Luke Larson

@brettb3 @JoeVeyera I’m for common sense taxes that create conditions for growing great companies. After a company hits $x in payroll Seattle city is incentivizing them to move to Bellevue

@Focus_Matcha @JoeVeyera I was with ya until you went on your anti-tax spiel. Yikes.

@ShaanVP E-bike vs regular bike The regular bikers know the way

Daily writing is the new weightlifting. Back in the day, 90%+ of the population worked manual labor on farms. We didn’t have “gyms” because everyone was breaking their back working all day. Once we got machines, we needed a new way to keep our body in shape - lifting heavy objects (3 sets of 10), voluntarily, at the gym. The same thing is happening for writing. Everyone is outsourcing their thinking to AI. The brain is a muscle, and it will atrophy if you don’t use it.

I actually thought USA had a chance at winning. I’m depressed. Not the game last night. Like the whole damn thing. Delusional, I know, but I did.

@pmarca Semper Fidelis

Semper Fi.

Take your family to the amazing “Young Washington” this July 4th weekend! 🇺🇸

I generally view any company spending more time on marketing stunts than product as a huge anti-signal

@bscholl Every second counts

Facts

@lizwessel @axon_enterprise

What are the most overlooked companies today that are most likely to produce the next "PayPal Mafia" (ie alum who go on to create iconic bizs)? Not the obvious answers (ramp, mercor, etc)... I'm curious for the non-obvious picks. 👀

@t_blom generals are always fighting the last war

Every piece of advice is a reaction to something that came before. "Validate your idea before you go all-in" was a reaction to MBAs raising millions of dollars based on nothing but a business plan. Today, young builders take that advice and quickly "invalidate" every idea they come up with. Now the missing ingredient is conviction 🤷‍♂️

@travisk Efoil there next time

First day at our new Austin office. Video of my 5 minute jet ski commute to work.. 😏😅😂

@davidsenra Some key ingredients are having a long term mindset. Being able to build a culture that "adapts" to the environment and yet stays true to its purpose. Sounds kind of fluffy but is the essence of any generational co

Steve Jobs has a great quote about this. Steve said this shortly before he died: "I hate it when people call themselves "entrepreneurs" when what they're really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public, so they can cash in and move on. They're unwilling to do the work it takes to build a real company, which is the hardest work in business. That's how you really make a contribution and add to the legacy of those who went before. You build a company that will still stand for something a generation or two from now. That's what Walt Disney did, and Hewlett and Packard, and the people who built Intel. They created a company to last, not just to make money. That's what I want Apple to be." @ScottWu46 explains his thinking on not selling during the last 5 minutes of the episode. It’s worth listening to how he thinks about a very important topic.

@Chris_Deutsch @LoftyVentures @OffMapGlamping Need an invite

Our inaugural 🔥#LoftyCamp (hosted by @LoftyVentures) convened 17 of our founders, angels & co-investors at our portco @OffMapGlamping in South Haven, MI The experience was nothing short of magical! Hope you can join us next year… ❤️#LoftyFamily 👼#LoftyAngels

@Chris_Deutsch @CityScapesNC Nashville?

@CityScapesNC Has to be Vegas 😐

Can you guess this city by just one view?

@a16z Boys in the Boat is great. Some scrappy outsiders, sons of loggers, millworkers take on the world’s rarefied progeny and win!

The a16z Editorial team’s summer reading list: open.substack.com/pub/a16z/p/the…

@Chris_Deutsch @hadip @elonmusk @AxonRick @Chris_Deutsch it would make a pretty great case study. Household name recognition but so closely tied to a singular product. And one that came with some controversy.

@hadip @elonmusk @AxonRick @Focus_Matcha I think renaming the company was one of the most consequential things you guys have done. Taser was such a loaded name. I remember begging the team back in circa 2010 to change it to anything else. Big props to making the change and I think Axon works really well 🙏❤️👊

Wow, I just learned @elonmusk wanted to call OpenAI “Axon” at roughly the same time that @AxonRick, @Focus_Matcha, and I decided to rename the company from Taser to Axon.

There was some debate if we should buy it from some dissenters. But we got it in the end. Thanks for support @btaylor @hadip

This is really wild in 2015 we were finalizing a few names for the name change from TASER to Axon. A few of the candidates were: Bond Axon Empower We went with at @axon_enterprise. Crazy @sama @elonmusk @gdb were having a similar discussion on naming open AI.