Ash Ola

@elonmusk $2T divided by 330M would have netted every American about $6k. Instead most Americans received $1200 while the special interests got the rest.

A primeira pessoa no mundo a ser atropelada por um avião em voo

@ThomasAlmanza @SharrellAnne2 This is amazing. Thank you!

@SharrellAnne2 Thank you, Alan W Shaw!

This is probably a long shot, but if anybody happens to be in DC this weekend and plans on visiting Arlington, I would love to see a fresh photo of my husband’s grave in Section 60. SSG Alan W. Shaw Section 60, Grave 8451 B Co 1/12 Cav, 1st Cavalry Division November 10, 1975 - February 9, 2007 There’s just something about knowing people still stop by, still say his name, still remember. 🇺🇸⭐🇺🇸

@pmarca Reminds me of @rabois

Many of my favorite people are 100% for the psychological trait of Disagreeableness. But the thing is, they are Disagreeable even when consensus is correct. A difficult puzzle.

The Economist on the U.S. economy’s consistent growth outperformance relative to other advanced countries: “America’s outperformance began decades ago, but in the 2020s it has become vast. And it is likely to last. The latest IMF forecasts show American growth besting the rest all the way to 2030 and beyond…. Many of America’s advantages are hard to emulate. The country’s continental scale, single language, natural-resource wealth and the fiscal space that comes from issuing the world’s safe asset give it a unique economic advantage over Europe… But America also shows just how much other rich countries are failing to live up to their economic potential.” #economy @EconUS @TheEconomist

@Porkchop_EXP I just returned from a 10-day trip in Paris. Luckily most days were cold. The two days that were hot were unbearable. My refused to turn on the AC, which btw is against the law. There seems to be a mind virus against AC in Western Europe rooted in a degrowth mindset.

The weirdest thing about the “europoor no AC” discourse is that there is AC everywhere in Southern and Eastern Europe so this is obviously not a financial issue. It is an ideological issue in Northwestern Europe, which is admittedly even funnier.

@Porkchop_EXP It’s definitely not financial because poor African countries blast AC in their airports while France tries to keep airports at an “eco-friendly temperature”.

@GergelyOrosz Have you tried Google Veo?

There is a world of dark patterns out there with video AI generation startups with dark patterns that are predatory. To call out one that I fell for: OpenArt. It shows that you need X credits to generate a 3-minute video on signup. Once you pay, the same goes to 10X credits... which conveniently is at or above the monthly plan allowance you bought. I get the need for these dark patterns, given how expensive video generation is. Still, hard to shake off the feeling that I've been scammed. Stay away from this service, and probably others as well. It's a wild wild west out there with compute-intensive AI. (I paid a one-off $29 just to be disappointed not only with the pricing but the capabilities. Video AI is just there where you'd think it is. It's a hard problem ofc, but false advertising doesn't help)

Of course it’s harder for Indians to get green cards. No one is disputing that. Again, my point is that there are pathways for the truly determined entrepreneurs. None are easy. I think your point is that making it easier for Indians to secure green cards will increase the % of Indians that start companies in the US. I’m doubtful of that claim. I think most would-be founders have found a way around the limitations of the system.

No- I understand your point, your point is that the EB-5 is a viable option, “just come up with $1M.” It’s just a very stupid response. $1M is a blocker that founders from other countries don’t need to do… my point was that it’s harder for indians, you are making my point. Btw it was $1M starting in 1990 when that was a lot of money

People in the replies pushing back that “Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai & Sanjay Mehrotra didn’t found their companies.” True… they’ve all only just >10x’d the value the their companies since taking over as CEO. Creating massive wealth & prosperity for Americans in the process.

You’re misunderstanding my point. My argument is that there are multiple paths to getting a green card and determined entrepreneurs often find a way, including EB-5. If you gave every Indian graduate a green card, I doubt you’ll meaningfully raise the % of them that start companies.

@akinfermo @AlecStapp “buT ThEy CAn JuST PuT a MiLLiOn DoLlaRS” is such an insanely stupid response to this Making me laugh Almost all EB-5s are to Asians because Europeans don’t have to do it they get in for free. Yeah, a million dollars is a blocker to entrepreneurship

@pitdesi @AlecStapp Ehh.. I think Indians and Chinese that really wanted to become entrepreneurs in the US would have found a way. For example, I know multiple Indians who complain about the green card backlog while sitting on millions of vested stock they could sell to apply for EB-5.

Most people don’t understand that the Indian bigco CEO phenomenon is mostly an immigration story. Indians are FAR more likely to be tied to employment visas than other nationalities, so they couldn’t easily start companies. The 1990 Immigration Act created the modern H-1B/EB green card system. As Indian demand exploded, the 7% per-country cap turned into decades-long backlogs for Indians. Indian tech workers stayed tethered to sponsoring employers in a way Europeans, Russians, Taiwanese never had to. Founding a company means risking your status, resetting a green card path, or finding another workaround (now usually O-1 or EB-1). European/ Russian /Taiwanese immigrants don’t face the same trap. Their countries don’t hit the 7% per-country cap, so demand stays under the limit. A German or Russian engineer on H-1B can get a green card in 1-2 years and leave to found a company. An Indian engineer doing the same job has to wait 20+ years. The 1965-1989 Indian cohort was much smaller but not yet trapped by today’s H-1B lottery and India backlog machine. That’s why you see so many Indian founders from that era: Vinod Khosla (Sun Microsystems), Sanjay Mehrotra (SanDisk, before becoming CEO of Micron), Kanwal Rekhi (Excelan), Suhas Patil (Cirrus Logic), Desh Deshpande (Sycamore Networks), Pradeep Sindhu (Juniper Networks), etc. My dad is a 1972 IIT grad who came to America for a PhD. Most of his IIT friends are successful entrepreneurs. My cousin took the same exact path (IIT>CMU) in the 1990s and most of his friends worked their way up corporate jobs because they needed employment sponsorship. IMO this is bad for America. We took the highest-conviction risk-takers on earth, people who crossed an ocean and left their families behind, and forced them into the lowest-risk career path. Fortunately this has been loosened in the 2010s with O-1 and EB-1A workarounds but it’s still much more challenging for Indian or Chinese founders.

@shreyansj MTS is a false egalitarian title and sometime also used prevent poaching of talent. Karpathy is definitely a very senior IC/team lead at Anthropic and is very likely making multiples more than the average engineer.

Anthropic did not seriously make Karpathy "Member of Technical Staff"

@Arkasiraee @bscholl The USA will prevail as it always does.

USA has breached the critical juncture. America will never be able to build large scale public infrastructure projects ever again, while the current infrastructure is already aging and reaching the end of its life cycle. One can only imagine what USA will look like in the year 2035, while USA national debt will be $75 Trillion, crumbling infrastructure, unending $3 Trillion military budget. Fastest downgrade of the century will be the quality of life in USA.

Trolley problem, California high speed rail edition

@zerohedge @grok what impact do data centers that generate their own power have on natural gas prices?

Soon every hyperscaler will be forced to do the same.

A new miracle drug is about to get approved by the FDA.

@Alf53_361 @johnloeber How’s this hypothetical future you described different from the status quo?

You will make 50% of voters pure consumers of government welfare programs. Whatever government does for them comes at a perceived cost of zero (because other people pay for it). For them, government welfare programs become a limitless resource, a money fountain. To increase it, they will vote for politicians who promise to increase the amount of money they get. And government efficiency falls off because the pressure from the public to be efficient with tax dollars is lessened by 50%. Now, if voting were restricted to only net tax paying citizens, you might have something, but that's unlikely to ever get passed.

I agree that the bottom half of earners should pay zero federal income tax. My reason for it is different: it's about clarifying who pays. Right now you have tens of millions of people paying painful taxes, and they're under the impression that their taxes make a difference. They assume that the government budget is funded by taxpayers exactly like them, they've been told that the rich aren't paying their fair share, and so forth. The reality is different: the income taxes paid by these people are negligible (~1.6% of total federal tax revenue). It doesn't really matter. But it has an enormous political impact: they believe that by paying these dollars, they are core contributors, and the outrage press has them believe they're getting short-changed for their contributions. The reality is the opposite, they are net beneficiaries by a long shot. As usual, there is a huge difference between "almost zero" and "zero" -- taking their contributions down to zero would make it abundantly clear that they are net beneficiaries, pure recipients, not payers. The value that this provides in terms of restoring some sanity to political discourse will probably outweigh the equivalent loss of tax revenue.

@ProfessorGentry @johnloeber Does your number account for employee-paid, employer-paid, or both types of payroll taxes?

@johnloeber Interesting point. However the bottom 50% still pay a large (30 to 40) percent of all payroll taxes. And about a third of all US taxpayer revenue comes from payroll taxes. Eliminating the pittance they pay in income taxes while keeping payroll taxes won't change much.

@GergelyOrosz Google is the most profitable American company. Google’s TTM net income is $160B.

Oh, since when is Google valued more ($4.6T) than Amazon ($2.8T) and Meta ($1.5T), combined? Especially curious, given Meta is on track to generate more ads revenue than Google later this year.

Gemini Omni doesn't just build scenes that look real, it reasons about what should happen next. It combines an intuitive understanding of physics with Gemini's knowledge of history, science, and cultural context. Rolling out today starting with video outputs to Google AI Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers globally through the @Geminiapp + Google Flow, and @YouTube Shorts this week.