{"id":35314,"date":"2023-10-20T14:37:48","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/best-of-the-web-a-google-master-class-a-mission-to-mars-and-its-not-the-maths-stupid-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:37:48","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:37:48","slug":"best-of-the-web-a-google-master-class-a-mission-to-mars-and-its-not-the-maths-stupid-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/best-of-the-web-a-google-master-class-a-mission-to-mars-and-its-not-the-maths-stupid-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"BEST OF THE WEB: A Google master class; a mission to mars; and it\u2019s not the maths stupid – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Google needs to be understood, writes Steven Levy on Medium<\/i><\/a>, as part of a \u201cmaster class\u201d he is doing on Google.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGoogle isn\u2019t the biggest corporation on Earth, but is arguably the most important. Certainly, if one is to understand the 21st Century and the impact of technology and the Internet on our personal, professional and civic lives, Google is the single company that must be understood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

While we are all likely to know the basics of how Google came to be, Levy argues that \u201cexpert knowledge is a little harder to come by,\u201d so he sets up a chat with executive chair Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg, an adviser to current CEO Larry Page.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Q&A between them becomes a fascinating insight into who pulls the strings at Google (I won\u2019t say who, but do have a read), and how they come to make some big decisions. Levy is certainly unrelenting in his line of inquiry.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Levy\u2019s first master class session deals with \u201cChina, the Troika that once ruled Google but may not anymore, and the famous \u2018Don\u2019t Be Evil\u2019 motto.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We learn that Schmidt is quite comfortable with Google\u2019s decision to enter China, where it censored search results, believing that China was better with Google than without it. But the real revelations come around their decision to leave China.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fair to say that we had a process to go in, and we had a process to go out. Everybody agreed, and we knew what we were getting ourselves into. It\u2019s not like we were blindsided,\u201d says Schmidt.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation did worsen. And then [after Google was hacked] there was the meeting on Sunday [January 10, 2010, when Google decided its future course in China]. I knew when I entered that meeting that we were going pull out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The mission to Mars<\/b><\/p>\n


<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cFuck Earth!\u2019 Elon Musk said to me, laughing. \u2018Who cares about Earth?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And so begins Ross Andersen\u2019s interview with Elon<\/a> Musk on his mission to get people on Mars.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fear not, Musk loves Earth, we\u2019re told; he just loves telling jokes and saying things to surprise you. But this is the man who wants to replace the world\u2019s cars with electric vehicles and colonise Mars with SpaceX, so any lack of surprises, might be most surprising.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Musk wants to go to Mars as \u201cextinction insurance\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt our current rate of technological growth, humanity is on a path to be godlike in its capabilities,\u201d Musk tells the author.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could bicycle to Alpha Centauri in a few hundred thousand years, and that\u2019s nothing on an evolutionary scale. If an advanced civilisation existed at any place in this galaxy, at any point in the past 13.8 billion years, why isn\u2019t it everywhere? Even if it moved slowly, it would only need something like .01 per cent of the Universe\u2019s lifespan to be everywhere. So why isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Musk suggests the answer may be that we are in some sort of \u201csimulation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to understand the snark that greeted him when he first suggested his plans for colonisation of Mars, but while reading the piece you can\u2019t help but have the fact that this man has pretty much pulled off almost everything he set out to do at the back of your mind.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mad or genius? Maybe both. Maybe that\u2019s what he needs to be to pull this off. And maybe, he just will.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why women leave IT<\/b><\/p>\n


<\/b><\/p>\n

First things first. It ain\u2019t because of the maths.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cStories from 716 women who left tech show that the industry\u2019s culture is the primary culprit, not any issues related to science education,\u201d Kieran Snyder writes in Forbes<\/i>.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an issue that is gaining attention, though it\u2019s always been there, but this piece highlights the issue through some heartbreakingly personal stories. Ultimately, the numbers cannot be ignored.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/b>One-hundred-ninety-two women cited discomfort working in environments that felt overtly or implicitly discriminatory as a primary factor in their decision to leave tech. That\u2019s just over a quarter of the women surveyed. Several of them mention discrimination related to their age, race, or sexuality in addition to gender and motherhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the good news.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOf the 716 women surveyed, 465 are not working today. Two-hundred-fifty-one are employed in non-tech jobs, and 45 of those are running their own companies. A whopping 625 women say they have no plans to return to tech. Only 22\u2014that\u2019s 3%\u2014say they would definitely like to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google needs to be understood, writes Steven Levy on Medium, as part of a \u201cmaster class\u201d he is doing on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35314"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}