RTchoke

Hi Gary, I’m a big fan; thanks for doing another AMA. You have my vote come November, but I’d appreciate it if you would elaborate on your position on Net Neutrality.

I know that term is basically a slogan at this point, but I fail to see why Libertarians would not be avid proponents of such a position. In my mind, Internet Service Providers sit comfortably in a structural monopoly, and in many areas (such as where I sit in NYC), consumers have little-to-no choice when it comes to an ISP. I feel that it would be disastrous if industry giants and/or corrupt politicians could impose restrictions that would impede market competition and hurt consumers.

Can you expand a bit on your stated opposition to Net Neutrality?

This the kind of thing that persists for decades unnoticed, because design teams don't use their product with the same versatility as their customers. Really amazing that Product Managers are not on top of these obvious requests/pieces of feedback.

So while building more units can increase supply, how do you intend to keep those units "affordable"? If it's by rent control and/or subsidized housing, just about every economist believes that increases the rents of non-controlled/subsidized housing. How is "strengthening the rent regulation laws", essentially creating a price ceiling, going to lower the rents for those unable to land a rent-controlled apartment (i.e. the majority of us)?

On top of that, the city's population has grown by over 161,500 since, 2010. If that trend continues, we're talking about a city with another half-million people by the time your 200k units go up. You're practically a shoe-in for the mayoral spot, please tell me you have a more substantial housing plan than "build more units and increase rent control".

What do you call a group of brains who form a singing group at school?

a glial club

-former neuro student here

This is purposefully misleading. For the sake of brevity, I'll provide two reasons:

1. For the past 20+ years, the trend in the industry is for research to be performed by small biotech/pharma companies, and for Big Pharma to snatch up these promising little guys, essentially outsourcing a significant portion of R&D. Global giant pharma companies exist today as optimized shops for manufacturing, sales, marketing, and distribution.

2. Your source, as well as most that tout this line, is comparing SG&A versus R&D, and equating SG&A as "Sales & Marketing" (I confirmed this source by checking Novartis' income statement). SG&A is much more than just Sales & Marketing, it will also cover salaries (sales and non-sales), rent, utilities, regulatory compliance, and likely also those acquisitions.

The reality is that most people don't understand how the drug industry works, and it's very easy to cherry-pick numbers will convince non-financial people. The reality is that the industry doesn't spend that much on direct to consumer advertising, it's just that it's in all of our faces on TV. If you're still incredulous of that claim, this source from last year states that DTC advertising is $5B/yr for the entire industry. The US market is worth about a half trillion dollars.