I find a useful handle on the company-competition question, which I'm also bored rigid by but which you sometimes have to interact with as a member of a company, is to think of it in Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest terms, where you can change the question from how can we put one over foo.com to what is the optimal algorithm for a company operating in this market segment? It has the useful effect of making real-world market vagaries into essential constraints on your algorithm, and so adding intrinsic interest to them.
no subject
I find a useful handle on the company-competition question, which I'm also bored rigid by but which you sometimes have to interact with as a member of a company, is to think of it in Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest terms, where you can change the question from how can we put one over foo.com to what is the optimal algorithm for a company operating in this market segment? It has the useful effect of making real-world market vagaries into essential constraints on your algorithm, and so adding intrinsic interest to them.