the Internet is now being used by 4 billions people, so it basically mimics humanity

Back in the 80s and 90s you were cherry picking the elite and the intellectuals, the internet of back then was never going to be representative sample of humanity

> Once you're big enough to be a target, you have to spend money on lobbying, and contribute to campaigns.

Absolutely not. You do the opposite of that. You go at layer zero. At the population level and enter the culture wars arena with the goal of winning.

Some of these companies are structured in a way that the founders are poised to retain control of their companies till they retire (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Berkshire).

If you are Zuck or Brin or Dorsey and you want to do this until you are 95 like Buffett then you are better off barking and biting back, acquire a reputation of a fighter so that people like Sanders and Warren would leave you alone. There will be consequences such as employees criticizing and leaving but in the long term you are better off fighting.

When a politician comes after you and your company, you just attack back, if you are not prepared to do this you should simply not start a proper company and opt for a carrer in a hedge fund instead, where you can make money in the dark.

Founders and CEOs should not be the first offender but when they are called out they should absolutely attack back.

Sanders is pouring manure all over corporate America since 2015 and all he had to endure was Michael Bloomberg attacking him back for half a debate, and wouldn't have happened if Bloomberg didn't decide to run.

If a guy like Bezos or Zuck were to tweet back at Sanders something to the tune "I've started a company in a garage and now it has the same credit rating of the US Government, what have you done with your life?"

That would be fair game, politicians prey on weakness, they smell it and keep biting till you lay there unconscious

You’ve also got to read the room. The mood in the US is not in favor of hard charging mavericks of industry. This approach today would likely backfire spectacularly.

Big Tech should be locating large employment centers in strategic locations around the country. And by strategic I don’t mean where the talent, resources, or customers are located but rather where influential Congresspeople, Senators, and Governors are located. Then wield your soft power with these folks, e.g. “You can break us up but it’s just going to cost your district/state massive job losses”.

Next, meet with other agitating politicians to find out their underlying motivations and help them to achieve those things - doesn’t even need to be real, just help make them look good for their next re-election campaign. So Bezos should work out a public deal with Bernie and AOC to raise Amazon’s minimum wage to $20 an hour. Bernie and AOC will look like progressive heroes but would be effectively defanged in continuing to attack Amazon (to a large degree).

    Big Tech should be locating large employment centers in strategic locations around the country. And by strategic I don’t mean where the talent, resources, or customers are located but rather where influential Congresspeople, Senators, and Governors are located.

I thought this was one of the problems of a Soviet style command economy. They would locate production not where it was more efficient and made economic sense, but where it was politically more beneficial.

If these companies start doing this they could lose to more efficient competition. Hope they aren't that stupid.

*Less efficient competition if they can't get the government to vote their way

At least 1 company has beaten you to that idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_HQ2

> Sanders is pouring manure all over corporate America since 2015

Can you please expand on this? What exactly are you trying to say here?

> If a guy like Bezos or Zuck were to tweet back at Sanders something to the tune "I've started a company in a garage and now it has the same credit rating of the US Government, what have you done with your life?"

Aside from whether or not this is good to do, do you remember the Amazon News incident? Amazon tried to "fight back" on Twitter and it just made them look bad.

(Maybe incident is too strong a term, but I don't know what else to call it. Tweets such as this: https://twitter.com/amazonnews/status/1374911222361956359)

Nobody, not even Biden has the political goodwill to make Bitcoin illegal and enrage so many constituents (aka lost votes)

The only ones who maybe can do it are Xi and Putin, and the latter seems more pro than against because everything which goes against the dollar is Putin's friend.

Xi is also on and off again with Bitcoin but every day which goes by in which he is not decisive is a day in favor of Bitcoin.

You are left with the Warren, Sanders, Corbyn types as well as this Dutch guy who have only one style of messaging: modern day Robinhoods (or Pocahontas) trying to take money away from people who work and make sacrifices to get ahead in life and redistribute it to themselves

I doubt that making Bitcoin illegal will achieve anything. I think "crippling" Bitcoin and making it very inconvenient to use is a better approach.

Even if the people you label modern day robinhoods (but that take money away from people who work and make sacrifices to get ahead in life and redistribute it to themselves, which is not quite the typical robinhood version) really are as self-serving as you suggest - do you really think that making bitcoint would enrage so many constituents? How many people do you think actually hold bitcoin?

https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/how-many-bitcoin-users/ estimates there are around 15.3 million people in north america, and of those how many actually care deeply about this issue? Additionally, realize that how much this hurts dramatically depends on how such a ban were to come into force.

I mean - I don't think there's a chance in hell Biden will ban bitcoins, but rather because it's just not a priority, not because this is electoral suicide.

Elections are only close in some states, and its hard to predict which issues voters will care about, especially since nobody has proposed exactly what a "bitcoin ban" would look like. The linked article also mentioned that coinbase number, but it's a little hard to interpret: not everybody having an account will be in the US, nor will they necessarily own any bitcoin, nor, if they own bitcoin, will it necessarily be more than a tiny amount; it might just be a bit of a game - i.e. hard to say what people's opinion on the matter is just by having a coinbase account.

I think we're in agreement, this isn't going to happen. I'd just frame it differently.

If a politician were to try and ban this, I'm sure compentent spin doctors would think of better lines of attacks than bitcoin == rich people == evil. They might throw a line in the direction of nationalism (chinese control, dangerous!), or note its environmental impact, or note the risks due to instability (so we'll compensate you small fry, but not <xyz>), or claim a connection to organized crime, or note the issues of tax evasion...

I mean, it's not hard to come up with a list, and I firmly believe - not just because it's crypto, but just in general - that people just dont care about this kind of technicality. To be clear: they would need to buy out at least the vast majority of current holders or some such scheme to at least take out the sting for most people - but then, that's something that's attractive to a few special interests too, so that could well fly.

But why would they bother? It's just not going to happen.

Everything old is new again.

This is nothing revolutionary: The Hollywood Stock Exchange was a similar project

> science _overwhelmingly_ supports vaccination

Not to be pedantic about it, but science always, and in any event supports non vaccination for self and everybody else vaccinating instead.

This is true for every disease. If possible it's always smart not to inject yourself with stuff.

They just can't say it because then everybody would try and be the last person to get the shot, because the last one gets to skip the shot!

>This is true for every disease. If possible it's always smart not to inject yourself with stuff.

Maybe in a vacuum where everyone else around you is guaranteed to get the shot, but based on what I saw from friends and family who contracted COVID, what I've read about its long term effects, and the ongoing uptake of the vaccine I would not say the science inclines me to take my chances without immunity.

There is no money to be made in the form of profits or FCF from renewables. Not only that, there is no money to be made in energy which isn't fossil in general. This includes Carbon Capture, storage, and nuclear fission/fusion as well.

Fossil fuels extraction is the best of the industrial/non-talent based sectors, Saudi Aramco basically sticks straws in the sand and oil comes out at 7 dollars per barrel.

Electrons they are all the same, there is not some consumer convenience in using green electrons.

The only success story in terms of marketcap is Tesla, but that company is based on constant lies told by the CEO to keep people energized.

If we manage to solve climate change it would be the biggest letdown ever for the general population: the way this thing is being socially and politically advertised people expect a technoutopian future where all of a sudden rainbows would appear all over the place from cows derriere in lieu of methane. A technoutopian pipedream sold by Musk and the like.

In reality we'd just manage to keep things as they are now, our lives won't change that much.

Tl;dr Long SaaS and fintech, short energy and construction

getting rid of oil is not to "save out planet", but to save your civilization

people in the west don't want an Arab hegemony, they want to control everyone, including their assets

energy sells very well because everyone needs energy

the only reason why terrorism exists today in ME is because of this, america doesn't want his hegemony to go

So you're saying I've still got a chance?

> For facebook, it was decimating any local ISP growth by snatching their market

When the hated big guys move, there is always the suspect that somehow, somewhere, somebody else could have done it better, or with less externalities or with less publicity or with less branding or in a way that it's local.

It's not the act itself which troubles people. People will always find a way to hate on Zuckerberg, Bezos, Brin or Gates.

Now that Netscape went belly up everybody suddenly imagines a world where if only Microsoft was broken up then we'd all live in a Jetsons type future with flying cars and tubes carrying us around, all thanks to Netscape

If we dismiss all corporate criticism as just another inevitability, then corporations will run unchecked without any criticism. I'm also not sure what Netscape has to do with decimating a developing country's economic infrastructure either.

It's well known that free models, like those of Tom's Shoes, hurt developing economies more than they aid them, so much that even Tom's eventually switched their model.

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/one-one-business...

> If we dismiss all corporate criticism as just another inevitability, then corporations will run unchecked without any criticism

Who needs criticism when you are in control of B2 bombers? Let corporations play, let them compete and give them free reign, while remaining chill knowing that you always have the last resort option to tame them: violence in the form of B2 bombers

I'd be worried much more about the public officials who are in control of the aforementioned B2 bombers and should use them for the benefit of Americans.

I’m not sure about the founder part (or that it really is the trend you suggest), but I think it’s pretty normal given HN is an American media property with a heavy American user base that anything foreign gets called out with that country. The same thing happens in other countries unless the subject is well familiar. For example, searching HN’s history for Bosche doesn’t label the company itself as belonging to Germany. ARM similar isn’t identified by country either. This is a new company, and typically when manufacturing is involved, the site of manufacturing is labeled (even if in the US by state).

Good point. However, in this case the headline was chosen by Reuters.

If the founder/Investors of Northvolt had to choose, I'm pretty sure they would prefer their names in the title. Guess their names are just not famous enough, so better attribute to it to Sweden. More people probably knows who Elon Musk is than what Sweden is anyways :)

//A Swede

I moved from California to Switzerland for a couple of years, and more than one person asked if I was going to learn Swedish. It’s kind of sad really.

US-bias is lame, but I can think of a couple counter-examples where it doesn't usually need to be mentioned: e.g. Shopify and Spotify. Could it be that once a company is successful then it doesn't come up as much?