Helring, God of Hammers

@JagexJack Hail Zaros, God of Fate, Master of Senntisten, Great Lord of Forinthry, Eldest Son of Mah, Slayer of Loarnab, Bearer of the Crown Archival, The Undying, True Heir of the Elders, He Who Shall Save Us from the Great Revision!

@BillAckman @X Sounds like it was pretty stupid of you to put a family member in charge of this instead of someone more professional.

I am reaching out to the @X community for advice with the likely risk of sharing TMI. I have been sufficiently upset about the whole matter that I have lost sleep thinking about it and I am hoping that this post will enable me to get this matter off my chest. By way of background, I started a family office called TABLE about 15 years ago and hired a friend who had previously managed a family office, and years earlier, had been my personal accountant. She is someone that I trusted implicitly and consider to be a good person. The office started small, but over the last decade, the number of personnel and the cost of the office grew massively. The growth was entirely on the operational side as the investment team has remained tiny. While my investment portfolio grew substantially, the investments I had made were almost entirely passive and TABLE simply needed to account for them and meet capital calls as they came in. While TABLE purchased additional software and other systems that were supposed to improve productivity, the team kept increasing in size at a rapid rate, and the expenses continued to grow even faster. While I would periodically question the growing expenses and high staff turnover, I stayed uninvolved with the office other than a once-a-year meeting when I briefly reviewed the operations and the financials and determined bonus compensation for the President and the CFO. I spent no time with any of the other employees or the operations. The whole idea behind TABLE was that it would handle everything other than my day job so that I would have more time for my job and my family. Over the last six years, expenses ballooned even further, employee turnover accelerated, and I became concerned that all was not well at TABLE. It was time for me to take a look at what was going on. Nearly four years ago, I recruited my nephew who had recently graduated from Harvard and put him to work at Bremont, a British watchmaker, one of my only active personal investments to figure out the issues at the company and ultimately assist in executing a turnaround. He did a superb job. When he returned from the UK late last year after a few years at Bremont, I asked him to help me figure out what was going on with TABLE. When I explained to TABLE’s president what he would be doing, she became incredibly defensive, which naturally made me more concerned. My nephew went to work by first meeting with each employee to understand their roles at the company and to learn from them what ideas they had on how things could be improved. He got an earful. Our first step in helping to turn around TABLE was a reduction in force including the president and about a third of the team, retaining excellent talent that had been desperate for new leadership. Now here is where I need your advice. All but one of the employees who were terminated acted professionally and were gracious on the way out (excluding the president who had a notice period in her contract, is currently still being paid, and with whom I have not yet had a discussion). The highest compensated terminated employee other than the president, an in-house lawyer (let’s call her Ronda), told us that three months of severance was not enough and demanded two years’ severance despite having worked at the company for only two and one half years. When I learned of Ronda's request for severance, I offered to speak with her to understand what she was thinking, but she refused to do so. A few days ago, we received a threatening letter from a Silicon Valley law firm. In the letter, Ronda’s counsel suggests that her termination is part of longstanding issues of ‘harassment and gender discrimination’ – an interesting claim in light of the fact that Ronda was in charge of workplace compliance – and that her termination was due to: “unlawful, retaliatory, and harmful conduct directed towards her. Both [Ronda] and I [Ronda’s lawyer] have spoken with you about [Ronda’s] view of what a reasonable resolution would include given the circumstances. Thus far, TABLE has refused to provide any substantive response. This letter provides the last opportunity to reach a satisfactory agreement. If we cannot do so, [Ronda] will seek all appropriate relief in a court of competent jurisdiction.” The letter goes on to explain the basis for the “unsafe work environment” claim at TABLE: “In early 2026, Pershing Square’s founder Bill Ackman installed his nephew in an unidentified role at TABLE, Ackman’s family office. [His nephew]—whose only work experience had been for TABLE where he was seconded abroad for the last four years to a UK watch company held by Ackman—began appearing at TABLE’s offices and conducting interviews of employees without a clear explanation of his role or the purposes of these interviews. During this period, he made a series of inappropriate and genderbased [sic] comments to multiple employees that created an unsafe work environment. Among other things, [his nephew] made remarks about female employees’ ages (“Tell me you are nowhere near 40”), physical appearance (“Your body does not look like you have kids”), as well as intrusive questions about family planning and sexual orientation (“Who carried your son? Who will carry your next child?”). These incidents were reported to senior leadership at TABLE and Pershing Square. Rather than being addressed appropriately, the response from senior management reflected, at best, willful blindness to the inappropriateness of [his nephew]’s remarks and, at worst, tacit endorsement.” The above allegations about my nephew had previously been brought to my attention by TABLE’s president when they occurred. When I learned of them, I told the president that I would speak to him directly and encouraged her to arrange for him to get workplace sensitivity training. The president assured me that she would do so. When I spoke to my nephew, he explained what he actually had said and how his actual remarks had been received, not at all as alleged in the legal letter from Ronda’s counsel. I have also spoken to others at the lunch table who confirmed his description of the facts. In any case, he meant no harm, was simply trying to build rapport with other employees, and no one, as far as I understand, was offended. Ironically, Ronda claims in her legal letter that TABLE didn’t take HR compliance seriously, yet Ronda was in charge of HR compliance at TABLE and the person who gave my nephew his workplace sensitivity training after the alleged incidents. In any case, Ronda, as head of compliance, should have kept a record or raised an alarm if indeed there was pervasive harassment or other such problems at the company, and there is no evidence whatsoever that this is true. So why does Ronda believe she can get me to pay her nearly $2 million, i.e., two years of severance, nearly one year of severance for each of her years at the company? Well, here is where some more background would be helpful. Over the last two months, I have been consumed with a major family medical issue – one of my older daughters had a massive brain hemorrhage on February 5th and has since been making progress on her recovery – and I am in the midst of a major transaction for my company which I am executing from a hospital room office next to her . While the latter business matter is publicly known, the details of my daughter’s situation are only known to Ronda because of her role at our family office. Now, let’s get back to the subject at hand. Unfortunately, while New York and many other states have employment-at-will, there has emerged an industry of lawyers who make a living from bringing fake gender, race, LGBTQ and other discrimination employment claims in order to extract larger severance payments for terminated employees, and it needs to stop. The fake claim system succeeds because it costs little to have a lawyer send a threatening letter and nearly all of the lawyers in this field work on contingency so there is no or minimal cash cost to bring a claim. And inevitably, nearly 100% of these claims are settled because the public relations and legal costs of defending them exceed the dollar cost of the settlement. The claims are nearly always settled with a confidentiality agreement where the employee who asserts the fake claims remains anonymous and as a result, there is no reputational cost to bringing false claims. The consequences of this sleazy system (let’s call it ‘the System’) are the increased costs of doing business which is a tax on the economy and society. There are other more serious problems due to the System. Unfortunately, the existence of an industry of plaintiff firms and terminated employees willing to make these claims makes it riskier for companies to hire employees from a protected class, i.e., LGBTQ, seniors, women, people of color etc. because it is that much more reputationally damaging and expensive to be accused of racism, sexism, and/or intolerance for sexual diversity than for firing a white male as juries generally have less sympathy for white males. The System therefore increases the risk of discrimination rather than reducing it, and the people bringing these fake claims are thereby causing enormous harm to the other members of these protected classes. So what happened here? Ronda was vastly overpaid and overqualified for the job that she did at TABLE. She was paid $1.05 million plus benefits last year for her work which was largely comprised of filling out subscription agreements and overseeing an outside law firm on closing passive investments in funds and in private and venture stage companies, some compliance work, and managing the office move from one office to another. She had a very good gig as she was highly paid, only had to go into the office three days a week, and could work from anywhere during the summer. Once my nephew showed up and started to investigate what was going on, she likely concluded that there was a reasonable possibility she would be terminated, as her job was in the too-easy-and-to-good-to-be-true category. The problem was that she was not in a protected class due to her race, age or sexual identity so she had to construct the basis for a claim. While she is female and could in theory bring a gender-based discrimination claim, she reported to the president who is female and to whom she is very close, which makes it difficult for her to bring a harassment claim against her former boss. When my nephew complimented a TABLE employee at lunch about how young she looked – in response to saying she was going to her 40-year-old sister’s birthday party, he said ‘she must be your older sister’ – Ronda immediately reported it to our external HR lawyer. She thereby began building her case. The other problem for Ronda bringing a claim is that she was terminated alongside 30% of other TABLE employees as part of a restructuring so it is very difficult for her to say that she was targeted in her termination or was retaliated against. TABLE is now hiring an external fractional general counsel as that is all the company needs to process the relatively limited amount of legal work we do internally. In short, Ronda was eminently qualified and capable and did her job. She was just too much horsepower for what is largely an administrative legal role so she had to come up with something else to bring a claim. Now Ronda knew I was a good target and it was a good time to bring a claim against me. She also knew that I was under a lot of pressure because on March 4th when Ronda was terminated, my daughter had not yet emerged from consciousness, she was not yet breathing on her own, and my daughter and we were fighting for her life. I was and remain deeply engaged in her recovery while at the same time I was working on finishing the closing for the private placement round for my upcoming IPO. Ronda also knew that publicity about supposed gender discrimination and a “hostile and unsafe work environment” are not things that a CEO of a company about to go public wants to have released into the media. And she may have thought that the nearly $2 million she was asking for would be considered small in the context of the reputational damage a lawsuit could cause, regardless of the fact that two years of severance was an absurd amount for an employee who had only worked at TABLE for 30 months. She also likely considered that I wouldn’t want to embarrass my nephew by dragging him into the klieg lights when her claims emerged publicly. So, in summary, game theory would say that I would certainly settle this case, for why would I risk negative publicity at a time when I was preparing our company to go public and also risk embarrassing my nephew. Notably, she hired a Silicon Valley law firm, rather than a typical NY employment firm. This struck me as interesting as her husband works for one of the most prominent Silicon Valley venture firms whose CEO, I am sure, has no tolerance for these kinds of fake claims that sadly many venture-backed companies also have to deal with. I mention this as I suspect her husband likely has been working with her on the strategy for squeezing me as, in addition to being a computer scientist, he is a game theorist. My only advice for him is to understand more about your opponent before you launch your first move. All of the above said, gender, race, LGBTQ and other such discrimination is a real thing. Many people have been harmed and deserve compensation for this discrimination, and these companies and individuals should be punished for engaging in such behavior. Which brings me to the advice I am seeking from the X community. I am not planning to follow the typical path and settle this ‘claim.’ Rather, I am going to fight this nonsense to the end of the earth in the hope that it inspires other CEOs to do the same so we shut down this despicable behavior that is a large tax on society, employment, and the economy and contributes to workplace discrimination rather than reducing it. Do you agree or disagree that this is the right approach?

@unicorn__sauce @Leahgreenb The azures

@helring @Leahgreenb “playing the blues”

an insufficient number of people understand that the Animorphs are low-key an extraordinary extended meditation on the horrors of war. this is gonna be incredible

@Maguiredinho @Leahgreenb Listened to it on audible recently after not reading it in a long time. Its definitely got some horrible stuff. But also, the powerful, mysterious being ending up being a gamer is kinda hilarious

@helring @Leahgreenb Remember that book just making me sad and giving me existential dread for the first time.

@GBBranstetter Ellimist Chronicles show

I want live-action, I want Yellowjackets vibes, I want Jane Schoenbrun in the director's chair, I want six seasons with one season per year, I want spinoff movies of the Andalite and Hork Bajir Chronicles, and so help me god if you let a single Duffer Brother anywhere near this

@andrewpaleogos @brandonnagy @COVIDcarditis @SenMikeLee Because excepting very limited circumstances, those on US soil are subject to it’s Jurisdiction.

@helring @brandonnagy @COVIDcarditis @SenMikeLee Why would a foreign child born to foreign parents be subject to US jurisdiction?

Two birthright citizens, born to illegal immigrant parents from China, tried to bomb an Air Force base on American soil. Whoever they were “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” it wasn’t the United States of America.

@andrewpaleogos @brandonnagy @COVIDcarditis @SenMikeLee Yea, because they’re subject to US Jurisdiction. That doesn’t make them all US citizens because they weren’t all born on US soil which is the second requirement.

@brandonnagy @COVIDcarditis @SenMikeLee Illegal immigrants and foreign tourists are subject to US laws. Doesn't imply residency status is required. Please see post regarding political vs territorial jurisdiction. We can prosecute anyone who commits a crime(diplomats excluded)

@unkeptjupiter @bonchieredstate @GoatMcLean_ If they’d wanted to merely say “former slaves and their children”, then they would have. Their discussions included the children of Chinese and Romani people that came here.

@helring @bonchieredstate @GoatMcLean_ The intent they are talking about here are with regards to the newly freed slaves who birthed children. Not exactly for tourists and undocumented people to essentially sneak in a new American?

To me, the birthright citizenship case is one that's so painfully obvious when you apply both a historical lens and common sense. Anchor babies were not the intent. But also, the language is just vague enough that without a new amendment, we'll never get it overturned.

@DeePopTheKing @WethePeopl20451 @neoavatara Because treaties with them made them set them up with special jurisdiction rules. They weren’t strictly under US Jurisdiction on their land.

@WethePeopl20451 @neoavatara Read the right column. American Indians were considered a foreign nation. Even though they were born on this land. The 14th did not give them citizenship. Why? You are wrong.

The constitutional phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is the right wing's equivalent of the Left's use of "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..." to try to twist the original meaning of the Constitution.

@bonchieredstate @GoatMcLean_ It literally says born or naturalized in the United States , and subject to the jurisdiction. Thats not vague. You just don’t like the obvious answer. Its not everyone that sets foot because they were neither born in the US nor naturalized. But babies born here were.

There are arguments from the drafting that indicate it was not intended to apply in the way it's now applied. The concept of people crossing the border illegally (or flying in on vacation) just to have anchor babies wasn't even a concept back then. Jurisdiction thereof is very, very vague. If taken to the extreme, it would bestow citizenship on essentially everyone who sets foot on American soil. No one seriously thinks that was the original intent. Wong Kim Ark specifically cited his parents being legally domiciled in the United States. So where's the clarity in that if a Chinese woman hops a flight to LA and pops a baby out at some birth tourism location?

@IanISSawesome @sleepy_devo It doesn’t. There are specific people that are not under US jurisdiction even if they’re on our land. The most common one people know about are diplomats with diplomatic immunity. People here illegally though are under our jurisdiction

@sleepy_devo It's not resolved at all. The legal concept applied ignores the whole under the jurisdiction requirement. It's literally the fundamental idea.

if the SCOTUS decides that trump can simply overwrite parts of the constitution with an EO, then america is effectively finished. nothing stopping trump from overwriting any other amendment with an EO, either.

@BasedMikeLee The Senate is still holding pro forma sessions. Seems like it might technically be convened already

President Trump has the power to convene the Senate under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution “on extraordinary Occasions.” If a department with 260,000 employees (DHS) going unfunded isn’t an “extraordinary occasion”—especially while the Senate is out on a two-week recess during that shutdown with no plans to resolve the impasse beyond “we’ll deal with that in two weeks”—I don’t know what is.

@SenEricSchmitt I don’t want ICE to deport this guy, I want him tried and put in prison. Y’all seem to hate actually trying criminals

When Democrats say they want to defund ICE, that means they want to defend criminal illegal aliens like this one that murdered an Air Force veteran. Democrats care more about illegal aliens’ feelings than American citizens’ lives.

@MeghanMcCain She made herself a public figure, and people generally don’t like her. If she decided to stay private then I think it would be worse to mock her.

I do not understand why Erika Kirk - who saw her husband get brutally assassinated on live television is a target of such evil and cruelty. Why are you all doing this to her? Have she and her children not suffered enough? Some of you were literally birthed in hell

@MOrcmisha @trickydickpol @JakeSherman They didn’t vote to give more funding to a department that is massively unpopular with their own party and Independents. Not to mention it looks like Johnson is going to blow up the deal, making it clear that Republicans are solely responsible for the TSA lines.

@helring @trickydickpol @JakeSherman But ICE is still funded through 2029… Dems got NOTHING and are treating it as a “win”

Dems are pretty happy. Republicans are not so happy.

@greggnunziata Oh, shut the fuck up, Gregg. No one thinks you have anything worthwhile to say

This is tawdry and, frankly, beneath the dignity of a former president.

@trickydickpol @JakeSherman Yea, revealed preferences. They don’t want to do what it would take to actually remove people. They want to feel good about the removals, and that means focusing on major drug dealers and murderers. As long as a psycho like Miller is in charge its good policy to oppose ICE

@helring @JakeSherman The polling is consistent they want them deported but didn’t like the tactics. It’s a dumb view as it will never look good removing people who don’t want to be removed. As it will look “traumatic” every time. As people will be resisting and crying and what not.

@trickydickpol @JakeSherman They really don’t. They didn’t like seeing it. Its why ICE’s popularity tanked. They want the government to focus on the ones committing major crimes.

@helring @JakeSherman GOP shouldn’t be worried as majority of Americans want every single illegal alien removed still. That hadn’t changed. That’s the policy the American people want.

@trickydickpol @JakeSherman Yea, neither party is particularly popular. But funding ICE won’t help anyone when Independents currently hate them.

@helring @JakeSherman You realize ICE has like an 9pt better approval rating than Democrats, right?

@trickydickpol @JakeSherman Perhaps, remains to be seen if Republicans can pull themselves together enough to pass it. But ICE popularity has tanked among voters, so forcing Republicans to party line vote to fund them is still helpful.

@helring @JakeSherman All Democrats get to say now is “we didn’t vote for it.” Thats it. Because now it will be through reconciliation and GOP will increase both agencies funding as they won’t need a single Democrat vote to do so.