mark_z

  • Alumni

Submitted

Black Box Personalization and Fragmentation of the Facebook News Supply
mark_z
Posted on November 15, 2017 at 5:31 pm
As Facebook has improved their news content supply chain via sophisticated machine learning recommendation algorithms, they have enabled an internet where we are rarely subjected to contradictory viewpoints.

Activity Feed

On November 30, 2017, mark_z commented on Tesla Shoots Itself in Its Blue Suede Shoes :

Thank you very much for writing this interesting essay!

One question I have about how Tesla prioritizes this project is whether or not they can align their incentives for sustainability. Teslas obviously don’t consume fossil fuel, but this mining production seems incredibly energy intensive. Perhaps Tesla could justify a different type of mining or R/D into new materials if they try to focus on a more sustainable production pipeline.

On November 30, 2017, mark_z commented on UTX and Carrier in the Context of Isolationism and International Trade :

Thank you very much for writing this interesting essay!

I’d be interested to know more about how partisan politics play into this equation: to the exact same extent that nationalism has been on the rise in the right wing in the US and UK, there is an equally vibrant and opinionated left-leaning group that promotes globalism. As partisan politics become more divisive, I’d be interested in knowing whether this nationalism trend is a long-running expectation, or a 4-8 year cyclical trend.

On November 30, 2017, mark_z commented on General Motors: Cars that kill the planet, or cars that kill you? :

Jason, thank you for writing this essay. Very interesting!

One question I have is: would GM start lobbying to change the standards for EVERY car manufacturer? I imagine that there is always a tradeoff between environment and profit, and there will always be customers that choose the best option by financial value. Could GM create a society where everyone has to play by the same rules when it comes to saving the climate?

On November 30, 2017, mark_z commented on Wal-Mart: Doing Right by the Planet? :

Thank you for writing this informative article!

One question I have is: what happens when the biggest potential reduction of emissions comes from Wal-Mart needing to change its fundamental business proposition? Wal-Mart certainly has a lot of suppliers that can reduce emissions, but it also has customers that make presumably billions of driving trips to their stores that are almost certainly not walkable. In my mind, any true reductions from emissions will have to come from a lower amount of trips to/from Wal-Mart, which is, of course, how they make money.

On November 30, 2017, mark_z commented on Adidas: Supply Chain as Competitive Advantage :

Thank you for writing this awesome article!

I liked what you wrote about Adidas’s ability to start to identify which SKUs are selling, which might be returned, etc. to do a better job of inventory planning. There are many obvious ways to improve the supply chain reactively. I wonder how much of Adidas’s product development might start being proactive – can they start actually DEVELOPING products based on user data/analytics, etc. Can they get ahead of the curve with making new products and start dictating user demand?

On November 30, 2017, mark_z commented on Digitalization of Surgical Intervention :

Reading this description of using robots for surgery makes me wonder two things: who is the decision making unit in this purchasing process, and how does this change the education process for surgeons? Currently to operate on a patient, a doctor needs years and years of practice and education across all an incredibly wide medical spectrum. In the future, will this knowledge still be required to operate on a patient? Will a decades long education be a fast enough turnaround to produce doctors capable of using newer and rapidly changing tools? Finally, do these doctors have a misaligned personal incentive if robotic surgeons start to remove a need for doctors?