vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
It can be helpful, but also knowing what has been tried before is vital. What works and what does not work. Many ideas are not so new. For example, typically in IT management loves the idea of RAD, but what it often means is that they want to start before they understand the scope of the problem, let alone the requirements.  It tends to be the big projects that end up being screwed up. Smaller stuff is easier, but it takes a lot of skills to manage the production of large and complex systems or pieces of engineering.  Sure, change is important but so is the knowledge of what works and what does not work. Every so often, something comes along and sets it on its head so some of that old knowledge can be discounted, but not often.
It all depends on the country.  In the US, mobility at the top is reasonably high (ie first generation millionaires, first generation billionaires, etc).      In other western countries, mobility at the top is very poor.  This is typically due to regulation and taxes that make it incredibly difficult for small businesses to be compliant and compete (ie hire a bad employee as a small startup, and it can cripple the business if you cannot easily fire them).     Mobility at the bottom is reversed.   Getting out of abject poverty in the US is incredibly difficult, almost impossible.  In other western countries it is not easy, but far easier than the US thanks to those social safety nets.
It's a decent sounding theory, but there are a lot of things that just... don't actually happen when the government doesn't provide/heavily regulate them. They're called market failures. Things like roads, electric, water, fire, police, health, military... good lord, we've seen what commercial military organizations (blackwater) are like, and it's not good. Business has *one* imperative: to make money. A key thing to keep in mind is that good business decisions are very often not good human decisions.
yeah it sounds good but it includes a flaw that free marketeers wish was true but isnt. That this wouldnt have happened had they been allowed to fail. It is anthropomorphising corps. When mega businesses fail,it's not like the ceo, executives and traders have to open up their wallets. Look at what happen with leaman or bears, everyone who was working in those banks now work for the other banks, still making the big bucks.    a shit ton of smaller banks were allowed to fail, why wasnt their behavior tempered by knowing they wouldnt have been bailed out?  we should have bailed them out, all of our retirements where tied up in this bullshit and most of us didnt have shit to do with anything. But the problem is we should have owned them afterwards like we did the S&amp;ls, we should have unseat the boards and wiped out shareholder value and restructured the banks back into healthy entities and resell back on the open market. It still wouldnt change anything, just like laws dont stop car thieves. But it would have been the right thing to do.
I'm not in a MLM or anything but I'm a business owner and I'm wondering why people keep saying it's a scam because people lose money? Any opportunity has risk and the ratio of success to fail is pretty similar for normal businesses.   These seem like sales jobs with commission only/exotic compensation plans. It's normal that people fail at this. Are they not compensating people that meet their targets?  At any rate, I feel like the business itself isn't a scam, but a lot of the salespeople are scummy by not really explaining the odds. I also don't like the cult-like vibe I get from some people in those groups.
Because large stores do not pay their cashiers enough that the companies can dock the employees' pay if they allow a bad credit card to go through. So most cashiers at large stores won't take the extra effort to check the card properly. As a result, large stores come up with other ways to handle potential credit card fraud. For example, they calculate a certain amount of fraud as expected and include it in their price calculations. Or they can use cameras to catch fraudsters. At small stores, there is a much higher chance that the cashier is either the owner or a relative of the owner. And even those who are unrelated tend to be hired by the owner directly. The owners do have their pay docked if a bad credit card is accepted, as their pay is the profit from the business. So they tend to create protocols that, at least in their mind, reduce the chance of taking a bad credit card. The cashier is often the only employee in the store to check anything. Another issue is that small stores have a harder time getting approved to accept credit cards. The companies that process the credit cards can take back their machine if there is a lot of fraud. So the companies can require more from small stores than they can from big stores. Those companies can't stop processing cards for Safeway, because they need Safeway as much if not more than Safeway needs them. So the processors have more leverage to make small stores do what they want. And small stores can feasibly fire (non-owner) cashiers who do not comply. Owners of course can't be fired. But they are far more vulnerable to business losses. So it is really important to an owner to keep the credit card machine. And it is pretty important to avoid losses, as it is their money directly. Relatives of owners may be safe from firing, but they are not safe from family retaliation like taking away television privileges. And they may also think of the effect of business losses on the family. Large stores can fire cashiers, but they are chronically understaffed and almost none of their cashiers will consistently follow a strict protocol. Since fraudsters only need to succeed once, an inconsistent application is almost as bad as no application.
&gt; hard work, determination, insight, and brilliance  A lot of unsuccessful entrepreneurs fit that definition. Luck gives you the education, knowledge, and circumstances that are just right for success, without luck even the most brilliant and hardest workers will fail.
Successful startups and people who have done very well by them are held up as everything startups are supposed to be and look at how their hard work paid off - and if yours doesn't work, it is entirely that you didn't work hard enough. Someone who has bought in wholesale holds that there are no ""bad"" startups - any startup can be successful, you just need to bust balls working harder if you fail. Startups are akin to gambling. They're not the roulette of ""it's all luck,"" but closer to five card stud - skill plays a lot of a role, but there's still luck involved. Startup culture represents all this as far closer to Texas Hold 'Em, where luck in minimized, where skill and diligence play the greatest role. It assumes that everyone going in already knows all the things you brought up in your rebuttal, without ever actually giving them that information. It keeps pimping ""just work harder"" without really saying ""Hey, guys - check the odds you're playing with **and know when to hold and when to fold**."""
I think I came across wrong. I did not mean to imply that they didn't. I think I should have clarified by saying most business owners put in a ton of work, and most of the successful business owners also got lucky. My point was that the work is a prerequisite to getting lucky.
"have you by chance been to the middle east? (UAE, Qatar or Saudi specifically). or perhaps been exposed to any part of the US industrial revolution (im not sure of your nationality), hell, even the french revolution. a review of any of those, and thats just relatively recent examples, would show why you are wrong.  saying it doesnt work is a broad statement without actually saying what the problem is, nor does it take any steps to underlying the root cause or possible solutions. when you say ""it doesnt work"". what specifically is not working."
The restaurant business in particular is very difficult; a whole bunch of them fail in the first year. And it tends to be expensive to get into; I saw $250K as an average to get a space up and open.
Isn't their lower effective rate due to their growing deferred tax assets?  They also had a loss carryforward from a few years back, which would lower the effective rate even further.  These accounting principles can be used to lower effective tax rates for small businesses, too.
"You know what helped me? Asking this question:   ""What happens if this fails utterly and miserably?""  When you really assess that question,and answer it honestly and rationally, you will probably find that you stand to lose very little in the grand scheme. Some cash. Some time. But there will be more of both. And if you've got the cajones to pursue your own business now, you'll have still have them if your first attempt goes bottom-up.  The best thing about this exercise is that it forces you to realize that you aren't ever going to be homeless, barring some mental breakdown and/or crippling addiction."
Failure? They're failing all the way to a wealthy retirement thanks to the emplyment agreements they negotiate before taking the job and then renegotiate while on the job. Failure is an outmoded concept when it comes to CEO performance. Personality disagreements and reputational smears might hurt, but performance is clearly a flexible term these days and failure no longer enters into it
Paying out dividends and financing new projects with debt also lessens the agency problem. The consequences of a failed project are greater when debt is used, so the manager now has a greater incentive to see that the project is a success. This, in addition to the paid divided is a benefit to the shareholder. If equity wasn't paid out and instead used for the project then the manager may not be so interested in its success. And if it's a failure then the shareholders are worse off.
I get trying to attract companies, but then you get such a huge company in a smallish city or town, it completely dominates it. I have no idea why you would want that.   Look at the Nestle bullshit in Canada, they are clearly breaking the law, but the towns are so reliant on Nestle for tax revenue and jobs, they are literally powerless.  Small towns should do everything to discourage super large companies from setting up a head quarters in their towns.   The companies will have too much power.
"In my office we say ""A plan never survives first contact.""  I think the more important lesson would be the ability to quickly adapt your goals as things come up.  I know plenty of business owners who have created goals and strive like hell to achieve them even after it no longer makes sense."
Large businesses are, in every model, considered to be less likely to default, and Lehman brothers etc notwithstanding, this is historically correct.    However, this is still stupid, since the diversification of lending money to many small businesses is way better.  This, in turn, is not mapped properly by the regulations on reserve capital.    Tl;dr:  Banks get punished by regulations if they lend money to small institutions instead of large ones.
"&gt; People with failed businesses also often put in crazy long hours and submit themselves to huge financial risk. That's what you have to do just to start a business. It doesn't predict success.  Yes, but most people that start companies are unrealistic, poorly connected and barely average intelligence (if at all).  I'd say perhaps 0.5% of entrepreneurs are really in the ""top tier"" where differences are shaped more by luck than anything else.  Not sure if you've ever dealt with real life entrepreneurs, but I daresay you could make some pretty good estimates about who might succeed and who might not after talking to a random sampling of 50, and no - it wouldn't be because you can smell luck.  Work ethic is kind of a baseline, and something shared with naive dreamers and total idiots, as well as unlucky realistic geniuses."
They aren't too big to fail. They are in the process of failing right now and have been for the past 2 years. If something doesn't change they are going to be bankrupt very soon.  I don't know much about Instagram as I've never used it but I imagine they aren't making money either if all they're doing is hosting images for free. However they probably have some kind of premium plans with more storage options that keeps them afloat. A media storing service can sell that, micro-blogging is worthless tho.
To a certain extent, small cap companies will in general follow the same trends as large cap companies. The extent of this cointegration depends on numerous factors, but a prime reason is the presence of systemic risk, i.e. the risk to the entire market. In simple terms, sthis is the risk that your portfolio will approach asymptotically as you increase its diversification, and it's why hedging is also important. That being said, small cap businesses will, in general, likely do worse than large cap stocks, for several reasons. This was/is certainly the case in the Great Recession. Small cap businesses have, on average, higher betas, which is a measure of a company's risk compared to the overall market. This means that small cap companies, on average outperform large cap companies during boom times, but it also means that they suffer more on average during bear times. The debate over whether or not the standard beta is still useful for small cap companies continues, however. Some economists feel that small cap companies are better measured against the Russell 2000 or similar indexes instead of the S&P 500. Small cap companies may face problems accessing or maintaining access to lines of credit. During the Great Recession, major lenders decreased their lending to small businesses, which might make it harder for them to weather the storm. On a related point, small businesses might not have as large an asset base to use as collateral for loans in bad times. One notable large cap company that used its asset base to their advantage was Ford, which gave banks partial ownership of its factories during hard times. This a) gave Ford a good amount of cash with which to continue their short-term operations, and b) gave the banks a vested interest in keeping Ford's lines of credit open. Ford struggled, but it never faced the financial problems of GM and Chrysler. Despite political rhetoric about Main Street vs. Wall Street, small businesses don't receive as much government aid in times of crisis as some large cap companies do. For example, the Small Business Lending Fund, a brilliant but poorly implemented idea in 2010, allocated less than $30 billion to small businesses. (The actual amount loaned was considerably less). Compare that to the amounts loaned out under TARP.
"Small businesses are often governed by local regulations and state law. In a low liability small quantity arena, you should be able to get away with a DBA (doing business as) arrangement, such as DBA ""Jay's Gem's"". A small business license may come with a state Tax ID and satisfy your supplier, but a Federal EIN can be obtained from the IRS, and may be necessary to apply for the business license. It wouldn't hurt to talk to the local chamber of commerce or state small business agencies if you have questions about local requirements."
It's easy to say this after the fact, but other industries that have heavily outsourced did so successfully.  It's just Boeing that failed.  This is probably because building airplanes is very complex and alot of precision is needed in designing the parts.  This being said, before the outsourcing failure, it was not obvious that it would be.
There are many facets to the question of why HP is failing so miserably, but if you ask me it comes down to the many failing companies that they have acquired over the years. Compaq, Palm, etc. It seems like HP loves to scoop up companies on the downswing, spends billions for them, and then quietly kills them off with seemingly no advantage to HP. Granted, this is an outsiders point of view but I never thought that Compaq or Palm were good fits for HP, other than knocking another competitor out of the playing field, but when you pay billions for a competitor, it just makes the payoff that much less.
Generally speaking, if a business loses money for whatever reason, then that reduces the profits of the business which reduces the tax payable. However if you were holding the assets on a personal basis prior to incorporating the business, the position may become more complicated. For that kind of money some professional advice may be worthwhile.
I do understand that, i own a few small business, and have employees.  Raising the minimum wage will allow you to have more customers.  The reason you have none is because they make minimum wage, the only people who can shop at your deli are people with disposable incomes.  Furthermore restaurants are one of the most volatile businesses out there.  Its at 60% failure rate.  Id get out of the food market all together because its just too much of a risk.  Its more about getting a lucky nitch that makes people want to come back, and unless you had something to make you stand out it was extremely hard to keep that going.  I know a few people who even had that and failed.  Its just such a gamble when opening up an eatery of any kind.
The vast majority of small businesses (and the sheer volume\* skews the totals) are essentially that: they are job *replacement* (or even job *supplement*) businesses, which chiefly consist of the owner/operator being ""self-employed"" (or part-time self-employed ""on the side"") for a year, two years, and possibly longer. Occasionally they will then (often temporarily) employ others as well; but the primary goal is to provide a simple ""income"" for the owner/operator. **And there is nothing WRONG with that.** Nor is there anything wrong with the person then ENDING that ""business"" and moving on... to another (different name, different field) business... or taking a job with some company (which they may have previously worked for on a contract basis with the ""business"", etc). The idea that ALL businesses somehow *should* ""endure forever"" and continue to grow forever (as if they were all destined to be Giant Sequoia trees) is actually *rather warped and delusional...* it ignores the real world, and the fact that most flora is NOT ""giant trees"" but rather small bushes and plants -- and for small businesses, being ""nimble"" (and profitable) often means the opposite: knowing when to get OUT of a market or business is just as important (indeed can be MORE important) than knowing when to get INTO it. \*EDIT: As a further note on the ""volume"" you have to also add in the large number of *business ""ideas"" that spawn an LLC, but then went nowhere* companies (especially these days when starting an LLC in many states is simply filling out a form online and paying a filing fee) -- IOW the ""business"" may have had a temporary ""legal"" existence (name, probably a reserved domain name, maybe even a logo, etc.), but when it comes to reality -- actual investment in assets and conducting business operations (of any type) -- well, a lot of the ""horses"" never even make it past the gate... and that too skews the numbers in many studies.
"This is going to vary tremendously from country to country (and even from state to state, in some cases).  In general, though: Sole proprietorship: LLC: There are a lot of permutations depending on local law.  One thing that isn't actually much of an advantage is the ""limited liability"" component of the LLC.  Simply put: for a really small company the majority shareholders are usually going to be ""forced"" to stand surety for the company in their personal capacity. Limited liability only becomes available once the company has quite a lot of cash/assets (or the illusion of a lot of cash/assets). Update - noticed two further questions that appear very similar: Should all of these be merged?"
So.... If everybody took your advice, how would you ever be able to hire other people? The economy would be composed of millions of ever-competing single-person ventures, in which some would strive, and the ones who fail would just move in to the next venture...  Being an entrepreneur requires a certain skill set and appetite for risk that not everyone has, or is in a position to take on, so the rational that only entrepreneurs deserve riches is very reductionist and dismissive of how value-creation happens.
Ford struggled, but it never faced the financial problems of GM and Chrysler. Despite political rhetoric about Main Street vs. Wall Street, small businesses don't receive as much government aid in times of crisis as some large cap companies do. For example, the Small Business Lending Fund, a brilliant but poorly implemented idea in 2010, allocated less than $30 billion to small businesses. (The actual amount loaned was considerably less). Compare that to the amounts loaned out under TARP. Discussions about corporate lobbying power aside, small businesses aren't as crucial to the overall stability of the financial system Small businesses don't always have the manpower to keep up with changes in regulation. When the Dodd-Frank Act passed, large banks (as an example), could hire more staff to understand it and adapt to it relatively easily; small banks, however, don't always have the resources to invest in such efforts. There are other reasons, some of which are industry-specific, but these are some of the basic ones. If you want visual confirmation that small cap businesses follow a similar trend, here is a graph of the Russell 2000 and S&P 500 indexes: Here is a similar graph for the Russell 2000 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. If you wanted to confirm this technically and control for the numerous complicated factors (overlap between indexes, systemic risk, seasonal adjustment, etc.), just ask and I'll try to run some numbers on it when I have a chance. Keep in mind, too, that looking at a pretty picture is no substitute for rigorous financial econometrics. A basic start would be to look at the correlation between the indexes, which I calculate as 0.9133 and 0.9526, respectively. As you can see, they're pretty close. Once again, however, the reality is more complicated technically, and a sufficiently detailed analysis is beyond my capabilities. Just a quick side note. These graphs show the logarithm of the values of the indexes, which is a common statistical nuance that is used when comparing time series with radically different magnitudes but similar trends. S&P500 and Russell 2000 data came from Yahoo! Finance, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average data came from Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) Per usual, I try to provide code whenever possible, if I used it.
When you've been running your business without a profit for *11 years* (e.g. Tesla Motors), I would not call it a success. But maybe you happen to be very generous and think they should have another 11 to prove themselves.
"They often think all it takes to be successful in business, is to be excellent at what you do. Nothing could be further from the truth. You need to know a lot about business, to stay in business!  Often, people confuse being an entrepreneur with ""buying a very expensive job"". The two are not the same."