Andreessen Horowitz was a major backer of Slack's predecessor, Tiny Speck, which was originally building a game called Glitch.

When Glitch failed in 2012, founder Stewart Butterfield offered to return the remaining $6 million to investors. Ben Horowitz instead encouraged Butterfield to pivot and build out the internal communication tool the team had developed for themselves, which eventually became Slack.

I saw an interview (don't have the link at hand unfortunately) where Horowitz said he didn't much care for the $6M as he had already been set at that point moneywise, and essentially wanted to gamble on an off chance Slack succeeds.

Horowitz continued to support the company through its rapid growth and eventual direct public offering (DPO) in 2019.

> "average" developer is going to have an extremely hard time finding a position.

As was foretold in the Tyler Cowen's eponymous 2013 book "Average Is Over".

In it he argued that the modern economy will undergo a permanent shift where "average" performance no longer guarantees a stable, middle-class life.

He predicted that the economy will split into two distinct classes: a high-earning elite (roughly 10–15% of the population) who thrive by collaborating with technology, and a larger group (85–90%) facing stagnant wages and fewer opportunities.

AI summary of the other key points of that book:

The "Man + Machine" Advantage: Success will belong to those who can effectively use smart machines. Cowen uses Freestyle Chess (teams of humans and computers) as an analogy, noting that human intuition combined with machine processing power consistently outperforms either working alone.

The Power of Conscientiousness: In a world of abundant information, the scarcest and most valuable traits will be self-motivation, discipline, and the ability to focus. Hyper-Meritocracy: Advanced data and machine intelligence make it easier for employers to measure an individual's exact economic value. This leads to extreme salary inequality as top performers are identified and rewarded more precisely.

A New Social Contract: Cowen predicts a future where individuals must be more self-reliant. He suggests society will move toward lower-cost living models for the non-elite, featuring cheaper housing and "bread and circuses" in the form of low-cost digital entertainment and online education.

EDIT: Notice how we're basically already here: Netflix is cheap, YT is free, Khan Academy and MIT OCW is free, Coursera/Udemy/etc. are cheap.

Stagnant vs. Dynamic Sectors: The economic divide is worsened by "low accountability" sectors like education and healthcare, where productivity is hard to measure and costs continue to rise, unlike tech-driven sectors that see rapid gains.

I have found a bigger context window qute useful when trying to make sense of larger codebases. Generating documentation on how different components interact is better than nothing, especially if the code has poor test coverage.

I've also had it succeed in attempts to identify some non-trivial bugs that spanned multiple modules.

"They lost a large chunk of land"

I've asked Gemini. Interestingly, they were offered over 2x as much territory in exchange for 1.5% of their land. Curiously, Wikipedia doesn't mention that in the Winter War article.

They lost 10-11% after WW2. Which deal was better?

"every male still needs to spend one year of their life"

Not 1 year. Gemini says it's 6-12 months, and several European countries not bordering the big bad fit that criteria.

Who exactly is after Austria, which has conscription, but has been neutral since basically the entire cold war?

Or the famously neutral Switzerland?

"No, it hasn’t."

Top Export Partners (2019)

The total value of Finnish goods exports in 2019 was approximately $72.84 billion.

1. Germany: $10.44 billion (14.33% share)

2. Sweden: $7.47 billion (10.26% share)

3. United States: $5.20 billion (7.14% share)

4. Netherlands: $4.34 billion (5.95% share)

5. Russia: $4.02 billion (5.51% share)

6. China: $3.84 billion (5.28% share)

Top Import Partners (2019)

1. Germany: $11.42 billion (15.49% share)

2. Russia: $10.01 billion (13.57% share)

3. Sweden: $8.16 billion (11.06% share)

4. China: $5.49 billion (7.45% share)

5. Netherlands: $3.29 billion (4.46% share)

6. United States: $2.48 billion (3.37% share)

Nominal GDP per Capita in 2019 (2019 US dollars):

United States: $65,281

Finland: $48,629

Germany: $46,793

Yep, didn't work out well at all.