BILL GATES:
-HS Diploma
-Stole idea for Microsoft
-Mom worked for IBM (look up what they did in WW2)
-Dad worked for Planned Parenthood
-Sanger family ties
-400,000 Paralyzed in India
-Caused Polio outbreak after it had been irradiated
-Openly talks about the need to depopulate
More from Tech
I think about this a lot, both in IT and civil infrastructure. It looks so trivial to “fix” from the outside. In fact, it is incredibly draining to do the entirely crushing work of real policy changes internally. It’s harder than drafting a blank page of how the world should be.
I’m at a sort of career crisis point. In my job before, three people could contain the entire complexity of a nation-wide company’s IT infrastructure in their head.
Once you move above that mark, it becomes exponentially, far and away beyond anything I dreamed, more difficult.
And I look at candidates and know-everything’s who think it’s all so easy. Or, people who think we could burn it down with no losses and start over.
God I wish I lived in that world of triviality. In moments, I find myself regretting leaving that place of self-directed autonomy.
For ten years I knew I could build something and see results that same day. Now I’m adjusting to building something in my mind in one day, and it taking a year to do the due-diligence and edge cases and documentation and familiarization and roll-out.
That’s the hard work. It’s not technical. It’s not becoming a rockstar to peers.
These people look at me and just see another self-important idiot in Security who thinks they understand the system others live. Who thinks “bad” designs were made for no reason.
Who wasn’t there.
The tragedy of revolutionaries is they design a utopia by a river but discover the impure city they razed was on stilts for a reason.
— SwiftOnSecurity (@SwiftOnSecurity) June 19, 2016
I’m at a sort of career crisis point. In my job before, three people could contain the entire complexity of a nation-wide company’s IT infrastructure in their head.
Once you move above that mark, it becomes exponentially, far and away beyond anything I dreamed, more difficult.
And I look at candidates and know-everything’s who think it’s all so easy. Or, people who think we could burn it down with no losses and start over.
God I wish I lived in that world of triviality. In moments, I find myself regretting leaving that place of self-directed autonomy.
For ten years I knew I could build something and see results that same day. Now I’m adjusting to building something in my mind in one day, and it taking a year to do the due-diligence and edge cases and documentation and familiarization and roll-out.
That’s the hard work. It’s not technical. It’s not becoming a rockstar to peers.
These people look at me and just see another self-important idiot in Security who thinks they understand the system others live. Who thinks “bad” designs were made for no reason.
Who wasn’t there.
The 12 most important pieces of information and concepts I wish I knew about equity, as a software engineer.
A thread.
1. Equity is something Big Tech and high-growth companies award to software engineers at all levels. The more senior you are, the bigger the ratio can be:
2. Vesting, cliffs, refreshers, and sign-on clawbacks.
If you get awarded equity, you'll want to understand vesting and cliffs. A 1-year cliff is pretty common in most places that award equity.
Read more in this blog post I wrote: https://t.co/WxQ9pQh2mY
3. Stock options / ESOPs.
The most common form of equity compensation at early-stage startups that are high-growth.
And there are *so* many pitfalls you'll want to be aware of. You need to do your research on this: I can't do justice in a tweet.
https://t.co/cudLn3ngqi
4. RSUs (Restricted Stock Units)
A common form of equity compensation for publicly traded companies and Big Tech. One of the easier types of equity to understand: https://t.co/a5xU1H9IHP
5. Double-trigger RSUs. Typically RSUs for pre-IPO companies. I got these at Uber.
6. ESPP: a (typically) amazing employee perk at publicly traded companies. There's always risk, but this plan can typically offer good upsides.
7. Phantom shares. An interesting setup similar to RSUs... but you don't own stocks. Not frequent, but e.g. Adyen goes with this plan.
A thread.
1. Equity is something Big Tech and high-growth companies award to software engineers at all levels. The more senior you are, the bigger the ratio can be:
2. Vesting, cliffs, refreshers, and sign-on clawbacks.
If you get awarded equity, you'll want to understand vesting and cliffs. A 1-year cliff is pretty common in most places that award equity.
Read more in this blog post I wrote: https://t.co/WxQ9pQh2mY
3. Stock options / ESOPs.
The most common form of equity compensation at early-stage startups that are high-growth.
And there are *so* many pitfalls you'll want to be aware of. You need to do your research on this: I can't do justice in a tweet.
https://t.co/cudLn3ngqi
4. RSUs (Restricted Stock Units)
A common form of equity compensation for publicly traded companies and Big Tech. One of the easier types of equity to understand: https://t.co/a5xU1H9IHP
5. Double-trigger RSUs. Typically RSUs for pre-IPO companies. I got these at Uber.
6. ESPP: a (typically) amazing employee perk at publicly traded companies. There's always risk, but this plan can typically offer good upsides.
7. Phantom shares. An interesting setup similar to RSUs... but you don't own stocks. Not frequent, but e.g. Adyen goes with this plan.
Machine translation can be a wonderful translation tool, but its uses are widely misunderstood.
Let's talk about Google Translate, its current state in the professional translation industry, and why robots are terrible at interpreting culture and context.
Straight to the point: machine translation (MT) is an incredibly helpful tool for translation! But just like any tool, there are specific times and places for it.
You wouldn't use a jackhammer to nail a painting to the wall.
Two factors are at play when determining how useful MT is: language pair and context.
Certain language pairs are better suited for MT. Typically, the more similar the grammar structure, the better the MT will be. Think Spanish <> Portuguese vs. Spanish <> Japanese.
No two MT engines are the same, though! Check out how human professionals ranked their choice of MT engine in a Phrase survey:
https://t.co/yiVPmHnjKv
When it comes to context, the first thing to look at is the type of text you want to translate. Typically, the more technical and straightforward the text, the better a machine will be at working on it.
Let's talk about Google Translate, its current state in the professional translation industry, and why robots are terrible at interpreting culture and context.
Straight to the point: machine translation (MT) is an incredibly helpful tool for translation! But just like any tool, there are specific times and places for it.
You wouldn't use a jackhammer to nail a painting to the wall.
Two factors are at play when determining how useful MT is: language pair and context.
Certain language pairs are better suited for MT. Typically, the more similar the grammar structure, the better the MT will be. Think Spanish <> Portuguese vs. Spanish <> Japanese.
No two MT engines are the same, though! Check out how human professionals ranked their choice of MT engine in a Phrase survey:
https://t.co/yiVPmHnjKv
When it comes to context, the first thing to look at is the type of text you want to translate. Typically, the more technical and straightforward the text, the better a machine will be at working on it.
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THREAD PART 1.
On Sunday 21st June, 14 year old Noah Donohoe left his home to meet his friends at Cave Hill Belfast to study for school. #RememberMyNoah💙
He was on his black Apollo mountain bike, fully dressed, wearing a helmet and carrying a backpack containing his laptop and 2 books with his name on them. He also had his mobile phone with him.
On the 27th of June. Noah's naked body was sadly discovered 950m inside a storm drain, between access points. This storm drain was accessible through an area completely unfamiliar to him, behind houses at Northwood Road. https://t.co/bpz3Rmc0wq
"Noah's body was found by specially trained police officers between two drain access points within a section of the tunnel running under the Translink access road," said Mr McCrisken."
Noah's bike was also found near a house, behind a car, in the same area. It had been there for more than 24 hours before a member of public who lived in the street said she read reports of a missing child and checked the bike and phoned the police.
On Sunday 21st June, 14 year old Noah Donohoe left his home to meet his friends at Cave Hill Belfast to study for school. #RememberMyNoah💙
He was on his black Apollo mountain bike, fully dressed, wearing a helmet and carrying a backpack containing his laptop and 2 books with his name on them. He also had his mobile phone with him.
On the 27th of June. Noah's naked body was sadly discovered 950m inside a storm drain, between access points. This storm drain was accessible through an area completely unfamiliar to him, behind houses at Northwood Road. https://t.co/bpz3Rmc0wq
"Noah's body was found by specially trained police officers between two drain access points within a section of the tunnel running under the Translink access road," said Mr McCrisken."
Noah's bike was also found near a house, behind a car, in the same area. It had been there for more than 24 hours before a member of public who lived in the street said she read reports of a missing child and checked the bike and phoned the police.
