He's right

Rockerfeller did it first a century ago

https://x.com/i/grok/share/b1a85dadc4944f67b3b3b046a28b767c

𝕏 @electric_faces: https://x.com/electric_faces/status/2098840332360372267

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𝕏 @beffjezos: https://x.com/beffjezos/status/2098531004583714980

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I just saw this @ycombinator's batch literally only has harness startups or hardware startups

So the proof is in the pudding

In the most early adopting tech pioneering place that's Silicon Valley new startups aren't even building software anymore

And it's debatable if anyone will actually need a custom harness or it won't just be generically offered by the AI frontier companies

So software is mostly dead and hardware it is

𝕏 @daveg: https://x.com/daveg/status/2099093890137575928

𝕏 @goodhartproof: https://x.com/goodhartproof/status/2098523476189745314

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Self driving will be the 4th wave of nomadism I think

𝕏 @AIScottAdams: https://x.com/AIScottAdams/status/2098546906779500949

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🇪🇺 Great data and actually I think we should use this kinds of data to completely turn around Europe's immigration policy:

- We should have super easy inflow for immigrants from countries whose previous immigrants have shown low crime rates

You're from Japan? Just fly here and you can stay forever

- We should then almost completely ban any inflow from countries whose previous immigrants have shown high crime rates with instant deportations

You're on the top of that list? You're not coming in, sorry. We have to keep Europeans safe first!

Then you can add special exceptions for people in those worst rated countries for high quality talent, think AI engineers, neurosurgeons, high IQ people, with no crime records. But that process will take a little bit longer than just flying into Europe

Then every year you check the data and you adjust the policy based on last 5 or 10 years of criminal history of immigrants from those places

I think this is the most common sense policy and it'll make Europe much safer

𝕏 @tomaspueyo: https://x.com/tomaspueyo/status/2099900501680701530

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This is why I never have and never will do calls

𝕏 @apaji_x: https://x.com/apaji_x/status/2100641366195806335

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Same with this article from yesterday

Gay acceptance is now rapidly dropping in the Netherlands

The real reason is Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) immigrants are extremely against homosexuality

But media isn't allowed or won't ever write that

It's ironic that the gay acceptance we fought for for decades in the Netherlands is being destroyed by progressive policies that keep continously importing low quality immigrants from cultures that are completely opposed to us

𝕏 @levelsio: https://x.com/levelsio/status/2101978657254244858

Being gay is illegal in most MENA countries like Morocco

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💰 Passed $10M/y in revenue + investment gains this year

I've always been aggressively increasing my profit margins to as high as possible, especially the last few years, and especially this year where I've reduced my SaaS dependencies to just a handful of companies by vibecoding my own replacements

It's now about 94.5% profit!

Spend less -> lower costs -> more profit -> more money saved -> more money to invest -> more % returns on investments

And at some point that investment return starts to pass by your business revenue which it has for me for about a year now

Most of my investments have been simple ETFs like Vanguard S&P500, but also a few lucky stock and startup bets that worked out:

Back in 2022, I couldn't get any available GPUs, so I thought it might be smart to buy Nvidia if there's such a shortage and that was a good bet too

Then back in 2023 @dannypostma recommended me to invest in the companies we used for our AI inference for our photo AI apps, so I did that too. First I invested in @replicate and then also @FAL

From then I just asked every app/service I used if I could invest, like @cursor_ai in 2025 which then got acquired by @spacex recently!

My business revenue has remained very stable at about $200K-$250K/mo, but even with that investment returns have now surpassed that

Investments fluctuate a lot so some years it's up some years it might be down a lot (who isn't expecting a big crash at some point?), and most investment gains are unrealized (I never sell!), so keep that with a big grain of salt!

I keep my revenue/gains together with my profit margin and my sleep score in my situation monitor dashboard, as those are equally important :D

Many people in the last decade told me to spend all my money, either personally or with my business to grow it, we don't know how that would have ended up, maybe my companies would be bigger, but I'm happy I did it in my own lean profitable healthy way and it ended up great I think! 🙏😊

Here's how my situation monitor (or part of it) looks 😂

Sleep score mixed with revenue and profit margin and last work out

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Today I tried to make my own electrolyte drink for the gym

It's just sparkling water, with a squeezed lemon and 1/8th teaspoon of salt!

Apparently even better if I add some honey and maybe 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

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Jesus christ

𝕏 @patrickc: https://x.com/patrickc/status/2103130520976769461

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I love the intellectual honesty and self-awareness here

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It's really crazy how strongly wealth inverse correlates with regulatory burden

If you make it easy for people to start and run businesses and don't get in their way too much, everyone gets wealthier

If you make it hard for people to start and run businesses and get in their way constantly, everyone gets poorer

You can see the effect clearly within the EU:

Countries with low regulatory burden like Switzerland and Ireland have much higher incomes than places like Spain or Hungary where its regulatory burden is high

https://nomads.com/europe/chart?chart_x=regulatory_quality&chart_y=gdp_per_capita_in_usd&show_labels=true&show_population_as_bubble_size=true

𝕏 @levelsio: https://x.com/levelsio/status/2103162912701563383

Regulatory burden data source is:
- World Bank's Regulatory Quality, combined with
- US's Cato Institute data on "Regulatory Policy" to get state level data

In US, you have the opposite effect

Which is partly because California is where all the tech is, but also because US as a whole already has quite pro-business regulation so it's easy to build a business there

So possibly a little more regulation there helps while in EU we definitely need less

𝕏 @JeremyNoronha: https://x.com/JeremyNoronha/status/2103860923295281612

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Got a package from @DHH 🫨

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I think every time AI can do something equally good or better than humans it stops being valuable or special

Marketing videos used to take lots of work of editing and motion graphics and a big budget

Now with Opus 5.5 etc it costs $0 to make one as good or better

That means ANYONE can make a marketing video now, so the timeline gets flooded with these videos (as you see happening now) and people stop caring about them, stop watching them and they stop grabbing attention

The response then to still grab attention is be different and that probably means IRL marketing videos that are original and unique and maybe personal

It's the grim reaper meme where AI keeps commoditizing another media format and bringing the cost down to close to $0

It already did so for graphic design (2023), last year with Nano Banana for photography (2025), this year with Seedance 2.5 it did it for video (2026) and this and next year motion graphics

𝕏 @sporadica: https://x.com/sporadica/status/2104424072717435064

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I've been actively fighting almost guaranteed age-related loneliness for years, studies show after age 30 you start seeing friends less and when you get older especially men don't have any social life left!

It's preventable, but it takes effort and initiative

We've now organized 70 weekly coworking days where we meet with friends and work together, do show and tell, and try help each other make things (also hardware stuff more recently)

We've also started organizing movie nights, art nights, barbecues, we watched the World Cup final on a projector screen in the garden with friends

We did a collage night the other day where we bought cheap gossip magazines, colored paper, and Pritt glue, and gave everyone scissors to make their own art, I think nobody spent time on their phone for at least 4 hours, making things puts you in a flow state and it's fun to do it in a group because you talk about different stuff while making things than you would for ex having a dinner

Movie nights are nice too but less popular I think cause everyone prefers to watch movies alone and also you can't really talk during a movie

Coworkings range from having sometimes 20 people to sometimes just 2 people, people have their own lives, but me and @rameerez still try to organize them weekly

One thing I realized is that we are usually the ones organizing stuff, but that's not a bad thing, there's even studies about this, there's usually a few people in a group who organize most of the events

If nobody in your group organizes stuff, it doesn't mean nobody wants to do stuff, but you have to take the initiative to bring people together which isn't easy in a time where phones and apps and the internet are simply easier and cheaper dopamine than driving to a friends house for a party

You can start with a coworking day, everyone brings their laptop, and you provide WiFi and coffee, then later you can try more types of events

Having an active social life is just as important or in some studies even more important for health than physical fitness

After a nice party I feel tired but satisfied, I had fun and didn't spend time on my phone or computer but instead talked and laughed with friends etc.

We don't drink alcohol with very few exceptions and nor do our friends, so it's mostly just having really nice food and sparkling water or kombucha etc, and we don't really need alcohol, after a few hours it gets fun enough anyway!

So I recommend everyone, take initiative, and organize something and get people together, it'll be fun! 😊

𝕏 @levelsio: https://x.com/levelsio/status/2105087277206737029

Organizing can be cheap or if you want to spend more money on it not so cheap, you can also ask people to bring food to save on costs

@theannalux tracks the nights we organized and we've spent about $5K on it in food for 26 nights (ex coworkings)

𝕏 @theannalux: https://x.com/theannalux/status/2105293992355037621

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Great article on increasing solitude of our societies, in this case US but same probably in EU to a lesser extent:

"Derek Thompson's essay "You Are No Longer Invited to Dinner" argues that Americans have largely stopped having people over.

The headline stat comes from combining the old DDB Needham Life Style surveys Robert Putnam used in *Bowling Alone* with a new replication by Data For Progress.

The share of Americans who host friends or family at home at least monthly fell from 42% in 1975 to 12% in 2026, roughly a 70% drop. Most other forms of socializing also fell by double digits over the last 30 years, including cards, bars, sporting events, and volunteering. The decline in hosting was steeper than the much-discussed drop in church attendance.

He rules out two comforting explanations. People haven't just moved dinners to restaurants, since solo dining is rising and face-to-face socializing is down overall. They also haven't replaced parties with other social activities. Exercise and travel are up, but exercise is mostly solitary, and time spent at home has jumped sharply since the 2010s.

His explanations:

1. Harried dual-earner households. As societies get richer, leisure starts to feel like work, and planning a dinner party is basically unpaid project management. Women historically ran the family social calendar. When they moved into paid work, men didn't take over that job. He admits this can't be the whole story, because total leisure time has actually increased.

2. Intensive parenting. Parents, especially fathers, now spend far more time with their kids, and that time comes out of evenings that used to go to hosting adults.

3. Shrinking friend networks. Close friendships are declining, most sharply among people without college degrees, so hosting is becoming a luxury good. People who never host skew toward independents and non-graduates. He speculates that weaker social ties may lead to weaker party attachment, rather than the other way around.

4. Home is too comfortable. Americans spent almost two extra hours a day at home between 2003 and 2022, much of it on screens and short-form video.

His closing idea is a "Lump of Leisure" theory, a twist on the Lump of Labor fallacy. Technology hasn't made human work unnecessary, but it has made other people less necessary for fun. Social leisure turns out to be finite and easy to displace.

He frames this as a coordination failure rather than a personal one: a dinner party requires schedules, cleaning, food, allergies, and the risk of a dull evening, while TikTok asks nothing of you.

A footnote adds that if everyone gets a bit busier, the difficulty of coordinating a get-together rises multiplicatively, so small increases in individual busyness could produce large drops in socializing overall."

https://www.derekthompson.org/p/the-death-of-the-american-host

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I'm noticing Westerners are continously having lower standards every year and seem to not even notice the declining quality standards of everything around them

I do notice it and when I tell them (IRL or on here) they make me sound jaded or disconnected from reality as if we expect too much

They're literally boiling the frog and most don't notice it

Then we fly out to Switzerland, UAE or East and parts of South East Asia and we realize there's nothing to complain about so it's not us, it's the West

𝕏 @mmjukic: https://x.com/mmjukic/status/2105602006719348751

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