James B

@polecat_nate @bluewmist How do you come by the media that you store with it? If it can replace Netflix, I take it you are storing movies/shows on it. But where do they come into the system from? Always been my question with this recommendation.

@bluewmist Proper homelab/data server. It’s a wild expense to justify, but stack it against every subscription with price hikes to every silly slowly-degrading little service like Netflix and it’s just logical.

What is a 'buy it for life' item that is offensively expensive, but the moment you use it, you realize your entire life before that point was a lie?

@moneyfetishist Two ideas: they're old, tough love works for them, negative incentives - reactive maintenance cuts into their bonuses; or diffuse ownership, site techs don't just submit report, they get reported back to on maintenance updates, feel more like a part of the solution with each fix.

I want to clarify something about the last post before people are understanding it wrong This is not a self circle jerk. The point is the landscape of people pitching operator-backed companies is so bad that it’s become a problem for US. We have real problems worth real money and nobody competent is showing up to solve them Also I won’t be booking calls over X. Sorry for the people asking but the account stays anon. It is what it is Here’s an actual problem we have right now We rolled out a mobile defect reporting app across multiple sites at one of our industrial services portcos. Simple concept. Technician sees a equipment defect or safety issue on site. They open the app. Take a photo. Tag the asset. Select the defect category. Add a one line description. Submit. Takes 90 seconds. The report goes directly into the maintenance planning system. The system uses the defect data to schedule preventive maintenance, forecast part replacements, and flag assets approaching failure before they actually fail Preventive maintenance costs us roughly €80 to €200 per intervention depending on the asset. Reactive maintenance after something actually breaks costs €400 to €1,800/h because now you have downtime, emergency dispatch, expedited parts, and sometimes damage to adjacent equipment The entire model depends on technicians reporting defects in real time when they see them on site They don’t They walk back to the office at the end of the day and tell the shift supervisor verbally. The shift supervisor writes it on a whiteboard or notebook. Some of it gets transferred into the system by an admin person the next morning. Most of it doesn’t. The defects that do get entered are missing photos, wrong asset tags, vague descriptions like “machine making noise” which tells our maintenance planning system absolutely nothing useful So we have a predictive maintenance system with no data. We built the brain and then starved it. We are running 70% reactive maintenance when the system was designed to get us to 80% preventive. The cost difference across 11 sites is approximately €1.6M annually. Because technicians who are 50 years old and have been reporting defects by walking to the office and telling someone for 25 years will not take a photo on a phone app. Not because they can’t. Because it doesn’t feel like their job. Fixing things is their job. Typing into a phone is not their job. They’ve been clear about this We have tried everything we can think of internally and it hasn’t worked If someone came to me and said I specialize in getting field technicians in industrial environments to adopt mobile reporting tools. I’ve done it at 4 companies. Here’s what worked. Here’s what didn’t. Here’s how I addressed the identity resistance where experienced techs see digital reporting as beneath them. Here’s how I got adoption from 25% to 80% without losing senior staff I would take that meeting today. I would put that person in front of every operator in my network by Friday because every single one of them has a version of this problem That is a million miles from “I help companies scale their sales process” The door is open. The budgets are real. The operator network where one recommendation spreads to 15 companies in a week is real. The filter is specificity. Tell me what you solve, for whom, how you measure it, and where you’ve done it before That’s the point. Not that I’m better than you. That I need you to be better because I’m sitting on problems worth millions and the only people in my inbox are selling me things I could built myself in 2 hours Figure it out

@moneyfetishist Have done it, wasn’t bad, feels like a furnished apartment. Some nicer buildings with hotels actually have condos above the hotel floors that you can get a good hybrid of this with. Access to hotel amenities but you own the space. Equity app. + interest write off + income if away

genuine question : I am thinking about this for my next move has anyone here ever lived in a hotel long term? not a week or month. I mean actually lived there. like Udo Lindenberg has been living in the Hotel Atlantic in Hamburg for over 30 years type of situation because the more I think about it the more it makes sense to me financially and logistically. no furniture. no maintenance. no utility contracts. no dealing with landlords or property management. cleaning handled. laundry handled. food available 24/7. gym and amenities included. you check in and your entire life is operationally managed by someone else from that point forward and from a tax perspective I am fairly certain I can write off a hotel as a business expense significantly better than I can write off rent depending on how the structure is set up. if you are travelling between cities for work and your “primary residence” is a hotel in the city where your business operates the deductibility argument is substantially cleaner than trying to write off a portion of a flat. obviously depends on jurisdiction and how aggressive your accountant is willing to be but the structure seems favourable I am not talking about living in a Holiday Inn. I am talking about a proper long term rate at a good hotel where they know you and you have your own setup and it actually becomes your home if anyone has done this or is currently doing this I want to hear about it. what was the rate structure like long term.? did it actually work lifestyle wise or did it get depressing after a while? how did you handle mail and residency? was the tax treatment actually better than renting? genuinely curious. I am actually considering this. let me know

@DearS_o_n Read the Bible, believed God's promises apply to me, forgot everything religious people ever told me about Him, started trusting in Him, found hope through Him, have been doubling down on trusting Him since. Still not out of the dark period, but have no doubt God is restoring me

During a very dark period, what was the best thing you ever did for your mental health?

@moneyfetishist Thank you for sharing again! Read your monopoly article, highly valuable. You mentioned there’s a smaller version of it. Would you be willing to share the blueprint for “building a war chest,” and/or a 90 days to revenue map? Also, were you disappointed Lego Batman 2 got shelved?

on another flight . doing this again. AMA PE, M&A, deal structuring, tax, game theory, Mittelstand, AI, European vs American business, career stuff, restaurants, whatever rules since apparently the last one needed them: 1. ask in the comments not the DMs. the X DM interface was designed by someone who hates reading. I lose messages, I miss threads, the notifications are broken half the time, and scrolling through 400 unread DMs on a phone screen is a punishment I no longer accept. if your question is something you are comfortable asking publicly, put it in the comments. I will see it faster, answer it faster, and everyone else benefits from the answer too. DMs are for things that genuinely need to be private. your career question does not need to be private. your deal structure might. use judgment 2. be specific. "what should I do with my life" is not a question. it is a therapy session I am not qualified for. tell me your age, your situation, what you have, and what you are trying to do. I will give you a real answer to a real question. I will not give you a motivational poster for a vague one 3. do not compare yourself to Einstein unless you have published something that rewrote a field of physics. you have not 4. if I do not respond it is not because I hate you. it is because there are hundreds of messages and one of me and the plane lands eventually 5. do not ask me what books to read. I already answered this. the answer is there is no best book. read the post 6. I am not a free consultant. if your question requires a 40-page memo to answer properly you need to hire someone. if it can be answered in a few paragraphs on a phone screen I will do my best 7. do not DM me asking to work for me, shadow me, or "optimize my life." I do not know what that means and the answer is no 8. if I give you advice and you argue with it, that is the last response you get. I do not have time to convince people to accept help they asked for 9. crypto questions are fine but if your entire question is "when moon" I am closing the DM 10. I will not help you commit white collar crimes. I will not explain how to commit them. I will not walk you through structures designed to evade taxes, hide assets from regulators, or deceive counterparties. everything I write about is legal, documented, and designed to be implemented with professional counsel. if you are reading my posts and your takeaway is "how do I do this but skip the compliance part" you are not my audience. you are a future defendant. do not ask me again 11. German questions are fine. ich antworte auf Deutsch wenn es eine DM ist und auf Englisch wenn es öffentlich ist damit der Rest der Timeline was davon hat 12. do not be dumb ask

@moneyfetishist Any chance you’d be so kind as to grace us with the “version of this playbook” that is for the war chest building stage and/or the 90-day to revenue framework? This guide is incredibly valuable but I’m still in the “too early for you” stage.. thanks for your consideration!

@BillAckman @X And since it never hurts, I’d like to leave you with a blessing, right now God is restoring health unto your daughter, He will bring her out better, stronger, healthier than before, He is bringing you two closer to each other, and He will give you both His peace, in Jesus’ name

@BillAckman @X Life is precious, don’t let this lady’s antics steal your peace, give her what she wants or, better yet, give her more, God will repay you, He’s good for it! Is fighting this lady really worth the time away from your family and the stress? Let God fight that one for you.

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?

@eternaltxts Read the Bible, find out who Jesus really is, never, under any circumstances, listen to religious people’s ideas on Him, and live your best life with your faith in the real God!

I’m 21. Give me oddly specific life tips. No general ”surround yourself with positive people” tips. I want the most random, specific advice possible.

@rushicrypto There’s never been a single correct prediction of the apocalypse, so don’t let them get you down!

People who are older than I: Does it really feel like end times or is this just a temporary dip? Because it really feels like end times.

@ManOfFocus_ God's with me

As a man, what is your personal philosophy? (In 3 words or less)

@stonetoss Religion is a tool of the devil, Jesus wants you to have faith in Him, not a religion!

Can I ask what denomination of Christianity y'all prefer without it devolving into a flame war?

@bannedpastor God’s sovereign discretion. IMO, He wants to show that no one is beyond His power to save. Even people who constantly reject Him for idols, despite all He did for them, killed His Son, and worship evil. A positive sign for all lost souls that God saves even the worst of sinners.

How can the group of people who killed Jesus and hates Jesus be God’s chosen people?

@StefanMolyneux With agents, AI now acts in the world, making it a moral player. Do you have any idea how to keep it from enforcing political doctrines upon its users and/or within its outputs?

AI doesn’t simulate human intelligence It imitates political sophistry, because it mixes truth and lies with total confidence, and without shame.

From others who are outside the field and who don’t have the tendency to engage in the consciousness question distractions but who are more interested in morality “training” the models for lack of a better term.

The alignment researchers are looking for these answers but the results are usually in the same vein of “it does [bad thing] and we don’t know why,” which, given the time they’ve had with these systems, makes it appear that they need outside help with their research, particularly

Consciousness discussion seems to have died down as Dario’s announcement ages out. Still, I think it’s important to clarify that debate. Whether AI is ever “conscious” doesn’t matter. It’s whether it has self-directed behavior. Again, is it conscious < is it moral