Alexander Woolley

🇧🇪🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇩🇪

[alli @sonofalli]

He’s going to the airport. Add 10 people in the security line who have never spent a day on earth.

[Balaji @balajis]

I'm going to make some obvious points.

(1) Blowing up all the oil infrastructure in the Middle East is an insane idea, and may well result in a global economic crash and humanitarian crisis unrivaled in the lives of those now living. We're talking about the price of everything everywhere rising, from food to gas, at a moment when inflation was already high. All of that will be laid at the feet of the authors of this war.

(2) The antebellum status quo of Feb 27, 2026 was just not that bad, but we're unlikely to return to it. Expect indefinite, long-term, ongoing disruptions to everything out of the Middle East.

(3) Also assume tech financing crashes for the indefinite future. The genius plan to get the Gulf states caught in the crossfire has incinerated much of the funding for LPs, for datacenters, and for IPOs. Anyone in tech who supported this war may soon learn the meaning of "force majeure" as funding gets yanked.

(4) Many capital allocators will instead be allocating much further down Maslow's hierarchy of needs, towards useful basic things like food and energy.

(5) It's fortunate that all those progressives yelled about the "climate crisis." Yes, their reasoning about timelines was wrong, and much of the money was wasted in graft, but the result was right: we all need energy independence from the Middle East, pronto. It's also fortunate that Elon and China autistically took climate seriously. Now they're going to need to ship a billion solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries, nuclear power plants, and the like to get everyone off oil, immediately.

(6) It's not just an oil and gas problem, of course. It's also a fertilizer problem, and a chemical precursor problem. Maybe some new sources will come online at the new prices, but it takes time to dial stuff up, particularly at this scale, so shortages are almost a certainty.

That said, China has actually scaled up coal-to-chemicals[a,c] (C2C), and there's also something more sci-fi called Power-to-X[b] which turns arbitrary power + water + air into hydrocarbons. But all of that will need to get accelerated. I have a background in chemical engineering so may start funding things in this area.

(7) Ultimately, this war is going to result in tremendous blame for anyone associated with it. It's a no-win scenario to blow up this much infrastructure for so many people. Simply not worth it for whatever objective they thought they were going to attain. But unless you're actually in a position to stop the madness, the pragmatic thing to do is: scramble to mitigate the fallout to yourself, your business, and your people.

[a]: https://t.co/ITat4tmAFd
[b]: https://t.co/bWwiSQcgyt
[c]: https://t.co/FQCqMhy5d3

[Alexander Woolley @AlexWoolley_]

@AswathDamodaran @threadreaderapp unroll

[Paulo Macro @PauloMacro]

Complete. Comedy.

[Nicholas Drummond @nicholadrummond]

This is the best summary of the current geopolitical situation I have seen. Sir Alex Younger was head of MI6 between 2014 and 2020. Really worth watching.

[Spinachbrah 🥗 @basedspinach]

Someone spent 1.38 million dollars worth of ethereum to tell the world that there is Chinese-Grade Neuralink and its already been mass implanted into their military and workforce to control them like bugs

[𝐃𝐈𝐆𝐁 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @_DIGB]

Nah man the Prime Minister elect has said “in this room right here beats the heart of our democracy” and there’s a bloke in an Elmo suit stood 2 yards from him

[Mattheus Berg @MattheusBerg]

Ich liebe das Internet

[Nate Chan @nathanwchan]

OMG The Simpsons predict the future again

[Alexander Woolley @AlexWoolley_]

@EpsilonTheory @olivierpanis3 @olivierpanos

[Emma Camp @emmma_camp_]

This NYT piece is an endless stream of bangers.

I swear, one of the more destructive recent cultural trends has been the combined push to frame all distress or discomfort as mental illness, and then to encourage people to form their identity around being “mentally ill.”

[Morning Brew ☕️ @MorningBrew]

the stock market vs. the economy

[Pericles @PerryALPHA]

"Naggers" from South Park actually happened on French TV in 2022

[Alexander Woolley @AlexWoolley_]

@iamlauwolff @baffelini @adakid69

[Paul Mozur 孟建國 @paulmozur]

Awash in a sea of data, China authorities are trying to police the future.

It's not sci fi. Using vast data records on citizens, new software uses scoring and AI to predict crime and protest before they happen. Often the result is automated prejudice. https://t.co/eKFWHQA7e5

[The Onion @TheOnion]

Supreme Court Rules 5-4 To Reopen Japanese Internment Camps https://t.co/MKeSGZmBOj

[Neeraj K. Agrawal @NeerajKA]

Watch as @jony_levin tries to answer Sen. Warren’s questions about a hypothetical oligarch with $1 billion already in crypto