Michael Schuster
2.2K posts
Michael Schuster
@smi
Loves music, politics, internet, food and Vienna.
Vienna Katılım Nisan 2007
240 Takip Edilen934 Takipçiler
People don't realize how absurd this view actually is.
A camera. On a robot. On Mars.
Built by humans on a planet 140 million miles away, launched on a rocket, landed using a sky crane, and now driving across an alien desert taking pictures so detailed you can count the rocks.
100 years ago, your great-grandparents thought airplanes were a miracle.
You are scrolling past Mars on your phone.
English
@drnovac @balderton Anyone reading the fineprint? That’s how you get a 1bn acquisition into every database when the reality likely looked much different
English
nice 14 months outcome for @balderton which led their 9m preseed
etn.@etnshow
BREAKING: German AI start-up Prior Labs acquired by SAP for €1B, one of the largest outcomes in German technology history.
English
@badlogicgames @mitsuhiko He is using us as marketing. Ranting about Europe has become clickbait.
English
hi, i'm a sole proprietor/founder in Austria and i earn many many multiples of what i'd earn as an employee, despite "predatory income tax". in fact, i opt out of the many tax optimizations i could use because i like having good schools and as high a standard of living as possible for everyone.
the great thing about the EU is that you can just live under any tax regime you like in any of the 27 member states. it's all about trade offs. if poland works for you, fantastic! go build there.
and if i may add one more thing: if the CEO of a startup, especially pre-revenue, lives "barely any better than a regular employee" then the system works as intended. fact of the matter is most startups are bad. you are not special because you are trying out a shit idea and fail. but i'll happily pay taxes so you can try your shit idea, fail, and can still live.
Denis Yurchak@denisyurchak
In Austria, a CEO of a startup lives barely any better than a regular employed developer A former boss of mine (an exited founder) wanted to buy a new desk Instead of going to IKEA, she went to a site for used furniture and searched for one there, because it was much cheaper For my Eastern European mind, this is incomprehensible If you put years of your life into building a business and take on the risks, you should be rewarded accordingly You should definitely have enough money to go to a damn IKEA and buy the best possible desk there (and write it off in taxes later!) But this is not the case here The system is engineered for equality and social stability The monetary distance between employers and employees is minimal, thanks to predatory income taxes Great if you are an employee, soul-eating if you are a founder
English
Michael Schuster retweetledi
Turns out the safest lobster is the one everyone can inspect.
We wrote about the advisory flood, the real fixes, ClawHub, Agents of Chaos, and the companies helping harden OpenClaw in public. 🦞
openclaw.ai/blog/openclaw-…
English
@denisyurchak Which country in „Western Europe“ are you talking about?
English
Sitting at a cafe in Warsaw, 90% of people are working with their laptops
Same cafe in Western Europe – most would be reading books, newspapers, or chatting, almost 0 people working
The staff would kick you out the moment you take your laptop out of your bag, because "cafes are for social life, not work"
In Warsaw and Krakow, there are a ton of specialty coffee places that allow laptops. The internet is usually good, and nobody is going to harass you if you work or do calls
The price of a coffee cup is around 16-18 zl (4 euros). You can take 1 or 2 and sit in the cafe for hours.
This is a small detail, but very telling about the vibe in Poland vs Western Europe
In Poland, people will respect you for building cool shit or trying to start a business. The people are hungry, and there is a hustler mentality
In Western Europe, people are content with what they have (a house from grandparents they can rent out and live off it) or rely on the state
This gives rise to a society of eternal students of political science and bureaucrats. If anybody wants to build a business, they leave and go to the US
Meanwhile, Poland is taking over Spain in GDP per capita, and soon will take over the UK as well
English
Anyone else having trouble with the conversion on @Polymarket ? Can't access the page as conversion repeatedly fails and the only advice is "Try again" 🤷♂️
English
@mitsuhiko I doubt the word is understood like that. I get the historical context but would argue the importance and meaning was created by funding „companies“ (read east India company) and receiving profits. That created the whole Anglo-Saxon idea of equity.
English
Since a bunch of people are now piling up on this tweet, please read the extended explanation here: lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/4/23/equi…
English
I find it bizarre but also interesting that there is no German word for “equity”. It explains a lot about the way people do business and transact here.
English
@MichaelAArouet @hkanji Mhm. Interesting conclusion. Would need some more variables, like how much wealth is there to redistribute, level of structural corruption, growth rate, etc. With this chart alone the claim seems at best possible.
English
In most countries billionaires are self-made. They invent new products or services that drive progress.
In Germany, Spain, Italy, and France, most billionaires inherited their wealth. Europe has simply lost the entrepreneurial spirit that once drove innovation and prosperity.
English
@alexandr_wang @grok tell me about screenspot pro and what this benchmark means
English
1/ today we're releasing muse spark, the first model from MSL. nine months ago we rebuilt our ai stack from scratch. new infrastructure, new architecture, new data pipelines. muse spark is the result of that work, and now it powers meta ai. 🧵
English
@jefielding @dunkhippo33 It’s an easy no. Most successful businesses have an idea of a moat, but it takes a while to build and it’s easy to loose. Is Ubers network a moat or an onramp for bolt? If OpenAI delivers a worse product, people will switch, expect no loyalty. So why chase moats?
English
Right now, VCs care about one thing only…defensibility / moats so don’t bother pitching anything else. Like throw away the entire deck and just have one slide on that.
English
@Samirkaji Nope. Real venture debt, at least as defined by venture debt providers.
English
@smi That's not true venture debt. You're thinking working capital financing from banks (ARR, etc.). Early stage venture debt does not have financial covenants. Maybe milestones. I did it for nearly 20 years.
English
True early stage Venture debt in the classic case doesn’t have financial covenants (and cash sweeps are also rare without a massive reason/legal right). 6 months after funding also doesn’t make sense as bank lenders typically provide when runway is at least 6 months
Jesse Tinsley@JesseTinsley
Bench raised venture debt in June 2024. Bankrupt because of a covenant breach leading to a surprise cash sweep by end of December 2024. We bought Bench for pennies on the dollar of what the actual enterprise value was. So it’s not all bad just depends what side you end up on 🙃
English
@FritzJergitsch ich finde ja dass man viel in Europa verbessern kann, aber der Vergleich zu Formularen und Berichte in Europa verstärkt USA ist dann doch nicht gänzlich zutreffend. Viele Formulare in Europa wären ohne US Regulierung deutlich kürzer.
Deutsch
@HarryStebbings is right. Everything on this planet started with someone dreaming up a different reality. Go dream up yours!
Harry Stebbings@HarryStebbings
This is for everyone who has a dream that simply seems out of reach. 11 years ago I started 20VC as an 18 year old in a bedroom in London. I didn’t know a single VC and had no money. I wrote down the names of three legends of the venture world. I have had two on the show previously and today I complete the list that 18 year old boy made. This was 11 years, 3,000 shows, 3,750 hours, in the making. Never give up, never doubt yourself, stay focused, row your own race. It will come through. Welcoming Marc Andreesen to 20VC today. (Links in comments)
English
I guess that’s supposed to be dispatch? I guess the most powerful AI (Claude ftw!) gets translations wrong. @claudeai
English
As much as I love driving a Tesla, the customer service online is as bad as all car brands. No way to get help for a simple issue. @Tesla
English
What’s the best espresso setup for home/small office use?
Ideally $5k or less but open to ideas
No complicated maintenance or excessive cleaning
A beautiful object
English
@ThoNeu9000 @heimolepuschitz Das ist greisslerlogik auf einen globalen, vernetzten Markt angewendet. Die Welt ist komplexer geworden.
Deutsch
@smi @heimolepuschitz Bei Gas sollen die Preise erst in ein paar Monaten steigen, beim Treibstoff geht's in 24 Stunden. Wie das? Zudem haben die Mineralölkonzerne noch "billiges" Öl, das sie verkaufen können. Wenn der Marktpreis sinkt, wird ja auch noch stets das eingelagerte "teure" Öl weiterverkauft
Deutsch
Wofür gibt es eigentlich Anti-Wucher Behörden und einen Konsumentenschutzminister?
Deutsch