Silicon Valley

January 8, 2018 — Steven Hayward

Rotten Apple

Featured image Among the many important periodicals that I don’t have time to read is Cigar Aficianado. I’ve been holding out for years for a companion glossy tabloid, Trophy Wife Aficionado, and long thought it was the perfect venture for Donald Trump, but he apparently had other ideas for his next career move. If someone made Trophy Wife Aficionado a package deal along with Marvin Shanken’s other glossy tabloid, The Wine Spectator »
October 1, 2017 — Steven Hayward

A Reckoning for Silicon Valley Coming?

Featured image I’m not closely following the vote for independence going on this weekend over in Catalonia, but the news caught my eye that Google has acceded to the ruling of a Spanish judge that it must shut down the mobile phone app that referendum supporters had ginned up. Maybe this is the proper course, though it should also raise questions about whether it is a case study in what happens when »
September 7, 2017 — Steven Hayward

Amazon to Seattle: Drop Dead

Featured image Amazon: “Separate but Equal” Headquarters? No sooner does the Seattle City Council propose a city income tax than Amazon, headquartered in Seattle, announces this morning that it intends to set up a “separate” (but equal!) headquarters somewhere outside of Seattle, and is in the process of soliciting bribes “incentive packages” from interested states and municipalities. Where to start with the hilarity of this? This is my favorite paragraph in the »
August 8, 2017 — Steven Hayward

How Google Has Just Harmed Its Women Employees

Featured image Last week we noted here how the move to “ban the box” of criminal convictions on employment application forms actually increased discrimination against blacks, and with its decision to fire the author of the infamous “diversity memo,” Google has just done its women employees a huge disservice, likely leading to more discrimination against women. David Bernstein of the Scalia Law School at George Mason University offers this shrewd observation: How »
August 7, 2017 — Steven Hayward

Google Fires Gender Dissenter

Featured image Just as we predicted, the Google engineer behind the memo dissenting from the orthodoxy of “diversity,” whose name is James Damore, was fired today. Bloomberg reports: Alphabet Inc.’s Google has fired an employee who wrote an internal memo blasting the web company’s diversity policies, creating a firestorm across Silicon Valley. James Damore, the Google engineer who wrote the note, confirmed his dismissal in an email, saying that he had been »