optimist builder of things lover of adventure, debate, justice investor @ mighty capital, @rcrsvcapital, @villagecapital
San Francisco, CA
Joined July 2011
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Kavon retweeted
My AI agents found an unmapped Maya site in Mexico, using LiDAR data from a NASA dataset.
72 hours from a random thought on vacation to a reply from Mexico's national archaeology institute.
What a time to be alive…
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
This site is not unknown or unmapped. Per Dr. Sarah Parcak, Dr. Francisco Estrada-Belli of Tulane University identified, researched, and published this site years ago.
bsky.app/profile/indyfr…
liberalarts.tulane.edu/anthropology/p…
Bhutan is unlike anywhere I’ve been
My fascination with it started in my AP Human Geography class in high school, twelve years ago. I had to select a country to focus a project on, and looking at a map, my eyes landed on Bhutan. I’d never heard of it, which is partly what drew me in. And I’ve wanted to visit ever since
I finally made it there via @JoinEdgeCity, knowing a bit about the country:
> Their fourth king introduced Gross National Happiness, the idea that a country’s success should be measured by more than economic growth
> They once installed a traffic light in Thimphu, but people complained that it was too impersonal, so they took it down
> It’s the world’s only carbon-negative country
> Their constitution requires at least 60% of the country to remain forested forever
> They have abundant hydropower and used it to mine Bitcoin since 2019
I was also inspired about what they’re building with @gmcbhutan. The idea is to build a city from first principles bringing together people, ideas, technology, and business from around the world. A special administrative region with its own laws and economic system, open to the world, but with human happiness and well being still at its core
Even knowing all this, I expected an old Buddhist kingdom, steeped in tradition, because of the mystique around Bhutan
Instead, I met highly educated, progressive, curious people building ambitious projects, who felt a lot like my friends back home
It is captivating to be in a place so rooted in its history, yet so ambitious in shaping its future and contributing to the world
I’m excited to return and would love to chat with anyone interested in going
Kavon retweeted
You don't need to write an essay; SF is tasteless because it's filled with staid business people and autistic engineers. It's not that complicated.
SF has no culture.
This statement is true, but why?
By all rights there are plenty of people there who are adorning themselves and their homes with objects of high taste.
But SF really does have no culture, how can this be and why is it so?
Culture is fundamentally connected to leisure and how one chooses to waste time.
But SF has no wasted time: there is no more breakfast there is coffee chat, there is no lunch there is founder meeting, there is no supper, there’s your investor dinner followed by your next event.
So it’s simple really:
a) culture is fundamentally about leisure, waste and the non-productive ways of spending time
and
b) SF has eliminated all non-productive time
therefore
c) having no non-productive time, SF has no culture.
No amount of things acquired can change this.
Finally
d) the great irony of this syllogism is that it is precisely the moments of non-productivity that are critical for spiritual refreshment and new inspiration and so ironically, they are among the most productive.
(SF knows this and it is why they flee to burning man, but this cannot cure the city)
A thought on capitalism/socialism/communism…
Human nature is the irreducible reality beneath every political, economic, and social system
No system can rise above the humanity of the people who run it. No matter how we organize society or distribute power, we can’t escape the fact that it’s ultimately people making the decisions
So we need to build better systems that help us become better people, and better people who make those systems work
Why are we still so attached to centuries old frameworks? Why aren’t we imagining something entirely new?
A nice quote from Karl Popper: “You cannot construct foolproof institutions, that is to say, institutions whose functioning does not very largely depend upon persons” archive.org/details/povertyo…
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Generational grifter
Chamath Palihapitiya admits his blind spot on America's broken two-tier economy
PALIHAPITIYA: "I got it totally totally totally wrong. I got it totally wong."
"I'll go through all the ways in which I got it wrong, but I just want to first acknowledge what my blind spot is. Like most people's blind spots, but I can just speak for myself, it is through the lens of my own lived experience and very narrowly what is in my best interests. And I think what we had was a move away from the culture wars that was very much in my best interest, but I think it was in everybody else's best interests as well. I don't think that was on the ballot. But what I don't think I understood clearly enough, and I think that this election has made extremely clear, is that since COVID, we have moved past political ideology. And I want to say this again: I do not think Democrats or Republicans matter. That is my real takeaway after this election. There is a central block of people that vote the prescient issues of our time."
"It was a gargantuan win for Biden, then it was a gargantuan win for Trump, and then it was a gargantuan win for the Democrats in these midterms. What are these people voting for? I think what they are shouting now—they were trying to signal and now they are shouting—is a broad-based belief that the economy has completely decoupled from reality and is broken. The economic reality in America is broken."
"There is a small percentage of people, the four of us on this pod and all of our friends, who are the asset owners of America. And we have benefited in every weather condition. When rates were zero, we benefited because we were able to build our businesses with very cheap capital. When rates were high, we benefited because we had pricing power. And in every condition in between, whether there were tariffs, whether there were not tariffs, whether there were subsidies, whether there were not subsidies, we've all managed to continue to accumulate and grow assets, but we are few and far between."
"And then there's everybody else who are wage earners, and the structural capacity of the American economy to support and grow wage earners is broken. It's clear. Why do I say that? I do not think, and I disagree with Freeberg, I don't think this has anything to do with socialism. I don't think the far left won particularly more than they were expected. I don't think the far right won particularly more than was expected. This is a complete and total repudiation about the state of the economy. The economy is broken. I have a few charts to support my point of view. Number one, if this was ideological and if ideology mattered, money in politics would have had a more direct impact on the election."
everything that’s wrong with football today in one post
🚨🎙️ | JJ Gabriel when asked to pick between Barcelona and Real Madrid:
“Obviously, Madrid… My dream is to win a Ballon d’Or.” [@marca]
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Kavon retweeted
What is the point of a politician — let alone a literal vice president — who says he understood all of this and yet did absolutely nothing about it
One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.
So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we're going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us."
Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.
There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.
But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.
Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:
1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel
Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.