13 Comments
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Mark Heyer's avatar

Very nice riff on self-awareness. Writing lately on the scientific nature of information it occurs to me that your commentary will be just as valid replacing a human audience with the universe. The observation problem is that we can only know about the universe by interpreting the energy we receive from it and creating our own model of what it is.

Scientists build sandcastles in their mind and then seek confirmation from the universe. The hardest, but necessary thing, is to step out of your model and imagine an audience that is seeking to criticize every bit of your performance. The universe itself is very good at that if you were willing to listen to it.

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Liberty's avatar

Well said!

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Ed William's avatar

Agree re the first half of the Brutalist being the best. The whole library sequence is 🤌🤌🤌🤌

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Max B's avatar

Regarding apple. For many years I thought about this company. Why they are successful despite having products I would never use and I hate.

And I understood - they sell status. Overpriced status with good quality. At exorbitant prices, but that is the market they consciously choose to corner.

Now with Steve Jobs gone their products are just overpriced me - too repeats. The perceived quality edge they had is evaporating as there is zero innovation now.

Quality, Status, Price - pick two. And also more and more people realize that its not the products you use that gives you status. Ilso quality+price is efficiency. Apple now is just the pretenders.

P.s . By quality I also meant innovation and user experience. That was the forte of Steve Jobs. That's why they could have charged what they charged. Aplle vision? Shitty oculus rift at 10x the price. New iphone? Repeating what chinese smartphones did 3 years ago. They don't even have foldable phone!

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Tiko Coassin's avatar

Nice call on Chinese interference with DeekSeek. I think you also may have been early to the "are we sure that's all they spent on training" question that proved to be pertinent 👏

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Liberty's avatar

It'll be fascinating to watch unfold!

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Low Risk Rules's avatar

Great comments on Apple’s strategy. Will require some big pivots. Not sure how quickly they can turn that massive ocean liner around.

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Liberty's avatar

One big question is does current management realize these things, or do they need new management before they can start making big changes 🤔

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Low Risk Rules's avatar

Obviously a lot of what you mention is very un-Apple like. But this is the same company that had no fear in killing the iPod to make way for the iPhone, so anything is possible. But I feel like they are really missing Steve Jobs right about now. I thought this was a good commentary: https://world.hey.com/dhh/apple-needs-a-new-asshole-in-charge-0bf46b94

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Liberty's avatar

I think they get a bit too much credit for cannibalizing the iPod. It wasn't that hard to do because the iPhone was a higher-margin, higher ASP product, stickier product, so it wasn't exactly disrupting itself.

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anon's avatar

sure, just get trump to extort apple for a say on the hire.

a55h0le a lock, results will vary.

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AT's avatar

Very interesting Deepseek take, it will be interesting to see if the Chinese Gov't support/influence makes them stronger or weaker.

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Liberty's avatar

Yes. It may take a while to see the signs, and there are multiple factors (like access to compute), but this could be a big impact on them, remove the fast-moving, entrepreneurial spirit.

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