In San Francisco public housing projects are funded from fees on new development. In 2016, voters approved Prop C which increased the affordable housing requirements to 30% of the total units for a new project. A combination of factors -- rising construction costs, high land value, big fees (such as Prop C), onerous approval process, etc has led to the number of new construction permits being applied for dropping significantly.
That decrease has led to the city only getting funding for about 240 units of affordable housing in 2018 - 2019, whereas from 2014 - 2016 the city produced 500 units of public housing per year. [https://www.spur.org/news/2018-11-08/how-has-san-francisco-r...]
This is a long way of saying that the market affects everything. Even if we decide to build public housing that housing is not immune from market effects like expensive land and big construction costs. If it's more difficult, and therefore more expensive, to build market rate housing then it's more difficult and more expensive to build public housing.
For example, in the Mission no new affordable housing has been built in, according to Supervisor Ronen, close to 10 years. There are 7 projects in the pipeline, but none have broken ground [https://sf.curbed.com/2018/4/24/17276152/affordable-housing-...].
Long approval processes and constantly increasing construction costs are partly to blame.
I thought this video about one developer's saga trying to build housing where his laundromat currently is explains a lot of the problems SF has with creating new housing:
>“Contrary to western mythology, black resistance to American apartheid did not come purely through Ghandi and nonviolence," Hill said (see video below.) "Rather, slave revolts and self-defense and tactics otherwise divergent from Dr. King or Mahatma Gandhi were equally important to preserving safety and attaining freedom. If we are to operate in true solidarity with the Palestinian people, we must allow the Palestinian people the same range of opportunity and political possibility. If we are standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people, we must recognize the right of an occupied people to defend itself. We must prioritize peace, but we must not romanticize or fetishize it. We must advocate and promote nonviolence at every opportunity, but we cannot endorse a narrow politics of respectability that shames Palestinians for resisting, for refusing to do nothing in the face of state violence and ethnic cleansing
He's not defending violence. The media has a long track record of portraying protests/etc by the Palestians as violent and terroristic, even when it is not. The Palestinians are commonly terrorized or even murdered by radical Israelis, but you never hear about that.
The thing is, you cannot defeat oppression by engaging in decorum politics. That's not how the Civil Rights movement happened, contrary to popular belief. Ditto for about every other successful mass movement. By insisting the Palestinians only ask nicely for their basic human rights to be upheld, one becomes complicit.
What you fail to note is that Palestinians use this term in the context of demolishing Israeli apartheid policies and aggression towards the Palestinians for the past 70 years. It is Israel who uprooted them from their homes, it is Israel who occupied the WB and Gaza and it continues to be the aggressor. Even after multiple UN resolutions that call for the right of return for all Palestinians who were uprooted from their homeland in 1948, Israel turns a blind eye. Maybe because they feel they can get away with it and cry anti-semitism anytime someone criticizes Israeli policies. That's exactly what you're doing here, you are trying to steer the conversation away from the reality on the ground. The reality is that Gaza is an open-air prison, Israeli forces continue to shoot UNARMED civilians at the fence while they are protesting their UN right to return to their homeland. And instead of engaging in a discussion where we can lay out the facts, you cry anti-semitism because its the easy way out hoping the world will turn away. Just to note something there, there are many many Jews who criticize Israel and they stand up for the basic right of the Palestinian people. I would suggest taking a look at JVP, If Not Now and look at the works of Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pape.
I highly suggest that if anyone is interested in this topic to visit the West Bank and see for yourself the brutality and occupation the Palestinians face on a daily basis. Don't fall for what the American media will feed you, you must see it for yourself as I have in the past summer. Its also important to note that Shaun King, BLM, and multiple Black activists/movements support the Palestinian movement towards their liberation. It's also important to note that recently Israel passed a law stating the even Palestinians who carry Israeli citizenship (which make up 20% of their population) are deemed as second class citizens.
>> "What you fail to note is that Palestinians use this term in the context of demolishing Israeli ...policies"
That's true, but both of the Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, use this phrase to mean destruction of Israel itself, not just policies. If Palestine exists from the river to the sea, there is no Israel. The ADL noted this in their rebuke of Mr. Hill yesterday.
If both governing Palestinian factions use that anti-Semitic phrase in a way meant for the violent destruction of the world's only Jewish state, it's naive to think it's a harmless phrase directed at policy alone.
>> "Don't fall for what the American media will feed you..."
OK, now you're getting into conspiracy theory land. Why should we not "fall for what the American media will feed" us? Is it because the American media is made up of Jews?
When I was Nazareth, I spoke with 3 Arab teens. They told me precisely this: CNN is controlled by Jews, therefore we shouldn't listen to them. It's anti-Semitic, hate-filled nonsense if I've ever heard it. I'd expect such nonsense on extremist forums, but not on HN.
I imagine a lot of drivers do not have the luxury to stop driving if it doesn't make sense because Uber has encouraged many to take on financing (either through Uber or elsewhere) for these luxury / more recent vehicles that they would not otherwise have bought.
When I first moved to Palo Alto in 2014, I didn't have my own car so I used Uber several times a week for almost a year. I would have to estimate at least a third of my UberX rides were in Priuses, and a few of my drivers had talked about how they had financed their Prius through something related to Uber. Since 2017, I honestly can't remember the last time I had an UberX driver with a Prius -- it's almost always Honda Civics/Accords or similarly low-priced vehicles.
It also seemed in 2014-2015 that far more of my drivers seemed happier, more professional, and enthusiastic about talking how much money they made. Nowadays I rarely if ever have that conversation.
The VC money that flowed into these drivers has essentially dried up as gig-economy startups push towards sustainability / profitability. As was predicted.
It’s a shame that Uber seems to be encouraging their drivers to get less fuel efficient vehicles. Given the number of Uber/Lyft miles driven a year we could save a lot of carbon if they incentivized hybrids or EVs
I don't think the board has much say. The co-founders have control over all stockholder decisions and even if they were fired (which would only happen if they turned on each other) they would still exercise the same control of stockholder decisions. So I don't think the board really has any leverage...
Sure, but if you're terminated for cause you shouldn't receive anything. The $90 million was for Google to keep the story quiet and to keep Rubin from working for a competitor.
"Sure, but if you're terminated for cause you shouldn't receive anything."
This assumes that, for example, when he became an SVP, he was still on any sort of standard employee agreement.
That is highly unlikely.
Almost all execs at that level in that large a company would have a specially negotiated agreement. Most still end up with something even if terminated for cause.
Almost all their exits would be specifically negotiated mutual separation agreements.
(I'm not defending the above, obviously, just explaining what i expect is the case based on experience)
Also worth pointing out: don't know when he was made SVP/etc, but it probably predates any pushes to change any of this in tech. :(
I did a key-person contract negotiation after my last company was sold, and I over-spent on legal for it (20/20 hindsight everything would have worked out peachy for me had I just blind-signed what the acquirer gave me) and it was not my experience that compensation after termination for cause was a market ask. My lawyer, for whom I was very small fish indeed, suggested that I could probably ask for anything I wanted short of any kind of severance or acceleration on termination for cause.
You know more about the market in the Valley than I do, but I am surprised to hear the suggestion that anyone at the SVP level would have negotiated severance on for-cause termination.
(The point you made subsequently, about him maybe having locked in some amount of comp in exchange for non-compete, makes more sense.)
Again you know this stuff way more than I do. I'm just sort of probing here.
You will see that for example, these sample clauses (which are not uncommon) say nothing about morals except conviction of a crime of moral turpitude.
Sometimes they say stuff about code of conduct violations, etc.
But that's a fuzzier area (particularly since most companies revise their codes of conduct constantly).
> Google could have fired Mr. Rubin and paid him little to nothing on the way out. Instead, the company handed him a $90 million exit package, paid in installments of about $2 million a month for four years, said two people with knowledge of the terms.
However I don't know if that's just opinion or based on some set of facts about his situation.
My wife works in HR (not at Google, but in tech and other industries), and has handled things like executive compensation/retention/etc. She has done many of these types of situations over the years.
She was doubtful they would have been able to pay him nothing.
I've also seen a bunch fly by on the legal side over the years, and most (but not all) that i've seen would have paid out something in a case like this.
Best guess as to the 90 million was that it was not about this, but stock payout in exchange for not competing with google for a while or something.
> Sure, but if you're terminated for cause you shouldn't receive anything.
I disagree. It all depends on what the cause is. Regarding sexual harassment which today means any woman can accuse you of that and no questions is asked and you'll get sacked is not a valid reason for not getting any money imo.
> Sure, but if you're terminated for cause you shouldn't receive anything.
But Rubin probably wasn't terminated for cause, but nudged to resign.
> The $90 million was for Google to keep the story quiet and to keep Rubin from working for a competitor.
The $90 million was probably to prevent a protracted legal battle Google wasn't guaranteed to win; senior executives typically have fairly strong exit guarantees in individual contracts; people talk about it being hard to fire people under union contracts, but doing so under executive contracts (without paying the pre-negotiated severance and adhering to the likely-present mutual non-disparagement clause) is at least as difficult.
How would they attract a similarly capable person in the future if they withdrew generous compensation? It's like when secret service withdraws protection offer after they received the information they were after; they wouldn't ever recruit anyone in that area again.
Not at all. Reread it please. It's about attracting highest technical/management caliber employees able to create $XBn projects from the scratch. If you showcase that you dispose of such employees after they finished their job with no reward because of tangential factors, other people might not want to join you in the future, because who knows what actually happened, if there e.g. wasn't a team inside collecting potentially damaging information about their employees to be used when company wanted to save money after their usefulness expired, or if somebody wasn't playing another Game of Thrones, manipulating easily impressionable people and their opinions to keep the money. Who can tell what exactly the truth was? E.g. it's highly unlikely just one side is right if two people end up in the same hotel room alone; believing that would insult intelligence of everyone...
This is not about Essentials (flop) but about Android (huge success). Would you like to be paid for your most successful project based off your worst one? Of course without Google Andy would not be successful, but the same could have been the other way round - without Andy Google might not have had Android and Nokia would be still popular smartphone king...
Being terminated for cause shouldn't retroactively makes you un-earn money. If for the sake of argument the money was for developing android, then he would deserve both the pile of money and punishment for wrongdoing.
> In Silicon Valley, it is widely known that Mr. Page had dated Marissa Mayer, one of the company’s first engineers who later became chief executive of Yahoo. (Both were single.) Eric Schmidt, Google’s former chief executive, once retained a mistress to work as a company consultant, according to four people with knowledge of the relationship. And Mr. Brin, who along with Mr. Page owns the majority of voting shares in Google’s parent, Alphabet, had a consensual extramarital affair with an employee in 2014, said three employees with knowledge of the relationship.
> David C. Drummond, who joined as general counsel in 2002, had an extramarital relationship with Jennifer Blakely, a senior contract manager in the legal department who reported to one of his deputies, she and other Google employees said. They began dating in 2004, discussed having children and had a son in 2007, after which Mr. Drummond disclosed their relationship to the company, she said.
I was once talking to a retired guy who told me starting companies is hard because "your employees won't stop having sex with each other and your customers are never satisfied." Seems to be true for not only the employees, but also the founders of these companies and, if that weren't enough, it often strays into sexual harassment. It is good that Google is apparently taking a harder line on this, but they should've done more sooner.
> your employees won't stop having sex with each other
Haven't there been studies indicating that our environment and physical proximity to a person greatly factors into our sexual attraction?
It is a little paradoxical that companies try to bring everyone together after work for fun and bonding but then discourage workplace relationships. Many lasting relationships I know of share some type of polarity or power dynamic, so it's not too surprising how the recipe is there for consensual intimacy. Harassment, goes without saying, but even consensual relationships with business power dynamics can be a legal and ethical disaster for the parties involved and the business.
I think the parent is implying that, given how hard it is to stop employees from having sex with each other, it seems that employees want to have sex with each other, so remote work is in this sense a downside.
I agree with that assessment, which I think is a pretty toxic view to have. Everyone is going to work to do work, get paid and go home. Two coworkers might be open to a relationship, but if someone is walking in with the assumption that work is a good way to find a partner then their presence is just going to degrade the working environment for everyone else.
(And yes we're all just human and such and such but we've got social contracts around maintaining a decorum so what you feel doesn't have to be openly expressed)
From what I've gathered people who create these kinds of relationships at work don't have much of a life outside of work. That narrative makes sense for the founder role, you'd constantly be working and obsessing about the success of your company. It also makes sense as a startup employee, you put in serious time and energy when a company begins.
If you don't have friends or social functions outside of "going to work" I guess it's inevitable that you'll date a coworker.
But I think that's an issue, if you're a founder without much relationship ties outside of work then will it influence you to hire more people you think you might develop a relationship with?
This is a really _really_ grey area since it's nice to work with people you enjoy interacting with, so that does seem like a valid hiring motive, but it's unacceptable to filter potential hires by people you'd enjoy going on a date with.
Basically, in summary, it's pretty hellishly complicated and if you can avoid workplace romance you'll probably be happier for it.
It is very difficult for relationships in a workplace to not involve some sort of power differential. I'm speaking specifically of your working group so if the context is a programmer dating a researcher in a 20k employee company the tie between you might be so distant to basically be irrelevant, but in most other cases a soured relationship can always cause problems to employees and employers.
It's normal for a small fraction to have sexual relationships with each other, not for enough of them to be doing so to make it surface as a problem in starting a company.
Sundar's letter unsatisfactory here. Isn't the real scandal that the company weighed the risk of terminating Rubin without compensation and decided not to.
If I were a Google employee I'd be wondering when it will be expedient for Google to do the right thing in cases of gross misconduct, and when they'll take a calculated risk like they did here. I'm guessing the 13 execs sacked probably didn't have ~$100m compensation packages at stake.
Also, building a company is not all or nothing. You could even shoot smaller and likely get to $1M in revenue for a $5M or so company. The odds are much better.
The odds of winning a lottery (lets say the Mega Millions or the Diversity Visa) are, to an extent, evenly distributed. The odds of succeeding in a social endeavour (lets say a business or a Green Card obtained via application) are not.
While on average the odds of the latter (the business) may be better, for a given person (which is always me and never an average person) the odds of the former (the lottery) may actually be much higher.
On a side note, while it may seem "un-meritocratic" to the HN crowd, having lotteries as gateways to social mobility and resource allocation is a decent idea.
My concern for thinking of lotteries as a societal benefit is that my (in no way perfect) observations is that the lowest in income, and education tend to <i>contribute</i> the most money towards the lottery which may have had a greater net benefit if each ticket buyer had spent their buy in price on themselves.
Also consider that poorer lottery winners are often ill equipped to deal with their winnings and frequently lose the entire sum of money within a few years; they may enjoy spending the money, but it doesn't lift a winners children and community out of a cycle of poverty as I would normally think of "social mobility".
Maybe we should randomly force people to get an MBAs instead.
That decrease has led to the city only getting funding for about 240 units of affordable housing in 2018 - 2019, whereas from 2014 - 2016 the city produced 500 units of public housing per year. [https://www.spur.org/news/2018-11-08/how-has-san-francisco-r...]
This is a long way of saying that the market affects everything. Even if we decide to build public housing that housing is not immune from market effects like expensive land and big construction costs. If it's more difficult, and therefore more expensive, to build market rate housing then it's more difficult and more expensive to build public housing.
For example, in the Mission no new affordable housing has been built in, according to Supervisor Ronen, close to 10 years. There are 7 projects in the pipeline, but none have broken ground [https://sf.curbed.com/2018/4/24/17276152/affordable-housing-...]. Long approval processes and constantly increasing construction costs are partly to blame.