dustyn 🤙🏻

Almost 20 years ago, I was an undergrad studying development economics in Tennessee. One researcher whose work I followed obsessively was @cblatts. Last week, a post of his sent me down a path that ended with me publishing my own AI system for the world to see.

I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but if you’re still framing your political opinions and beliefs on the “left” vs “right” narratives, you really have no idea what’s happening in the world right now.

@dbongino Like you lied about Epstein files?

Joe Kent has disgraced himself. Joe is lying to advance a personal grievance agenda. Joe is a liar. FACT.

@kick_clips Do we know anything about @Clavicular0’s dad? He desperately needs one.

Clavicular crashes out on Channel 5 and ends the interview live after calling Andrew Callaghan disingenuous 😳

@charise_lee “Arabic”?

I believe the dots you connected are accurate‼️

@piersmorgan *long ago lost

Trump is losing control of this war.

@perplexity_ai love that I have comet on iOS now, but can we soften that black icon a bit or give options?

@joshpuckett @balajis Quite the contrarian take lol

@balajis @dswinder I’m so confused someone on here told me for a FACT this war would be over in 4 days???

I'm going to make some obvious points. (1) Blowing up all the oil infrastructure in the Middle East is an insane idea, and may well result in a global economic crash and humanitarian crisis unrivaled in the lives of those now living. We're talking about the price of everything everywhere rising, from food to gas, at a moment when inflation was already high. All of that will be laid at the feet of the authors of this war. (2) The antebellum status quo of Feb 27, 2026 was just not that bad, but we're unlikely to return to it. Expect indefinite, long-term, ongoing disruptions to everything out of the Middle East. (3) Also assume tech financing crashes for the indefinite future. The genius plan to get the Gulf states caught in the crossfire has incinerated much of the funding for LPs, for datacenters, and for IPOs. Anyone in tech who supported this war may soon learn the meaning of "force majeure" as funding gets yanked. (4) Many capital allocators will instead be allocating much further down Maslow's hierarchy of needs, towards useful basic things like food and energy. (5) It's fortunate that all those progressives yelled about the "climate crisis." Yes, their reasoning about timelines was wrong, and much of the money was wasted in graft, but the result was right: we all need energy independence from the Middle East, pronto. It's also fortunate that Elon and China autistically took climate seriously. Now they're going to need to ship a billion solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries, nuclear power plants, and the like to get everyone off oil, immediately. (6) It's not just an oil and gas problem, of course. It's also a fertilizer problem, and a chemical precursor problem. Maybe some new sources will come online at the new prices, but it takes time to dial stuff up, particularly at this scale, so shortages are almost a certainty. That said, China has actually scaled up coal-to-chemicals[a,c] (C2C), and there's also something more sci-fi called Power-to-X[b] which turns arbitrary power + water + air into hydrocarbons. But all of that will need to get accelerated. I have a background in chemical engineering so may start funding things in this area. (7) Ultimately, this war is going to result in tremendous blame for anyone associated with it. It's a no-win scenario to blow up this much infrastructure for so many people. Simply not worth it for whatever objective they thought they were going to attain. But unless you're actually in a position to stop the madness, the pragmatic thing to do is: scramble to mitigate the fallout to yourself, your business, and your people. [a]: reuters.com/business/energ… [b]: alfalaval.com/industries/ene… [c]: reuters.com/sustainability…

Everyone stay in your homes to keep oil prices down. 2 weeks to open the strait

Various people are taking a sledgehammer to a fantastically expensive watch with all kinds of complications made up of parts that come from all over the world and take years to make, except that the watch is also food and transportation for 10s of millions of people.

@shadowcrewtroll @balajis How many times are we going to stop them before we’ve stopped them? Can’t use the same excuse and victory lap ad nauseam. It’s all lies.

@balajis You are ignoring the cost of letting Iran acquire a nuclear weapon. You act as if that is no biggie.

@Michael7ucci @balajis Here’s an easy self check for you: Does it SEEM TO YOU that things are going well? Can you step back, assess, and say yes with a straight face?

@balajis I take it you believe you have thought of these concerns and yet no one in USG has. And that you understand this war better than anyone in the Pentagon. Otherwise you wouldn’t project and predict with such certainty so far out of your domain area, correct?

I was at Dave & Busters with my kids and dad last week. I told my dad, “Someone should open a sports bar but for monitoring the situation. Polymarket should do it.”

@elonmusk Elon, you’re too smart to be so welded to the left-right thing. It’s not real.

He’s such a liar

@LauraLoomer Laura Loomer is an enemy of the state.

It’s a humiliation ritual for the White House that Tucker’s son is still allowed to work there while his dad bad mouths the President everyday and uses his podcast to undermine the Trump admin. How about Tucker gives his son a job so US taxpayers don’t have to pick up the bill? Daddy has enough money to pay Buckley and his wife Kelsey Kilgore, right? Is she still working at the White House too? How many Americans are happy paying the salaries of Tucker’s family members?

We knew this.

@Alecwontstop @gregisenberg Stop posting ai slop. You can handle 140 characters my man. I promise.

@gregisenberg the part that broke my brain: cowork persists your codebase context like a real colleague—most agents reset each session. that's not a feature, that's a different mental model. does it land for you that way?

claude cowork and manus ai are probably two of the most underrated ai tools I can think of

@LindseyGrahamSC @IanECox @POTUS “Allies”? I thought we rejected allies?

Just spoke to @POTUS about our European allies’ unwillingness to provide assets to keep the Strait of Hormuz functioning, which benefits Europe far more than America. I have never heard him so angry in my life. I share that anger given what’s at stake. The arrogance of our allies to suggest that Iran with a nuclear weapon is of little concern and that military action to stop the ayatollah from acquiring a nuclear bomb is our problem not theirs is beyond offensive. The European approach to containing the ayatollah’s nuclear ambitions have proven to be a miserable failure. The repercussions of providing little assistance to keep the Strait of Hormuz functioning are going to be wide and deep for Europe and America. I consider myself very forward-leaning on supporting alliances, however at a time of real testing like this, it makes me second guess the value of these alliances. I am certain I am not the only senator who feels this way.

@Matt_Levine_1 @patrick_oshag @williamhockey Yes. The collateral part matters.

@patrick_oshag @williamhockey I don't think I'm being pedantic here -- maybe I am -- but: If you take out a collateralized loan to fund a company, is it really accurate to say you "raised no outside capital"?

.@williamhockey is one of the least visible founders in tech relative to what he has created. He co-founded Plaid and is now building Column, a software company that owns a bank, and powers Ramp, Wise, Bilt, Mercury, and others. He funded it himself by borrowing against nearly everything he had in Plaid shares, and has never raised any outside capital. His story matters because so much of the value in our industry gets created through exactly this kind of extreme personal risk. He is maniacal about being the best in the world at his thing, and has spent his entire career betting on himself and doing whatever it takes to win. He also spends a lot of time outside the US (in places like Kinshasa) which has given him a rare perch on the power of the US dollar. We discuss: - Why emerging markets are often the most financially innovative - What owning 100% of his company allows him to do that VC-backed founders cannot - Getting margin called and nearly going bankrupt - Why the best founders are specialists - What it takes to be the best in the world at your thing - How Silicon Valley's consensus culture produces consensus founders - How the US dollar functions as an instrument of national security Enjoy! Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 9:19 Emerging Markets 14:03 Silicon Valley's Elite Consensus Problem 16:03 Rejecting the VC Hamster Wheel 21:45 Equity and Liquidity 26:03 Funding a Bank 29:45 The Necessity of Extreme Founder Risk 37:18 Finding Leverage 45:20 Longevity and Profitability in Banking 48:46 Matching Your Capital Structure to Your Business 51:44 The Unseen Power of the US Dollar 1:02:30 How AI Will Transform Legacy Banks 1:09:23 The Kindest Thing

“How would you feel if you hadn’t eaten breakfast this morning?” Marc Andreesen: “But I did eat breakfast”