Category: Social Justice

Sonos, eight years after the IPO

by philg

Readers are likely aware of my fondness for whole-house audio and, since 2005, Sonos, a company that has roots in Santa Barbara, CA and Boston, MA. The company went public at $15 per share almost exactly eight years ago. How’s the stock done? If you don’t adjust for inflation, it’s right at its original IPO price (down from the first-day bump, though). Adjusted at official CPI, though, someone who got IPO shares is down 25 percent. Adjusted for South Florida real estate costs, the investor is down about 50 percent.

Given that state governors ordered peasants to stay home for 2-3 years in a lot of high-income states, how do we account for a home audio company having done this badly? Sony has doubled, in nominal dollars, over the same period. Consumers don’t care about multi-room audio because they always have their AirPods in and the sound thus follows them?

Did Sonos fail to jump on the social justice bandwagon or ignore Is LGBTQIA the most popular social justice cause because it does not require giving money? Certainly not!

Sonos in June 2020:

In celebration of global Pride the Internet radio service introduced a limited-edition station, initiated by a group of LGBTQ+ employees.

Dmitri Siegel, VP Global Brand, extended his support becoming Pride@’s official executive sponsor. “I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be an ally in the Pride@ group,” he said. “As a straight white male, it’s common to feel intimidated or uncomfortable engaging on LGBTQ+ issues because you feel like you are going to say the wrong thing or be offensive in some way. Being a part of Pride@ has given me the opportunity to do my work—listen and learn. Getting over insecurity and discomfort unlocks all these amazing people and a whole aspect of the human experience that I would otherwise miss out on.”

The article references a corporate tweet:

The station was still up and running a year ago:

How about this month? The radio web site features state-sponsored NPR and Democratic Party-affiliated MSNBC, but I didn’t see anything about Pride.

Sonos Radio has an Instagram account. No Pride station is mentioned. (The “Full Spectrum; Celebrate Child” station is still available in the app, however.)

Sonos has an X account(!), but hasn’t posted anything for Pride 2026. Nor did they post anything regarding Pride on their (rather thin) Facebook account. Their careers page assures today’s young people that working life can be a continuous Pride celebration:

It looks as though the company has abandoned its commitment to proselytizing for Rainbow Flagism to consumers, reminding consumers that Black history is more important than other kinds of history, etc. In other words, Sonos has abandoned its principles and still can’t make money, the worst of all possible worlds for a corporation.

I still love the product, even if their lightweight powered speakers can’t overcome the laws of physics (see below regarding the latest Sonos S2 gear versus their old amps driving heavier passive (ancient) speakers). They also have great support compared to most companies. I’m wondering what they could make that would be profitable in an Apple-takes-all world.

Related:

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New Bumper Sticker for my Tesla and/or Honda Odyssey

by philg

A righteous neighbor here in Abacoa (not everyone in Florida is Deplorable, especially here in Palm Beach County, though it is rare even for the Righteous to have a political/social justice bumper sticker), this afternoon:

I asked Grok to redo it to read “I bought this before Elon had four commas” rather than “I bought this before Elon went crazy”:

The updated sticker is perfect for adorning any Tesla, of course, but it also makes sense for those of us with non-Tesla cars. We can proudly proclaim that we didn’t help Elon get to his envy-stoking level of wealth.

How are others dealing with their grief? New York Times front page:

The Native American community:

Not sure who this guy is:

Some folks who probably didn’t work too hard to get IPO shares:

An old lady from Maskachusetts:

(What evidence does Ms. Markey have that Elon ever “traded stocks”?

Bernie:

A reasonable suggestion regarding Bernie:

Another candidate for a wellness check:

An envious California progressive at the peasant level of wealth for Palm Beach County (at least $30 million for Mx. Newsom and the female companion he/she/ze/they plucked from Harvey Weinstein’s hotel rooms):

(If California could confiscate 100% of Elon’s $1 trillion would that be sufficient to realize at least part of their high-speed rail dream?)

The grandson of Muhammad Kenyatta:

The pro-Hamas next U.S. Senator from the Islamic Republic of Michigan:

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Peak Land Acknowledgement at Glacier Bay National Park

by philg

A substantial portion of the Glacier Bay National Park official brochure is devoted to acknowledging that the Connecticut-sized park is the “homeland” for the Huna Tlingit Indians:

The Native Americans enjoyed life in their village within what is today Glacier Bay prior to the eponymous glacier expanding all the way into the ocean:

Due to President Calvin Coolidge’s designation of the bay as a “national monument” in 1925 (Wikipedia), the natives were forever cut off from residing in their Connecticut-sized homeland.

Given that it is a violation of federal law for an Indian to return what the acknowledger says is “home”, is it fair to call this Peak Land Acknowledgement?

Note that if we ever did give Glacier Bay back to the Native Alaskans they would immediately become insanely rich. The National Park Service disdains filthy lucre and therefore imposes a two-ship-per-day limit while charging an absurdly low $8/passenger fee (i.e., about what a cruise passenger might pay for a drink at the onboard Starbucks). Each ship parks itself in front of the headline glacier for only about one hour and, therefore, given the number of hours of daylight in the summer, it would be trivial to increase the number of ships to accommodate nearly all of the 1.7 million passengers who visit Juneau each year. The Indians could hike the price to $60 per passenger, the standard fee for a seat at specialty dining, and thus harvest about $100 million per year for doing almost nothing.

(Currently most of the profit from the land is extracted by Princess, Holland, and Norwegian because these are the major cruise lines that have long-term contracts with the National Park Service. I.e., the U.S. Treasury gets almost nothing and the government cronies get nearly all of the profit that is obtainable from the park. (The itineraries that include Glacier Bay can support higher prices even though the cost to the cruise line is no higher.))

A present-day Glacier Bay village of 2,000+ passengers on Holland America, owned since 1989 by Florida-based Carnival, which was founded by Ted Arison, a Palestinian born in Tel Aviv, Palestine.

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Closing out Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

by philg

As we complete our celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, celebrating the common culture, language, and religion of Samoans, Koreans, Burmese, and Rajasthanis, here’s an ABC story that will warm the hearts of Asian American and Pacific Islander parents:

A high school senior who lived through homelessness much of his childhood was accepted to 65 colleges, and plans to attend an Ivy League school in the fall.

Note that if we believe The Son Also Rises: economics history with everyday applications we wouldn’t expect Lamont Newell to do as well as a 17-year-old with the same grades and same test scores (assuming that he took any tests; Columbia is permanently test-optional) who came from a successful (not homeless) family. Our society has chosen to invest in Mr. Newell, who won’t be paying or borrowing a dime for his education (“California teen who grew up homeless earns full ride to Ivy League school after 65 college acceptances”), rather than invest in an Asian 17-year-old whose parents worked like slaves to avoid homelessness and/or reliance on “public assistance” (i.e., taxpayers). If University of California economist Gregory Clark is correct, in other words, by lower admissions standards for those whose families are poor, the U.S. is doing the opposite of what investors in higher education would do if the goal were a return on investment.

(Why is it “society” rather than “Columbia” investing in Mr. Newell? At least half of Columbia’s money comes from taxpayers thanks to (1) Columbia’s tax-exempt nonprofit org status (investment returns aren’t taxed; half of every donation comes from taxpayers rather than the donor because the donor’s tax bill is reduced), (2) Columbia’s federal grants that yield massive overhead profits.)

Related:

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Suspend the exit tax to get rid of Elon Musk and other toxic billionaires?

by philg

From the Harvard Book Store, a window into the thinking of our nation’s cognitive elite:

The #2 hardcover bestseller during my April 2025 visit was Muskism:

Elon Musk isn’t a glitch in the system—he is the system. His worldview promises sovereignty through technology: plug in, power up, and become self-reliant. But the more you connect, the more he owns you.

If Fordism defined the capitalism of the twentieth century, Muskism may define the twenty-first. Fordism helped build the welfare state. Musk undoes it. He thrives on dependence while preaching freedom. His cars run on subsidies; his satellites run the battlefield; his social networks train the AI that trains us.

Muskism sells itself as the future but entrenches age-old hierarchies. It offers autonomy for some and exclusion for others. It’s pro-natalist but anti-immigrant, futurist but reactionary. It speaks of humanity but warns against empathy.

The authors:

Quinn Slobodian is professor of international history at Boston University

Ben Tarnoff is a writer and technologist based in Massachusetts … He is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, and has also written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the New Republic,

These giant credentialed academically-inclined brains say that Elon is pernicious. He’s our “dependent”, which means he is costing us money. What’s worse, this spending has resulted in Musk “owning us” rather than vice versa.

Elon Musk is pernicious and we’d certainly be better off without him. But it is also bad to be “anti-immigrant”, according to the authors, and we thus can’t use our ICE thugs to denaturalize Musk and deport him. Maybe we could persuade him to leave voluntarily? Hardly likely, given the U.S.’s massive exit tax on those who renounce U.S. citizenship. Elon would have to pay 20% capital gains tax plus 3.8% Obamacare tax (NIIT), albeit not the 13.3% California state income tax since he moved to Texas rather than pay his fair share to Gavin Newsom. This tax rate would be assessed against substantially all of Musk’s assets since nearly all of his wealth is unrealized capital gains.

What if we offered our most toxic citizens, the ones who contribute the least to our prosperity (since they don’t pay their fair share of taxes) and contribute the most to our problems (all of the above-cited, plus their presence in our society exacerbates inequality), a reasonable cost way out? If they leave in 2026, for example, they wouldn’t have to pay the exit tax.

Let’s say that someone needs a minimum net worth of $200 million to make the rest of us truly sick with envy. Anyone under $200 million, therefore, would still have to pay for expatriation.

(Separately, one of our neighbors has taken to parking his or her fairly new Rolls-Royce on the street (to make room for a truly valuable car in the garage?). I often walk Mindy the Crippler (our golden retriever) with a physician across the street and his dogs. In response to the Rolls-Royce sighting, the doctor and I have agreed that anyone richer than us should have to pay a 100% wealth tax.)

(Department of Trust Official Sources: SpaceX has a 98% launch success rate over its corporate life. The authors and HarperCollins (publisher) have chosen to feature on the cover a photo of one of the 2% unsuccessful launches.)

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One can mock the righteous, but Google won’t index it

by philg

One of my favorite posts from 11 years ago, Guy with a “Whites Only” sign in his conference room tells others not to discriminate, poked fun at Tim Cook for complaining that people he’d never met in Indiana and Arkansas were racist and might put up a “whites only” sign while simultaneously going to work every day in a white-only environment:

I was trying to find this to add to White people who live in all-white neighborhoods say that Scott Adams was racist and it turned out that Google had elected not to index this page:

(It’s in the Bing index, however, so the problem isn’t a technical one.)

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How do nonprofits that promise to discriminate get federal money?

by philg

A Florida senator whom I wish would retire writes about federal tax dollars being funneled to Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in western Maskachusetts (I was there once, part of being a houseguest of some Democrats who have a $2 million lake house nearby and who subscribe):

My response to our elderly senator:

The organization’s December 2024 web page proudly describes the federal funds recipient policies of discrimination that is contrary to the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of Equal Protection. Here are just some of the ways that they promise to discriminate based on race and gender ID:

  • Prioritization of BIPOC Vendors: Conduct focused research and expand the use of BIPOC-owned vendors
  • 83% of the 2024 episodes in our monthly “PillowVoices: Dance Through Time” podcast featured BIPOC artists, and 100% featured women.
  • All of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive playlists featured BIPOC and women artists.
  • off-campus and on-campus programming for low-income, BIPOC Berkshire residents.

How can government money be used to fund activities that should be illegal and unconstitutional if the government itself did it? (I guess we have had government-run race- and sex-discrimination in contracting, with set-asides for women- and minority-owned businesses, but I have never figured out how that is Constitutional.) I have never been able to get a straight answer from any of my lawyer friends as to how the government can operate and fund race discrimination without first repealing the 14th Amendment.

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Happy Kwanzaa

by philg

Happy Kwanzaa to everyone. Our Kwanzaa Bush decorated with an ornament we received as a gift from a neighbor:

The Democrat who runs New Jersey reminds us that this is the time for white men to cosplay as Maulana Karenga (“convicted of felony assault, torture, and false imprisonment of women”).

For Christmas Eve, on which a lot of Legacy Americans celebrate the birth of a baby, the same governor celebrates funding abortion care for babies:

A photo from a year ago at a Palm Beach County library:

The library also reminds us that Kwanzaa coincides with HIV/AIDS Awareness Month:

Let’s remember that how important this was to Kamala Harris’s family growing up.

Also from a year ago, the library’s new nonfiction books:

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Why aren’t we seeing a resurgence of voluntary communism within the U.S.?

by philg

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate!

The Roman World into which Jesus was born was a pure market economy. Property was private, taxes were ridiculously low by modern standards (perhaps 1-5% of income), and government-provided welfare was negligible. The New Testament describes a Christian community that voluntarily opted out of the Roman economic and political system:

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.

There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.

Acts 4:32, 34

We’re told that socialism and communism are enjoying renewed popularity in the U.S. Young progressives love Bernie Sanders and the Ayatollah Mamdani.

It’s perfectly possible to set up a voluntary communist or at least communalist society in the U.S. See, for example, Amana, Iowa: 75 years of communal living, in which people lived without private property embedded within a capitalist society.

Why aren’t at least some young progressives living their dream via voluntary contract?

Loosely related… Jupiter Mayor Jim Kuretski’s house, Christmas 2021:

Related:

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Microsoft is abandoning its diversity efforts?

by philg

“Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts/Microsoft is toeing the line in Trump’s America” (The Verge, December 4, 2025):

Microsoft has been publishing data about the gender, race, and ethnic breakdown of its employees for more than a decade. Since 2019 it’s been publishing a full diversity and inclusion report annually, and at the same time made reporting on diversity a requirement for employee performance reviews. Now it’s scrapping its diversity report and dropping diversity and inclusion as a companywide core priority for performance reviews, just months after President Donald Trump issued an executive order to try and eradicate workforce diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

… employees no longer have to submit exactly what they did to improve security and diversity and what they plan to do in the future. … replaced with a simplified form that asks employees to reflect on the results they delivered and how they achieved them, and any recent setbacks and goals for the future. … In HR documentation, the company doesn’t even use the word “diversity” anymore, opting for just “inclusion” instead.

Also on December 4, 2025, pictures of my Windows 11 login screen:

Microsoft knows that I have chosen to use the Windows operating system and it reminds me about “the extraordinary women who have made a positive impact on the modern world.”

Who are the extraordinary women who built Microsoft Windows? I asked ChatGPT, “Who were the most important programmers of Microsoft Windows operating system that are identifiable by name?” and received the following answer:

  • Tim Paterson, wrote original QDOS/MS-DOS
  • Mark Zbikowski, designed MZ executable format
  • Dave Cutler, lead architect Windows NT
  • Lou Perazzoli, NT memory manager author
  • Mark Lucovsky, NT kernel/I-O subsystem
  • Rob Short, core NT kernel engineer
  • Jim Horne, NT cache manager author
  • Tom Miller, original NT kernel team
  • Darryl Havens, original NT kernel team
  • Steve Wood, original NT kernel team
  • Ralph Lipe, Win32 input/driver stack
  • Ken Reneris, GDI graphics subsystem
  • Philip Fortier, early USER window manager
  • Bob Day, GDI and USER components
  • Raymond Chen, Win32 compatibility steward
  • David Thompson, Windows 95 lead architect
  • Brad Silverberg, Windows 95 project leader
  • Jim Allchin, merged 95/NT codebases
  • Mark Russinovich, modern kernel authority
  • Dave Plummer, wrote Task Manager/Pinball

What do the people behind Microsoft Windows know about “extraordinary women” that the typical user doesn’t know? How did Microsoft become an expert on this subject? Will an extraordinary woman figure out a way for Windows 11 to run smoothly in less than 128 GB of RAM? Will an extraordinary woman figure out a way for Windows 11 to delete a file from the C: drive (M.2 SSD) without waiting for spin-up of the D: drive (HDD)?

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