idogaver

@dens @dens !!!

Wired June 2005:

aka: Dodgeball 2004 :)

@BillAckman @X Tough one.You’re a big target, and your nephew colored the mark. I wouldn’t trust the legal system to see nuances.The only way to rationalize it is to treat it as tuition. Comments like these would get your nephew shown the door at any company I run.

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?

@Therealvinoo 100%

I feel like we are missing the perspectives of the foreign players in the league. With all due respect—and nothing against the Israeli Players Association—they have every right to defend and speak on their concerns. My questions are: Is there a players’ association for the foreign players in the league? Why isn’t there a single players’ association representing all players in the league? I’m not specifically speaking on the decision to return games to Israel is right or wrong, but I believe everyone’s opinion should be considered. I also think the issue is bigger than just the return of games. Players’ perspectives, through proper representation, should be expressed in all situations—such as rule changes, player safety, playing conditions, and relationships with referees. The solution should be for each team to have one Israeli and one foreign player as representatives to address concerns and handle matters at hand, ensuring everyone is aligned. This is a time to show unity among all players, not division.

@shashtech ראיתי לייב, זה היה מעבר לכל סטנדאפ, ברודווי עד הסוף

לג'ף רוס, אחד הקומיקאים האהובים עליי ביותר אי פעם, יש ספיישל חדש בנטפליקס. אבל זה לא ספיישל רגיל. כי האיש שזכה לכינוי The Roastmaster בזכות היכולת שלו לצלות אנשים באלימות בערבי ה-Roast של קומדי סנטרל, לרוב פשוט עולה לבמה כדי לתת רבע שעה גג, כחלק מאיזה אנסמבל קומיקאים גדול. בספיישל החדש הזה הוא נותן שעה וחצי. אבל גם המופע עצמו הוא לא סטנדאפ טהור. למעשה, יש שם לפעמים קטעים של 3-4 דקות שבהם אפילו לא תחייכו. כי עם הגיעו לגיל 60, רוס מנצל את ההזדמנות לספר לעולם את קורות חייו, שרוב הזמן היו מדכאים, ובשאר הזמן סתם טרגיים. יש שם סיפורים על ההורים שמתו מוקדם מדי, על החיים שלו במחיצת הסבא הקשיש שנשאר, על הבדידות ברוב חייו הבוגרים, ולקינוח דרמה רפואית גדולה שהוא חווה לאחרונה. טוב, וגם המון בדיחות שואה (הוא מאודדדד יהודי, אז מותר לו), חיקוי של המלכה אליזבת ובעלה בסשן סקס, ועוד המון תובנות יפות שמובילות לשורה התחתונה שמצוטטת בציוץ הקודם. זאת עם הבננות. והסיבה שלספיישל הזה קוראים Take a banana for the ride. אה, וכהרגלו, בעשר הדקות האחרונות הוא ירד מהבמה לקהל כדי לצלות כמה צופים בספונטניות. כדי להזכיר לנו שבזה הוא עדיין הכי טוב בעולם.

We recreated a popular AF benchmark… and things got pretty interesting. @SalesforceBen recently published a widely read example of an AI-generated Flow. So we decided to run the same prompt through Sweep... sweep.io/blog/flow-buil…

@Gilshely @Doron_David1 אני צריך פה איזה מורה נבוכים, מי נגד מי?

@Doron_David1 ברור שיש לו מקור

ממש משמח אותי לראות שהצדדים הנאבקים על השליטה במכבי של מיטש, כל אחד בחר לו עיתונאי משלו, אני כבר מתאר לעצמי מי המקור של צנצי הבוקר. ממש מעודד לקראת העונה הקרובה במכבי

@gdibner @shiftj That’s the memo from the top

@shiftj In most cases this is because founders in 2026 have been conditioned to prioritize revenue over all else. Revenue quality has become irrelevant.

New pattern I'm seeing in YC companies: a lot of them are operating more like agencies than software companies. Custom workflows, custom automations for each client. The intent is to productize eventually - but day to day, they look like an agency.

Here’s how the New York Times would’ve looked in April 1945 if it had today’s team

The most European thing imaginable. Monitoring the situation! (next week Monday)

This is hope

@TomerKariv בול

כולם מדברים על הסדרה החדשה על אביתר בנאי ואני מביט קצת מהצד על התופעה הזאת אבל אם יש משהו שהדוקו הזה חידד לי זאת גדולתו של האח הגדול מאיר ובעיקר של האלבום ״גשם״ כתבתי קצת עליו ועל הקשר לאלבום הבכורה של אביתר, עם חוט מקשר בשם מתי כספי open.substack.com/pub/zarzirim/p…

@omrial בתור מי שגר מחוץ לישראל מזה תקופה - אין נכון מזה, לאו דווקא באיזה ערכים טובים יותר או פחות פשוט יהדות באוסמוזה מעצם המרחב.

איזה שטויות שטופות מוח. הישראליות היא היהדות המודרנית. המרחב הציבורי הישראלי הוא כל כולו מופת של יהדות. הערכים שעליהם הוקמו המדינה הזו, רעות, ערבות הדדית וחמלה, הם בדיוק מה שקובי מדבר עליו בציוץ. לא חסרה יהדות במדינת ישראל, כן חסרה קצת מחשבה עצמונית שלא מדקלמת את המסרים של גולדקנוף וסמוטריץ', האנשים שמציגים את היהדות בצורתה הגרועה ביותר ושבגלל תפיסת עולמם הגענו לאן שהגענו.

@ReemSherman הפרק עם אליצור פתח לי עולם חדש

סרטון נהדר על מושג הפוטנציאל בפיזיקה עם דגש על השדה המגנטי. מה שהכי נהדר, מבחינתי, בסרטון הזה, הוא חלקם של פרופ׳ דייוויד בוהם ופרופ׳ יקיר אהרנוב בפיתוח ההבנה של האנושות באזור הזה. דיוויד בוהם מזמן כבר לא איתנו. נאסף אל אבותיו לפני יותר משלושים שנים. הוא היה בישראל רק לשנים ספורות וגם זה רק בגלל שנאלץ לעזוב את ארה״ב בגלל דעותיו (סימפט את הרעיון הסוציאליסטי). פה הוא פגש את יקיר אהרנוב, שעדין חי ובועט ויחדיו תרמו המון לעולם המדע. אירחתי לפני מספר שנים בגיקונומי את תלמידו אבשלום אליצור, אבל את יקיר לא זכיתי לארח עד כה ולא בטוח שאספיק בגילו המתקדם. כמו פרופ׳ יגאל תלמי ז״ל, שהלך לעולמו אמש, תמיד כיף להיזכר כמה ענקים חיו וחיים בינינו בפיסת האדמה הזעירה הזו. youtube.com/watch?v=XKSjCO…

@nirzo @geifman_y לך תסביר שאצלנו מיילים מהרס״ר היו קוראים מזה

@geifman_y במובייל זה נראה אחלה

בשולי הדברים, הרווח שורה מזכיר לי מיילים מהרס״ר בצבא…

@DovGilHar וכל קבצנייך אחים

מכורה שלי. ארץ נוי אביונה: עובדי תאגיד השידור הליטאי, עיתונאים רבים, והציבור הרחב התכנסו היום בווילנה להגנת השידור הציבורי המקומי - כעשרת אלפים איש, באחת ההפגנות הגדולות בתולדות המדינה. המפגינים נשאו שלטים עם קריאה לפוליטיקאים להניח את ידיהם מעיסוק בחופש הביטוי ובעצמאות התקשורת.

@langchain Great post

🔍 Open Deep Research Internals Made by the LangChain Community Sergey Bolshchikov reveals Open Deep Research's architecture in 13 steps, filling gaps in official docs. Shows how LangGraph orchestrates state, dynamic subgraphs, and reflection patterns. 📖 Read the breakdown: bolshchikov.com/p/open-deep-re…

@Gilshely יש פה צומת - אי אפשר לתת למאה איש כזה כח על מועדון. הורדת נקודות ברצותם, מחאות אלימות וכו׳. אני ממש מבין את הדרישה לזיהוי, בתור קבוצה, אי אפשר להיות שבוי.

יכול להיות שהרחיקו 21,000 אוהדים? לא חושב שיש אפילו 1,000 באצטדיון כרגע

@aradboaz בכל הזדמנות אמרתי שpredator זה הבחירה הנכונה. מחכה לאיחוד.

היש מינוי הולם מזה? שגריר טאיוואן בפינלנד, פרדי לים, הוא סולן של להקת דת׳ מטאל. בסרטון הוא מופיע עם הלהקה שלו (Chthonic) בהלסינקי

@Gilshely נראה לי לקח אליפות אחת לא? אבל לגופו של ענין, מה שאנשים צריכים לזכור זה שמערכת חזקה עם צוות חזק מגיבה רק באופן אחד למכה כזו - היא משתפרת. ובספורט כמו בעסקים יש סינוס, אז אחלה. נראה את החוזק של המערכת, ואין לי ספק שיראו שיפור.

ראיתי פה בטוויטר ששוער עבר שלנו שלא ממש הצטיין ולא לקח שום אליפות במכבי, חושב שלאזטיץ חייב להתנצל בפני האוהדים על התבוסה לבית״ר. וואלה, מעניין, אני לא זוכר שאותו שוער התנצל לפני בכל פעם שדפק זינוק יפהפה ותפס אוויר, לא התנצל על כך שמכבי אצלו אפילו לא היתה קרוב לקחת אליפויות, ועוד ועוד. בקיצור, שלאזטיץ לא יעז להתנצל בפני האוהדים, אוהדים שאוהדים קבוצה שלקחה שבע אליפויות בעידן מיטש, ומקללים את השחקנים ואת המאמן אחרי תבוסה בליגה, הם אלה שצריכים להתנצל בפני המועדון

@Gilshely זה בסוף חוסר תיאום שכנראה ממש קשה לגשר עליו בחשיבות של משחקים. הרי אם אני שחקן/מאמן/בעלים - המשחק הזה בבמה הזו, יותר חשוב לי פי 100 מכל משחק עם ביתר/חיפה ולרוב האוהדים - זה לא המצב.

יש מלא אוהדי מכבי שלא מבינים כמה ההשתתפות במסגרת ליגת אירופה תורמת לקידום הרמה המקצועית של הקבוצה שלנו. כדי להמחיש לכם, אני אחזור ברשותכם לסוף שנות השבעים במאה הקודמת. מינשגלאדבך בכיכובו של אלן סימונסון הגיעו למשחק ידידות בבלומפילד מול האלופה מכבי תל אביב, בחיזוק שחקנים נוספים. גלאדבך היתה קבוצת צמרת גרמנית, אך לא אלופה ולא מאריות אירופה. היא פרקה את מכבי 7:0 במשחק ידידות בבלומפילד, זאת לא ברצלונה שפרקה את באר שבע 10:0. מאז שמכבי משתתפת קבוע במסגרות האירופיות, הרמה היחסית של הקבוצה שלנו השתפרה בצורה אקספוננציאלית, בתחילת המשחקים האירופיים, ורדר ברמן הגיעה לפה ונפנפה אותנו בלי להתאמץ בכלל, הדאגה שנהיה עייפים מול ביתר היא חסרת פרופורציה, כן בהחלט כל שנה אנחנו משלמים בכמה נקודות ליגה, אז מה? בזכות אירופה אחרי פברואר אנחנו פותחים מבערים משאר הקבוצות שלא השתתפו באירופה, וזה בזכות התחרות שמשפרת את הקבוצה