Gettison

I don’t know any “right wingers” in Oakland. My parents moved here in 1967, my Dad was a writer in the new left, started the Berkeley Poets Co-op. I grew up in a left milieu, Michael Parenti was at my daughter’s birthday party and I remember seeing Huey Newton at my brothers graduation from Skyline… As we got older we grew to understand, as every generation does when they invest time in learning about history, that the revolutionary ideas we coveted in our youth would lead to death and deprivation. So we understood that however profound the flaws in the U.S. were, the system was responsive to demands for reform, that this is not a historic norm, and was worth protecting . The problem in recent times is that people that know- or should know-better have not evolved in their thinking. Their regressive radicalism is anathema to liberalism so the ideas behind it are kept quiet- part of that obfuscation is to scream that anyone who pushes for policies that don’t adhere to their dogma of pathological leniency and their definition of “root causes” (ie capitalism) are right wing reactionaries (or worse). I am not saying that @MayorShengThao holds these views, but I am certain that many of her supporters do, and they do her and all of us no favors by hurling these accusations of Maga/right wing etc around. Oakland is a liberal city, and it was a poorer one when I was growing up, but a much safer one. That’s what folks want and the path to this is not complicated.

@TierOnePoster @teddyschleifer @cmarinucci SF’s deficit is $900mm (every CA city has one) and San Jose is the safest large city in the state. He has been aggressive in his support for prop 36.

@GettisonSean @teddyschleifer @cmarinucci He's overseeing a 60 million dollar budget deficit and the San Jose Police Department is corrupt. Their union leader was arrested for trafficking drugs. He is literally the status quo

A few days after Sergey Brin donated $1 million to boost Matt Mahan, Mahan blew up his schedule to meet with Brin and his girlfriend at Tahoe. Mahan took a private jet belonging to a different tech titan. The dinner did not go as Mahan expected — no new money came his way. A few days later, Brin's girlfriend was calling him "boring" with the "personality of a wooden spoon."

@k_thos @teddyschleifer @cmarinucci It might be boring to a billionaire‘s wife. If the other choices are an anointed party apparatchik, an extreme oligarch assuaging his own guilt, or a wild eyed violent bully, he should do well. His big challenge is name recognition and his criticism of the current Gov.

@GettisonSean @teddyschleifer @cmarinucci this is an indictment of mahan bc most californians right or left want that 🥹

@natelirac @lorenmtaylor Funding and enforcing Prop 36, compulsory treatment for the homeless. Other candidates will not only not do this, they will actively work to oppose it

@lorenmtaylor Tell me one thing he will actually do to improve Oakland for its residents. If it includes “resistance” or ICE, that’s immediately disqualifying. If it maintains sanctuary city status, that’s immediately disqualifying.

A great evening bringing Oaklanders together to ask tough questions of gubernatorial candidate Matt Mahan! He showed up extremely well. Thoughtful. Experienced. Ready to be held accountable. Mindful of systemic disparities and committed to addressing them.

@MattMahanSJ @tripledouble @MileyForACD4 Had a great time last night! Taylor’s line of questioning pulled you both into the policy wonk weeds a bit, but it wrapped up on a very high optimistic note. An optimism that is absent among the other candidates.

Honored to have so many in Oakland on Team Mahan, including Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley! @MileyForACD4

@ReallyAmerican1 @TheMarinaTimes @MattMahanSJ @RAMediaNetwork It is a mistake to attack Tom Steyer from the left. The progressives are not going to vote for you Matt, and this will only make it harder for you to differentiate yourself from him for lower info liberals/moderate voters.

🚨 EXCLUSIVE — Matt Mahan GOES AFTER Tom Steyer: “I am not buying it. Tom Steyer thinks you’re stupid. This is a guy who just spent $120M trying to buy the governor’s office after he failed to buy the presidency. This is a guy who made his fortune investing in private prisons, ICE detention centers, oil, gas, and coal companies and now is trying to claim he’s seen the light”

@Twolfrecovery @BernieSanders @RoKhanna Wild that the belief that the Bolshevik revolution and subsequent Soviet Empire was a dark and terrible period in human history is now considered a “moderate” view and not just a sane one.

The fact that people like @BernieSanders and @RoKhanna have thrown themselves in league with this vile human being should frighten all of us. They're hijacking the Democratic party and forcing us moderates out. Political suicide.

@katieporterca Chronic homelessness, driven by addiction and mental illness, consumes virtually all of the resources deployed to resolve it. The short term homeless who need a helping hand to get back on their feet, don’t get it. Your support for harm reduction perpetuates suffering for all.

You can't end homelessness without building homes. It’s that simple. To actually get people off the streets and into homes, we have to stop making it so difficult to build. My priority as Governor will be building diverse housing types—student apartments, senior flats, and middle-class homes—to ensure no Californian is left behind.

@TomSteyer California needs more powerful wealthy people who don’t have to live with the wreckage of their destructive policy prescriptions, like it needs a wild fire. Go away.

"Wow" is right. ICE is a criminal organization. As governor, I'll prosecute them like one.

@MarioNawfal x.com/mahsar_khan/st…

🇺🇸 Satellite imagery confirms it from space: 2 destroyed US C-130s and multiple helicopters sitting on a dirt airstrip near Shahreza, Iran. The U.S. were deliberately destroying their military assets to prevent capture.

35% percent of the state describes itself as moderate, 29% as somewhat liberal, and 28% as conservative. The remaining radical cohort of 8% holds the lions share of political power at state level and larger municipalities. This lack of representation is unsustainable. @MattMahanSJ

@blankslate2017 Who are you voting for?

Mahan is backed by Google money and his big idea is to wipe out the gas tax which funds CA roads & cleans up our environment. He may be a good Mayor for SJ, but he's a grifter in this race trying to the GOP's bidding of hyper splitting the Dem field so that they get locked out.

@MattMahanSJ please speak forcefully about the corrupt state apparatus that enables, even cultivates, the terrible political class we are all forced to endure. AG Bonta and his “fight” against corruption and bribery, Swalwell “standing up” to Trump’s criminal immorality, Steyer’s crippling economic hypocrisy, and Porter’s tyrannical treatment of her underlings and paper thin grasp of policy. This is your opportunity to recharge your candidacy, and help California turn the page on this absolutely lousy chapter in its political history.

To the survivor who risked everything to come forward – I believe you.  To the Democratic Party – you’d better hold him accountable. If we don’t, we have no credibility asking anyone else to do the same.  To @ericswalwell – drop out. sfchronicle.com/politics/artic…

@alvinfoo This is not very insightful. Sunni and Shia have been in conflict for 1400 years, and Arabs and Persians on and off since the 16th century. These are much deeper fractures than modern trade rivalries.

One of the best explanation videos about the dynamics of the Middle East. And why sometimes they seem so confusing.

@MarioNawfal What should the American people expect in terms of retaliation for scenario 3? A failure of imagination is a regular feature of the American intelligence community.

🚨🇺🇸🇮🇷 The clock hits 8PM ET tomorrow. Here's what could happen next... Trump's deadline is the most consequential moment of this war. Based on everything we know from inside the negotiations: Scenario 1: Trump takes the deal Iran's 10-point counterproposal isn't a rejection. The White House called it "a negotiating gambit." Vance, Witkoff, and Kushner all think he should try to get a deal now. Mediators are actively redrafting terms with Tehran. Scenario 2: Trump extends the deadline again He's done it multiple times already. Mediators warned the White House that Iranian decision-making is painfully slow and the Supreme Leader is communicating through children passing handwritten notes. Trump's team told mediators he needs "positive indications" to justify another extension. His credibility erodes with every delay. Scenario 3: Infrastructure Day The operational plan is ready. Two sources confirmed a massive U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign targeting every bridge and power plant in Iran is locked and loaded. Trump has been asking advisers "What do you think of Infrastructure Day?" Axios describes him as "the most bloodthirsty" person in his own administration right now. If he follows through, 85 million people lose electricity and Iran unleashes its most devastating retaliation of the war against Gulf water and energy infrastructure. The uncomfortable truth: -Netanyahu, MBS, and Lindsey Graham are all pushing Trump NOT to take a deal unless Iran makes concessions that are currently impossible -Vance, Witkoff, and Kushner want to negotiate -Iran won't surrender Hormuz or uranium for a 45-day pause that Israel could violate at will -The gap between the two positions is wide, and the people closest to Trump are pulling him in opposite directions What markets aren't pricing in: Even if a deal happens tomorrow, the damage is already done. There's a hidden 8 million barrel per day supply gap. Bombed refineries, damaged pipelines, and destroyed infrastructure take months or years to repair. Oil doesn't drop to $70 the day after a ceasefire. The real inflection point is mid-April, when strategic reserves run dry and the physical market can no longer absorb the shock. Tomorrow will either be the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning. Source: Axios, WSJ, NYT, @jackprandelli

@WarClandestine @row_katy Ahh, very shrewd grand strategy! Pretend to think that by killing every senior leader regime change will occur. Eviscerate our missile defense capacity, allowing Iran to destroy our regional bases, relieving the U.S. of the burden of having to dismantle them. Genius.

There it is again! 👀 Trump calls NATO a “paper tiger”, then criticizes South Korea, Japan, and Australia, for not helping us, despite benefiting from our protection. I’ve been suggesting that Trump is setting up a withdrawal of our military footprint abroad, and will consolidate our military presence to the Western hemisphere. Trump appears to be laying the ground work. I think the end goal is to withdraw from NATO, which will in turn end the war between Ukraine/Russia, then bring all the troops home to our region, then leave the areas of influence in the hands of the nations in each respective region. After Deep State destabilization assets, i.e. terrorists/cartels, have been neutralized, the need for our military presence around the globe, will no longer be necessary. I think Trump is leveraging the situation in Iran, to show the public why we need to withdraw from NATO and bring the troops home from Germany, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and more. I think Trump is using Iran to end the Cold War between the US and Russia/China, and prevent full-scale WW3 from ever happening in the future. Trump wants to make a deal with Russia and China, and this surely will include removing our standing armies from their doorstep. I think Trump is using Iran to reshape the global order to a “multi-polar world”, where a variety of nations hold spheres of influence, as opposed to the complete US hegemony. A world where we are allies/trade partners with Russia and China, not enemies on a collision course for world war. I think we are witnessing a historic global transformation.

@SenecaSpeaks21 Powerful case for undershirts right there.

Yes, these slithering sycophants are the most deranged lunatics you can imagine. Take these two soggies for instance — who worked for recalled and disgraced former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao— they are two of the most racist, evil soggies in CA.

@BillAckman @X I have also observed a sharp uptick in employment litigation. Your wherewithal to push back will alter the calculus for the excessively litigious, and maybe steel the spine for the unfairly accused. Also try LI Salary to avoid the kind of fleecing Rond subjected you to.

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?

@JeffreyLuscombe Our cities and states are simply unable to execute on big projects like this. Italy is able to run tracks from Milan, through Cinque Terre and beyond with sleek clean cars that you can ride all day for 20 bucks. CA has been trying to build a line from SF to Fresno for 18 years.

Why do Conservatives hate this so much? Anyone?

@ElectionWiz This is a great example of upper class,mostly white, cultural thinking in the Bay Area. Folks with lives so utterly devoid of struggle that they have to manufacture it.

DISTURBING: Gavin Newsom’s wife on how she raises her son: “I've given our boys dolls… if I'm reading a book and the protagonist is a male, I just change the 'he' to a 'she.'”