Usually a company with software need to develop new features, reengineering to reduce infrastructure costs and improving performance bottlenecks, maintenance, etc. Do not you have that in your company? And if you do, who is leading those initiatives?
We are not innovating on the core product, which has remained static for many years. Instead, we are pushing adoption through our licensing partnerships. We now have over 250k students using our reading tech through education platforms that we work with. Building more of these partnerships, based on the data we have gathered from our existing partners, is the focus.
Sounds like at that point you're not really a tech company. Your tech might as well be some off-the-shelf stuff as far as you're concerned, if you're not actually working on it any more.
Interesting perspective! So if Dolby had stopped making new versions of its technology and just licensed what it had until people stopped buying it, then it wouldn't have been a tech company? What kind of company would it have been?
A sound company, or whatever the technology in question does? If you're in a position where it's viable to not be making new versions of your tech then presumably that means you're in a field that's at least somewhat mature as its own thing. I think there's a temptation to equate "on computers" with "tech" whereas for a lot of fields doing it on computers is pretty much commodified now.
In our case, we're growing via adoption of our first generation core product. I could definitely make a second version, but it wouldn't help overcome the primary challenge we face with adoption, which is that the technology looks unconventional, and isn't well-enough known yet. Making a more complicated version wouldn't help with this, and might not even improve the efficacy. It would also require internationalization, whereas our current version is language agnostic.
So it's not that we won't ever create a newer version, just that it's not the primary focus.
I mean not all businesses need to thrive. If the thing generates significant profits for a while then the founder can retire and either sell it or just let it die. If it's not a publicly-traded company there's no fiduciary duty to do anything more than that.
If we were riding on momentum I would expect our revenue to be stable/shrinking, not growing (as it is). I agree that in the long term this is true, but when you start as a tiny speck, you can grow for a long time as awareness spreads. For example, we started our in education and are now getting interest from news/media organizations. This is without changing the core functionality at all.
Did you use this for due diligence to verify that the data reported by the entrepreneur in the pitch was good or you were looking at some companies in a specific space and checking the company that has more orders?
Sure, "good person" may sound generic. But he is still a good person trying to do the right things. To me it sounds like the board is afraid of being sued and needs to clearly appoint a scapegoat.
Well, they must have believed that leaving Sam as CEO was a bigger risk for the company (or the members of the board) than having him leaving in the spot. The board may have had their hand twisted.
Well, they must have believed that leaving Sam as CEO was a bigger risk for the company than having him leaving. Or the board had their hand twisted. What is easier the case?
I suppose there is a need of a trusted 3rd entity that runs the service.
Otherwise anybody could run the service and pretend that anybody else signed any documents they want at any time they wanted.
I am not familiar with DocuSign internal but it looks like people are identified by their email. So only if you can click the link received in their email, it can be them.
I guess a problem with DocuSign is still that anybody can sign up for a new email and pretend to be anybody they want.
Wrong. There is melena, which is a generally unmistakable consistency of black sticky stool (nothing anyone would identify as "blood") that is indicative of upper GI bleeding - not the colon. It doesn't really indicate severity because it may be fast or relatively slow. Both upper and lower GI bleeding can be serious in terms of acuity or seriousness of disease (cancer).
However if the internal bleeding from the upper GI system is brisk/fast enough it will come out bright red. This can happen to people with esophageal varices (sequela of liver disease and cirrhosis) or brisk stomach or duodenal ulcers and the prognosis is usually poor, but very likely they will be getting emergent endoscopies and/or mass transfusion if they make it out of the ED.
You can't tell by color.
> That may be an internal bleeding.
Colonic bleeding is just as internal and will typically be red or maroon.
Just a little aside for those doing a search in the future: many things you consume can also turn poop reddish so be sure to think about what you had for dinner if you've just noticed it. For example; beetroot, red wine, berries, stuff with food colouring etc.
In particular what you ate the past sveral days since it takes time to go through (exactly how long depends on your diet and body, but I think 2-3 days is common and a another couple of days is not uncommon). It takes long enough that it is easy to forget.
Black stool (melena) indicates an upper GI source: esophagus, stomach, duodenum chiefly.
But _any_ source of colonic bleeding is likely to be red to bright red. The possible pathologies are numerous: hemorrhoidal - as you mention, tumours, inflammatory bowel disease, arteriovenous malformations, diverticular disease, etc.
I had a misdiagnosed anal fissure for a year. Get the ass doctor involved early, my GP was clueless about it and had me trying hemorrhoid/lidocaine creams for a year while in agonizing pain. The first thing the ass doctor asked was; do you know what a fissure is? before the exam even started. I learned to skip past the general doctors to the specialist from this experience. Also, the anus is the fulcrum of your body, treat it well.
> I learned to skip past the general doctors to the specialist from this experience.
What concerns is that where I live, it's my understanding that, with a few exceptions [0], you can't skip a GP and go directly to a specialist. And I'm not convinced that GPs here are any better than in the US or elsewhere. Bonus points for large parts of the country not even having enough GPs for their population.
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[0] You can go see an eye doctor or a dentist without seeing a GP first.
Last month, after years of waiting, I got a letter again delaying my assessment for a growth on my neck, for the foreseeable future. It's a good job that I'd gone private a year ago, as it turned out to be extremely advanced, with neural invasion, requiring two rounds of surgery to be removed.
Nationalised healthcare ought to be means-tested to target help at the people who need it, and not delay others who can afford to pay their way. The population 'pyramid' as it stands can't support the health and social care model we're using, and the lack of market incentives means that we don't train enough medics.
I'm in France, I used GP since that's the term that seems to be used in the Anglosphere. It also seems like a reasonable translation of the French term – médecin généraliste.
I'm hearing bad things about UK's NHS, and while I don't have any firsthand experience with it, I do get the feeling that the French system is going down the same path.
It's true that I don't usually think about going the private route. I'm not 100% sure, but I think you can probably see a private specialist directly. I also don't know how much it would cost, but probably quite a lot, given the prices in the public hospitals, and I don't think it's covered by the insurance, even though I carry insurance above the standard national scheme.
I was actually in France last year, and arrived having lost (in transit; baggage handlers) some medicine for my son which had been prescribed in the UK by our GP the previous day, as he'd had stomach symptoms.
I contacted the local French doctor, who brought us in that day, gave my son an actual examination (the UK GP didn't do this), asked if I was aware that he had an ear infection (I wasn't, the UK doctor didn't check), and revised the course of treatment which resolved the problem quickly.
I was extremely impressed by the French doctor; he was in a different league to the standard in the UK.
OK, I supose it does, in the sense that market incentives is one way we might get more doctors trained. But on the other hand the market incentives are plainly there; plenty more people want to train as doctors, than there are training places. That is, the market incentives don't seem to be working to increase training places.
Regulation seldom proves to be the ultimate remedy.
The true catalyst for change lies in cultivating informed consumers who wield their purchasing power to support manufacturers committed to security.
If a law has to be put in place, ensure that every marketing advertisement and article concerning a device explicitly states the duration for which it will receive regular updates.
