11AC

annnd, here's my pinned tweet for life lol.

Elon Musk on why the smartest people drop out of college: "You don't need college to learn. Learn stuff. Everything is available basically for free. You can learn anything you want for free. It is not a question of learning." Musk explains what college actually provides: "There is a value that colleges have, which is seeing whether somebody can work hard at something, including a bunch of annoying homework assignments, and still do their homework, and kind of soldier through and get it done. That's the main value of college. And also, you probably want to hang around with a bunch of people your own age for a while instead of going right into the workforce. So I think colleges are basically for fun and to prove you can do your chores. But they're not for learning." On hiring at his companies: "There is a requirement of evidence of exceptional ability. I don't consider going to college evidence of exceptional ability. In fact, ideally you dropped out and did something. Obviously, Gates is a pretty smart guy, he dropped out. Jobs was pretty smart, he dropped out. Larry Ellison, smart guy, he dropped out. Obviously not needed." Musk shares how education should work: "Generally, you want education to be as close to a video game as possible. Like a good video game. You do not need to tell your kid to play video games; they will play video games on autopilot all day. If you can make it interactive and engaging, you can make education far more compelling and far easier to do." He challenges the current system: "You really want to disconnect the whole 'grade level' thing from the subjects. Allow people to progress at the fastest pace that they can, or are interested in, in each subject. It seems like a really obvious thing." Musk criticizes traditional teaching: "Most teaching today is a lot like vaudeville. Somebody's standing up there lecturing to you. They've done the same lecture several years in a row. They're not necessarily all that engaged. That lack of enthusiasm is conveyed to the students; they're not very excited about it. They don't know why they're there. 'Why are we learning this stuff?' We don't even know why. A lot of things people learn, probably there's no point in learning them, because they never use them in the future." On whether university is necessary: "A university education is often unnecessary. That's not to say it's unnecessary for all people. But I think you learn about as much, the vast majority of what you're going to learn there, in the first two years. And most of it is from your classmates. If the goal is to start a company, I would say no point in finishing college." Musk started his own school for his kids: "I created a little school. It's small, only 14 kids now, and it'll have 20 in September. It's called Ad Astra, which means 'to the stars.'" He explains what makes it different: "There aren't any grades. There's no grade one, grade two, grade three. Not making all the children go in the same grade at the same time, like an assembly line. People are not objects on an assembly line. That's a ridiculous notion. Some people love English or languages. Some people love math. Some people love music. Different abilities at different times. It makes more sense to cater the education to match their aptitudes and abilities." Musk shares a key principle: "It's important to teach problem-solving, or teach to the problem, not to the tools. Let's say you're trying to teach people about how engines work. A more traditional approach would be: 'We're going to teach you all about screwdrivers and wrenches. You're going to have a course on screwdrivers, a course on wrenches.' This is a very difficult way to do it." He offers a better approach: "A much better way would be: 'Here's the engine. Now let's take it apart. How are we going to take it apart? Oh, you need a screwdriver, that's what the screwdriver is for. You need a wrench, that's what the wrench is for.' And then a very important thing happens: the relevance of the tools becomes clear." The result: "It seems to be going pretty well. The kids really love going to school. I think that's a good sign. I hated going to school when I was a kid; it was torture. The fact that they actually think vacations are too long, they want to go back to school. Weird, I know." Musk reframes what education really is: "If you think about it, what is education? You're basically downloading data and algorithms into your brain. And it's actually amazingly bad in conventional education. It shouldn't be this huge chore. The more you can gamify the process of learning, the better."

The boomer generation is either too stupid to understand why asset prices rose or they're just lying to your face for exit liquidity. 70% of asset price appreciation over 50 years came from falling interest rates. SEVEN ZERO PERCENT What worked for 50 years is dead. You stole all the money and now there's no generation large enough or rich enough to buy you out of your position.

Theo Von with the rant of the year. 🔥🔥🔥 Love both of these guys.

T Mobile opened a new tech hub in India. They then laid off Americans, spent $81.5M on H-1B Visa salaries and got a new Indian CEO The even sent Americans over to India to train the new Indian workers to replace them “T-Mobile USA could have easily opened up this technology hub in the United States of America, and they could have ran it out of one of the two Frisco offices on Warren Parkway. On top of that, T-Mobile spent $81.5 million on salaries for H-one B employees in the United States in 2025, all salaries that could have went to Americans.”

I have 9 days to write the government a big check so they can give it to foreigners or I'll go to prison. Let freedom ring

We’re all fucked until we just stop everything and start over.

I admit I’ve never heard the superintendent of NJ’s largest school district who oversees a $1.6 billion budget speak before. I feel better now. 🙄

I don't know who makes this, but the @elonmusk part is hilarious 😂😂

We aren’t far from this being reality, are we?

I wonder why this study got buried

“Why did God create evil?” [This is probably the best answer I’ve ever heard to that question.] A university professor asked his students: “Was everything that exists created by God?” One student bravely replied:

If a man stops arguing it means..

New York: 133K NGOs handle $450 billion per year. California: 225K NGOs handle $610 billion per year. Over $1 trillion per year is moved within the NY and CA NGO ecosystem. The fraud is staggering. America is not in $39 trillion in debt. America is in $39 trillion in fraud.

AI isn't taking your job. Foreigners are.

Indian engineer gets laid off. Boss: “We’re replacing your whole team… with Indians.” Him: “Bro I’m Indian??” Boss: “Nah. Indians from India. Cheaper.” Bro instantly turned into every Indian dad on Earth: “These goddamn Indians are taking our jobs!!” 💀😭 Circle of life hit different 🇮🇳

Paying taxes at this point is like funding your own demise

The average American today lives better than John D. Rockefeller did in 1926. That is not an exaggeration. It is a fact. Rockefeller could not fly across the country in five hours. You can for $200. He could not video call his family from another continent. You do it for free. He had no antibiotics, no MRI, no air conditioning in July. He could not carry every book ever written in his pocket. You are reading this on a device that does all of that and more. Americans throw away 30-40% of their food. Not because they are wasteful, but because food is so abundant that waste is affordable. Your car has climate control, navigation, and safety systems that did not exist at any price a century ago. Your home has heating, cooling, refrigeration, and entertainment that emperors could not have imagined. None of this was voted into existence. None of it was redistributed from the rich. It was created by free minds operating in what remains of a free market. Every comfort you enjoy today is the product of a man who thought, invented, produced, and traded voluntarily. This is what the remnants of capitalism still deliver, even while it is being dismantled. Imagine what a fully free society could build.

Currently doing my taxes. In other words I’m figuring out how much money I’ll be sending to Somalians, illegals and pedophiles. Man, it’s just disgusting.

Last quarter I ran performance reviews for 4,200 employees. The process takes six weeks. Week 1: employees write self-evaluations. Average length: 1,200 words. That's 5 million words of self-assessment. No manager reads them. I know this because the system tracks time spent per review. Average: 4 minutes. You can't read 1,200 words in 4 minutes. You can write a rating in 4 minutes. That's what they do. The ratings are on a 5-point scale. 1: "Does not meet expectations." 2: "Partially meets expectations." 3: "Meets expectations." 4: "Exceeds expectations." 5: "Significantly exceeds expectations." Nobody gets a 5. 5 requires three levels of approval and a written justification. I designed it that way. If everyone could get a 5, the scale would mean something. We can't have that. The real scale is 3 to 4. 3 means "you still work here." 4 means "you still work here and we'd mildly prefer you didn't leave." The difference in raise between a 3 and a 4 is 1.2%. On a $90,000 salary that's $1,080 a year. $90 a month. Before taxes. After taxes it's about $62. That's the financial value of "exceeding expectations." $62 a month. A streaming subscription. We have a forced distribution. 15% must be rated 4 or above. 70% must be rated 3. 15% must be rated 2 or below. This is non-negotiable. If your entire team is exceptional, 15% of them are still "partially meeting expectations." If your entire team is mediocre, 15% are still "exceeding." Performance is a bell curve I drew on a whiteboard in 2019. Reality has to fit the curve. Not the other way around. The calibration meeting is where this happens. Every director in a room for four hours. They negotiate ratings. "I'll give you a 4 for Martinez if you take a 2 for Chen." "Chen just shipped the biggest project this quarter." "I know. But I need my 15%." Chen is now "partially meeting expectations." His manager will deliver this rating in a 30-minute meeting. She'll say "this doesn't reflect my view of your work." She's right. It reflects a horse trade in a conference room she wasn't invited to. Chen will ask what he can do to improve. His manager will say "keep doing what you're doing." He'll say "but I got a 2." She'll say "the rating system is holistic." Holistic means "I can't explain it." Nobody can. That's the point. Three people on the 2-rated list will be placed on Performance Improvement Plans. A PIP lasts 60 days. No one has ever passed a PIP. I don't mean it's difficult. I mean the outcome is decided before the PIP begins. A PIP is not a path to improvement. It's a paper trail to termination. HR needs 60 days of documentation. The PIP provides 60 days of documentation. I call this "supporting our people through growth opportunities." After calibration I compile the results. I tell the board that 85% of employees are meeting or exceeding expectations. This is true every year. It was true by design. I designed it. Last year a manager asked me what performance reviews actually accomplish. I looked at my notes. They accomplish: Five million words nobody reads. A number between 1 and 5 decided in a room the employee will never enter. A raise that wouldn't cover a gym membership. And a paper trail for the people we'd already decided to fire. I didn't say any of that. I said "employee development is our top priority." He transferred teams. I noted it as "healthy internal mobility." The review system was installed in 2019. It has not been reviewed. I get reviewed using the system I designed. Last year I rated myself a 4. My manager didn't question it. She used the 4 minutes. As long as the graph goes up and to the right.