Nowadays, people seem to think that 1 person in charge can single-handedly implement massive, immediate change in the world, while believing themselves incapable of such a power. Even worse, many seem fine with relinquishing their critical thinking and choice to another. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy for authoritarianism: complete obedience to authority at the expense … More No Acquiescence to Authoritarianism
Five years ago, if you’d asked me the most likely cause of the next US recession, I’d have said commercial real estate. From industry professionals’ insights at places like SIEPR to anecdotally seeing thinned storefronts and mall closures across the country, the sky-high valuations of commercial real estate seemed like a bubble ready to pop. … More The Commercial Real Estate Cliff
In recent weeks, there have been many reports about users fleeing Twitter (X? The social media platform formerly known as Twitter?) for similar, less-abusive spaces. Meta’s Threads platform has a big advantage amongst the alternatives, but the upstart platform BlueSky has recently been garnering more attention. Why is BlueSky, with less than 10% the userbase … More BlueSky Thinking
It’s almost election day in the US, and most states remain single-vote systems. Maine and Alaska, however, have authorized ranked-choice voting (RCV), where voters indicate ordinal preferences (rank in order: 1, 2, 3, …) for the slate of candidates. Cities across the US, like San Francisco, New York, and Minneapolis, are also experimenting with this … More The Impossibility of a perfect voting system
It’s been more than 3 years since I joined LinkedIn in the summer of 2021. In that time, I’ve moved from the Business org to Engineering, gone a level more technical from Business Analytics to Data Engineering, served as the SF Office lead for LinkedIn Asian Alliance, and worked with dozens of teams and colleagues … More LinkedIn Lessons Learned
The ways we describe the world of work often make zero sense outside of an employer-employee context. The words we use to talk about work reveal a lot about the time period they emerged, about worker-employer power dynamics, and how the system of work evolves over time. What words do we use to refer to … More How we talk about work (and why it matters)
RealPage is a private equity-owned company that helps landlords set rents for apartments. Recent antitrust litigation puts the company right at the intersection of economics, data science, public policy, and whether the rent is too damn high. RealPage has been accused of price collusion, specifically rent-fixing. The company website states that it offers its users … More RealPage and the rise of algorithmic collusion
In June 2024, NVIDIA eclipsed Microsoft to rise to the #1 most valuable company in the world. Let’s take a brief look at the 30+ year story of NIVIDA, how it skyrocketed to preeminence amidst the latest AI wave, and where its story might go from here. NVIDIA started in 1993 with cofounders Jensen Huang … More NVIDIA in the moment
Some companies sell products that barely break even, or even sell at a loss. These “loss leader” products even enter into pop culture, like the famous $1.50 Costco hot dog. Beyond offering a “good deal”, loss leaders are the result of deeper economic incentives and serve as a reflection of the societies in which they … More The Iconography (and Economics) of Loss Leaders
It’s been about 7 years since I last wrote about the economics of solar eclipses. A lot has changed since then, but one thing remains constant: eclipses are a big deal. This year, an estimated 5 million people will travel in the US to see the April 8th, 2024 total solar eclipse, and that number … More Solar Eclipse 2024 Dynamics
Andrew Jabara 