Author: Joel Gross

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_B._Selden

This guy was one of the original patent trolls. Held back the auto industry for years until a real entrepreneur took him on.

I listened to my economic history lecture while riding my bike. I learned that most nations in the 1500-1700s believed in mercantilism, basically the theory that wealth in the world was fixed and the only way to make a nation wealthy was to export more than it imported. Adam Smith disagreed (rightly) and theorized that labor * labor efficiency was what created wealth.… read more “Lecture on Economic History”

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/20/technology/china-facebook-twitter-influence-manipulation.html

The bottom line is that mergers and acquisitions destroy companies. Removing the founder and reducing the power of key executives destroys the soul of a startup. Almost every company I have seen be acquired by a larger company has died.

Founders, don’t sell your companies. An exit is not the goal. Your business is our baby, what monster would sell his baby?

I was pretty surprised to note today that both Google and Chrome’s default homepage is showing this:

Imagine if the page instead showed this:

Showing preference for one race is the very definition of racism.

Racism cannot be ended with racism. The central hope of Martin Luther King Jr., was that people would someday be judged by “the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.”

https://bikeindex.org/news/closing-the-loop-a-deep-dive-on-a-facebook-reseller-of-bikes-stolen-in

This matches my experiences with Facebook. Even giving them money is nearly impossible; their automatic fraud detection algorithm keeps blocking my clients who run ads. You have to deal with super crappy automated systems from there to try to pay.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/get-money-dermatologist-says-patient-care-suffered-private-equity-back-rcna9152

Owners who sell their businesses can almost always expect to see their business destroyed, and customers trust abused. I am all about free markets, but I hate predatory private equity finance people.

10,000 generations of your ancestors with modern human DNA fought tooth and nail to survive, have kids, and help them succeed.

Billions upon trillions of generations of your ancestors overcame all the odds stacked against them to bring you to life.

The hard work and sacrifices of all of your ancestors brought you into being in the best and easiest time in history to be a living creature.… read more “Kids”