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Why It Was Almost Impossible to Make the Blue LED (youtu.be)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The blue LED was supposed to be impossible—until a young engineer proposed a moonshot idea.

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[–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

If that house somehow generated more money than you knew what to do with, I'd be happy as hell to share with the person who made it.

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  • [+] -7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Except companies have shareholders that spent their retirement money to purchase shares. You can't just hand it out, since it's not your money

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    That's like say giving good employees a bonus is stealing some stockholder's hard-earned retirement. Employee compensation is just a standard expense. Similarly, potential shares of licensing revenue are a common incentive companies dangle to get more employees working on patentable ideas. Maybe only a couple percent, but for significant stuff like this it works out well for everyone involved.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    You should give good employees a bonus. But you can't give away hundreds of millions just to be good to your employees because it's not your money

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Nobody is talking about giving him all proceeds. Maybe 1%, and not trying to sue the shit out of him, would've left everyone happy. In the end they undoubtedly wasted more money on lawyers acting like pricks. That's investor money too. And they almost lost hundreds of millions in a countersuit due to their egregious behavior. Poorly handled, even from an investor perspective.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    that spent their retirement money to purchase shares

    don't invest (or gamble) what you can't afford to lose.

    using some people's poor money management skills as an excuse to justify exploitation of the source of your windfall is exceptionally stupid.

    a receding tide beaches all boats. every time something like this happens, another genius with another big idea sees it and decides it's not worth it if they're just going to get the result stripped away from them by parasitic suits.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    His entire argument is literally debunked by Veritaseum's other video about game theory and cooperation. Nobody will be nice to a corporation where everybody knows the board members always will defect against you.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago

    True, and I think he wasn't compensated enough. But giving him hundreds of millions is a bit much as well. If they gave him 8 million at the very start without going to court that would have been a good bonus

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It's not one person's retirement. Retirement funds have millions of people's retirement. You can't just give away a company's money because it's not the CEO's money. It's the shareholders' money

    He should have been fairly compensated, but again, only up to the point where it encourages workers to work hard

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Retirement funds have millions of people's retirement

    and they exist within a continuum of risk profiles. there are safer (and less potentially profitable) options, and there are riskier (and more potentially profitable) options. they have made this decision.

    you cannot pick the riskiest options for your retirement fund and then get mad there was more risk than the safest options and that you lost some of it. you cannot pick the safest options and then get mad it's not performing as well as the riskiest. if you cannot afford to lose your retirement money, do not put it into any fund or mechanism that will gamble with it beyond what you are comfortable with. it is YOUR responsibility. alone.

    as a result of your mentality, we will see less and less innovation. people who can improve the world see you and your opinions and decide, well, it's not worth it. what intelligent person would ever work with organizations that you claim are justifiably ethically bound to stab them in the back and reward them the bare minimum possible?

    and why, because grandpa ticked the "minimum risk" button in his sofi 401k and is mad he's not getting explosive vc-tech-company-tier returns? or because your uncle ticked the "maximum risk" button and is mad he lost some money? you're catering to the lowest common denominator of uninformed, entitled gamblers and are poisoning the well and breaking the whole system down as a result.

    let me guess, you have an MBA?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I don't have an MBA, I'm saying that the CEO can only reward enough bonuses to people so they don't feel like they get stabbed in the back.

    This amount might be single digit million USD, like the 8 million awarded in the end. The original bonus was quite insulting. The first amount the court ordered was actually not bad from the court's point of view since the case went to court and there are legal fees, the amount should be higher to discourage companies from screwing their employees

    But awarding 200 million to begin with would be overkill. It doesn't accomplish anything other than being a "lottery" payout. Other workers can't expect this much money because it's literally one of those discoveries of a century

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