business used to be easiest to comprehend via a) market-based logic of horizontal vs. vertical STRUCTURE, b) professionalization/specialization based FUNCTION c) core competencies based BEHAVIORS

this has pretty much collapsed in the last decade
Structure = sclerosis
Functional specialization = bureaucracy
competencies = inertial habits

"Stack" thinking instead lets technology structure (rather than market structure) drive business org logic
Companies seem to do well when they identify an entire stack of technologies they are good at (not just point bits) and organize to conform to its logic. There is a "full-stack" dimension of technical specialization that is the spine of the org
It feels buzzwordy, but it really is getting to be that way. AI stack, decarbonization stack, mobility stack, electrification stack... some end-to-end pathway of turning physics into economics via layers of tech artistically baked together like a cake
If you haven't seen enough examples to instinctively pattern-match what I'm talking about, think of a stack as somewhere between an industry sector like "aerospace" and a functional specialization like "marketing."
Is the drone industry part of aerospace? Yes and no... there's an aerospace renaissance on to be sure, and some of it overlaps with the old kind and with lots of FAA regulations and such, but really what we have is a "new aerospace stack"
covers the tech needed to build useful end-to-end capabilities for everything from delivery drones to surveillance to disaster relief search-and-rescue to even indoor toys/games/robotic assistance... yes, bits of it look like boeing, but lots of it do not...
Here there is a 1:1 correspondence. Old aerospace is retreating to high-end/high-cost "platform" organization. In other cases, it's entirely new. There's a "sidewalk stack" for example (scooters, bike rentals, hoverboards, delivery robots, inspection robots)
I'd probably call that the "smart sidewalk" stack or "low-power urban mobility stack" ... currently a half-baked cake of technologies that impact many current and potential markets and businesses/orgs

More from Venkatesh Rao

Heh, one thing the nyt piece managed was to do a Cunningham's law nerdsnipe-wmd at newspaper scale... now a bunch of people are energetically trying to post the right answer.


IMO trying to correct whatever the NYT writer thought he knew/understood is futile. "Willing to be misunderstood by the NYT" should be the default stance unless you want to waste a lot of time correcting an obsolete 2013 map for people who don't care.

The thing is, the NYT still has enough normative cultural power, even as it has fallen from newspaper-of-record, that it takes a particular sort of heretical self-confidence to sort of ignore whatever they happen to be wrong about on any given week, whether or not it concerns you

A subtle shift has occurred in the workings of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. It used to be an individual private amnesia re: media ("I'll believe myself when I am certain they got it wrong because I'm an expert, but still believe them when I am not"). Now it's a collective effect

A sort of common-knowledge threshold has been crossed lately. "Everybody knows that everybody knows the NYT is wrong on X across largish subcultures." It's no longer mutual beliefs being validated occasionally 1:1.
I’m guessing these responses really reflect people’s weighted averages (age*current average effort fraction) though I kept it simple and asked for just averages.


I suspect a healthy weighted average should be ~ (age-20)/2. So a 30 year old should be at 5, a 40 year old at 10, a 50 year old at 15 etc.

Standard deviation should be ~average/3 maybe, so distribution spreads as you age and accumulate projects and get better at them.

Other things being equal, people get good at starting in their 20s, at follow through in 30s, at finishing in 40s.

No point learning food follow through until you’ve found a few good starts to bet on. No point getting good at finishing until a few projects have aged gracefully.

I’m in the 7+ range myself. Probably 8-9. Slightly less than healthy for my age.

I suspect most self-judgments on being good starters/follow-through-ers/finishers are really flawed because of the non-ergodicity of project management skill learning. You can’t learn good practices for the 3 phases in an arbitrary order. On,y one order actually works.

More from Crypto

Michael Pettis @michaelxpettis argues that it is not always obvious who (China or the U.S.) adjusts best to "turbulent changes."
Bitcoin answers that question.
Thread:


World economies currently suffer four major redistribution challenges:
The most important is increasing government stealth use of the monetary system to confiscate assets from productive actors.
/2

That process is exacerbated by "Cantillon Effect" transfers to interest groups close to government ("the entitled class," public sector workers, the medical industrial complex, academia, etc....), which is destroying much of that wealth /3

The shadow nature (see Keynes) of government inflation makes the process unidentifiable, un-addressable and undemocratic.
The biggest victims (America's poorly educated young) are unequipped to counter generational confiscation tactics of today's wily senior beneficiaries. /4

Government control of the numéraire in key economic statistics (GDP, inflation, etc...) makes it impossible for economic actors to measure progress and liabilities. /5

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Oh my Goodness!!!

I might have a panic attack due to excitement!!

Read this thread to the end...I just had an epiphany and my mind is blown. Actually, more than blown. More like OBLITERATED! This is the thing! This is the thing that will blow the entire thing out of the water!


Has this man been concealing his true identity?

Is this man a supposed 'dead' Seal Team Six soldier?

Witness protection to be kept safe until the right moment when all will be revealed?!

Who ELSE is alive that may have faked their death/gone into witness protection?


Were "golden tickets" inside the envelopes??


Are these "golden tickets" going to lead to their ultimate undoing?

Review crumbs on the board re: 'gold'.


#SEALTeam6 Trump re-tweeted this.