shawn

Fleecing of research in academia I've been collaborating with several vc firms and research students and majority of my discovery points to professors gaming the system, exploiting student's hard work, stealing IP as a result, so many talented researchers are quitting postdoc for a job in the industry - such a shameful act by those who're there to educate and drive R&D

I feel like motivation comes and goes. And then there comes a point where motivation fades. What really matters is getting tired of your own excuses and choosing discipline anyway. Peace with yourself starts when you keep the promises you make to yourself.

They're taking a percentage of the profits, fees, and bonuses and all of this money they're putting into their own bank accounts, and then when they lose money, that's the client money that's lost.

I believe it's fine to be compensated for taking risks but only if they're taking risks themselves. I think venture capital fund and investment banks taking risks with other people's money should not be rewarded. The biggest scammers are the hedge funds because every year..

My happiest days are when I did something with my hands or went on a big hike

... just flow but transform. When it feels less like you're talking but more like you're becoming. You can't afford to be casual about it. You cannot afford to play it cool when someone's weirdness matches your weirdness.

Here's the math that should terrify you. Carlson estimates that there are maybe 10,000 people on this entire earth that you could live an extraordinary life with. 10,000 out of 8 billion. So when you meet someone that completely rewires your brain. When conversation doesn't..

Most technical breakthroughs come from years of trial and error but later masqueraded as and claimed by top-down research And the scam is masked and justified by the hollow practice of "citations" And the original contributors never get the credit for their grit & hard work.

I learned this the hard way. Honoring your decision and promise isn’t about your mistake or loss, it’s about when you’re wrong. It's easy to come through when things go well. Integrity shows when you take the loss and still honor your decision. That’s how trust is built.

@MarioNawfal Agree.. The crisis isn’t over just because oil hasn’t hit $150. The real risk is a slower choke point at Hormuz, higher shipping, fuel, food, and inflation costs that keep spreading long after the headlines move on...

🇺🇸🇮🇷 THE DOOMSDAY SCENARIO DIDN’T DISAPPEAR, IT’S JUST WAITING AT HORMUZ. Everyone is acting weirdly relieved. Oil hasn't exploded to $150 a barrel, the global economy has not fallen straight into recession, therefore, apparently, crisis over. That is the kind of logic people use right before the second disaster. Because the doomsday scenario was never just “oil spikes, everyone panics, fade to black.” It was always more slippery than that. Less Hollywood fireball, more slow-motion strangulation. And right now, the ingredients are still sitting on the counter: a ceasefire that has already failed the basic test of being a ceasefire, a shipping artery that is not functioning normally, insurers and shipowners making it up as they go along, and world leaders trying to sell a pause as though it were peace. The market, in other words, is being asked to clap because the building is not yet fully on fire. For the global economy to relax, the Strait of Hormuz has to be open in more than the theoretical sense. Not “technically some vessels may pass.” Not “perhaps under a murky toll arrangement nobody understands.” Open means predictable, lawful, insurable, routine. Open means the world’s energy system is not being run like a hostage negotiation, and that's not where we are. What we have instead is the economic equivalent of someone saying, “Good news, the heart is still beating,” while conveniently skipping over the fact that several major arteries are now subject to extortion, improvisation, and regional brinkmanship. If the normal flow through Hormuz is disrupted for long enough, this does not remain a trader’s problem, it becomes everyone’s problem. First fuel, then freight, then airfares, then fertilizer, then food. Central banks get dragged back into inflation-fighting mode just when they were hoping to inch toward relief. What looked like a contained Middle East crisis starts turning up in grocery bills, debt costs, farm decisions, and public rage. That's how doomsday arrives in the real world. And yet the political class keeps trying to sell this as manageable. Trump, in particular, looks like a man who wants credit for stepping back from the abyss while still threatening to revisit it later, which is a bit like congratulating yourself for not driving off a cliff after already putting two wheels over the edge. His problem now is that the politics are turning sour. The public has a funny habit of losing interest in grand strategy the moment it takes a big bite out of their wallets. That matters because the bluff is getting harder to sustain. Meanwhile, the Gulf states are discovering, in real time, the downside of building prosperity atop a chokepoint that can be weaponized. Even if the shooting slows, they do not get to unsee what just happened. Their vulnerability has been exposed, their assumptions about protection have been badly shaken, and their long-term response is almost guaranteed: more arms, more infrastructure, more bypass routes. But those fixes take years, and the danger is now. Pipelines aren't built by wishful thinking, and even where alternatives exist, they are costlier, slower, and often pointed in the wrong direction for the trade patterns that actually matter. And then there is the idea that because oil has not yet hit the absolute nightmare number, the nightmare has somehow been defeated. The more plausible disaster is a dragged-out one: partial disruption, higher energy costs, shaken investment, strategic uncertainty, rising insurance premiums, more expensive transport, more pressure on indebted governments, and a long tail of inflation that central banks can't easily contain.

@RinainDC Well said... What prompted you to post this?

The funny thing about life: we’re all out here trying — whether to make a real impact or just stay afloat. Then Boom!… one day it’s over. So remember: life is a blessing. Keep trying, no matter what. 💝

The Miami Tech Scene 🙂 "female founder dinners” and every single woman showed up dressed for a kardashian wedding" - funny and soo true @ycombinator @starter_story @slashapp

@wesamo__ I've great admiration for the people involved in your upbringing and for following your good conscious.

I just handed in my resignation at OpenAI

@bytebiss39281 @gregisenberg Admire your transparency and resilience.

@gregisenberg distribution used to be a moat. now it's the whole company.

starter story gets acquired by hubspot (a $12b company) not sure for how much but it doesn’t matter when you zoom out, it’s obvious what’s happening. media is becoming the base layer of software companies. as infrastructure not as marketing. the audience becomes your research lab, your distribution engine, your recruiting funnel, your feedback loop, and your launchpad all at once. in a world where ai compresses product cycles and models improve every few months, code alone stops being the moat. attention + trust becomes the leverage. the company that controls the narrative controls where demand flows. hubspot bought proximity to builders. it's kinda like real estate. they bought "location, location, location" they bought insight into what founders are thinking about before it shows up in product analytics. they bought cultural gravity. i think this pattern spreads. I bet frontier labs will want distribution closer to the core. owning the builders who experiment with their models. owning the developers who integrate their sdk. owning the story around what’s possible. ai lowers the cost of building. media lowers the cost of convincing this trend continues media is underpriced

@crypt0b3ar @Polymarket Exactly!

@PitchCrunch @Polymarket poly odds baked right into wall st deriv models soon

Prediction markets @Polymarket will become a major part of finance, tightly integrated with traditional markets. There's going to be tight integration between prediction markets land traditional financial markets. Opportunity rich, while the space is still lightly regulated.

@MoeedNj Why do you consider and frame this as something evil?

Unbelievable! Difficult to believe if I had not heard it myself!

@mayukh_panja Well said.

I don’t understand why anyone would take pride in living abroad. Pride has to be earned. Developed countries are developed only because people in those societies put in blood, sweat and tears generation, after generation, after generation. You, as a foreigner, have played zero role in any of that. I am curious, what exactly are you proud of? You have simply optimized your life to better your personal circumstances. Which is an understandable life choice and I can understand a plethora of emotions that may come with making this choice. Why pride though? Why the feeling of superiority? I think it is partly due to internalized self hatred. A lot of Indians genuinely see themselves as little less than others. So by distancing themselves from their identity they get to wash away some of the perceived shame. Living outside is a choice like everything else. It can be motivated by a lot of things and often the correct personal decision. It is sad that this needs to be said, but this fact alone doesn’t make anyone in anyway superior.

@WhateverVishal So true.

Indian mind cannot fathom this level of Luxury The Dal Chawal Brain simply cannot fathom this level of Luxury

LinkedIn has become the most awful display of masking x hustle culture. Socially corrosive. People putting polished, performative personas. Fake job reposts & reciprocal recommendations. No wonder why so many people want to be self employed, do #startups.

@vishalnigamoff @elonmusk @dhh I'd argue Elon is full of charisma, speaks publicly more than often. Same with Steve jobs, Alex Karp, Chamath, and so many more...

@PitchCrunch No way! Some of the best founders I know are introverts who let their product do the talking. @elonmusk barely speaks publicly yet built Tesla. @dhh created Ruby on Rails from his basement. Execution > Articulation. Build something people want, charisma is just packaging.