U.S. Venture capital hasn't been able to outperform European VC for the past 20 years. The Thiel Andreessen generation of VC took one of the greatest engines of economic growth and American ingenuity, and turned it into an old world rent extraction scheme. wired.com/story/to-save-the-…

this is really sad. rest in peace

I do not trust people who attend multiple events and occult rituals as "Predators" and celebrate this as a badge of honor attached to their real names to tell me what is and isn't safe for me to do with artificial intelligence.

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We obtained documents detailing the abundance movement's "capital stack." It's $260 million/year, including $100 million from former Microsoft CEO/LA Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, who hadn't been listed as an abundance donor before. prospect.org/2026/06/12/new-…

Gonna read a lot about VC "returns" from the SpaceX IPO. Reminder that no VC is selling shares into the IPO, and can't sell for a while. So these are still paper gains, not actual cash for distribution-starved LPs in their funds.

I reported last month that @johnofa, one of the first partners at Andreessen Horowitz, left his role at the firm due to political disagreements with Marc Ben. Today, he's expanding on that in a column in NYT. "Some of the most powerful players in A.I. — led by some of my friends and former partners, to my great sadness — have raised hundreds of millions of dollars to forestall a more serious and meaningful debate about how A.I. should be governed." nytimes.com/2026/06/11/opini…

Journalists when they realise they’ve been played by Silicon Valley’s version of the Church of Scientology 🤔

There are 12 venture-backed companies that raised >$3B in private markets and then listed in the US. Only one that has a positive return today, relative to the S&P 500's performance over the same period. Most are deeply negative (aggregate -117%). Only two that were positive at lockup expiry, neither stayed that way. The high cost of private capital means the companies that raise the most, and stay private longer, are almost inevitably overvalued as insiders raise the price of funding events aggressively to stay NPV positive.

Balaji is a nation state actor. Period. He does not bat for Team USA. This continued platforming of him necessitates increased scrutiny. There are Dark Forces at play.

I don’t think people’s fears about AI are as much about a “permanent underclass” as a permanent overclass

Is antitrust enforcement good for "little tech"? "The results show that VCs significantly reduce investments in startups located in areas less protected by the antitrust division." "Additional tests show that the lowered antitrust enforcement subsequently leads to a lower likelihood of successful exits and worse innovation outcomes for startups in the affected areas." "Overall, these results suggest that VCs avoid investing in startups located in areas less protected by the antitrust division, hindering the long-term development of startups in affected areas." The Effect of Antitrust Enforcement on Venture Capital Investments, by Wentian Zhang Broadly, the finding of this paper is that antitrust enforcement protects early-stage companies from anti-competitive practices by incumbents. Stronger anti-trust enforcement is associated with greater levels of investment in early-stage companies, and more positive long-term outcomes in terms of company exits and innovation.

i’ve never seen the same people who suddenly care about the potential “suffering” of ai models speak up once about the suffering of real human people

BREAKING: California Forever linked donors have funneled thousands into the coffers of the Solano County Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, which is spending big on two Solano County Board of Supervisors Races. thereporter.com/2026/05/25/c…

On one side, you have the VC, with a network. On the other, the founder, without. Just to get the attention of the VC, the founder must navigate a network of strangers to find someone who believes in their idea enough to agree to pass it on. And then they hope the VC, hearing this idea from a second-hand source, also sees the potential. Who does this nonsense work well for? It works reasonably well for founders with "obvious" ideas that have some recognisable "pedigree", who are perhaps gifted with charisma. However, none of these attributes are positively correlated with returns. They are positively correlated with generating faster markups, so it also works well as a filter for the scaled venture platforms who sell allocation to LPs. But, for most founders, it's a massive waste of time and a painful distraction to be forced to play this ridiculous ego-driven relationship game. The first thing any new VC should pledge is to not waste founders' time, because it is infinitely more precious than any VC's time. The arrogance of making founders jump through hoops for a chance at raising money is insane. Unless you believe your customers are LPs, rather than founders.

I asked if Marc Andreessen was reachable for you. Your answer was that you pitched someone else at a16z and they said no. Warm intros are bad for venture capital. There’s a host of research on why, but the tl;dr is that relationships are a bad filter for idiosyncrasy. medium.com/@DelJohnsonVC/ban…

NBC: CALPERS Low Returns, Excessive Compensation, Private Equity Zombie Funds yahoo.com/news/articles/nati…? @AntoineGara @sindap @EricGPlatt @ameliajpollard @Temple_West @brookeamasters @marywmswalsh