Month: February 2024

  • Turning Point?

    Turning Point?

    A crowd spontaneously turned on a Waymo robot car when it tried to push its way through a Chinese New Year’s crowd in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

    So there were fireworks happening – pretty fun night and folks watching the fireworks. Every now and then traffic would build up and the crowd would make way for it to clear.

    There was a small traffic holdup with waymo at the front of it. Then someone in a white hoodie jumped on the hood of the car and literally WWE styel K/O’d the windshield & broke it.

    The crowd was shocked. People started paying attention and gathered around. Nothing happened for another 30 seconds until someone else jumped on the hood.

    Then a group of people joined in affirming the behavior w/ positive feedback. Clapping etc.

    That was when it went WILD. People with skateboards breaking the glass, and others graffitiing the car.

    A Mob Just Vandalized A Waymo Self-Driving Car And Set It On Fire. The Videos Are Nuts

    People are getting fed up.

    Now, more than ever, Silicon Valley should be paying attention. We all should. Because the torching of the Waymo car may well prove to be a turning point. If no one in power is going to listen to the growing chorus of people shouting their fears that big tech has concentrated too much wealth, influence, and control over their lives — or to the legion of New Luddites organizing against the excesses of Amazon, generative AI giants, and self-driving car companies — then this smoldering husk of an AI-driven robot may merely be the first.

    Torching the Google car: Why the growing revolt against big tech just escalated

    Remember that other Tracy Chapman song?

  • Attention to Detail

    I’m as guilty as anyone of the careless typo but sometimes the stakes are higher and it really pays to double-check your work.

    There was this post from Friday last week in the Financial Times’ Alphaville,

    Last year, Norway’s $1.5tn sovereign wealth fund revealed that it had lost NKr980mn, roughly $92mn, on an error relating to how it calculated its mandated benchmark.

    The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund’s $92mn Excel error

    Then there was this from Bloomberg yesterday,

    Less than an hour after issuing the statement, Lyft Chief Financial Officer Erin Brewer joined a call with analysts and said the company is actually expecting adjusted earnings margins, calculated as a percentage of bookings, to expand by 50 basis points — not 500 — acknowledging, when asked by an analyst, that the press release was incorrect.

    A ‘Clerical Error’ in Lyft Outlook Triggered 67% Jump

    What about you? Care to share any times where a small mistake or oversight led to outsized consequences?