I am so tired of the current political discourse and its inescapability.
I am tired of our two party system that is objectively failing us.
I am tired of being told what to think, what to say, what to believe, who to like, who to oppose, what is right, what is wrong, etc. It’s too much.
The Republican Party was dismantled with the arrival of Trump and MAGA. Now the Democratic Party, of which I have been a member of my entire voting life, is being dismantled by the far left which consists of socialists, communists, and people who seem to detest the very idea of America.
And I get it. Capitalism is failing people and exacerbating wealth inequality. It is leaving people behind. Our education, healthcare, and housing systems are failing people. Our leaders are failing people. The vibes are overwhelmingly negative, pushing people to the extremes and believing that the only solution is a strongman authoritarian country or one where the government embraces a version of socialism or communism.
This is not the way.
We need a new center—one that lifts the floor for everyone, evolves capitalism, and restores a sense of shared purpose.
Capitalism has been a gift to the world and it works marvelously well. But it needs to evolve in order for our democracy to flourish. We need to turn the best ideas from the margins into policy that works for the mainstream. The only way out is through.
As Garry Kasparov said, "We need to grow the pie for everyone, not dismantle the bakery." Or as the extremes would have it: have the government seize and operate the bakery and allocate everyone a fixed piece of pie, or detain or deport the immigrant baker.
I constantly find myself lamenting Trump and the rise of MAGA on the right or fearing the rise of socialism, communism and antisemitism on the left. I get angry about it. The anger is all consuming. And I end up spending more time stewing in it than thinking about a positive path forward. I believe a lot of people feel that way, too. It sucks. I am trying to change that.
I also believe that an overwhelming majority of the country has no political home. We are governed by the extremes of each party, and those extremes, while they are ironically much more similar to one another than dissimilar, are splintering the USA and compromising our ability to create a better future for everyone.
And with the emergence of all this turmoil, I have never felt more patriotic than I do today. I love this country. It’s a big mess, but it is our mess. And I know our future can be bright.
But in order for that to happen we need to fix the way capitalism works and deliver results for the 99%, not just the 1%. We need to lift the floor for everyone. We need the wealthiest people and biggest companies, those who have benefited from and in many cases exploited capitalism most, paying more to lift the floor for everyone. It is in their long-term interest to do this. If they don't, there is a clear path from where we are today to the pitchforks coming out. History may not repeat itself but it surely rhymes.
In our lifetime we have the unique opportunity to lift the floor for everyone, not create artificial ceilings. This is the best way forward, and we can do a lot of things that people in both parties want and need:
Make the cost of living and housing affordable by increasing supply
Create an exceptional education system with personalized learning for every child
Provide remarkable, cheap (or free), and personalized healthcare to the broader US population over the upcoming decade
Make our towns, cities, states and country safe for all of our residents
Provide universal basic income so a cracked phone or flat tire doesn’t derail someone’s existence
Provide universal childcare to those that need it
These are things an overwhelming majority of the country want. People have been tossing around the terms “abundance” and "growth agenda" for a lot of this. Those are great words. The spirit of all of this is that a rising tide lifts all ships, and we can rise the tide. We must.
Now is the time to make this happen because people are tired of feeling like shit. The extremes are fueled by anger, not hope or vision, and that is a recipe for disaster. The middle 70-80% of the country deserves a party or multiple parties that break away from the polarizing forces of politics and focuses on helping the USA to navigate what will be the most volatile and tumultuous decades of the past fifty years. We are hungry for this.
We have a generational opportunity to lead with vision, not vitriol. To build a movement of respect, resilience, and results.
One that lifts the floor for everyone—not with anger or ideology, but with optimism and action.
I love our bakery. Let's invest in it so everyone can get a piece.
Nearly a decade ago, a product manager told me about the phrase "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast." It's a military motto that refers to how elite forces traverse ground and infiltrate enemy lines. The premise is that a deliberate and highly coordinated series of interconnected movements is significantly more effective and fast than an all-out storm the battlefield approach. While the former seems to move at a relatively slow clip, it is actually meaningfully faster than any alternative because of its meticulous movement.
This concept can be applied to doing things inside a company. Working with other people and being highly aligned and moving as one is a smooth way to do things. The coordination costs may be high, but the motion is smooth, and when you look back at the end of the day it's a hell of a lot faster than people flailing independently at warp speed.
Stylistically, it's also applicable at the individual level. My son is dyslexic, and he has a tendency to read through text as quickly as possible. This sometimes results in him reading a word like "turn" as "run" which can completely change the meaning of a sentence to the point it is nonsensical. The thing I tell him is that slow is smooth and smooth is fast. It's easier, more effective, and leads to better comprehension if you just take a beat as you flow through things. It's a really hard thing to do when we are wired to run.
Yesterday, I read an incredible article called AI 2027. I highly recommend taking your time and reading it. It goes through a variety of different scenarios about how the development and integration of AI into our world can and will unfold over the next several years. It reads like science fiction, and any prognostication of this sort has a tinge of fantasy, but it certainly feels quite real (Josh Wolfe likes to say sci-fi is becoming sci-fact and I believe that to be true at an accelerating rate). The outcomes range from utopian to armageddon, and the thing that determines where on that spectrum we end up is how deliberate we are along the way.
Every incentive right now encourages foundational AI companies to move fast. There are a slew of domestic competitors that are vying for AI supremacy and raising tens of billions of dollars to build the latest and greatest models. They range from incumbents to extraordinarily important startups filled with the world's best researchers. There is also a geopolitical force where China is moving at an alarmingly fast clip, too. The country with the most advanced AI is the country with the most influence and ability to align the rest of the world to its goals and values. The stakes could not be higher, so the incentive is to rush and "win the race."
When you are building a startup some things are cyclical. One of the things that constantly cycles through is the idea that a visual rebrand will be the thing that helps you find the next S-curve and grow. I found myself there multiple times with groupme and fundera. It’s part of the laws of physics of startup building.
Almost all of the time this does not move the needle. What most every company needs is some brand design - a logo and marketing website - that’s good enough and a style guide for your application that will get the job done. Brand design does not determine whether you get to product market fit and whether there is demand for what you are building. What matters is building things with speed, ferocity, and focus and having an incredible product people love using. A pretty logo doesn’t help you do that.
Oftentimes, I see founders caught in the trap of looking at a competitor or company that they think has terrific visual design, and they say, “I need that.” So they go and try to find the best design agency out there, or the one the flashy company that just raised $100m used and get on a waiting list and pay $80k-$100k for a full 3 months long brand design work endeavor. Then they relaunch their brand and expect the world to shake and literally nothing happens. Time and money down the drain. But most importantly time and energy.
If you insist that terrific brand design is a must have then what you really need at the early stage is to work with someone competent who will charge you anywhere between $0 to $20k maximum for some brand design work that is good enough. This includes your marketing website along with a style guide you can use to build your product. Get it, implement it, put it behind you, and move on. Good enough is the name of the game for this stuff at the early stages.
People may read this hot take and think it’s blasphemous. Many believe that brand design and visual and stylistic taste are distinguishing factors for startups. But they are not for 99% of companies (and in my experience, the 1% know deep in their soul they are the 1% exception to the rule). Unless you are a creative genius and brand work and visual design is your superpower as a founder or deeply ingrained in your founding team, it’s not going to be a differentiator for you so get over it and just build something that solves a problem and that people want.
*Please note that brand design is fundamentally different than building a trusted brand. You must build a trusted brand to succeed, especially in the age of AI.
I am so tired of the current political discourse and its inescapability.
I am tired of our two party system that is objectively failing us.
I am tired of being told what to think, what to say, what to believe, who to like, who to oppose, what is right, what is wrong, etc. It’s too much.
The Republican Party was dismantled with the arrival of Trump and MAGA. Now the Democratic Party, of which I have been a member of my entire voting life, is being dismantled by the far left which consists of socialists, communists, and people who seem to detest the very idea of America.
And I get it. Capitalism is failing people and exacerbating wealth inequality. It is leaving people behind. Our education, healthcare, and housing systems are failing people. Our leaders are failing people. The vibes are overwhelmingly negative, pushing people to the extremes and believing that the only solution is a strongman authoritarian country or one where the government embraces a version of socialism or communism.
This is not the way.
We need a new center—one that lifts the floor for everyone, evolves capitalism, and restores a sense of shared purpose.
Capitalism has been a gift to the world and it works marvelously well. But it needs to evolve in order for our democracy to flourish. We need to turn the best ideas from the margins into policy that works for the mainstream. The only way out is through.
As Garry Kasparov said, "We need to grow the pie for everyone, not dismantle the bakery." Or as the extremes would have it: have the government seize and operate the bakery and allocate everyone a fixed piece of pie, or detain or deport the immigrant baker.
I constantly find myself lamenting Trump and the rise of MAGA on the right or fearing the rise of socialism, communism and antisemitism on the left. I get angry about it. The anger is all consuming. And I end up spending more time stewing in it than thinking about a positive path forward. I believe a lot of people feel that way, too. It sucks. I am trying to change that.
I also believe that an overwhelming majority of the country has no political home. We are governed by the extremes of each party, and those extremes, while they are ironically much more similar to one another than dissimilar, are splintering the USA and compromising our ability to create a better future for everyone.
And with the emergence of all this turmoil, I have never felt more patriotic than I do today. I love this country. It’s a big mess, but it is our mess. And I know our future can be bright.
But in order for that to happen we need to fix the way capitalism works and deliver results for the 99%, not just the 1%. We need to lift the floor for everyone. We need the wealthiest people and biggest companies, those who have benefited from and in many cases exploited capitalism most, paying more to lift the floor for everyone. It is in their long-term interest to do this. If they don't, there is a clear path from where we are today to the pitchforks coming out. History may not repeat itself but it surely rhymes.
In our lifetime we have the unique opportunity to lift the floor for everyone, not create artificial ceilings. This is the best way forward, and we can do a lot of things that people in both parties want and need:
Make the cost of living and housing affordable by increasing supply
Create an exceptional education system with personalized learning for every child
Provide remarkable, cheap (or free), and personalized healthcare to the broader US population over the upcoming decade
Make our towns, cities, states and country safe for all of our residents
Provide universal basic income so a cracked phone or flat tire doesn’t derail someone’s existence
Provide universal childcare to those that need it
These are things an overwhelming majority of the country want. People have been tossing around the terms “abundance” and "growth agenda" for a lot of this. Those are great words. The spirit of all of this is that a rising tide lifts all ships, and we can rise the tide. We must.
Now is the time to make this happen because people are tired of feeling like shit. The extremes are fueled by anger, not hope or vision, and that is a recipe for disaster. The middle 70-80% of the country deserves a party or multiple parties that break away from the polarizing forces of politics and focuses on helping the USA to navigate what will be the most volatile and tumultuous decades of the past fifty years. We are hungry for this.
We have a generational opportunity to lead with vision, not vitriol. To build a movement of respect, resilience, and results.
One that lifts the floor for everyone—not with anger or ideology, but with optimism and action.
I love our bakery. Let's invest in it so everyone can get a piece.
Nearly a decade ago, a product manager told me about the phrase "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast." It's a military motto that refers to how elite forces traverse ground and infiltrate enemy lines. The premise is that a deliberate and highly coordinated series of interconnected movements is significantly more effective and fast than an all-out storm the battlefield approach. While the former seems to move at a relatively slow clip, it is actually meaningfully faster than any alternative because of its meticulous movement.
This concept can be applied to doing things inside a company. Working with other people and being highly aligned and moving as one is a smooth way to do things. The coordination costs may be high, but the motion is smooth, and when you look back at the end of the day it's a hell of a lot faster than people flailing independently at warp speed.
Stylistically, it's also applicable at the individual level. My son is dyslexic, and he has a tendency to read through text as quickly as possible. This sometimes results in him reading a word like "turn" as "run" which can completely change the meaning of a sentence to the point it is nonsensical. The thing I tell him is that slow is smooth and smooth is fast. It's easier, more effective, and leads to better comprehension if you just take a beat as you flow through things. It's a really hard thing to do when we are wired to run.
Yesterday, I read an incredible article called AI 2027. I highly recommend taking your time and reading it. It goes through a variety of different scenarios about how the development and integration of AI into our world can and will unfold over the next several years. It reads like science fiction, and any prognostication of this sort has a tinge of fantasy, but it certainly feels quite real (Josh Wolfe likes to say sci-fi is becoming sci-fact and I believe that to be true at an accelerating rate). The outcomes range from utopian to armageddon, and the thing that determines where on that spectrum we end up is how deliberate we are along the way.
Every incentive right now encourages foundational AI companies to move fast. There are a slew of domestic competitors that are vying for AI supremacy and raising tens of billions of dollars to build the latest and greatest models. They range from incumbents to extraordinarily important startups filled with the world's best researchers. There is also a geopolitical force where China is moving at an alarmingly fast clip, too. The country with the most advanced AI is the country with the most influence and ability to align the rest of the world to its goals and values. The stakes could not be higher, so the incentive is to rush and "win the race."
When you are building a startup some things are cyclical. One of the things that constantly cycles through is the idea that a visual rebrand will be the thing that helps you find the next S-curve and grow. I found myself there multiple times with groupme and fundera. It’s part of the laws of physics of startup building.
Almost all of the time this does not move the needle. What most every company needs is some brand design - a logo and marketing website - that’s good enough and a style guide for your application that will get the job done. Brand design does not determine whether you get to product market fit and whether there is demand for what you are building. What matters is building things with speed, ferocity, and focus and having an incredible product people love using. A pretty logo doesn’t help you do that.
Oftentimes, I see founders caught in the trap of looking at a competitor or company that they think has terrific visual design, and they say, “I need that.” So they go and try to find the best design agency out there, or the one the flashy company that just raised $100m used and get on a waiting list and pay $80k-$100k for a full 3 months long brand design work endeavor. Then they relaunch their brand and expect the world to shake and literally nothing happens. Time and money down the drain. But most importantly time and energy.
If you insist that terrific brand design is a must have then what you really need at the early stage is to work with someone competent who will charge you anywhere between $0 to $20k maximum for some brand design work that is good enough. This includes your marketing website along with a style guide you can use to build your product. Get it, implement it, put it behind you, and move on. Good enough is the name of the game for this stuff at the early stages.
People may read this hot take and think it’s blasphemous. Many believe that brand design and visual and stylistic taste are distinguishing factors for startups. But they are not for 99% of companies (and in my experience, the 1% know deep in their soul they are the 1% exception to the rule). Unless you are a creative genius and brand work and visual design is your superpower as a founder or deeply ingrained in your founding team, it’s not going to be a differentiator for you so get over it and just build something that solves a problem and that people want.
*Please note that brand design is fundamentally different than building a trusted brand. You must build a trusted brand to succeed, especially in the age of AI.
But AI is non-deterministic. Nobody really knows what's going to come out of it when we put something into it. So alignment of AI with our goals as human beings is priority number one. Being right can mean a beautiful future where everyone is happy and prosperous and being off by one degree can mean sayonara human civilization. While every external force from capitalism to international relations to the innate human need to pioneer the frontier is pushing us to go, go, go, it is very much in our interest to take our time and do this right. In the long run, that will get us to where we want to go because slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
But AI is non-deterministic. Nobody really knows what's going to come out of it when we put something into it. So alignment of AI with our goals as human beings is priority number one. Being right can mean a beautiful future where everyone is happy and prosperous and being off by one degree can mean sayonara human civilization. While every external force from capitalism to international relations to the innate human need to pioneer the frontier is pushing us to go, go, go, it is very much in our interest to take our time and do this right. In the long run, that will get us to where we want to go because slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
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