By now you’ve probably heard about Stack Overflow’s commitment to making remote work, well… work. If not, you can read about it <a href="https://stackoverflow.blog/2013/02/01/why-we-still-believe-in-working-remotely/">here </a>, <a href="https://stackoverflow.blog/2017/04/14/cant-afford-private-offices/">here </a>, and a whole page of links <a href="https://stackoverflow.blog/tags/remote-work/">here </a>. Seriously, we care about it a LOT. At Stack Overflow we want to hire the best person for the job, even if that person is in Salt Lake City, Utah; Berlin, Germany; or São Paulo, Brazil. Promoting remote work promotes diversity, and we are committed to improving both.

The logistics of Stack Overflow’s remote-first philosophy

This is definitely the most important piece of the remote puzzle. You need a person whose stated job is to make sure that remote employees have a specific person for questions, concerns, and problems. When we <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/jobs/remote-developer-jobs?utm_source=so-owned&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=dev-c4al&utm_content=c4al-link">hire a new remote employee </a>, I tell them that they can come to me with any type of question, and I will try my best to answer it, or at least point them in the right direction. I get aaaaaall kinds of questions and requests. For instance, I now know how to buy and ship Belgian beer to Poland for an employee that wasn’t able to attend a work event because of a surgery. Also FYI, Uruguay has very strict restrictions on voltage of household items, so getting a crank-lever standing desk to Montevideo was fun (read: not fun). There also needs to be someone on the executive team (it’s better if there is more than one someone) consistently asking “What about the remotes?” When you have a new “x,” the execs should be thinking about how that impacts all employees, including remotes.

Have a dedicated remote person (like me!) to be the point person for remote needs.

Companies will encounter a wide range of odd legalities in dealing with remote employees, especially with international folks.It definitely helps to have an HR department that is certified in immigration and visa issues. The same goes for finance departments. The taxation alone is a handful with multiple states/countries. You need an entity for each state, which requires considerable forethought. You also have to file payrolls properly and that varies depending on location.

Have your People and Finance Teams homed in on remote needs

We’ve already touched on this in the other blog posts, but it bears repeating: If one person in the meeting is remote, we’re all remote. If there are 5 people in a conference room and 2 people dialing in remotely, it is very easy for the folks in the meeting room to forget about the people dialed in. You can eliminate that problem by having everyone call in, if possible. Currently in the Stack Overflow NYC office it is really common to walk around and see two people on a hangout even though their offices are next to each other!

Remote first

We have regular “Bev Bashes” and holiday parties in the offices, but what about the remotes? How do you give them fun stuff even though they are scattered all over the world? For starters, we have “Remote Bev Bashes” over <a href="https://www.zoom.us/?zcid=1173&gclid=CKXQhYvundYCFYtLDQodtcICtQ">Zoom </a>every Friday. The “Bev Baron” for that week (nominated by the last Bev Baron) schedules a Zoom call and sets a theme. Employees grab a beverage of their choice and just chat. You can stay for just a few minutes to say hi, or you can be a part of the entire thing.

Try to recreate office fun stuff in a remote capacity

Once a year, we bring all of our remote employees together for a week for some much needed face-time. It’s a different city each time, and there are usually 3 days of Executive Keynotes, Tiny Talks, and many many games of Werewolf. We talk about the state of the company and new projects and teams, but we vow not to make any huge decisions or business altering plans. The focus is on camaraderie, not profits. We look forward to it all year, and it’s definitely a blast.

Bring them all together

When a new remote employee is hired, I contact them for their furniture choices. They get their choice of the exact same desks and chairs that we have in the offices, free of charge. We want them to be as comfortable as possible, and that means if they want to stand instead of sit, no problem. Our IT dept sets them up with all of their tech, and I set them up with everything else. Need a filing cabinet? Cool. You want a different type of desk that is bright pink and sings? Hey, it’s your house. We re-create the in-office set-ups as much as possible so that our remote employees never feel less valued than everyone else.

Make their home workspaces as awesome as the offices

remotework

Remote Work

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

teamwork

Teamwork

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Making Remote Work: Behind the Scenes at Stack Overflow

Of all the grand ideas that <a href="https://thenextweb.com/topic/elon-musk">Elon Musk </a>has for Twitter, the one that he’s pitched most fervently is making the platform’s algorithms open source.The Tesla tycoon <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1507041396242407424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">proposed the plan </a>before his buyout bid was disclosed, <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/elon_musk_elon_musk_talks_twitter_tesla_and_how_his_brain_works_live_at_ted2022">reiterated it </a>the day his offer was revealed, and <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/elon-musk-to-acquire-twitter-301532245.html">pitched it once again </a>after Twitter agreed to the deal.

Musk argued that disclosing what amplifies or downranks tweets would reduce the risk of “behind the scenes manipulation.” The approach has won support from some transparency advocates and critics of Twitter’s content moderation. They argue that the move will reveal how Twitter determines what you see on your timeline — and what you don’t.

“These concerns have been rampant with Google and Facebook. This open-sourcing move could be game-changing for social media overall.” Skeptics, however, have questioned the plan’s feasibility. They note that Twitter is comprised of various feeds, from the Trending section to your Home timeline, each of which is controlled by a complex mix of recommendation systems and human decisions.

Another issue is that algorithms alone offer limited insights. There are various other factors behind a tweet’s ranking. They include content that enters the platform, each user’s profile, the algorithms’ training data, moderation rules, and the code that trained the models. These constitute an enormous pool of data, which would be tough to trawl through and costly to disseminate.

Further complexities arise from the mutability of the system. “Typically, recommender models get re-trained pretty often and will keep changing over time,” Bindu Reddy, CEO and co-founder of <a href="https://abacus.ai/">Abacus.AI </a>, an artificial intelligence startup, told TNW. “While it is possible to release all trained models as well on an ongoing basis, it won’t be very useful either unless you understand exactly what inputs and outputs go into the model for predictions.”

Elon Musk's plan to open-source Twitter's algorithms has attracted both praise and scorn. Here's what the proposal could mean in practice.

crypto

Cryptocurrency

computerscience

Computer Science

product

Product & Design

Open-sourcing Twitter's algorithms is more complex than Musk implies

There are several unexpected benefits from artificial intelligence in your marketing strategy.

Marketing without AI is like flirting with disaster — It’s only a matter of time before a competitor moves past you to claim that top spot. Today’s marketing requires a combination of AI, data, and human ingenuity to maximize your company’s ROI. The optimization, personalization, and innovation required to compete in a world dominated by artificial intelligence (AI) are only possible when AI is at the center of your work. With that said, the benefits of AI are not just about competing—they’re about taking your business results to the next level and learning how to get there faster. All in all, it means we’ll be able to serve our customers better than ever before. With AI on your side, now would be an excellent time to explore where you could use it in your business strategy or marketing efforts today.

Marketing without AI is like flirting with disaster

By identifying who is most likely to churn at any given time, AI will help companies retain customers by identifying who is most likely to churn at any given time. It can predict a customer’s likelihood of leaving before they’ve indicated that they’re unhappy, allowing you to take action before it’s too late. You can create personalized offers, promotions, and experiences at scale through AI and machine learning. When Netflix uses data to analyze your preferences and deliver highly-customized content recommendations, that’s personalization. As more companies use AI to personalize the customer experience, it will become the new standard.

Building Better Customer Retention Strategies

<a href="https://komarketing.com/industry-news/98-of-marketers-agree-personalization-helps-advance-customer-relationships-3668/">98% of marketers </a>believe that personalization is an important part of their strategy, and 56% say it impacts their success. One-to-one personalization is great, but it isn’t scalable. Ai helps you personalize at scale. It lets you reach your entire customer base with targeted content without needing to learn anything about each customer’s interests or preferences. You can create different segments based on data that could be combined across your company and then use those segments to create relevant messaging for each group. This allows you to take advantage of the benefits of personalization even if you don’t have the resources needed for one-to-one personalization.

Personalization at Scale

One of the most valuable aspects of AI for marketing is access to real-time analytics and insights. AI enables marketers to mine customer data in real-time and spot trends that would otherwise not be apparent. These allow you to see how your audience is interacting with your content daily. By crunching an abundance of customer data from various sources, AI can deliver valuable insights into how customers are engaging with your brand, how they move through your sales funnel, and what triggers their purchasing decisions. This allows you to make informed decisions about campaigns, content, and products that are likely to resonate with customers.

Access to real-time analytics and insights

We can now use <a href="https://swisscognitive.ch/2017/07/21/predictive-analytics-your-key-to-preventing-network-failures/">predictive analytics </a>and machine learning to optimize our multi-channel campaigns. AI can simultaneously analyze millions of data points to determine what content and messages are most likely to drive conversions across different channels like social media and email. This means that you can optimize your ad spend across different channels (e.g., Facebook, Google Ads, YouTube) by ensuring that each channel sends you the right leads. The result is more efficient spending, a better ROI, and happier customers who get what they need when they need it.

Multi-channel campaign optimization

Micro-segmentation divides a large, diverse group into smaller segments with similar needs, wants, and preferences. This allows you to target them with personalized messaging and offers. With AI micro-segmentation technology, you can send highly relevant messages to your audience based on their specific interests and needs. This increases response rates significantly and helps you build stronger relationships with customers over time.

Micro-segmentation

Predicting the future has always been a crapshoot for companies. That’s why marketing budgets are often so large: Companies are hedging their bets and throwing a lot of resources at the problem of figuring out what consumers want next. If a company can accurately predict people’s wants and needs, it can create products that will be highly successful, and that means more money for everyone involved.Predictive algorithms give marketers insights into what’s coming next based on trends they see in the market.

Better Ability to Predict the Future

Targeting customers with specific ads based on their location, gender, and age is nothing new. But what about if you could target them based on what they were searching for at that moment? That’s where real-time marketing comes in. Real-time marketing can help you reach your audience when they’re most likely to be receptive to your message. This is a big advantage for marketers because they can reach their audience based on their needs and interests, rather than just guessing what might interest them based on demographic information like age and gender.

Real-time Targeting

The emergence of AI has been the talk of the marketing world over the past few years. Check out the 7 Unexpected Benefits of AI in Marketing.

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

artificialintelligence

Artificial Intelligence

7 Unexpected Benefits from the Role of AI in Marketing

<ul><li>Molecule has raised $13 million in seed funding in a round led by Northpond Ventures. Other participants in the round included Backed VC, Shine Capital, Speedinvest and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan.  </li><li>The protocol sees itself as part of decentralized science, a movement where research projects can be collectively owned and funded.  </li> </ul>

Molecule has raised $13 million in seed funding in a round led by venture capital firm Northpond Ventures.

startup

Startups

Decentralized science platform Molecule raises $13 million in seed funding

<ol><li>Trusted hardware isn’t so trustworthy</li><li>Security tooling is still too difficult to use : Or “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it run <code>./configure && make && make install </code>.”</li><li>Side channels everywhere : When God closes a door, he opens a side channel.</li><li>LANGSEC in cryptographic contexts : Figuring out which protocol you’re speaking is the third hard problem in computer science.</li></ol>

By William Woodruff Last week, over 500 cryptographers from around the world gathered in Amsterdam for Real World Crypto 2022, meeting in person for the first time in over two years. As in previous years, we dispatched a handful of our researchers and engineers to attend the conference, listen to talks, and schmooze observe the…

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Money & Investments

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Technology & The Future

cybersecurity

Cybersecurity

Themes from Real World Crypto 2022

<a href="https://thedefiant.io/olympusdao-uniswap-defi-2-0-liquidity-mining/">DeFi 2.0 </a>was expected to provide an alternative for paying out tokens in exchange for deposits. <a href="https://thedefiant.io/what-is-compound-crypto/">Compound Finance </a>may <a href="https://thedefiant.io/compound-incentive-overhaul/">cut rewards </a>. In other parts of DeFi, the money is still flowing.

Ava Labs is the primary company developing the Avalanche blockchain’s ecosystem. Lending protocol Aave launched its V3 last month on both Avalanche and Fantom. the AVAX rewards were part of Avalanche Rush, a $180M incentive program launched <a href="https://thedefiant.io/avalanche-incentives-aave-curve/">last August </a>. The rewards aren’t eye-popping by DeFi standards — as of April 20, the highest APY offered is 9.94% for people who deposit AVAX (and earn AVAX rewards on top of that). Among stablecoins USDT provides the best APY with 6.44% with over half of that coming from the AVAX incentives.

Avalanche and Fantom

Of course those yields are highly variable and have been diluted in the past day as more users supply liquidity to Aave’s V3 deployment on Avalanche — a <a href="https://twitter.com/stableyields/status/1516588586988097546">tweet </a>by Stablecoin Yields on Apr. 19 shows yields of 61% for USDT, above 38% for DAI, and over 17% for USDC.Indeed, data provider DeFi Llama shows an jump in deposits into Aave V3 deployment on Avalanche — total value locked jumped from $6.39M on Apr. 19 to $1.01B. That’s well over a hundred fold increase in a day, which shows how responsive the market is to incentives (and how quickly the resulting yields get diluted).

Jump in Deposits

Now at $4.21B, Aave V3 stands as the No. 1 ranking DeFi protocol in TVL terms on Avalanche, according to DeFiLlama. Despite the near-50% drop, Aave’s V2 on the chain ranks second at the $2.65B mark.  <a href="https://thedefiant.io/avalanche-benqi-defi/">Benqi </a>, another lending protocol native to Avalanche, sits in third on the blockchain in TVL terms at $1.61B.

Affinity for Avalanche

Token rewards for in-app deposits are in a state of flux. 

Aave V3 Depositors Can Pocket Avalanche Token Rewards - The Defiant

UK watchdogs under the banner of the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF) have called for views on the benefits and risks of how sites and apps use algorithms. Whether that's which video to watch next on YouTube, which film you might enjoy on Netflix, who turns up in your Twitter feed, search autosuggestions, and what you might like to buy on Amazon – the algorithm governs them all and much more. While that all sounds pretty benign, regulators are hip to the fact that algorithms don't always work for the benefit of consumers.

The DRCF – comprised of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), and the Office of Communications (Ofcom) – has set out a workplan for the coming year in which it aims to: <ul><li>Better protect children online </li><li>Promote competition and privacy in online advertising </li><li>Support improvements in algorithmic transparency </li><li>Enable innovation in the industries they regulate </li> </ul>

"Just one of those areas is algorithms. Whether you're scrolling on social media, flicking through films or deciding on dinner, algorithms are busy but hidden in the background of our digital lives."That's good news for a lot of us a lot of the time, but there's also a problematic side to algorithms. They can be manipulated to cause harm or misused because firms plugging them into websites and apps simply don't understand them well enough. As regulators, we need to make sure the benefits win out."

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

Brit watchdogs ask how they can better regulate algorithms

<ul><li>Layer 2 networks are spending more gas than ever settling transactions on Ethereum mainnet. </li><li>The Wednesday following Optimism's token launch saw Layer 2 networks use a record-breaking 3.95% of the daily gas consumption on Ethereum. </li><li>Polygon's co-founder Sandeep Nailwal suggested on Twitter today that Ethereum might eventually evolve into a network where Layer 2 transactions occupy the majority of its blockspace. </li> </ul>

Weekly Ethereum gas spent by Layer 2 networks: Source: <a href="https://dune.com/funnyking/L2-Gas-Consumption">@funnyking/Dune </a> When Ethereum traffic increases it accrues value to all ETH holders. This is because the base gas fees on Ethereum are burned, reducing the overall ETH supply and thus increasing the value of all remaining tokens. In this way Ethereum “profits” as Layer 2 networks use its blockspace to settle transactions more efficiently than can be done directly on mainnet.

Ethereum Profits From Layer 2 Expansion

Ethereum is generating more and more revenue by renting its security to the steadily growing ecosystem of Layer 2 networks.

Ethereum Is Making More Money Than Ever From Layer 2 Networks

The Portuguese Parliament, Assembleia da República, rejected not one but two different proposals to tax <a href="https://finbold.com/topic/bitcoin/">Bitcoin </a>and other <a href="https://finbold.com/category/cryptocurrency-news/">cryptocurrencies </a>, both of which came from political groups in the minority.  Notably, the suggestions were put up by the left-leaning parties Bloco de Esquerda and Livre and were both shot down during a voting session for the 2022 budget on May 25, according to a <a href="https://eco.sapo.pt/2022/05/25/deputados-discutem-orcamento-pelo-terceiro-dia-acompanhe-aqui/">report </a>published in the Portuguese economic weekly ECO .

At the start of this month, the country’s Minister of Finance  Fernando Medina said that the government would begin taxing cryptocurrencies. He also stated that the government would work on the regulatory framework, but he did not provide a time frame for when this would occur. “Many countries already have systems, many countries are building their models in relation to this subject and we will build our own,” he said.

Minister says Portuguese government will tax crypto

Mariana Mortágua, a member of parliament with the Bloco de Esquerda who has been extremely outspoken about crypto taxes, blasted the administration for failing to find a mechanism to tax crypto before to the vote.  “Regardless of necessary future crypto regulations, our contribution to put an end to this offshore is to subject crypto assets to the same rate applicable to capital gains on equivalent income,” she said.

The Portuguese Parliament, rejected not one but two different proposals to tax Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Portugal’s Parliament rejects Bitcoin and crypto tax proposals

<a href="https://techcrunch.com/events/defi-the-future-of-programmable-money/?utm_medium=tc_article_01&utm_campaign=defisummit&utm_content=tc_article_01&utm_source=techcrunch&promo=tc_article01&display=true">DeFi & The Future of Programmable Money </a>, a one-day virtual conference on March 30, offers something for everyone involved with, or interested in learning about, the bleeding-edge world of decentralized finance. While there’s plenty of talk about crypto whales, a different sea creature is making waves — and a community — for current or aspiring DeFi engineers and developers.

Gas Capped: Attending DeFi &The Future of Programmable Money is free, but you must <a href="https://techcrunch.com/events/defi-the-future-of-programmable-money/?utm_medium=tc_article_01&utm_campaign=defisummit&utm_content=tc_article_01&utm_source=techcrunch&promo=tc_article01&display=true">register here </a>to reserve your seat. The summit is in partnership with <a href="https://sommelier.finance/">Sommelier Finance </a>, a leading crypto project, co-founded by Zaki Manian, and designed to automate decentralized finance trading.

One of the most active and engaged DeFi communities, it’s a resource where engineers, developers, founders and builders can discuss, among other things, open source DeFi and programmable money code.The group describes <a href="https://t.me/blockchain_lobsters">its purpose</a> as “first and foremost a crypto community for technical and economic research and discussion, with a strong focus on DeFi.”

LobsterDao

LobsterDAO gave birth to Curve Finance, and other projects that have collaborated with this community include GearBox, Ambire, CoinList, Icy.tools and DexGuru. In addition to the main channel, and the aforementioned Blockchain Lobsters, other sub-channels include a main DeFi chat, a DeFi dev chat, a daily newsletter, a job board and two NFT-related chats — NFT Avenue and Seafood Kingdom.

DeFi & The Future of Programmable Money, a one-day virtual conference on March 30, offers something for everyone involved with, or interested in learning about, the bleeding-edge world of decentralized finance. While there’s plenty of talk about crypto whales, a different sea creature is making waves — and a community — for current or aspiring […]

Making Remote Work: Behind the Scenes at Stack Overflow

Open-sourcing Twitter's algorithms is more complex than Musk implies

7 Unexpected Benefits from the Role of AI in Marketing

Decentralized science platform Molecule raises $13 million in seed funding

Themes from Real World Crypto 2022

Decebal Dobrica