Jake Chapman 🇺🇸🚀 ✨🇺🇸

1/ Here is how the abomination that is the AT-ST came about. Spoiler alert, it comes down to compromises & mission creep. "Initial Requirement: We need a small dropship deliverable armored sentry tower (ST) for forward operating bases with space for 4 sentries" An early sketch:

Unfortunately… many such cases. We do still execute traitors right? Right?

Today, the Islamic Republic hanged multiple Iranian civilians, some of whom were just teenagers. Amnesty International? Silent. The UN? Silent. Human Rights Council? Silent. The Red Cross? Silent.

Balaji is a bright guy but he fled the USA and has set his mind totally against our future success. He lives in a world where US is losing and China is winning. This is his fixation. It’s dangerous, and it’s wrong. And this war has embarrassed China, destroyed their 100 cargo planes of war materials and their military ally, and frustrates them. It’s fair to disagree about the attack. But saying that its architects are guilty of any downside is childlike nonsense. They should be proud of their work and their courage to take on this evil. If you’re against the war, do you get credit for the last two decades of literal mass torture and mass rape and repression by this regime, and its terror funding and death around the region? Do you get credit for “supporting” the billions it spends on social media bots and information operations to polarize the US against ourselves, and weaken the west? Do you also get credit for what would have been the next twenty years of that? Are you, Balaji, responsible for that side of it? No? But if you are for it, you get zero credit for fixing any of that, but blamed for ALL the possible downsides? Total BS. The mullahs holding the region hostage shouldn’t get your help to blame others for the damage they do. Geopolitics and war is complex and there are risks on all sides. There is risk in acting, and in not acting. I’m really glad we are taking advantage of the massive innovation and competence gap that exists at this moment, and finally eliminating so much evil. I hope for freedom for the Iranian people and know that the situation is hard and complex, but either way it is good to stop the bad guys and eliminate so many of the worst groups, who have done so much damage, from history. Nobody should get away with what those bastards did for so long; this was long overdue.

@auren Counterpoint, many LPs view GP softness on terms an indication that the GP isn’t very good. Fair? No. But real.

VC funds can be way more LP friendly most funds are NOT optimized for LP friendliness. there are massive amounts of decision points where GPs can favor themselves over LPs. the obvious one is fees. the less obvious one: when a fund does an SPV, that deal was sourced because the fund was already an investor. should some of the SPV economics flow back to the fund's LPs? very few funds do this. it gets talked about but almost never implemented… funds should also clearly decide which expenses it should charge to the fund and which expenses it should charge to the management company. The fewer expenses charged to the fund, the better it is for LPs. LP-friendly funds should recognize this and telegraph how they charge expenses to LPs. there’s also the community side. many LPs in seed funds are incredible individuals -- founders, executives, family offices -- who'd benefit enormously from knowing each other. funds see emerging categories early, spot trends before they're obvious, identify other funds worth backing. most funds share none of this with their LPs. the bar for being LP-friendly in venture is genuinely on the floor. quarterly letters and a capital call notice -- that's the industry standard. it shouldn't be hard to clear that bar but most funds don't even try. the best fund-LP relationships aren't transactional. they compound the same way the best founder relationships do.

@zachklein @kane Something something cultural context? Something something Cycle of victimhood? Something something Israel?

Just a few years ago far left SF politicians attempted to rename schools honoring Lincoln, FDR, Washington and John Muir. Looking forward to their response to this one.

@vc you could probably take out quite a few competitors this way

If any national security tech companies want to get adversarial capital off of their cap table, let me know. Whether we do it or not, there are people you can go to for help.

Depends on the group chat 😂

IrAn Is WiNnInG so hard they’re partnering with Sprite to find the next Ayatollah. #abouttobecappedunderthecap

No. I’m arguing they were a powerful nation period. You brought up nukes (I guess to argue they weren’t powerful without them?). I was just refuting your argument that they didn’t have nukes, which while likely technically true doesnt undermine the nuclear justification for going after the regime. In any event Iran was a powerful nation. 2.5 weeks is very little time at all for an operation whose goal is to cripple their power projection capability and maybe induce regime change.

@vc Now you're arguing a different point, that they might have been on the verge of being a powerful country. Either way they weren't already.

I imagine that what is really going on is that nobody wants to be the Ayatollah or any single figurehead in charge because they have no idea how to guard against future decapitation attacks. The leaders of Iran are all terrified of being held personally accountable for their actions. Good

@EladAmar_ Yeah. Bro is outing himself in one way or another.

@vc Spot on! DHS should question this guy. In Lebanon, one does not simply walk into Beirut and buy an apartment. There is a sectarian system in place, and in most cases, one group is not selling to the other to maintain control.

Israel coordinated with the government of Lebanon for this demolition of a Hezbollah building. For those who don’t know, Hezbollah and the real government of Lebanon aren’t completely intermixed. There are literally Hezbollah run districts (being dismantled now. Finally). So question: why did a US citizen choose to buy an apartment in a Hezbollah run district? Bad investment advice or something else?

@ADoricko 😂

DC swamp creature friends, I’m here let’s hang

@StevenGlinert No.

has mearsheimer been correct once in the last decade.

@WillManidis cc @zebird0 inspiration 😝

we live in age of great moral panics about things that don’t matter at all and zero moral outrage over some of the most egregious societal sins we’ve ever seen

@ProfessorPape The depth of your bad takes is only exceeded by the quantity of your bad takes. 😂 The Iran is winning takes are especially laughable.

After tracking terrorism for 25 years, this is a flashing red light — as bright as Ive seen prior to a serious attack

@tszzl @JosephMajkut @pmarca Starship troopers

@pmarca an entire book where the guy is introspecting

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, X.16: “To stop talking about what the good man is like, and just be one.”

@DARCSNOOPY Yes. I wrote last year that this is the next step in precision weaponry.

@vc The policy of decoupling the sovereign and his interests from the state and its own is actually a good one yeah

The facts are that they told the negotiators that they were 2 weeks away if they wanted and that they had the material for 10-11 warheads. Any proliferation expert will tell you that the material is the only thing that can be tracked and stopped. A basic, inefficient atom bomb is not complicated to manufacture. Either they were on the precipice of a bomb or we’re dumb enough to threaten that they were there without actually being there. Either way FAFO.

@vc We literally attacked them just last year to wipe out their infrastructure. They do not have nuclear weapons. The facts speak for themselves.

@sbyrnes Really? What geopolitics treatise are you reading from? Iran might not be top 5 but if it’s not top 10 I’m sure it’s top 20. That makes it one of the more powerful nations on the planet.

@vc Iran is one of the world's most powerful nations? Seriously, what? I'm not sure how long you think regime change takes but 2.5 weeks of massive sustained attacks is a long time.