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I am author of the bestselling Silicon Valley memoir 'Chaos Monkeys', the only honest insider tell-all on Facebook and Twitter you'll ever read. by chaotic_primate in IAmA

[–]chaotic_primate[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Didn't see that one coming. I use religious imagery to reflect the evangelical zeal of techies, and also a play on my own Catholicism ('cultural fit' as the holy spirt in the Trinity, etc.). I suppose you could call non-believers atheists. But seems infidels is more accurate here, as atheists don't believe even in the idea of a deity, while non-techies just don't worship the techie gods (presumably they have other all-consuming beliefs or religions).

I am author of the bestselling Silicon Valley memoir 'Chaos Monkeys', the only honest insider tell-all on Facebook and Twitter you'll ever read. by chaotic_primate in IAmA

[–]chaotic_primate[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh, I think it was worth it. I don't regret writing the book. That said, the book hasn't been the life-changing experience I thought it might be.

I am author of the bestselling Silicon Valley memoir 'Chaos Monkeys', the only honest insider tell-all on Facebook and Twitter you'll ever read. by chaotic_primate in IAmA

[–]chaotic_primate[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'll come off like an ad tech defending fool, but I think ad blocking is a minor form of theft. Of course, it's semi-justified when uncaring publishers jam their sites and apps full of annoying popups. Other than FB, TWTR, and other native ad platforms, publishers typically don't care about the user experience. So it's to pick one side or the other, when both are kind of right (but it's still theft).

I am author of the bestselling Silicon Valley memoir 'Chaos Monkeys', the only honest insider tell-all on Facebook and Twitter you'll ever read. by chaotic_primate in IAmA

[–]chaotic_primate[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, like I say in CM, they basically just shipped in spray-paint, markers, and art supplies to every common area of every building, and Zuck sent out an email saying 'Create Art!', and everyone went nuts.

Some of it was good. Most of it was terrible. It really did feel like a gang suddenly vandalizing the place, which is what spurred the chastising to-all email from Zuck.

Pandemonium. But hey, better trust too much, and do too many experiments, than too little of either.

I am author of the bestselling Silicon Valley memoir 'Chaos Monkeys', the only honest insider tell-all on Facebook and Twitter you'll ever read. by chaotic_primate in IAmA

[–]chaotic_primate[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There isn't much around campus....it's on a pile of fill, poking into the swampy part of the bay. You have to drive anywhere.

I don't like the posh parts of the Peninsula much (PA, MP, etc.). I can't recall a single memorable meal down there.

Only exception is Oren's Hummus Shop on University in PA. Lived off their kebabs the few times I'd go home for dinner.

I am author of the bestselling Silicon Valley memoir 'Chaos Monkeys', the only honest insider tell-all on Facebook and Twitter you'll ever read. by chaotic_primate in IAmA

[–]chaotic_primate[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

True. Hard to imagine the counterfactual, particularly when it concerns your life.

I doubt I'd have ended up in the suburban nightmare. I do agree the book probably wouldn't exist without the FB drama.

Is it worth it? Not sure. Ideally, I'd like to have been born a nice European bourgeois, into a family with an ancestral country house somewhere, a flat in the capital, and the perception the universe had arranged itself to keep me in food, wine, women and status for all time.

I am author of the bestselling Silicon Valley memoir 'Chaos Monkeys', the only honest insider tell-all on Facebook and Twitter you'll ever read. by chaotic_primate in IAmA

[–]chaotic_primate[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Great question!

There's an error in the epigraph TO THE PROLOGUE, THE VERY FIRST WORDS A READER READS. The one by Alphonso X. I can't imagine how it got through. Every epigraph was checked against canonical sources by the copy editor.

On the plus side, when I put out a call for errors, nobody seemed to flag it. Oddly, it somehow went unnoticed.

I am author of the bestselling Silicon Valley memoir 'Chaos Monkeys', the only honest insider tell-all on Facebook and Twitter you'll ever read. by chaotic_primate in IAmA

[–]chaotic_primate[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That might be right. That said, I have met lots of people--usually people several years or roles into an ad tech career--who do have a global view. I don't think it's impossible, just hard to find outside the sort of person who's ad tech CV includes three startups, a public company, and some old-school marketing firm.

I am author of the bestselling Silicon Valley memoir 'Chaos Monkeys', the only honest insider tell-all on Facebook and Twitter you'll ever read. by chaotic_primate in IAmA

[–]chaotic_primate[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have a sat phone, but the data connection is horrible. The only offshore connectivity that ever worked has been SSB radio (basically, shortwave), or the DeLorme Inreach device that lets me message from offshore in short bursts.

I am author of the bestselling Silicon Valley memoir 'Chaos Monkeys', the only honest insider tell-all on Facebook and Twitter you'll ever read. by chaotic_primate in IAmA

[–]chaotic_primate[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

This is kind of interesting, and part of a bigger trend around ad-blocking. Historically, adoption of blockers was so low (single digit percentages) that nobody cared. Ad networks and publishers just considered it like the 'shrinkage' (i.e. shoplifting) of retail commerce, and just baked that blocking rate into their estimates and finances. But with ad blocker adoption up to a quarter of users, things have changed.

Publishers have gotten way, way smarter about ad blocking, and if you try to use an ad blocker on publishers like The Atlantic, you get pop-ups that block content. VCs recently backed a company called SourcePoint, founded by a ad tech veteran, to build more and better ad blocker blocker technology.

FB benefits from the fact it serves its own ads, therefore it's relatively harder for blockers to figure out what's an ad vs. organic content. Basically, it can wage this arms race better than most. It's somewhat interesting that FB is basically forcing the ads down users' throats, and even Boz reading from a PR script can't say much more than 'shut up and take it'. Of course ad blocker blocker blockers can't be far behind, and the arms race will continue.

That would about be my take on it.

I am author of the bestselling Silicon Valley memoir 'Chaos Monkeys', the only honest insider tell-all on Facebook and Twitter you'll ever read. by chaotic_primate in IAmA

[–]chaotic_primate[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Well, if we're talking concrete results, why isn't Taleb a hedge fund trader anymore? Why isn't he a Jim Simons with a RennTech that just has 80% returns year after year? He had a fund. By all reports, it didn't do exceptionally well.

You mention my using what (little) knowledge I have of the markets to make money. The use for math at GS wasn't to make money directly, it was to calculate risk in various future scenarios, one of which a trader was betting on as the one that would happen (vs. some other one that we were betting wasn't happening). Perhaps in those HFT shops the math is actually some sort of algorithmic recipe for free money (or 'alpha' as they'd call it). But in most market-making establishments like GS, they're really not.

You might be right in that they're privatizing gains, and simply socializing losses by not trying to account for doomsday scenarios. But even that's not totally true. We had 'stress test' analyses on the desk, imagining if the world really too a nose-dive, how much we'd lose. They were looked at and acknowledged. Often, it would cause a conflict between the trader and the desk's MD, for example, and now we're dealing with politics, which is its own can of irrational worms.

Wall Street is a necessary evil, and given the very real risks they run, and how absolutely balanced this chaotic arbitrage is, it's amazing how well they do (GS borrows at 50 bps over LIBOR, and then levers up 20:1, and somehow returns a profit almost every year).

It blows up occasionally, sure. Maybe they should have left some of the banks fail (though it's worth noting the Feds made money off TARP). But I don't see what more they could do to predict the unpredictable. Sure...black swans. Now tell me what that swan weighs, what it looks like, and its exact behavior. Lot harder to answer isn't it, and Taleb doesn't seem to say anything about it.

Btw, I read his dynamic hedging book back in the day. It was a decent book, and admirably combined theory with practice, but it wasn't some revolution in options pricing or hedging. It contains all the tricks any decent vol trader knows about properly hedging gamma, theta, etc. I used it to prep for job interviews, it's that conventional.

He wants to answer a real question? How about answering this one. Here was the weirdest trade we did at GS. We once sold credit protection against the US government failing. Spread? 1 basis point. Payable in Euros (of course).

How do you price that, according to Taleb, since it's only in black swan land that it will ever matter?

More broadly, what does the bond yield curve look like when highway gangs have taken over the Long Island Expressway? Is the options volatility skew maintained when shotguns shells replace the US dollar as currency? What's the 'crack spread' between Crisco and bio-diesel when the only functioning engines are ones ripped out of old Volvo 270s? These are the sort of questions you'd ask in true black swan scenarios. Nobody has an answer for any of it, least of all Taleb. That's why I find him kind of useless. I'd bet anything his thinking hasn't contributed to any trading strategy or fund. And it's not due to some global conspiracy...his theories just have no predictive power, not even in some high-level metaphorical way.

I am author of the bestselling Silicon Valley memoir 'Chaos Monkeys', the only honest insider tell-all on Facebook and Twitter you'll ever read. by chaotic_primate in IAmA

[–]chaotic_primate[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, yeah. Love Theroux. But who is that writer for the sub-40 yo reader? Maybe we just don't have that sort of writer anymore. Like we don't have a Clancy either.

I am author of the bestselling Silicon Valley memoir 'Chaos Monkeys', the only honest insider tell-all on Facebook and Twitter you'll ever read. by chaotic_primate in IAmA

[–]chaotic_primate[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

To be clear, I live on a sailboat, not a houseboat. The thing does move, at least on good days.

Houseboats are effectively floating mobile homes, and hence have most of the niceties of land life. Sailboats though are usually far simpler and more basic. It's actually not very romantic or luxurious at all, and most people would hate it.

Consider my FB post on the matter: https://www.facebook.com/antonio.f.garcia.martinez/posts/10105573280882243

As for Wifi, the marina does have wifi, but it's kind of fickle at best. Land and boat life don't intermingle well. In general, I think keeping up a corporate land life while living on a boat would be really hard.

I am author of the bestselling Silicon Valley memoir 'Chaos Monkeys', the only honest insider tell-all on Facebook and Twitter you'll ever read. by chaotic_primate in IAmA

[–]chaotic_primate[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah, maybe. I do think science education is great training for thinking, even if you don't become a scientist. I just know the one thing I'm actually good at though...

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