Jonathan

Google should sponsor a sports team. The should call it Google Ducks

One of the great strengths of outdated software vendors is customer retention through exhaustion. By the time they go live, 18 months later than planned, no one has enough life force left to switch to the right solution.

@credealjunkie Moved from Latam to us awhile ago and this is my impression as well… USA (at least coastal cities ) looks more and more like Latam

The more time I spend in Latin America, the more I’m convinced this is the likely path for the US. Small, wealthy class of elites and then everyone else, crumbling infrastructure and economy dominated by an openly grifting state. Not quite socialism, not quite capitalism, an ugly middle ground where the social contract has completely eroded. @rhunterh was on this trend a while ago, took me a while to come around but there’s too much evidence to ignore.

@antoniogm The maduro gas & electric Co is currently unavailable.

My grandparents left their poor villages in Northern Spain to emigrate to Cuba and make their fortunes, while also building a nation that was once the pearl of the Caribbean. Now Cuba is sub-third world and can't even keep the lights on, thanks to 60 years of communism. Nations can just commit suicide like that. Learn from their tragic example.

Winter is for building ❄️🔥

3 career paths in the age of AGI: 1. Verify outputs (high stake domains: health care, finance..) 2. AI agent Director (uncertain domain with much ambiguity: R&D, entrepreneurship…) 3. Leader (no clear metrics space where social consensus is needed: politics, corporations…)

@jgheller Yes, it's a rational choice, from the financial POV.

Outside of their narrow domain, founders are, by and large, some of the most uninteresting people in the world (almost by definition).

As in the Arts: Realistic paintings—> photography —> Impressionism, cubism, surrealism… Human work in the age of AI: Execution —> AI —> status, provenance, quality, morals, aesthetics.

As AI continues to take many junior entry jobs, it will also build ever better hyper-realistic, universally accessible simulation environments to practice and learn. Fewer first jobs may result in far better first training for more people.

@davidmarcus California has a very large structural balance sheet gap driven primarily by retirement-related obligations (and also bonded debt). The ACFR figure is on the order of ~$250B negative unrestricted net position. This is the mother of all other CA problems. How do we solve it?

There are still too many Californians who hope for the best instead of fighting all out. Make no mistake, 2026 is the year that will determine whether we lose our state to incompetence, suicidal empathy, corruption, waste, and socialist capture. Fight now or lose.

@MattMahanSJ: California has a very large structural balance-sheet gap driven primarily by retirement-related obligations (and also bonded debt). The ACFR figure is on the order of ~$250B negative unrestricted net position. How do we solve this?

I find it hilarious that Gmail autocompletes "meet in the coming..." to weeks instead of days.

The defining unlock for modern individualism is the replacement of honor with dignity: value is no longer granted or earned, but assumed as intrinsic to the person.

Let’s go! Amazing team, and incredible product.

A couple weeks ago, I came home and my wife, Silvia, said something I almost couldn’t believe.   She looked at me and she said, “I think our state needs you.” Because she believed I could help our kids. Help San José. And help California.   And if you know anything about Silvia — when she talks, you listen.   So I’m running for Governor of California — because we can do better.   I know we can, because we’re proving it in San Jose. We’ve reduced unsheltered homelessness by nearly 1/3rd after a decade of growth. We were rated the safest big city in America last year for the first time in over 20 years. We’re the only city to have solved 100% of homicides nearly 4 years running. And we’re taking on affordability with urgency and honesty — unlocking thousands of housing units in the past couple years.  We need to stand up for our rights, for our freedoms and for our neighbors. We need to use the tools we have at hand to protect our democracy. One tool is the law. The other tool is our results. We have to use both. That’s how we fix California. We don’t just need to be against something. We need to be for something — a government that proves it can solve problems for working people again. And before we ask Californians to give more, we owe them proof that their government can do better.   So I’m running to bring focus back to government. To give cities the tools they need to succeed. To show that the best resistance to division is results.   And to prove that California can work again — for everyone.   That’s why I’m running.   And that’s the future Silvia and I are fighting for. mahanforcalifornia.com

Some thoughts since Brin, moritz, collison, etc ballot prop group broke today What the wealth tax discussion often misses is that SEIU has been doing this ballot prop strategy for a while. And it's insanely valuable for them *even* if it doesn't win or even get to ballot I wrote a memo on this for some folks 7 years ago, and SEIU was doing the same strategy even then. If you have the capacity to put something on ballot regularly it gives you a ton of negotiating leverage and earned media. I'm surprised it's taken so long for groups in tech to recognize this (there are some others at local level i'm interested in too) I also think the ways we collect signature are probably outdated and ways to improve. Also if you hate all this and want to remove ballot props I *also* think DDOS is the path to do it likely

@zachweinberg Why? Unlike individual homebuyers, they prioritize cap rates and yields. High prices reduce yields.

@zachweinberg Almost. Except, Institutional investors own about 3% of single-family rentals and 0.5% of all single-family homes. They’re less likely to engage in bidding wars that drive up prices.

Don't think I've ever agreed more with a post

What is the only good that requires permission from some type of government to produce each additional unit of the product?