Apple gets 15 basis points for purchases made through Apple Pay. If you don't carry a physical wallet/credit cards, that's a huge additional revenue stream they capture.
I don't believe Google has the pricing power to demand a cut of payments (yet), but they need to offer this to keep up with Apple.
I'd examine some of the assumptions underlying your post. Specifically, it seems like you want to find meaning in your work and to feel "at home in your job".
The median reader of Hacker News is in a privileged position to be thinking about these things. In an ideal world, we'd all find fulfillment in our work. But for 90%+ of the world, a job is just a way to put food on the table for your family. Mark Manson is "living his dream job" and "still hates about 30% of it". That's just life. [1]
So, here are some questions to ask:
1. What are your values?
2. Related: What is important about work for you? Is it the compensation? Working for a mission you believe in? Solving challenging problems? Being in an environment where you can learn every day?
3. Do you need to find meaning in your work? Or can you create meaning in other areas of your life?
Once you figure out the misalignment here you either:
a) make peace with what you truly value and want from a job, rather than what you assume you're meant to want or
b) correct the misalignment by finding a new position that reflects your values.
I think the problem is that anytime you try to find meaning in a job, or look to do your best, there is a very chance that your plans will be spoiled by someone who "just does his job". That attitude typically leads to blame games and people shirking responsibility. After all, if it is just a job and you want to do only what is necessary and go back home, what is the incentive to take one for the team, or collaborate and help out in a trying situation?
This sort of situation rarely happens if everyone in the team is on the same page and has each other's backs. But in today's age of job-hopping every N-years/months for x% increase in pay, there is zero incentive to do anything of that sort.
Something I realized when reading your response is that I winced a tiny bit when you mentioned "finding meaning in your work" - as if that was something I did not believe could be achieved.
I think in my mind it's more about going to work and doing things are not... so made-up. I find this extremely hard to communicate. This may be due to me being too far removed from the actual impact whatever we deliver may have. Or as other posters have pointed out, lack of confidence in the general mission.
Or maybe I haven't yet figured out the real reason and this is just something my brain has made up.
> Some of what we today consider to be the canon of Western philosophy was never meant to be shared widely. ...Many of Aristotle's "writings" were just student-created notes of his teachings.
He wrote a large number of treatises, they just haven't survived. By contrast, all of Plato's works were preserved.
"Aristotle wrote as many as 200 treatises and other works covering all areas of philosophy and science. Of those, none survives in finished form. The approximately 30 works through which his thought was conveyed to later centuries consist of lecture notes (by Aristotle or his students) and draft manuscripts edited by ancient scholars, notably Andronicus of Rhodes, the last head of the Lyceum, who arranged, edited, and published Aristotle’s extant works in Rome about 60 BCE."
> Caroline, Alameda's CEO, also said "My advice for college is that class don't matter that much and friends and networking are really important. Probably the most valuable thing you can do in college is find the coolest people you can and spend lots of time hanging out with them".
This is mainstream advice if you're at an Ivy, Stanford, etc. You're learning the same material as the people who go to a state university. The advantage is the proximity to power, the people you rub elbows with who can help your career down the line.
This is the entire premise of elite business schools – nobody is dropping $100k/year for the content that you can get on YouTube for free.
> You're learning the same material as the people who go to a state university. The advantage is the proximity to power, the people you rub elbows with who can help your career down the line.
I got my MS CS from Stanford and this is completely false. I did my BS CS at Georgetown, and even between the two there was a huge difference being at Stanford. The course material pushed me way harder, there were more resources (e.g. robots), a much wider selection of electives, and more consistently brilliant peers. I never felt behind at Georgetown; I certainly had those moments at Stanford, even though I did very well there in the end.
The original comment applies more to humanities and business school than to hard sciences. But it's still relevant in STEM.
> I got my MS CS from Stanford and this is completely false. I did my BS CS at Georgetown, and even between the two there was a huge difference being at Stanford.
Stanford is probably the best-known school in the world for Computer Science. Georgetown (while a great school) is known for its international relations. So I'm not surprised that Stanford had more CS electives, resources, etc.
But the fair comparison here is a school like UC Berkeley, University of Illinois, or [insert flagship state university here]. Is the quality of education really that different vs. Stanford? Or is the Stanford name brand on the resume the differentiator?
Also, a masters program should be harder and more competitive than an undergrad program!
> and more consistently brilliant peers
Exactly. At Stanford, your "consistently more brilliant peers" will be in positions of power down the road. They'll be hiring managers at Google and Apple in <5 years.
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"As of 2022, the Japanese public debt is estimated to be approximately US$12.20 trillion US Dollars (1.4 quadrillion yen), or 266% of GDP, and is the highest of any developed nation."
Also unique in that the public debt is mostly held by citizens or local corporations (92%).
For reference, that figure is ~75% for the US, and between ~75 and 50% for most EU countries. Fun fact, the largest foreign debt holder of the US is...Japan.
* The Nikkei 225 stock market indicator reached a high of about 40k in 1989, but dropped to a quarter with the collapse of that asset bubble, and has not recovered that yet (it just recently hit 30k). This period was known as the "lost decade" [1]
* Japan has had very low (near zero) rates for nearly three decades, more than twice as long as the rest of the world.
* Demographics: the transition to low birth rates, shrinking and ageing population started earlier than most other countries
I believe Nikkei total return, i.e. with dividends reinvested, is higher than in 1989. So even money invested in 1989, if not touched, eventually outperformed cash. But it took a while.
Another example to my sibling comment's one of debt is the stock market. While most of the world that has advanced technology and industry etc. has seen huge gains over the past decades, Japan is still not quite back at the highs they saw in the late 80s - for various demographic and economic reasons that I'm not remotely knowledgable enough to explain.
But see for example the charts (click on "max" to see as far back as possible) on Yahoo Finance for famous indexes of top X companies in each country:
USA (S&P500): Up ~2000% since 1985, technically down ~12% since December but anyone who invested 15+ months ago is still up it's not like a crazy crash
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC/
Obviously these are limited to the few hundred biggest companies but offer a good snapshot, and it's a similar story if you look at other European countries etc., and a significant problem for Japan (as well as being a metric/indicator caused by significant problems) that their growth has been so far behind.
Not much any more, but in the 90s and 2000s, having zero, or negative interest rates was a real peculiarity. People couldn't figure out how it could happen or why Japan couldn't fix it. Meanwhile 20 years later we've all been in the same boat.
If cars were invented today, they would be illegal.
We give 16-year-olds minimal training, then entrust them with the control of a 3,000 lb. weapon for the rest of their lives. You can be an awful driver, but even if you get into multiple accidents, your license will rarely be taken away.
If cars had not been invented, we would have designed 20th century cities around people, rather than the automobile. We'd have a robust public transportation network that would all but eliminate the need for cars, at least in cities and suburbs (see Japan).
Between the death toll and the alienation from living in places designed for cars, I'm not sure if the car has been a net positive for society.
"I would put it this way: there are many ways to impose a Georgist land tax, fiscal insolvency being one of them. Very wealthy people and institutions know that if they relocate to Chicago, they will be required to ante up for the final bill. And so they stay away. For a city of its size and import, Chicago just doesn’t have that many billionaires, nor do I think a rational billionaire should consider moving there.
In other words, there is a pending wealth tax. Either directly or indirectly, this will place fiscal burdens on Chicago land, the immobile factor. And this keeps down rents in Chicago now."
I don't believe Google has the pricing power to demand a cut of payments (yet), but they need to offer this to keep up with Apple.