entrepreneur, preference for data. msft/expe/startups. harvard, stanford, cmu. mba, mscs (ai), applied math
Seattle
Joined April 2008
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stevemur retweeted
Not suspicious at all. Stop enforcing regs just a few days before the election.
Totally.
Not.
Suspicious.
An October surprise from the PDC:
WA lifts caps on big-dollar campaign spending days before midterms seattletimes.com/seattle-new… via @seattletimes
"Laws without enforcement are just...
good advice"
- Abraham Lincoln
For better or for worse, the Seattle Council is moving forward with the RV permit program called the Vehicle Resident Assistance Program, that aims to get control of the derelict RV situation.
We are still scratching our heads that the Council believes it will be enforced considering the reality of the Seattle Process, and nowhere in the program does it mention help with drug recovery or mental health treatment.
We still hope that this program succeeds at getting people the help they need, but wish this Council would stop ignoring the root causes (drugs and mental health) of how most of these folks ended up on the streets in the first place.
@SeattleCouncil
Link> council.seattle.gov/2026/10/…
stevemur retweeted
Exactly why voting yes on 645 helps all Washingtonians! Thanks @gregorykennedy for sharing what we are all hearing
I have to admit, I enjoy listening to these hardcore Seattle liberals grapple with the fact that the new Washington State millionaires tax is having a serious impact not just on the local economy, but on their own livelihoods and jobs.
High-end architect:
"All my customers are leaving."
General contractor:
"They canceled the remodel. Asked if I work in Nevada."
Tech startup bro:
"Umm... where are all the investors?"
Real estate agent:
"No one moving here wants a condo."
Non-profit CEO:
"Where are all my donors going?"
Restaurant owner:
"Our best customers all moved to Las Vegas."
Personal trainer:
"I'm doing Zoom sessions until I find new clients."
Executive recruiter:
"The job is technically in Seattle. The executive is not."
Art gallery owner:
"They’re buying art for their new house in Austin."
High-end relocation company owner:
"Honestly, we're doing great."
stevemur retweeted
I have to admit, I enjoy listening to these hardcore Seattle liberals grapple with the fact that the new Washington State millionaires tax is having a serious impact not just on the local economy, but on their own livelihoods and jobs.
High-end architect:
"All my customers are leaving."
General contractor:
"They canceled the remodel. Asked if I work in Nevada."
Tech startup bro:
"Umm... where are all the investors?"
Real estate agent:
"No one moving here wants a condo."
Non-profit CEO:
"Where are all my donors going?"
Restaurant owner:
"Our best customers all moved to Las Vegas."
Personal trainer:
"I'm doing Zoom sessions until I find new clients."
Executive recruiter:
"The job is technically in Seattle. The executive is not."
Art gallery owner:
"They’re buying art for their new house in Austin."
High-end relocation company owner:
"Honestly, we're doing great."
stevemur retweeted
What the Actual??? WA STATE CORRUPTION
WARNING TLDR
Who do you think seems more corrupt?
1) The public unions trying to buy Washington's Supreme Court races?
Or
2) The PDC, which suddenly changed the rules 12 days before the election so those unions can spend even more?
What happened:
Oct 13: the 21-day late-money cap kicked in. Max $7,500 per donor to PACs.
Oct 22: the PDC suspended it. By "interpretive statement." No lawsuit. No ruling.
What it means:
In this final stretch, when voters are filling out ballots, the PDC changed the donation rules so there's no limit on what one donor can give a PAC. Checks of any size, right up to Election Day.
Who benefits:
The unions. SEIU, WEA and WFSE have already given $450K directly to the "Beware the Attack on Our Courts" PAC.
In addition SEIU, WEA and WFSE are also the largest donors to New Direction PAC, which has donated an additional $298K to the supreme court judicial “Beware” PAC
Until Oct 22, each of them could only give the court PAC up to $7,500 more before the election. Now they can give $500K. Or $5M. No Limits
Where does their money come from?
$165M+ a year flowing into SEIU, WEA and WFSE. Tax-exempt- taken from their members—each year.
5 Supreme Court seats on the ballot. A majority of the court.
How much of the Supreme Court does $165M buy? The PDC just gave the public unions the green light to find out.
Want judges not bankrolled by the public unions?
Vote.
Pos 1: Scott Edwards
Pos 3: David Stevens
Pos 4: Sean O'Donnell
Pos 5: Dave Larson
Pos 7: Todd Bloom
stevemur retweeted
Debra Stephens wrote the ridiculous majority opinion to overturn the natural gas citizens’ initiative.
She is the worst candidate of any of the 10 judges on the ballot.
Although Supreme Court elections are officially nonpartisan, Stephens has been endorsed by prominent Democrats. Bloom has the state Republican Party’s endorsement. seattletimes.com/seattle-new…
stevemur retweeted
If you vote "Yes," it will repeal the illegal income tax.
It will not reduce funding to schools or human services because the tax doesn't go into effect until 2029. So we aren't taking anything away.
Starbucks left because of this. Microsoft has threatened to move jobs out of state. Amazon now employs nearly 15,000 fewer people in Seattle than at its peak. Seattle is second to last in the number of VC deals that closed in Q3.
Holding a small number of companies and rich people hostage, when they have options, is a foolish strategy that is already backfiring spectacularly.
The real solution to our problems is to reduce taxes on businesses and income. Why even tax people under 25 at all? Give families with children a HUGE tax credit. Make this state an incredible place to do business and have a family.
Encourage entrepreneurs to come here.
Get startups, agencies, and smart, motivated people to build here. We can increase overall state revenue if more people make stuff, employ people, and create more value for everyone here.
Not by chasing them out of the state and creating a hostile environment for business.
Remember this: governments and taxes don't make jobs. Entrepreneurs do.
When millionaires get a tax break, our hospitals and health care clinics pay the price.
Doctors know this. That’s why the Washington State Medical Association is opposing I-645.
I-645 would repeal the millionaires tax, give a tax break to the wealthiest, and defund social services and health care access in the process.
We won't stand for this.
Washington: Vote NO on I-645!
Read more about their decision here:
wsma.org/membership-memo/wsm…
"Washington Elections are as secure as they can be"
King County Elections (KCE) confirmed two bins with election ballots were found in a dumpster at Seattle’s Golden Gardens this week.
mynorthwest.com/crime-blotte…
Once ballot envelopes are validated (either by ~40% "signature match" or witness attestation scribble), the ballots are sent to be counted. No further verification is done.
Washington State does not collect nor does it report the number of ballot envelopes returned with witness attestation scribble. Nor has there been a single prosecution for felony attestation of noncitizenship registration.
No, WA elections are NOT "as secure as they can be."
stevemur retweeted
This image is from the Washington “millionaires tax” bill (ESSB 6346) that became law. Sections 805–814 amend the statutes for nearly every public retirement system in the state - teachers, firefighters, police, PERS, etc. - to strip out the longstanding language that said pensions are “exempt from any state, county, municipal or other local tax.”
This is PROOF that leftists are coming for pensions.
The new sentence added to each of them is nearly identical: the old exemption “does not exempt any pension or other benefit received under this chapter from tax under Title 82A RCW” (the brand-new income tax title created by this bill).
Lawmakers didn’t have to do this. If the tax was truly limited forever to household income over $1 million, the existing blanket exemptions would have been irrelevant for almost every public retiree. Instead they went into a dozen separate retirement statutes and specifically unlocked the pensions.
That is the tell. Once the statutory shield is gone, lowering the threshold later is a simple legislative vote. The infrastructure to tax pensions is already written into law.
VOTE YES on 645
image credit: @BrandiKruse
stevemur retweeted
🧵In 2019, California billionaire tax crusader Gabriel Zucman made an astonishing claim to the NY Times: billionaires pay a lower avg tax rate than poor people in the US.
I noticed something fishy though: Zucman's NYT chart did not match his own published data from a 2018 paper
stevemur retweeted
Whether Washington should have a state income tax is ultimately a decision for voters, but regardless of how anyone plans to vote, these claims deserve an immediate reality check.
washingtonpolicy.org/publica…
stevemur retweeted
The Washington State Income Tax will tax profit left in S corporations and LLCs taxed as partnerships, even if the cash never leaves the company. This will be incredibly harmful for small businesses in Washington State, who create most of the jobs. Vote Yes on I-645!
And taxes on pensions and retirement income.
So many unforced errors. If you “vote blue, no matter who,” — or worse, have chosen DSA candidates over the years, you are part of the decline.
It’s not making things more “equitable,” it’s simply making things more expensive, and less safe.
The shame of it all — it was entirely optional. Voters chose the leaders who did this.
We had the world’s biggest employer, and high growth retailers. We were well-positioned for cloud and AI growth, with a vibrant downtown. We could have been a great refuge for CA entrepreneurs.
But in policy after policy, we forgot that livability for normies matters. That employers pay for the services we want. That grocers and shopkeepers need basic public safety. That parking (gasp) still matters to shoppers.
The taxes here are an utter disaster.
It's cheaper for me to fly to the SF Bay Area and attend a networking event than to take an Uber to one in Bellevue.
So you know what I do? I go to the SF Bay Area for networking, and now all my business is in the SF Bay Area. I don't have a single Seattle-based client.
Why would I bother?
Why do we tolerate open-air drug and fencing markets?
We don’t have to.
Other cities don’t tolerate this. Why do our judges release repeat offenders so often and so quickly? We don’t have to. Most other cities don’t do this.
Are these policies truly making things better? Making anything more “equitable?”