Nick Shelly

The interviewer knew that nuclear doesn't produce emissions. She asked the question to catch Weidel off guard. It's a common interview tactic, but sometimes considered underhanded as the subject has to 1) refute the allegation (that she said climate change isn't bad at all) and 2) defend the stance, nuclear.

🚨🇩🇪BREAKING: AfD Alice Weidel was completely shocked by German broadcaster's comment: "You yourself said on X with a talk to Elon Musk that nuclear energy is good as it reduces carbon footprint so you don't believe in climate change?" Nuclear Energy has no C02 emissions.

@kimmaicutler Excellent point. And the upfront aspect of the tax, which requires liquidating > 10% of your shares to pay a capital gains tax (taxes at 13% in California).

None of the billionaire tax coverage about Sergey Brin in Bloomberg or the NYTimes reports the most important structural detail of why he opposes it so much more than Jensen. It taxes voting shares as ownership. It taxes Page and Brin as if they own 50+% or >$2 trillion of Google rather than 3% each. Jensen does not have super voting shares so he is just taxed like his actual ownership of Nvidia. Imagine if you were taxed like you earned 10 times as much as you actually did last year. @bizcarson @teddyschleifer

Wow, ChatGPT can be so off sometimes…. I asked if @xai and @SpaceX would ever merge and it kept saying highly unlikely (~5% chance). I kept asking and asking and it never budged. Then I told it to Google it, and wham it started back tracking. Then, I asked why ChatGPT was off and it suggested static reasoning. @grok nailed it :-)

@HumansNoContext I wonder if there's a difference in pilot qualifications between airlines.

Ryanair do not land, they arrive

Jesse, Steve, Laddy, and Vlad….such an incredible feeling to welcome you aboard Integrity after a nearly 700,000 mile journey. Forever thankful for your service to our crew and the nation.

Sadly this is 100% correct

Rescuing American Pilot in Iran (2026, colorized)

@charliesmirkley Among other things, air conditioning has reshaped economies and pensions plans (requiring more sales tax/income from current workers).

I’ve been told Canada is a better country than the US, but voting with their feet say otherwise. 2.65% of all Canadians live in the US. 0.045% of all Americans live in Canada. 59x gap per capita.

@Arrogance_0024 The A-10's are being retired next year, and there's plenty of C-130s including 300 in Arizona at the Aircraft Boneyard. Not to mention, the operation was a real-world, useful Joint Service exercise. But more importantly a saved life, a huge morale boost for service members.

Lose all this to rescue 1 pilot and call it your greatest military success of all time.

@BillAckman @leasecocre @X Why not just invest in index funds. I've never understood quite the overhead of a family office unless there's good reason (enjoyment, existing illiquid investments).

Dad wouldn’t have allowed this to happen. TABLE was set up so I could focus on my day job and family. I had growing concerns but didn’t want the headache to even investigate it until it got out of control. I was too busy to look as it always made more sense to focus on my day job and family than get immersed here. I am also a very trusting person particularly of people I have known for many years.

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?

NEW: NASA's Artemis II has successfully blasted off, launching toward the Moon for the first lunar voyage in 53 years. Here is what to expect next: - Mission is 10 total days. - The crew will get 5000 miles from the Moon's surface. - The crew will sleep in two four-hour periods. - On Day 2, Orion engines will accelerate the spacecraft to escape velocity and send them toward the Moon. - On Days 3-5, the crew will fine-tune the approach to the Moon. - Day 6 is when the crew flies by the Moon. They will be about 250,000 miles from the Earth. - Days 6-7, the crew will fine-tune their approach back to Earth. - On Day 10, the crew will put on their proper suits and get ready for reentry. - They will reenter Earth's atmosphere at 25,000 miles per hour. - Two parachutes will slow the capsule to 17 miles per hour. - They will splash down off the coast of San Diego, California. Video: @GuyFieri

FAA banned parallel landings permanently, will be bad for SFO (max landings drop from 54>36/hr) Given the topography of SFO, we have 2 parallel runways 750’ apart. There was an accident at DCA last year, now the FAA is mandating staggered approaches :(

@MollySOShea @friedberg During San Bernardino's bankruptcy back in 2012, the courts allowed restructuring. They could allow that again, but of course before California got there there would likely be higher taxes across the board.

BREAKING: David @friedberg says "California is functionally bankrupt" "People don't realize how screwed California is, & I worry that if California falls, so does the union. "$250 billion to $1 trillion short." "This is because for California to get rescued would be a big cost to red states, & I think it creates in the years ahead a lot of tension." "California's functional bankruptcy is a major risk to the country. & I think we need to figure out what we can change to fix it." How we got here: "California has a public pension system, & that public pension system retirees have paid into it & they get some benefits out, & the amount that they're owed back out is somewhere between $250 billion - $1 trillion dollars more than has been paid in. $250 billion to $1 trillion short. If it was the federal government, it would be like, okay, we'll just print more money. California doesn't have the ability to print money, so California has to pay this out, and you can't restructure retirement benefits. There is a Supreme Court case in California that said that once an employee has been offered retirement benefits, even if they're currently an employee, you can never restructure their retirement benefits. It has to stay forever, and the state cannot declare bankruptcy. There's no way for the state to functionally declare bankruptcy. There's no law to allow it. No state has ever declared bankruptcy, and the retirement benefits sit senior to the bonds in California. So you have to pay out the retirement benefits before you pay out all the bond holders that have loaned California the money that they use to run all their programs and services." Hill & Valley Forum 2026 (@HillValleyForum)

The opening of Top Gun: Maverick (2022) is unreal. The Top Gun Anthem starts over the carrier deck, jets roaring into the sky… then “Danger Zone” blasts in and the whole theater instantly locks in.

Agree. Unless there's a specific partner at a seed fund you want to work with, take the full $500k to extend the runway, and focus on building and selling. If doing SaaS, best to wait until the next round without sacrificing growth, i.e. Zapier. It's possible if you need $3-5m to get your first customers, than that's different.

If you're under the age of 35, the fastest way to the 1% is applying to Y Combinator. YC has been getting a lot of heat lately for taking 7% of startups for a $125k investment. But that values your startup at $1.8m and your share of it at $1.7m or 93% ownership. Another $375k in the bank that gets priced out later. So now you own 93% of a business with $500k in cash in the bank. YC funds ambitious people with big ideas. Be that person.

@JohnLeFevre Would also be useful to see the cost to the employer to account for payroll tax and other items. This would be helpful to see how much value an employee needs to add.

If you want to take home $200,000 a year, here's how much you have to earn in these cities: London $340,995 NYC $327,882 LA $321,287 Miami $275,776 Singapore $256,719 HK $237,505 Dubai $200,000

@Cyber_Trailer Love to see tech solving real world problems. We got more than 140 characters, and self-driving cars.

Tesla Self Driving is changing the world. Freedom for our seniors.

@JulieChangRE That's a lot of grandmas who might be priced out of golf.

Prop 13 applying to commercial land / property is insane Insane

I've been trying my damndest to get your motherf*ckers to stop eating hours before bed. A new study out confirms this is the right thing to do. >3hr pre-bed: . heart rate dropped by 5% . diastolic blood pressure dropped 3.5% . cortisol dropped . heart rate variability increased . improved blood glucose and insulin response Study details: 39 overweight or obese participants (aged 36-72 years) investigated "sleep-friendly intermittent fasting" by comparing two protocols: 1. Habitual fasting: A daily fasting window of 11-13 hours, with participants free to eat anytime before bedtime. 2. Extended overnight fasting: A 13-16 hour fasting window, with the last meal consumed at least three hours before sleep. Light was dimmed for both groups at least three hours before sleep. The extended fasting paradigm also demonstrated a 90% adherence rate, suggesting its potential effectiveness for improving cardiometabolic health and sleep in overweight and obese populations. While the three-hour pre-bed limit showed significant benefits in this trial, individuals who are already metabolically healthy may achieve further improvements and require a more stringent limit. To find your optimal window, start by consuming your latest meal three or four hours before bedtime, and then work backward in one- or two-hour increments. Track key metrics such as sleep quality, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, next-morning recovery and focus, and metabolic health/glucose control (ideally using a Continuous Glucose Monitor). For me, an eight-hour pre-bed fast works. My resting heart rate before bed has reached 38 bpm, placing it in the top 99.9th percentile.

@sundeep I would assume nearly 50% was OpenAI, Anthropic and DataBricks and this is looking at HQ only not all employee (say a company has 25% of employees in bay area and the rest in other geos). I've found @pavecomp a bit more transparent at the founder and employee level.

There is only 1 Silicon Valley: