVA
CEDELL SAID COME ON DOWN.
― pplains, Friday, 2 September 2022 03:43 (one year ago) link
― pplains, Thursday, September 1, 2022 8:37 PM (two days ago)
she should visit Oakland! So many piles of rubble to point at!
― sarahell, Sunday, 4 September 2022 04:47 (one year ago) link
the parallel valleys https://t.co/RxD3iB2vlo pic.twitter.com/4o7Ush2J1V— kate conger (@kateconger) September 26, 2022
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, 26 September 2022 23:02 (one year ago) link