alex 🏴‍☠️🇺🇸🇺🇦

Written words: Cautiousoptimism.news Spoken words: @twistartups Favorite person: you!

Oof businessinsider.com/snowflake-layo…

A campaign visit from Rubio, a video address in support by Trump, an impeding campaign visit by JD Vance, an entire company of Kremlin political strategists sent to Budapest to guide the election campaign for Orban. But yeah — it’s Ukraine that does “election interference” by responding to Orban idiotic propaganda, insults, and threats.

It’s a very good piece by the Wall Street Journal on Trump’s corrupt use of antirust. wsj.com/us-news/law/lo…

Trump personally intervened to pardon Ticketmaster over its monopoly.

Pink MacBook Neo acquired. Apple Store was out but I managed to snag the last one in stock at Walmart. Apparently the are also nearly out of stock.

Yoo @mckaycoppins this was a banger

The new EU Inc - how it works and what's still missing 🇪🇺 3 days ago, the EU tabled its long-discussed proposal for a “28th regime” — a new optional company form: EU Inc. → Europe still has 27 different company law systems → A major barrier for startups scaling across the Single Market → A core theme of the Draghi & Letta reports and the EU competitiveness agenda What is EU Inc.? → An optional EU-wide corporate form → A single rulebook you can opt into instead of national regimes → Still anchored in a Member State (not a fully separate EU system) Registration / setup → Fully digital (no paper, no physical presence) → Via EU interface (BRIS) or national registers → 48h incorporation (with templates), max €100 → 5 working days with custom statutes → “Once-only” principle: data reused across tax, VAT, etc. Governance → Board structure (at least 1 EU-resident director) → Fully digital governance (online meetings, e-voting) → Harmonised duties, liability, conflict rules → Minority shareholder protections (incl. exit rights) Shares & fundraising (key for startups) → Fully digital shares (no paper, no notaries required) → Free transfer of shares across borders → Flexible share classes (incl. multiple voting rights) → No minimum capital (can be €0) → No nominal value shares by default → Designed to support SAFEs, convertibles, warrants Employee stock options (big one) → New EU-wide ESO regime → Taxation only at sale of shares (not grant/vesting/exercise) → Aimed at fixing Europe’s “dry tax” problem Cross-border scaling → Branches & subsidiaries set up digitally EU-wide → Company data shared automatically via BRIS → EU Company Certificate + digital power of attorney → No re-submission of the same info across countries So what’s the catch? (key criticism from the startups) → Core areas still national: tax, labour, insolvency -> this won't change anytime soon → Not a fully unified EU company code → Disputes in countries remain with national courts (no EU-level system) -> probably the main point of criticism at the moment What’s next? → Parliament + Member States negotiations starting now → Political deal targeted by end of 2026 → Likely application ~2028 (after entry into force + 12 months) Bottom line: One of the most ambitious EU steps in history toward a real Single Market for companies. Not yet “one rulebook” across the board - but a big step in the right direction. Pushback from usual interest groups will be significant, so outcome and final shape remain tbd. The history of similar proposals such as the Societas Europaea in 2004 shows how tough it is to crack that nut. But Fingers crossed. Congrats for this initial success to long-time supporters like @euinc_petition @euacc @euacchq. Keep pushing!

JUST IN: A federal judge has *denied* the Trump administration’s effort to stave off an evidentiary hearing on its seizure of election records from Fulton County. Judge Boulee says the hearing will go on next week. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

@phpandrew Lmao

@alex I misread this on my first read.

@alex Welcome friend. We've been expecting you.

Did my first bjj class with my neighbor who invited me - good fun and very different from wrestling like in hs

Congrats to the @cursor_ai team on the launch of Composer 2! We are proud to see Kimi-k2.5 provide the foundation. Seeing our model integrated effectively through Cursor's continued pretraining & high-compute RL training is the open model ecosystem we love to support. Note: Cursor accesses Kimi-k2.5 via @FireworksAI_HQ ' hosted RL and inference platform as part of an authorized commercial partnership.

woof

BREAKING: Microsoft just announced several major changes to Windows 11 in an effort to win back user trust and evolve the platform into something people will actually want to use over macOS and Linux! It's a huge announcement that addresses Windows 11's biggest problems today, tackling core fundamental issues such as unreliable system performance, UX consistency, AI bloat and general enshittification. Microsoft has confirmed that this year, it WILL be reducing where ads and Copilot appear throughout the system, including in Start, Widgets, Notepad, Photos, and more! File Explorer and Windows Search will be upgraded with improved performance and capabilities that make finding apps and files much faster and easier. The OS will become lighter with less RAM and system utilization at idle, making it smoother to run on low end hardware with limited memory. These improvements will also benefit high-end PCs too. Windows Update will be improved with more granular controls and the ability to postpone updates for longer, along with reducing how often the OS needs to restart to install an update. Microsoft has also confirmed that it's bringing back fan favourite features such as the ability to move the Taskbar! It's also working to update more areas of the system shell with modern WinUI designs, which should make Windows 11 feel more coherent and complete. There's much more in the announcement, and it honestly all sounds too good to be true. Microsoft really is listening to feedback, and is eager to make Windows the BEST desktop OS on the market. More details including when these changes will arrive in the link! windowscentral.com/microsoft/wind…

A judge issues an order requiring Kalshi to temporarily halt sports and election contracts in Nevada, the first US state to force Kalshi to cease operations (@knibbs / Wired) wired.com/story/nevada-b… #a260320p15" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">techmeme.com/260320/p15#a26… 📥 Send tips! techmeme.com/contact

Moscow proposed a quid pro quo to the US under which the Kremlin would stop sharing intelligence information with Iran - such as the precise coordinates of US military assets in the Middle East - if the US ceased supplying Ukraine with intel about Russia. politico.eu/article/putin-…

Worse: The ... injection contained a relaxant that was meant to predispose subjects towards becoming talkative during interrogations. However, the drug reportedly led the man, who is diabetic, to have a hypertensive crisis and lose consciousness. He was eventually taken to hospital. Russia much, Hungary?

I live in Eindhoven, ASML town. Heard this from folks inside... Over the years ASML promoted a lot of strong EUV people into architect roles, group leads, management tracks. Built up serious layers. Classic growth pain. Then McKinsey comes in , says cut the management layers to speed things up. So now those same high performers, real good EUV experts, who got promoted are the ones on the block. About 3400 roles targeted, mostly management. Half will be reassigned, rest gone. Big hit in Veldhoven/Eindhoven area (~1400), some in US. Unncertainty is high, unions talking, details probably land around April. At the same time, ASML is still planning massive growth. The new campus near the airport just got final green light from city council. Construction starts soon, phased build-out. Long term they talk ~20,000 new jobs in the region (first wave ~5k by 2028). And the layoff packages are subpar. Philips is also based in the same town. And they had layoffs due to serious financial issues last year. Their layoff packages were much better than what ASML is offering. What a way to kill tje company culture. Especially at a time when the company is printing money.

this is to distract from the thing that was distracting people from the other thing right

A detailed and brutal look at the tactics of buzzy AI compliance startup Delve "Delve built a machine designed to make clients complicit without their knowledge, to manufacture plausible deniability while producing exactly the opposite." substack.com/home/post/p-19…