#andreessen — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #andreessen, aggregated by home.social.
-
The prompt was bad, but what's worse are his critics.
One of the problems with the #luddites is they ravel in their ignorance of the technology as if not understanding it gives them some mystical insight.
If you hate Ai, you are the first cohort that needs to keep up, otherwise you just sound dumb.The "thou shall not hallucinate" prompt to be effective is "verify against credible sources"
👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆This works 100% of the time as modern #LLM do in fact pull live results of searches and know what is a credible source. I know this to be true because I have used it literally hundreds of times, doing manual desk checks in the early days to confirm it work.
What this does show is #andreessen arrogance, just like Luddites that he/they don't need to learn about #Ai because THEY ALREADY KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE TECH.
A position that is silly, when the tech evolves monthly.
Using AI is a learned skill and Andreessen and his critics demonstrate that they think they don't need to.
-
Marc Andreessen's Dangerously Unexamined Life
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/marc-andreessen-silicon-valley-military-tech/
#HackerNews #Marc #Andreessen #Dangerously #Unexamined #Life #Silicon #Valley #Military #Tech #TechCritique
-
"Marc Andreessen, a philosophical zombie, can be easily replaced with #AI. I bet that’s great news for #a16z’s investors, since it means Andreessen no longer must be paid — and it frees him up to be the subject of some philosophy experiments."
Yeah, I've suspected this about the ultra-rich for some time now. Great article!
Marc #Andreessen is a philosophical zombie
https://www.theverge.com/tldr/897566/marc-andreessen-is-a-philosophical-zombie -
Marc Andreessen saying "I have absolutely no introspection" is simultaneously a "No shit dude, that was obvious when you opened your mouth the first time" moment, *and* a "Wow, that explains so much about him" moment.
Achievement unlocked.
#AchievementUnlocked #Andreessen #MarcAndreesen #introspective #introspection #NoShit #obvious #TheMoreYouKnow
-
if you haven't listened to this audiofile unearthed by #RyanGrim you should:
https://bsky.app/profile/ryangrim.bsky.social/post/3mdv5jnhs2s2r
It reveals that in 2013 the ex #Israel' military spy chief and PM, #EhudBarak, heard of the names of the Lords of venture capital, #Thiel & #Andreessen, from #JeffreyEpstein!
-
RE: https://mastodon.social/@huibmodderkolk/115910858142924394
Interesting article about #Trump and #Greenland.
Featuring #Praxis (weird organisation), #KenHowery (US Botschafter in #Denmark), #Bezos, #Andreessen and #Thiel as investors and many many others.
-
One of the more famous digital investors, Marc #Andreessen, half of the #a16z name, is not only on the board of #Meta, but also investor in #Doublespeed.
And Doublespeed's goal is to create #AI ads and spam them to social networks. Of course, neither declared as AI nor as paid advertisement. To promote products you might not buy otherwise.
The future is coming. You will not like it. Unless you are Andreessen or some of his friends.
h/t @nohillside
💰🧱 https://www.404media.co/hack-reveals-the-a16z-backed-phone-farm-flooding-tiktok-with-ai-influencers/ -
#Musk #Thiel #Sacks #Andreessen
#Karp & Co4/4
... völlig verkommenen herrschenden Kaste der 0,01 %, die ihre Asozialität nicht mehr allein im Silicon Valley, sondern USA-weit zelebriert.An Ideologien nur interessiert, soweit sie instrumentalisiert werden können. Am praktischsten hat sich derzeit der #Faschismus erwiesen.
-
#Musk #Thiel #Sacks #Andreessen
#Karp & Co
3/mehr... der reaktionäre Biotech-Mogul & Finanzinvestor und der liberale Intellektuelle keine gemeinsame Sprachebene fanden, so sehr sich auch beide beim Einstellungsgespräch bemüht hatten.
Diese bedrückend komische Szene allein ist es wert, aber auch sonst hat "The Gilded Rage" jede Menge absurdes Entertainment zu bieten.
Lakonisch mit Sarkasmen durchzogen heruntererzählt, zeichnet Silverman 1 Sittenbild einer völlig...
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/gilded-rage-talking-with-jacob-silverman
-
#Musk #Thiel #Sacks #Andreessen
#Karp & Co2/mehr
Es beginnt ebenso kafkaesk wie komisch, als der NYT-Bestsellerautor Silverman vom Investor, #Entrepreneur und Trump-Unterstützer Vivek Ramaswamy angeheuert, bzw . wie ein Asset eingekauft wurde.
So a la "Hat gute Kritiken, verkauft haufenweis Bücher, also investieren wir mal ein paar Peanuts und heuern den probeweise an".
Geheuert wofür? Das wussten nämlich beide nicht und so blieb es, weil...
-
#Musk #Thiel #Sacks #Andreessen
#Karp und Co1/mehr
Heut gibts ausnahmsweise mal eine Buchempfehlung , nämlich "The Gilded Rage" von Jacob Silverman.
Der Titel spielt auf das "gilded age", das vergoldete Zeitalter der US-Ölbarone vor 100 Jahren an.
Silverman zeichnet ein garstiges Sittenbild, wie eine parasitäre Oberschicht aus sogenannten "Entrepreneurs", Investoren, Zockern, Opportunisten und Betrügern in den #Faschismus abgedriftet ist.
-
A new group of Coinbase stockholders has filed a derivative lawsuit in Delaware. This is a follow on suit to an original suit filed in April 2023, alleging the company's leadership including CEO Armstrong, and top investors, including Marc Andreessen over an alleged years long scheme involving insider trading of billions of dollars worth of company stock.
The allegations amount to a type of insider trading claim that Armstrong, Andreessen, and others avoided roughly $1B in losses by selling $2.9B worth of stock following Coinbase’s 2021 direct listing.
Further, information was allegedly withheld from investors, Coinbase insiders (Armstrong, Andreessen), sold $4.2B worth of stock in the company. The plaintiffs allege these proceeds constitute “lucrative insider trading” that took advantage of the “artificially inflated price” of Coinbase stock. https://decrypt.co/350490/coinbase-c-suite-andreessen-sued-billions-alleged-insider-trading #CoinBase #Lawsuit #InsiderTrading #Armstrong #Investors #Andreessen #Crypto #CryptoExchange #CryptoCurrencies #Stock #StockPrice
-
https://www.europesays.com/it/231617/ Revolut valutata 74 miliardi di dollari: i fondatori cedono azioni per 3 miliardi, entra Nvidia #Affari #agenzia #AgenziaStampa #AgenziaStampaBloomberg #agosto #analisti #andreessen #azioni #banca #Business #clienti #dollari #fintech #fondi #FondiUsa #investitori #IT #Italia #Italy #nik #NikStoronsky #nuovi #NuoviSoci #nvidia #operazione #revolut #soci #storonsky #twitter #usa #valore
-
‘Buffalo Joe’ Andreessen gets huge roster update with Bills
‘Buffalo Joe’ Andreessen gets huge roster update with Bills originally appeared on The Sporting News It was a…
#NFL #BuffaloBills #Buffalo #Bills #andreessen #DorianWilliams #fanfavorite #Football #JoeAndreessen #mattmilano #QuinshonJudkins #ShaqThompson #taylorswift #TerrelBernard #theBills #TravisKelce
https://www.rawchili.com/nfl/320430/ -
‘Buffalo Joe’ Andreessen gets huge roster update with Bills
‘Buffalo Joe’ Andreessen gets huge roster update with Bills originally appeared on The Sporting News It was a…
#NFL #BuffaloBills #Buffalo #Bills #andreessen #DorianWilliams #fanfavorite #Football #JoeAndreessen #mattmilano #QuinshonJudkins #ShaqThompson #taylorswift #TerrelBernard #theBills #TravisKelce
https://www.rawchili.com/nfl/320430/ -
‘Buffalo Joe’ Andreessen gets huge roster update with Bills https://www.rawchili.com/nfl/320430/ #andreessen #Bills #Buffalo #BuffaloBills #BuffaloBills #DorianWilliams #FanFavorite #Football #JoeAndreessen #MattMilano #NFL #QuinshonJudkins #ShaqThompson #TaylorSwift #TerrelBernard #TheBills #TravisKelce
-
‘Buffalo Joe’ Andreessen gets huge roster update with Bills https://www.rawchili.com/nfl/320430/ #andreessen #Bills #Buffalo #BuffaloBills #BuffaloBills #DorianWilliams #FanFavorite #Football #JoeAndreessen #MattMilano #NFL #QuinshonJudkins #ShaqThompson #TaylorSwift #TerrelBernard #TheBills #TravisKelce
-
#Civitai Ban of Real People Content Deals Major Blow to the #Nonconsensual #AI #Porn Ecosystem
Civitai, an AI model sharing site backed by #Andreessen #Horowitz ( #a16z ) that 404 Media has repeatedly shown is being used to generate nonconsensual adult content, is banning AI models designed to generate the likeness of real people, the site announced Friday.
#deepfake #privacy -
'Chatham House Rule'
Torenberg launched Chatham House the summer of 2024,
naming it after a British think tank that formalized the insight that
trusted conversations require a degree of privacy.Two of its conservative participants said they see the group as a way to shift centrist Trump-curious figures to the Republican side,
but its founder said he’d begun it to have “a left-right exchange where we could have real conversations because of filter bubble group chats.”Chatham House includes high-profile figures like the economist
#Larry #Summers and the historian #Niall #Ferguson,
and more partisan figures like #Shapiro and the Democratic analyst #David #Shor.#Andreessen lurks.
But several participants described it to me as something like a gladiatorial arena with #Cuban most often in the center,
sparring with conservatives.(“no idea what you are talking about :)” Cuban emailed in response to an inquiry about his arguments on Chatham House.)
The Group Chat Era depended on part of the American elite feeling shut out from public spaces,
and on the formation of a new conservative consensus.Both of those are now fading
(though Torenberg has invested in a company called #ChatBCC that wants to commercialize the heady experience of sitting in on texts among the power elite).Since Elon Musk turned X to the right
and an alternative media ecosystem emerged on Substack,
“a tremendous amount of the verboten conversations can now shift back into public view,” Andreessen told Fridman.“It’s much healthier to live in a society in which people are literally not scared of what they’re saying.”
And Trump’s destabilizing “Liberation Day” has taken its toll on the coalition Andreessen helped shape.
You can see it on X,
where investors joke that they’ll put pronouns back in their bios in exchange for a return to the 2024 stock prices,
and where #Srinivasan has been a leading critic of Trump’s tariffs.“Group chats have changed on the economy in the last few weeks,”
said #Rufo.
“There’s a big split on the tech right.”The polarity of social media has also reversed,
and while participants used to keep their conservative ideas off social media,
“now the anti-Trump sentiment is what you’re afraid to say on X,” one said.By mid-April, #Sacks had had enough with Chatham House:
“This group has become worthless since the loudest voices have TDS,”
he wrote, shorthanding
“Trump Derangement Syndrome.”Then he addressed Torenberg:
“You should create a new one with just smart people.”Signal soon showed that three men had left the group:
The Sequoia partner #Shaun #Maguire,
the bitcoin billionaire #Tyler #Winklevoss, and #Tucker #Carlson.https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america
-
'Chatham House Rule'
Torenberg launched Chatham House the summer of 2024,
naming it after a British think tank that formalized the insight that
trusted conversations require a degree of privacy.Two of its conservative participants said they see the group as a way to shift centrist Trump-curious figures to the Republican side,
but its founder said he’d begun it to have “a left-right exchange where we could have real conversations because of filter bubble group chats.”Chatham House includes high-profile figures like the economist
#Larry #Summers and the historian #Niall #Ferguson,
and more partisan figures like #Shapiro and the Democratic analyst #David #Shor.#Andreessen lurks.
But several participants described it to me as something like a gladiatorial arena with #Cuban most often in the center,
sparring with conservatives.(“no idea what you are talking about :)” Cuban emailed in response to an inquiry about his arguments on Chatham House.)
The Group Chat Era depended on part of the American elite feeling shut out from public spaces,
and on the formation of a new conservative consensus.Both of those are now fading
(though Torenberg has invested in a company called #ChatBCC that wants to commercialize the heady experience of sitting in on texts among the power elite).Since Elon Musk turned X to the right
and an alternative media ecosystem emerged on Substack,
“a tremendous amount of the verboten conversations can now shift back into public view,” Andreessen told Fridman.“It’s much healthier to live in a society in which people are literally not scared of what they’re saying.”
And Trump’s destabilizing “Liberation Day” has taken its toll on the coalition Andreessen helped shape.
You can see it on X,
where investors joke that they’ll put pronouns back in their bios in exchange for a return to the 2024 stock prices,
and where #Srinivasan has been a leading critic of Trump’s tariffs.“Group chats have changed on the economy in the last few weeks,”
said #Rufo.
“There’s a big split on the tech right.”The polarity of social media has also reversed,
and while participants used to keep their conservative ideas off social media,
“now the anti-Trump sentiment is what you’re afraid to say on X,” one said.By mid-April, #Sacks had had enough with Chatham House:
“This group has become worthless since the loudest voices have TDS,”
he wrote, shorthanding
“Trump Derangement Syndrome.”Then he addressed Torenberg:
“You should create a new one with just smart people.”Signal soon showed that three men had left the group:
The Sequoia partner #Shaun #Maguire,
the bitcoin billionaire #Tyler #Winklevoss, and #Tucker #Carlson.https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america
-
'Chatham House Rule'
Torenberg launched Chatham House the summer of 2024,
naming it after a British think tank that formalized the insight that
trusted conversations require a degree of privacy.Two of its conservative participants said they see the group as a way to shift centrist Trump-curious figures to the Republican side,
but its founder said he’d begun it to have “a left-right exchange where we could have real conversations because of filter bubble group chats.”Chatham House includes high-profile figures like the economist
#Larry #Summers and the historian #Niall #Ferguson,
and more partisan figures like #Shapiro and the Democratic analyst #David #Shor.#Andreessen lurks.
But several participants described it to me as something like a gladiatorial arena with #Cuban most often in the center,
sparring with conservatives.(“no idea what you are talking about :)” Cuban emailed in response to an inquiry about his arguments on Chatham House.)
The Group Chat Era depended on part of the American elite feeling shut out from public spaces,
and on the formation of a new conservative consensus.Both of those are now fading
(though Torenberg has invested in a company called #ChatBCC that wants to commercialize the heady experience of sitting in on texts among the power elite).Since Elon Musk turned X to the right
and an alternative media ecosystem emerged on Substack,
“a tremendous amount of the verboten conversations can now shift back into public view,” Andreessen told Fridman.“It’s much healthier to live in a society in which people are literally not scared of what they’re saying.”
And Trump’s destabilizing “Liberation Day” has taken its toll on the coalition Andreessen helped shape.
You can see it on X,
where investors joke that they’ll put pronouns back in their bios in exchange for a return to the 2024 stock prices,
and where #Srinivasan has been a leading critic of Trump’s tariffs.“Group chats have changed on the economy in the last few weeks,”
said #Rufo.
“There’s a big split on the tech right.”The polarity of social media has also reversed,
and while participants used to keep their conservative ideas off social media,
“now the anti-Trump sentiment is what you’re afraid to say on X,” one said.By mid-April, #Sacks had had enough with Chatham House:
“This group has become worthless since the loudest voices have TDS,”
he wrote, shorthanding
“Trump Derangement Syndrome.”Then he addressed Torenberg:
“You should create a new one with just smart people.”Signal soon showed that three men had left the group:
The Sequoia partner #Shaun #Maguire,
the bitcoin billionaire #Tyler #Winklevoss, and #Tucker #Carlson.https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america
-
'Chatham House Rule'
Torenberg launched Chatham House the summer of 2024,
naming it after a British think tank that formalized the insight that
trusted conversations require a degree of privacy.Two of its conservative participants said they see the group as a way to shift centrist Trump-curious figures to the Republican side,
but its founder said he’d begun it to have “a left-right exchange where we could have real conversations because of filter bubble group chats.”Chatham House includes high-profile figures like the economist
#Larry #Summers and the historian #Niall #Ferguson,
and more partisan figures like #Shapiro and the Democratic analyst #David #Shor.#Andreessen lurks.
But several participants described it to me as something like a gladiatorial arena with #Cuban most often in the center,
sparring with conservatives.(“no idea what you are talking about :)” Cuban emailed in response to an inquiry about his arguments on Chatham House.)
The Group Chat Era depended on part of the American elite feeling shut out from public spaces,
and on the formation of a new conservative consensus.Both of those are now fading
(though Torenberg has invested in a company called #ChatBCC that wants to commercialize the heady experience of sitting in on texts among the power elite).Since Elon Musk turned X to the right
and an alternative media ecosystem emerged on Substack,
“a tremendous amount of the verboten conversations can now shift back into public view,” Andreessen told Fridman.“It’s much healthier to live in a society in which people are literally not scared of what they’re saying.”
And Trump’s destabilizing “Liberation Day” has taken its toll on the coalition Andreessen helped shape.
You can see it on X,
where investors joke that they’ll put pronouns back in their bios in exchange for a return to the 2024 stock prices,
and where #Srinivasan has been a leading critic of Trump’s tariffs.“Group chats have changed on the economy in the last few weeks,”
said #Rufo.
“There’s a big split on the tech right.”The polarity of social media has also reversed,
and while participants used to keep their conservative ideas off social media,
“now the anti-Trump sentiment is what you’re afraid to say on X,” one said.By mid-April, #Sacks had had enough with Chatham House:
“This group has become worthless since the loudest voices have TDS,”
he wrote, shorthanding
“Trump Derangement Syndrome.”Then he addressed Torenberg:
“You should create a new one with just smart people.”Signal soon showed that three men had left the group:
The Sequoia partner #Shaun #Maguire,
the bitcoin billionaire #Tyler #Winklevoss, and #Tucker #Carlson.https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america
-
'Chatham House Rule'
Torenberg launched Chatham House the summer of 2024,
naming it after a British think tank that formalized the insight that
trusted conversations require a degree of privacy.Two of its conservative participants said they see the group as a way to shift centrist Trump-curious figures to the Republican side,
but its founder said he’d begun it to have “a left-right exchange where we could have real conversations because of filter bubble group chats.”Chatham House includes high-profile figures like the economist
#Larry #Summers and the historian #Niall #Ferguson,
and more partisan figures like #Shapiro and the Democratic analyst #David #Shor.#Andreessen lurks.
But several participants described it to me as something like a gladiatorial arena with #Cuban most often in the center,
sparring with conservatives.(“no idea what you are talking about :)” Cuban emailed in response to an inquiry about his arguments on Chatham House.)
The Group Chat Era depended on part of the American elite feeling shut out from public spaces,
and on the formation of a new conservative consensus.Both of those are now fading
(though Torenberg has invested in a company called #ChatBCC that wants to commercialize the heady experience of sitting in on texts among the power elite).Since Elon Musk turned X to the right
and an alternative media ecosystem emerged on Substack,
“a tremendous amount of the verboten conversations can now shift back into public view,” Andreessen told Fridman.“It’s much healthier to live in a society in which people are literally not scared of what they’re saying.”
And Trump’s destabilizing “Liberation Day” has taken its toll on the coalition Andreessen helped shape.
You can see it on X,
where investors joke that they’ll put pronouns back in their bios in exchange for a return to the 2024 stock prices,
and where #Srinivasan has been a leading critic of Trump’s tariffs.“Group chats have changed on the economy in the last few weeks,”
said #Rufo.
“There’s a big split on the tech right.”The polarity of social media has also reversed,
and while participants used to keep their conservative ideas off social media,
“now the anti-Trump sentiment is what you’re afraid to say on X,” one said.By mid-April, #Sacks had had enough with Chatham House:
“This group has become worthless since the loudest voices have TDS,”
he wrote, shorthanding
“Trump Derangement Syndrome.”Then he addressed Torenberg:
“You should create a new one with just smart people.”Signal soon showed that three men had left the group:
The Sequoia partner #Shaun #Maguire,
the bitcoin billionaire #Tyler #Winklevoss, and #Tucker #Carlson.https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america
-
In February, #Marc #Andreessen described the #Chatham #House group chats to the podcaster #Lex #Fridman as “the equivalent of [Soviet era] #samizdat”
“The combination of encryption and disappearing messages really unleashed it,” he said. The chats, he wrote recently, helped produce our national “vibe shift.”
They have rarely been discussed in public, though you can catch the occasional mention in, for instance, a podcast debate between #Mark #Cuban and the Republican entrepreneur #Vivek #Ramaswamy, which started in a chat.But they are made visible through a group consensus on social media.
Their effects have ranged from the mainstreaming of the monarchist pundit #Curtis #Yarvin to a particularly focused and developed dislike of the former Washington Post writer #Taylor #Lorenz.They succeeded at avoiding leaks (until, to a modest extent, this article) in part because of Signal’s and WhatsApp’s #disappearing #message features,
and in part because the groups had formed out of a mix of fear and disdain for journalists they believed were “out to get us,” as one member put it.
“People during 2020 felt that there was a monoculture on social media, and if they didn’t agree with something, group chats became a safe space to debate that, share that, build consensus, feel that you’re not alone,”
said #Erik #Torenberg, an entrepreneur who was the first employee of the tech community hub Product Hunt.
As #Krishnan was setting up a set of tech group WhatsApp chats at a16z, #Torenberg independently founded a group of tech chats on WhatsApp and some more political Signal chats.“They’re having all the private conversations because they weren’t allowed to have the public conversations,” Andreessen told Torenberg on a recent podcast,
after claiming in the name of secrecy that he’d never heard of such groups.
“If it wasn’t for the censorship all of these conversations would have happened in public, which would have been much better.”
Their creations took off:
“It might not seem like it, because of all the sh*t that people still post on X, but the internet has fragmented,”
the Substack author #Noah #Smith wrote after my inquiries for this story spilled into public Saturday.
“Group chats are now where everything important and interesting happens.”https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america
-
On #signalchat groups' power:
“If you weren’t in the business at all, you’d think everyone was arriving at conclusions independently—and [they’re] not. It’s a small group of people who talk to each other and overlap between politics & journalism and a few industries.”
But there is no equivalent to the #intellectualcounterculture that grew up over the last 5 years on the #techright, and no figure remotely like #Andreessen, the towering, enthusiastic 53-year old."
https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america -
Trump’s Buddies At #Andreessen Horowitz Want To Help Buy #TikTok, Turn It Into A Right Wing Safe Space - https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/02/trumps-buddies-at-andreesen-horowitz-want-to-help-buy-tiktok-turn-it-into-a-right-wing-safe-space/ because we don't have many of those currently, #amirite?
-
Just going to hypothesize something here... for posterity and accountability to weird strategic thoughts I have when I try to channel this Musk creep. The tech-bro's have already taken over. That is why they are now sending the DOGE teams with armed escorts and guns to smash small offices of the government. Trump is the vindictive figurehead. It's the tech lords running the show, and they're going to do a deal with China to get rid of Putin.
🇨🇳 🇺🇸 🔀 🇷🇺
I'm open to the possibility of something beyond shocking happening. There have already been rumors of revaluing the gold at Fort Knox, restructuring the debt, a national cryptocurrency...
What about, a merger / joint venture with China and the US becomes a total one-party state, USA Inc. They'll leave the illusion of elections, and the Dems will continue to be the useful idiots as they have been for a decade.
The game is no longer Dem vs. Rep. There will be no normal midterms. The struggle at the top is between the Christian Nationalists, the technofascist (Nation State) crowd, and the MAGA base that Bannon leads. Think of Bannon's people as the brown shirts they'll eventually use to silence dissent.
Imagine a chip-access deal or some sort of organized takeover of Taiwan (stripping the island of its sovereignty in Trump fashion) over a set period of time for USA, Inc. to be able to scale semiconductor fabs.
The culture war is a distraction. The rich are stealing the future. :earth: :NoNazis: :ExtinctionRebellion: :NonCommercialUS:
#hypothetical #Technology #TechNate #Musk #thiel #Andreessen #Ellision #uspol #feudalism #technofeudalism #ai #solarpunk
-
→ Au-delà de Musk : comment l’élite techno-césariste veut rebâtir l’Amérique
https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2025/01/30/la-conjuration-des-batisseurs-musk-thiel-trump-et-lavenir-des-etats-unis/« Bâtir. À tout prix. Un impératif est devenu le mantra des techno-césaristes qui entourent Trump. Alessandro Aresu raconte comment Musk, Thiel, Andreessen ou Palmer Luckey ont pris le futur de l’Amérique. »
-
Attendees, with white-and-red gift bags and lanyards, knew to be closelipped when approached by hotel interlopers
or by the Times reporter, who was not invited to the closed-press festivities.But a copy of the agenda listed remarks by several tech billionaires, including the Anduril co-founder #Palmer #Luckey and the venture capitalist #Marc #Andreessen, who spoke about his support for deregulating technology
and the mixed reaction in Silicon Valley to his endorsement of Mr. Trump, according to attendees.There were tech up-and-comers, too:
Donald Trump #Jr. announced at the welcome dinner that he was entering venture capital.And days before the president-elect chose Robert F. #Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary,
Mr. Kennedy spoke extensively about his public-health work to a standing ovation.Ms. #Wiles also led a session on “2024 Election Analysis,” where she gave a preview of Mr. Trump’s first days as president.
“It’s the domestic ‘Davos in the desert,’” said the Rockbridge backer #Omeed #Malik, referring to the annual business conference in Riyadh, and Donald Trump Jr.’s new business partner.
➡️Rockbridge began with more humility.
Back in 2019, Mr. #Vance, then best known as the author of “Hilbilly Elegy,” and a conservative media figure named #Chris #Buskirk began informally hosting a series of small dinners
that would eventually become called Rockbridge.The group drew early support from the venture capitalist #Peter #Thiel and eventually caught the attention of Donald J. Trump, who spoke at a few meetings.
Once in the fall and once in the spring, Rockbridge began to gather at places like the Four Seasons in Palm Beach, Fla.,
or the Ritz-Carlton in Dallas for three days of political panels and business networking.Speakers included people like #Tucker #Carlson; the Thiel protégé #Blake #Masters; the casino mogul #Steve #Wynn; the investor #David #Sacks; and #Woody #Johnson, the billionaire owner of the New York Jets.
Not all attendees have politics at the top of their mind.
Some are primarily interested in business, seeing Rockbridge as a conservative-tinged version of the elite Sun Valley conference.
#RockbridgeNetwork #RebekahMercer #ElonMusk #KenHowery #LukeNosek
-
Trump Boosters Expect Big Returns on Their Investment:
‘The Shackles Are Off’Wealthy donors to the president-elect’s campaign anticipate a more business-friendly atmosphere,
including the firing of Biden-era regulators.🔸Limit the reach of federal regulations on artificial intelligence.
🔸Make room for cryptocurrencies to thrive.
🔸Ease the antitrust crackdown on big tech companies.
🔸Buy more military drones. And don’t raise taxes on billionaires.The to-do list for President-elect Donald J. Trump from #Marc #Andreessen, the venture capital billionaire from California, is long, but quite specific.
Now, after donating big money to Mr. Trump, Mr. Andreessen is eager to see his candidate work through the list
“It felt like a boot off the throat,” Mr. Andreessen said about Mr. Trump’s victory during a podcast conversation this month with his business partner.
“Every morning I wake up happier than the day before.”Mr. Andreessen’s excitement is a hint of just how broadly the victory by Mr. Trump has resonated with business executives who ⚠️ invested millions of dollars in his candidacy and now stand to profit from his policies.
Theirs is a circle of deep-pocketed industry winners that extends far beyond #Elon #Musk.
It is a more diverse group, at least in terms of business interests, than the one that surrounded Mr. Trump in his first administration, where executives from the oil, gas and coal industries were particularly dominant.
#Harold #Hamm, the billionaire founder of the Oklahoma-based 💥oil and gas giant Continental Resources, is still in a position to benefit, from regulatory rollbacks that he and an affiliated trade association are already pushing.But the list also includes:
#Joe #Lonsdale, a defense technology executive who wants to help the Pentagon revamp the way it fights 💥wars;
#Cameron and #Tyler #Winklevoss, the twins who were known for their battle with Facebook, then became 💥cryptocurrency investors and now want to shape the industry’s rules;
#Brian #Evans, the chief executive of Geo Group, the 💥private prison giant that could benefit if Mr. Trump carries out his promise of large-scale deportations;
John Paulson, the hedge fund billionaire who could cash out of his investment in the federal government’s housing finance companies, Freddie and Fannie, if they are privatized under Mr. Trump.
“It will be a billionaires’ ball,” said Robert Reich, who served as secretary of labor during the Clinton administration and who has long been critical of the income disparity in the United States. -
As Silicon Valley eyes US election, Elon Musk is not the only tech bro to worry about
There was a time when the tech industry wasn’t much interested in politics. -- It didn’t need to be because politics at the time wasn’t interested in it.
Accordingly, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple grew to their gargantuan proportions in a remarkably permissive political environment.
When democratic governments were not being dazzled by the technology, they were asleep at the wheel:
💥Antitrust regulators had been captured by the legalistic doctrine peddled by #Robert #Bork and his enablers in the University of Chicago Law School
❌ the doctrine that there was little wrong with corporate dominance unless it was harming consumers.The test for harm was price-gouging,
and since Google’s and Facebook’s services were “free”, ❓where was the harm, exactly❓And though Amazon’s products weren’t free, the company was ruthlessly undercutting competitors’ prices and pandering to customers’ need for next-day delivery.
Again: ❓where was the harm in that❓
It took an unconscionable time for this regulatory slumber to end,
but end it finally did on Joe Biden’s watch.❇️ US regulators, led by #Jonathan #Kanter at the Department of Justice (DOJ), and #Lina #Khan at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC),
rediscovered their mojo.⭐️And then in August the DoJ dramatically won an antitrust lawsuit
in which the judge ruled that Google was indeed a “monopolist”
which had taken anticompetitive steps to preserve its 90% share of search.🔥The DOJ is now proposing “remedies” for this abusive behaviour,
ranging from obvious ones like barring Google from contracts such as the one it has with Apple to make it the default search engine on its devices
to the “nuclear” option of 🧨 breaking up the company.The shock of this verdict to the tech industry has been palpable,
🆘 and has led some movers and shakers in the Valley to think that maybe electing Trump might not be such a bad idea after all.Some of the loudmouths like Marc #Andreessen
– and, of course, #Musk
– have explicitly come out for Trump,
but at least 14 other tech moguls are providing more discreet support.And although quite a few tech leaders have – belatedly – come out for Kamala Harris,
some are doing so with some reservations.
Reid #Hoffmann, the founder of LinkedIn, for example, donated $10m to her campaign, but says he wants her to fire Lina Khan from the FTC.The most dramatic evidence of how Silicon Valley lost its political virginity, though,
comes from the extraordinary amounts of money that #cryptocurrency companies have been putting into the election campaign.
The New Yorker reports that crypto companies have already sunk
“more than a hundred million dollars”
into so-called SuperPACS supporting crypto-friendly candidates.The interesting thing is that this money seems to be aimed not so much at influencing who wins the presidency
as at ensuring that the “right” people get elected to the House and the Senate.
This suggests a level of political nous that would have been disdained by the early pioneers of the tech industry in the 1960s.Technology might not have been political then; but it sure is just now.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/oct/20/as-silicon-valley-eyes-us-election-elon-musk-is-not-the-only-tech-bro-to-worry-about?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other -
In September,
the day after the debate between Harris and Trump,
I spoke again with the lobbyist #Ed #Rogers.“You know, I’m a Trump voter, a Trump donor,” he said,
“but I think Harris is going to win.”Another Republican told me that, after Trump’s poor debate performance,
he had seen similar hand-wringing from other major donors:“Can I stomach giving money to this guy and he keeps blowing it?”
In at least one notable case,
Harris managed to regain a major donor who had defected to Trump,
the Silicon Valley venture capitalist
#Ben #Horowitz.Horowitz and his business partner, #Marc #Andreessen, who are both longtime Democratic givers,
had stunned the tech world in July by endorsing the ex-President,
citing, in part, Trump’s newfound support for the crypto industry.But, in October, Horowitz announced that he and his wife planned to make a “significant donation” to Harris,
saying that, though the Biden Administration had been
“exceptionally destructive on tech policy,”
he had spoken personally with Harris, a friend from California,
and was “hopeful” that she would take a different approach.“There was no real engagement by the Biden world with the business community,”
a Democratic donor who has spoken with the Vice-President told me.“Harris has been very intentional about engaging.
She’s saying all the right things.”
Harris’s success with the moneyed class infuriated Trump.
“All rich, job creating people, that support Comrade Kamala Harris,” he wrote in a social-media post in September,
“you are STUPID.”A couple of weeks later, he posted the
false claim that
Jamie Dimon, the JPMorgan C.E.O., whom Trump had also mused about as a candidate for Treasury Secretary,
had endorsed him.Not only was this untrue, as JPMorgan swiftly announced;
it turned out that Dimon’s wife had donated more than $200,000 to the Democratic ticket
and attended a dinner this summer with Harris.As if to rebut the doubters,
Trump appeared in early October at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania,
the scene of the first assassination attempt against him,
alongside his wealthiest benefactor, Musk.Trump had outsourced much of his campaign’s turnout operation
—the traditional preserve of the political parties and the candidates
—to Musk’s America pac.Musk, whom the Times called “obsessive, almost manic” in his backing of the ex-President,
had all but relocated to Pennsylvania to oversee an effort to swing the crucial battleground state.In Butler, he leaped around the stage in a black maga hat,
as the former President grinned with delight.If Trump does not win, Musk told the crowd, “this will be the last election.”
A few days later, Harris’s campaign made a stunning announcement:
she had raised $1 billion in a matter of weeks,
the largest sum ever collected for an American politician in such a short amount of time.Harris more than doubled Trump’s contributions in September alone.
Will it matter?
During the past two decades, the winner of the Presidential election has always been the better funded of the two candidates
—with the notable exception of Hillary Clinton, in 2016.♦ By Susan B. Glasser
October 18, 2024 -
Elon Musk and Donald Trump have reportedly been speaking together frequently in recent months,
and their bitterly reactionary politics obviously align.Within days, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk was committing a remarkable
$45 million per month to "America PAC",
a new pro-Trump super PAC that would
also be supported by Palantir cofounder Joe #Lonsdale, Mark #Zuckerberg castoffs Tyler and Cameron #Winklevoss,
and several members of what’s sometimes called the Paypal mafia,
a right-wing network of tech industry leaders with Peter #Thiel as its presiding majordomo.If, two years ago The New York Times could make the dubious claim that tech giants like Musk were hard to pin down politically, there is no room now for even that level of credulousness.
It’s official:
Silicon Valley has been fully MAGA-pilled, and the tech authoritarians are bringing their money with them.Trump unveiled as his VP pick Ohio Senator J.D. #Vance, a former Thiel employee and venture capitalist who owes his election to the Senate to a $15 million campaign cash infusion from Thiel.
For the tech industry, whose rightward swerve has been hard to ignore this campaign cycle, the Vance selection was sensational.
“We have a former tech VC in the White House,” crowed Delian #Asparouhov, a partner at Thiel’s Founders Fund who once drew notice for sharing a comic by the neo-Nazi cartoonist known as StoneToss. “Greatest country on Earth baby.”
Musk, who had reportedly been agitating privately for Trump to choose Vance, celebrated the pick on X.
“Resounds with victory,” he wrote.
Vivek #Ramaswamy posted wistful, supportive remarks about being drinking buddies with Vance at Yale Law School.Using the term of endearment favored by his fellow mega-rich “All-In” podcast hosts,
Chamath #Palihapitiya celebrated the news: “A Bestie adjacent as the VP?!?!?!”Thiel, who is infamous for his stated aversion to democracy, has claimed that he is sitting out this election,
but his baton has been passed to a gaggle of ornery venture capitalists and tech CEOs whom you may recognize from their grievance-laden X posts: #Lonsdale, David #Sacks, Shaun #Maguire, Marc #Andreessen, et al.They are all very rich and control a lot of capital beyond their own.
They are also wielding increasing influence over the Trump campaign: Sacks spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/silicon-valley-trump-support-donations/ -
Imagine you could choose your citizenship the same way you choose your gym membership.
That’s a vision of the not-too-distant future put forward by #Balaji #Srinivasan.
Balaji – who is mostly just known by his first name – is a rockstar to the #cryptobros.
A serial tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist who believes that pretty much everything governments currently do,
tech can do better.I watched Balaji outline his idea last autumn, at a vast conference hall on the outskirts of Amsterdam.
“We start new companies like Google;
we start new communities like Facebook;
we start new currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum;
❓can we start new countries?” ❓
he asked,
as he ambled on stage,
dressed in a slightly baggy grey suit and loose tie.He looked like a middle manager in a corporate accounts department.
But Balaji is a former partner at the giant Silicon Valley venture capital firm #Andreessen #Horowitz.
He has backers with deep pockets.
“Imagine a thousand different startups, each of them replacing a different legacy institution,” Balaji told the audience.
“They exist alongside the establishment in parallel,
they’re pulling away users,
they’re gaining strength,
until they become the new thing.”If startups could replace all these different institutions, Balaji reasoned,
they could replace countries too.He calls his idea the “#network #state”: startup nations.
Here’s how it would work:
communities form
– on the internet initially
– around a set of shared interests or values.Then they acquire land,
becoming physical “countries” with their own laws.These would exist alongside existing nation states, and eventually, replace them altogether.
You would choose your nationality like you choose your broadband provider.
The network state movement doesn’t just want pliant existing governments so that companies can run their own affairs.
It wants to replace governments with companies.
-
Crypto Comes For Sherrod Brown:
$32 Million in Ads Boosting His Opponent
Crypto companies are spending $800,000 a day to take out one of their chief critics in Congress — and replace him with an ally
Late 2023 was not a great time for the crypto industry.
In November, #Sam #Bankman-#Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, learned that no amount of Michael Lewis gymnastics could save him from being convicted on seven charges of fraud and conspiracy.
He was eventually sentenced to 25 years in prison after disappearing $11 billion of other people’s money.
The following month, Sen. #Elizabeth #Warren sent letters to three crypto industry giants, the 🔸Blockchain Association, 🔸Coin Center, and 🔸Coinbase, criticizing them for undermining efforts to rein in crypto’s use in #terrorist #financing.
Around the same time, crypto groups began making noises about ♦️spending money in 2024 to defeat Ohio Sen. #Sherrod #Brown, the current ⭐️chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
❇️ Brown is a profound skeptic of the industry and signed off on Warren holding hearings on crypto’s possible links to terrorism.
Asked about the threats, Brown, a mop-topped Democrat with a raspy voice and wry sense of humor, said he was unconcerned.
But Brown had no idea of what was to come.
Rolling Stone has learned that crypto interests are set to spend💥 $32 million on TV ads promoting #Bernie #Moreno, Brown’s Republican opponent, by the end of September, according to Democratic media buyers.
The spending began on August 22
— meaning 🔥the crypto interests are spending more than $800,000 per day to flip the Ohio Senate seat, and potentially control of the Senate.“Outside groups are spending record amounts to try to defeat Sherrod because they know he will always fight for Ohio, not special interests,” said Reeves Oyster, a Brown campaign spokesperson.
So far, the ads have been primarily fluffy positive spots boosting Moreno; some of the spots fearmonger about immigrants and China.
Tracing the roots of "Defend American Jobs" can be as convoluted as tracing crypto currency itself.
The group is effectively a subsidiary of #Fairshake
— the second-largest fundraiser among Super PACs this season according to OpenSecrets,
with over $200 million in its coffers.♦️The bulk of Fairshake’s money has been donated by three crypto monoliths: Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, and Ripple.
#Coinbase and its affiliates have donated $86 million.
The founders of the venture capital firm #Andreessen #Horowitz have together given $44 million.
#Ripple has contributed $25 million. (The #Winklevoss #Twins, who donated nearly $5 million to Fairshake, previously tried to donate $1 million in bitcoin to Donald Trump
— well beyond what is legal.)Coinbase’s CEO #Brian #Armstrong has led the latest charge to bring crypto into the political mainstream,
hosting a Super Tuesday rally with Nas in Los Angeles where he proclaimed,
“More Americans own crypto than own electric vehicles or are in a union
— yet some people in D.C. are still underestimating how much and how many people care about crypto.In 2024, it will become clear that being anti-crypto is bad politics.”
Rep. #Katie #Porter found that out the hard way.
During the California Democratic Senate primary, ⚠️Fairshake spent over $10 million against her campaign, apparently because she had the temerity to question the energy uses of the industry.
Porter didn’t make the runoff, losing to Adam Schiff, a longtime collaborator with crypto who received an ‘A’ rating from "Stand With Crypto", a self-described grassroots advocacy hub nonprofit led by Coinbase and fronted by Armstrong.
Porter got an ‘F.’
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/sherrod-brown-crypto-bernie-moreno-millions-1235102478/ -
Crypto Comes For Sherrod Brown:
$32 Million in Ads Boosting His Opponent
Crypto companies are spending $800,000 a day to take out one of their chief critics in Congress — and replace him with an ally
Late 2023 was not a great time for the crypto industry.
In November, #Sam #Bankman-#Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, learned that no amount of Michael Lewis gymnastics could save him from being convicted on seven charges of fraud and conspiracy.
He was eventually sentenced to 25 years in prison after disappearing $11 billion of other people’s money.
The following month, Sen. #Elizabeth #Warren sent letters to three crypto industry giants, the 🔸Blockchain Association, 🔸Coin Center, and 🔸Coinbase, criticizing them for undermining efforts to rein in crypto’s use in #terrorist #financing.
Around the same time, crypto groups began making noises about ♦️spending money in 2024 to defeat Ohio Sen. #Sherrod #Brown, the current ⭐️chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
❇️ Brown is a profound skeptic of the industry and signed off on Warren holding hearings on crypto’s possible links to terrorism.
Asked about the threats, Brown, a mop-topped Democrat with a raspy voice and wry sense of humor, said he was unconcerned.
But Brown had no idea of what was to come.
Rolling Stone has learned that crypto interests are set to spend💥 $32 million on TV ads promoting #Bernie #Moreno, Brown’s Republican opponent, by the end of September, according to Democratic media buyers.
The spending began on August 22
— meaning 🔥the crypto interests are spending more than $800,000 per day to flip the Ohio Senate seat, and potentially control of the Senate.“Outside groups are spending record amounts to try to defeat Sherrod because they know he will always fight for Ohio, not special interests,” said Reeves Oyster, a Brown campaign spokesperson.
So far, the ads have been primarily fluffy positive spots boosting Moreno; some of the spots fearmonger about immigrants and China.
Tracing the roots of "Defend American Jobs" can be as convoluted as tracing crypto currency itself.
The group is effectively a subsidiary of #Fairshake
— the second-largest fundraiser among Super PACs this season according to OpenSecrets,
with over $200 million in its coffers.♦️The bulk of Fairshake’s money has been donated by three crypto monoliths: Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, and Ripple.
#Coinbase and its affiliates have donated $86 million.
The founders of the venture capital firm #Andreessen #Horowitz have together given $44 million.
#Ripple has contributed $25 million. (The #Winklevoss #Twins, who donated nearly $5 million to Fairshake, previously tried to donate $1 million in bitcoin to Donald Trump
— well beyond what is legal.)Coinbase’s CEO #Brian #Armstrong has led the latest charge to bring crypto into the political mainstream,
hosting a Super Tuesday rally with Nas in Los Angeles where he proclaimed,
“More Americans own crypto than own electric vehicles or are in a union
— yet some people in D.C. are still underestimating how much and how many people care about crypto.In 2024, it will become clear that being anti-crypto is bad politics.”
Rep. #Katie #Porter found that out the hard way.
During the California Democratic Senate primary, ⚠️Fairshake spent over $10 million against her campaign, apparently because she had the temerity to question the energy uses of the industry.
Porter didn’t make the runoff, losing to Adam Schiff, a longtime collaborator with crypto who received an ‘A’ rating from "Stand With Crypto", a self-described grassroots advocacy hub nonprofit led by Coinbase and fronted by Armstrong.
Porter got an ‘F.’
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/sherrod-brown-crypto-bernie-moreno-millions-1235102478/ -
Crypto Comes For Sherrod Brown:
$32 Million in Ads Boosting His Opponent
Crypto companies are spending $800,000 a day to take out one of their chief critics in Congress — and replace him with an ally
Late 2023 was not a great time for the crypto industry.
In November, #Sam #Bankman-#Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, learned that no amount of Michael Lewis gymnastics could save him from being convicted on seven charges of fraud and conspiracy.
He was eventually sentenced to 25 years in prison after disappearing $11 billion of other people’s money.
The following month, Sen. #Elizabeth #Warren sent letters to three crypto industry giants, the 🔸Blockchain Association, 🔸Coin Center, and 🔸Coinbase, criticizing them for undermining efforts to rein in crypto’s use in #terrorist #financing.
Around the same time, crypto groups began making noises about ♦️spending money in 2024 to defeat Ohio Sen. #Sherrod #Brown, the current ⭐️chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
❇️ Brown is a profound skeptic of the industry and signed off on Warren holding hearings on crypto’s possible links to terrorism.
Asked about the threats, Brown, a mop-topped Democrat with a raspy voice and wry sense of humor, said he was unconcerned.
But Brown had no idea of what was to come.
Rolling Stone has learned that crypto interests are set to spend💥 $32 million on TV ads promoting #Bernie #Moreno, Brown’s Republican opponent, by the end of September, according to Democratic media buyers.
The spending began on August 22
— meaning 🔥the crypto interests are spending more than $800,000 per day to flip the Ohio Senate seat, and potentially control of the Senate.“Outside groups are spending record amounts to try to defeat Sherrod because they know he will always fight for Ohio, not special interests,” said Reeves Oyster, a Brown campaign spokesperson.
So far, the ads have been primarily fluffy positive spots boosting Moreno; some of the spots fearmonger about immigrants and China.
Tracing the roots of "Defend American Jobs" can be as convoluted as tracing crypto currency itself.
The group is effectively a subsidiary of #Fairshake
— the second-largest fundraiser among Super PACs this season according to OpenSecrets,
with over $200 million in its coffers.♦️The bulk of Fairshake’s money has been donated by three crypto monoliths: Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, and Ripple.
#Coinbase and its affiliates have donated $86 million.
The founders of the venture capital firm #Andreessen #Horowitz have together given $44 million.
#Ripple has contributed $25 million. (The #Winklevoss #Twins, who donated nearly $5 million to Fairshake, previously tried to donate $1 million in bitcoin to Donald Trump
— well beyond what is legal.)Coinbase’s CEO #Brian #Armstrong has led the latest charge to bring crypto into the political mainstream,
hosting a Super Tuesday rally with Nas in Los Angeles where he proclaimed,
“More Americans own crypto than own electric vehicles or are in a union
— yet some people in D.C. are still underestimating how much and how many people care about crypto.In 2024, it will become clear that being anti-crypto is bad politics.”
Rep. #Katie #Porter found that out the hard way.
During the California Democratic Senate primary, ⚠️Fairshake spent over $10 million against her campaign, apparently because she had the temerity to question the energy uses of the industry.
Porter didn’t make the runoff, losing to Adam Schiff, a longtime collaborator with crypto who received an ‘A’ rating from "Stand With Crypto", a self-described grassroots advocacy hub nonprofit led by Coinbase and fronted by Armstrong.
Porter got an ‘F.’
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/sherrod-brown-crypto-bernie-moreno-millions-1235102478/ -
Crypto Comes For Sherrod Brown:
$32 Million in Ads Boosting His Opponent
Crypto companies are spending $800,000 a day to take out one of their chief critics in Congress — and replace him with an ally
Late 2023 was not a great time for the crypto industry.
In November, #Sam #Bankman-#Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, learned that no amount of Michael Lewis gymnastics could save him from being convicted on seven charges of fraud and conspiracy.
He was eventually sentenced to 25 years in prison after disappearing $11 billion of other people’s money.
The following month, Sen. #Elizabeth #Warren sent letters to three crypto industry giants, the 🔸Blockchain Association, 🔸Coin Center, and 🔸Coinbase, criticizing them for undermining efforts to rein in crypto’s use in #terrorist #financing.
Around the same time, crypto groups began making noises about ♦️spending money in 2024 to defeat Ohio Sen. #Sherrod #Brown, the current ⭐️chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
❇️ Brown is a profound skeptic of the industry and signed off on Warren holding hearings on crypto’s possible links to terrorism.
Asked about the threats, Brown, a mop-topped Democrat with a raspy voice and wry sense of humor, said he was unconcerned.
But Brown had no idea of what was to come.
Rolling Stone has learned that crypto interests are set to spend💥 $32 million on TV ads promoting #Bernie #Moreno, Brown’s Republican opponent, by the end of September, according to Democratic media buyers.
The spending began on August 22
— meaning 🔥the crypto interests are spending more than $800,000 per day to flip the Ohio Senate seat, and potentially control of the Senate.“Outside groups are spending record amounts to try to defeat Sherrod because they know he will always fight for Ohio, not special interests,” said Reeves Oyster, a Brown campaign spokesperson.
So far, the ads have been primarily fluffy positive spots boosting Moreno; some of the spots fearmonger about immigrants and China.
Tracing the roots of "Defend American Jobs" can be as convoluted as tracing crypto currency itself.
The group is effectively a subsidiary of #Fairshake
— the second-largest fundraiser among Super PACs this season according to OpenSecrets,
with over $200 million in its coffers.♦️The bulk of Fairshake’s money has been donated by three crypto monoliths: Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, and Ripple.
#Coinbase and its affiliates have donated $86 million.
The founders of the venture capital firm #Andreessen #Horowitz have together given $44 million.
#Ripple has contributed $25 million. (The #Winklevoss #Twins, who donated nearly $5 million to Fairshake, previously tried to donate $1 million in bitcoin to Donald Trump
— well beyond what is legal.)Coinbase’s CEO #Brian #Armstrong has led the latest charge to bring crypto into the political mainstream,
hosting a Super Tuesday rally with Nas in Los Angeles where he proclaimed,
“More Americans own crypto than own electric vehicles or are in a union
— yet some people in D.C. are still underestimating how much and how many people care about crypto.In 2024, it will become clear that being anti-crypto is bad politics.”
Rep. #Katie #Porter found that out the hard way.
During the California Democratic Senate primary, ⚠️Fairshake spent over $10 million against her campaign, apparently because she had the temerity to question the energy uses of the industry.
Porter didn’t make the runoff, losing to Adam Schiff, a longtime collaborator with crypto who received an ‘A’ rating from "Stand With Crypto", a self-described grassroots advocacy hub nonprofit led by Coinbase and fronted by Armstrong.
Porter got an ‘F.’
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/sherrod-brown-crypto-bernie-moreno-millions-1235102478/ -
Crypto Comes For Sherrod Brown:
$32 Million in Ads Boosting His Opponent
Crypto companies are spending $800,000 a day to take out one of their chief critics in Congress — and replace him with an ally
Late 2023 was not a great time for the crypto industry.
In November, #Sam #Bankman-#Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, learned that no amount of Michael Lewis gymnastics could save him from being convicted on seven charges of fraud and conspiracy.
He was eventually sentenced to 25 years in prison after disappearing $11 billion of other people’s money.
The following month, Sen. #Elizabeth #Warren sent letters to three crypto industry giants, the 🔸Blockchain Association, 🔸Coin Center, and 🔸Coinbase, criticizing them for undermining efforts to rein in crypto’s use in #terrorist #financing.
Around the same time, crypto groups began making noises about ♦️spending money in 2024 to defeat Ohio Sen. #Sherrod #Brown, the current ⭐️chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
❇️ Brown is a profound skeptic of the industry and signed off on Warren holding hearings on crypto’s possible links to terrorism.
Asked about the threats, Brown, a mop-topped Democrat with a raspy voice and wry sense of humor, said he was unconcerned.
But Brown had no idea of what was to come.
Rolling Stone has learned that crypto interests are set to spend💥 $32 million on TV ads promoting #Bernie #Moreno, Brown’s Republican opponent, by the end of September, according to Democratic media buyers.
The spending began on August 22
— meaning 🔥the crypto interests are spending more than $800,000 per day to flip the Ohio Senate seat, and potentially control of the Senate.“Outside groups are spending record amounts to try to defeat Sherrod because they know he will always fight for Ohio, not special interests,” said Reeves Oyster, a Brown campaign spokesperson.
So far, the ads have been primarily fluffy positive spots boosting Moreno; some of the spots fearmonger about immigrants and China.
Tracing the roots of "Defend American Jobs" can be as convoluted as tracing crypto currency itself.
The group is effectively a subsidiary of #Fairshake
— the second-largest fundraiser among Super PACs this season according to OpenSecrets,
with over $200 million in its coffers.♦️The bulk of Fairshake’s money has been donated by three crypto monoliths: Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, and Ripple.
#Coinbase and its affiliates have donated $86 million.
The founders of the venture capital firm #Andreessen #Horowitz have together given $44 million.
#Ripple has contributed $25 million. (The #Winklevoss #Twins, who donated nearly $5 million to Fairshake, previously tried to donate $1 million in bitcoin to Donald Trump
— well beyond what is legal.)Coinbase’s CEO #Brian #Armstrong has led the latest charge to bring crypto into the political mainstream,
hosting a Super Tuesday rally with Nas in Los Angeles where he proclaimed,
“More Americans own crypto than own electric vehicles or are in a union
— yet some people in D.C. are still underestimating how much and how many people care about crypto.In 2024, it will become clear that being anti-crypto is bad politics.”
Rep. #Katie #Porter found that out the hard way.
During the California Democratic Senate primary, ⚠️Fairshake spent over $10 million against her campaign, apparently because she had the temerity to question the energy uses of the industry.
Porter didn’t make the runoff, losing to Adam Schiff, a longtime collaborator with crypto who received an ‘A’ rating from "Stand With Crypto", a self-described grassroots advocacy hub nonprofit led by Coinbase and fronted by Armstrong.
Porter got an ‘F.’
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/sherrod-brown-crypto-bernie-moreno-millions-1235102478/ -
He founded YCombinator and (read the column) and it has absolutely excelled at producing #entitled #BayArea #DoucheBros who think the sun shines out of their asses and that the rest of #society really ought to be more #thankful they exist and are here #disrupting everything of value in our lives.
If you want to pick a villain in #SiliconValley who's doing his best to destroy civilization, it's going to be #Thiel, #Andreessen, or someone from #Ycombinator.
2/2
-
American #Plutocracy or #Kleptocracy 🤔
Your choiceSilicon Valley is maximizing profit at everyone's expense.
A public battle has broken out among the titans of #SiliconValley. One side, led by Elon #Musk, #PayPal co-founder Peter #Thiel and venture capitalists Marc #Andreessen and #BenHorowitz, is backing Donald #Trump for president. The other, led by #LinkedIn co-founder #ReidHoffman, is behind #KamalaHarris.
We should not make the mistake of thinking this is a battle over ideology or policy. It’s a battle to maximize Silicon Valley’s profits regardless of the consequences for society.
-
Many technology companies would be more benign if they were owned and governed by their users.
Users have the most to lose from tech-driven addiction and automation,
and their data generate most of the companies’ value.⭐️User-owners would share in this value and have an incentive to keep companies from causing harm.
❓How might users come together to start and run more technology companies?
Bringing together a disparate and dispersed group of people is difficult;
-- economists call this the #collective #action #problem.👍Influential nonprofits such as the
🔸Center for Humane Technology and
🔸Project Liberty can play an organizing role,
incubating a new generation of user-owned social media businesses.While it’s a competitive field with entrenched players,
social media technology is not complex,
and there is a real hunger for more benign versions.Existing firms can also be redesigned.
✅Instead of raising capital from profit-seeking corporations,
OpenAI could seek funding from users and give them representation on its board.✅And with users on the board, the company might take more care to launch products safely
and dedicate resources to maintaining employment.🔥Most important, more of the financial gains of the AI revolution would flow to the people creating the value.
If #Keith #Gill,
also known as #Roaring #Kitty,
could organize retail investors to drive up the market value of #GameStop by $10 billion,
could a similar approach have been employed to acquire Twitter for users in 2022?Given the millions of defections from the platform since Musk purchased it,
it may not be too late.The government can also help if it’s not headed off by Big Tech political contributions.
The 🔸Small Business Administration,
the Department of Energy and
the 🔸National Science Foundation
should ✅ encourage user ownership of the companies they fund.The venture capitalists of Sand Hill Road will of course scream that this is #socialism,
but they will be wrong.It’s just business.
#MOIC #Elon #Musk #Peter #Thiel #Marc #Andreessen #Ben #Horowitz #Trump #Reid #Hoffman #Harris #cryptocurrency #artificial #intelligence #Lina #Khan #addiction #eliminating #humans #Daron #Acemoglu
-
Many technology companies would be more benign if they were owned and governed by their users.
Users have the most to lose from tech-driven addiction and automation,
and their data generate most of the companies’ value.⭐️User-owners would share in this value and have an incentive to keep companies from causing harm.
❓How might users come together to start and run more technology companies?
Bringing together a disparate and dispersed group of people is difficult;
-- economists call this the #collective #action #problem.👍Influential nonprofits such as the
🔸Center for Humane Technology and
🔸Project Liberty can play an organizing role,
incubating a new generation of user-owned social media businesses.While it’s a competitive field with entrenched players,
social media technology is not complex,
and there is a real hunger for more benign versions.Existing firms can also be redesigned.
✅Instead of raising capital from profit-seeking corporations,
OpenAI could seek funding from users and give them representation on its board.✅And with users on the board, the company might take more care to launch products safely
and dedicate resources to maintaining employment.🔥Most important, more of the financial gains of the AI revolution would flow to the people creating the value.
If #Keith #Gill,
also known as #Roaring #Kitty,
could organize retail investors to drive up the market value of #GameStop by $10 billion,
could a similar approach have been employed to acquire Twitter for users in 2022?Given the millions of defections from the platform since Musk purchased it,
it may not be too late.The government can also help if it’s not headed off by Big Tech political contributions.
The 🔸Small Business Administration,
the Department of Energy and
the 🔸National Science Foundation
should ✅ encourage user ownership of the companies they fund.The venture capitalists of Sand Hill Road will of course scream that this is #socialism,
but they will be wrong.It’s just business.
#MOIC #Elon #Musk #Peter #Thiel #Marc #Andreessen #Ben #Horowitz #Trump #Reid #Hoffman #Harris #cryptocurrency #artificial #intelligence #Lina #Khan #addiction #eliminating #humans #Daron #Acemoglu
-
Many technology companies would be more benign if they were owned and governed by their users.
Users have the most to lose from tech-driven addiction and automation,
and their data generate most of the companies’ value.⭐️User-owners would share in this value and have an incentive to keep companies from causing harm.
❓How might users come together to start and run more technology companies?
Bringing together a disparate and dispersed group of people is difficult;
-- economists call this the #collective #action #problem.👍Influential nonprofits such as the
🔸Center for Humane Technology and
🔸Project Liberty can play an organizing role,
incubating a new generation of user-owned social media businesses.While it’s a competitive field with entrenched players,
social media technology is not complex,
and there is a real hunger for more benign versions.Existing firms can also be redesigned.
✅Instead of raising capital from profit-seeking corporations,
OpenAI could seek funding from users and give them representation on its board.✅And with users on the board, the company might take more care to launch products safely
and dedicate resources to maintaining employment.🔥Most important, more of the financial gains of the AI revolution would flow to the people creating the value.
If #Keith #Gill,
also known as #Roaring #Kitty,
could organize retail investors to drive up the market value of #GameStop by $10 billion,
could a similar approach have been employed to acquire Twitter for users in 2022?Given the millions of defections from the platform since Musk purchased it,
it may not be too late.The government can also help if it’s not headed off by Big Tech political contributions.
The 🔸Small Business Administration,
the Department of Energy and
the 🔸National Science Foundation
should ✅ encourage user ownership of the companies they fund.The venture capitalists of Sand Hill Road will of course scream that this is #socialism,
but they will be wrong.It’s just business.
#MOIC #Elon #Musk #Peter #Thiel #Marc #Andreessen #Ben #Horowitz #Trump #Reid #Hoffman #Harris #cryptocurrency #artificial #intelligence #Lina #Khan #addiction #eliminating #humans #Daron #Acemoglu
