I am going to admit out loud something that I suspect many people here also feel:
I am envious of Anthony Levandowski
Not his unscrupulous behavior, theft, and all that. But rather the fact that his confidence, swagger, and the ability to talk to Thrun and Larry and Sergei and Travis as equals (or as inferiors, actually, in this technical domain) gave people such a high impression that they bestowed him with $centi-million bonuses.
I'm well-paid in silicon valley but my stock grants have been flat for years. I haven't been able to grow a large team (let alone 2000 people like Levandowski at Uber apparently). If I'm caught in an elevator with our Senior VP, I don't really know what to say (and I'm certainly not invited up to the executive floor to continue the conversation afterwards).
And yet here we have a guy who did all this by orders of magnitude and at multiple companies. I don't want to be a dirtbag like him, but I will admit I am envious.
No. “Centum” means one hundred. Of course, the SI prefix “centi-” does mean one hundredth, but “cent-“ can mean one hundred in other contexts. Consider a century is 100 years, a centurion commands 100 men, etc.
I am envious of Anthony Levandowski
Not his unscrupulous behavior, theft, and all that. But rather the fact that his confidence, swagger, and the ability to talk to Thrun and Larry and Sergei and Travis as equals (or as inferiors, actually, in this technical domain) gave people such a high impression that they bestowed him with $centi-million bonuses.
I'm well-paid in silicon valley but my stock grants have been flat for years. I haven't been able to grow a large team (let alone 2000 people like Levandowski at Uber apparently). If I'm caught in an elevator with our Senior VP, I don't really know what to say (and I'm certainly not invited up to the executive floor to continue the conversation afterwards).
And yet here we have a guy who did all this by orders of magnitude and at multiple companies. I don't want to be a dirtbag like him, but I will admit I am envious.