This windowless thing is just a bunch of crazy suppositions by an ignorant man.
Wow. For the sake of its reputation, legacy and future funding from other sources, which, over time, will utterly dwarf the dollar amount of this toxic "gift" that this crank billionaire is trying to twist their arm with --
Let's all hope that UCSB comes to its senses, and cuts all ties with this bully as soon as conceivably possible.
It was truly amazing to hear him say that and follow it up with utterly trivial considerations.It's not like he has some amazing insight that no one else has, he literally has just made a decision to force a load of value judgements on exploited teenagers. The US university system is already a capricious mess, without billionaires coming in to run experiments on their students.
Seems like you are embracing the outrage narrative rather than thoughtfully examining the tradeoffs.
1 in 20 UC students are homeless and SB has an acute housing crisis [1]. They are building a dorm for 5,000 students and also need to deal with cost, zoning, etc.
Personally I would have been glad to give up a window to not share a room when I lived in the dorms. I also lived in an effectively windowless (against a brick wall) apartment in NYC, you just spend less time in your room.
It wasn't "embracing the outrage"; rather facing up to the fact that -- whatever the merits or lack thereof of his proposal -- the donor's language was intrinsically manipulative:
This windowless thing is just a bunch of crazy suppositions by an ignorant man.
At the end of the day, this just isn't the kind of person you want to sit down and do business with. No matter what dollar amount he's trying to jerk you around with.
> whatever the merits or lack thereof of his proposal -- the donor's language was intrinsically manipulative
The architect caused a media-circus because he didn't agree with a tradeoff they made and he called him ignorant. You are here also making personal attacks calling him; a "Crank", "Toxic" "Bully"...
> this just isn't the kind of person you want to sit down and do business with.
Charlie Munger would probably top "a most desired business partner" lists...
He didn't merely call him "ignorant", but "crazy". Both are ad-hominem attacks. What I don't get here is why you're trying to soft-pedal this very obvious fact.
"Crank", "Toxic" "Bully"
Accurate and justified, in light of the aforementioned unprovoked attacks.
He just thinks that because he's a billionaire, he can get away with it.
The flip side of this sentiment is expressed quite eloquently in a sibling comment. In fact, we might even say the commenter is "crushing it":
One challenge is that even in sucky workplaces, there always seem to be champions that will tell you how great it is.
If I hear people say they are (or were) miserable at a certain job - I tend to take their word when they say there's a reason for it. Your take seems to be... they just ne'er-do-wells who are looking for something to vent about. But that's the difference between you and me, I guess.
>> If I hear people say they are (or were) miserable at a certain job - I tend to take their word when they say there's a reason for it
Like I said, there's an objective and a subjective here. I mainly found that people who are miserable at a job were miserable at every other job too. Doesn't totally mean it's "them" but it's kinda like "the only common in all your failed relationships is you."
Then there's the totally subjective. Example: two people get the same constructive feedback, one person goes "wow, I am getting feedback that will make me grow" and the other person goes "ouch my boss wounded my ego, I hate it". (I am not asking you to say one is good and one is bad, just making a clear example of situation that someone may like and another person may hate)
two people get the same constructive feedback,
one person goes "wow, I am getting feedback
that will make me grow" and the other person
goes "ouch my boss wounded my ego, I hate it"
In that hypothetical example, yeah, I wouldn't know how to judge the company.
In reality things are a little more detailed. I would want to look a little deeper. Is the feedback technically sound? Is the feedback actually constructive, or more along the lines of "this is shit?"
I recently eliminated a company from my job search because I received feedback during the interview process that IMO failed in all possible ways: it was technically poor, it was rude, and it was unconstructive. (Perhaps one would say it was fragile ego, but I've been in this industry for a while and that was a first, so I've got enough anecdata to believe my ego is not fragile...)
I mainly found that people who are miserable at a job were miserable at every other job too.
That's not what I find at all - I can't even count the number of times I've been a shoulder to cry on for friends caught in miserable work environments, going all the back to grad school. And BTW I do mean literal crying in some of these cases - in others, it's been "merely" confessions of deep anxiety, hopelessness, insomnia and thoughts of self-harm.
Yes, there have been a few "miserable everywhere" cases, but at most they've been 10 percent of the batch. For the other 90 percent - it's clearly and objectively a result of the shitty environment they've been thrust into.
Recruiters are spam bots, period. Their job is to smash square pegs into round holes. Use them or don't use them... but the sooner everyone on both sides of the hiring equation realizes this extremely basic and obvious fact, the better.
There's little worse than a friendly but incompetent teammate, who will often get too many passes and second chances (because they're well liked) before being terminated.
Except of course for the perfectly (if narrowly) competent but decidedly jerkface and/or outright asshole teammate. Who is even more likely to get a pass for being such a "rainmaker". Or because "it's crunchtime and we need all the firepower we can get our hands on".
For high school students with aspirations in the tech field it is like the MIT, Caltech and Stanford all rolled into one.
It may be sort of comparable to that in terms of fostering startup-oriented skills and business connections.
If that's your only measuring stick, that is.
But in terms of developing a solid intellectual foundation for dealing with the world (which just so happens to involve other aspects than the skills necessary to create a hot tech startup) -- just on first principles - there's no way the educational benefit of an accelerator program can compare with the core foundational training of top-tier 4 year STEM program. You know, in things like math, science, and yes, liberal arts and overall personal development.
In the sense that henceforth we will no longer be allowed to use Oldspeak gendered pronouns - it is clearly mandating (in this particular context) that we adopt a more restricted form of expression.
