Amir Learner

Mostly Bad Biz and Basketball Takes | Being a Decent Person, Being better than you at NBA Jam, 1x Biz Owner, Game Theory, All Things Digital

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

I’m Amir, owner of Garage Floor Coating of Boston.

We transform 500+ boring garages and business floors each year with with premium concrete coatings. Check out our work — free quotes available! Check out this awesome floor we just did!

For $250 off your project fill out this free quote link - https://t.co/Rx2ceBq3MH

[Palantir @PalantirTech]

Because we get asked a lot.

The Technological Republic, in brief.

1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.

2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.

3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.

4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.

5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.

6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.

7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.

8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.

9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.

10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.

11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.

12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.

13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.

14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.

15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.

16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.

17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.

18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.

19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.

20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.

21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.

22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?

Excerpts from the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, by Alexander C. Karp & Nicholas W. Zamiska

https://t.co/8igjazz1On

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

@grantimaclean @tannerdripjobs I’m at 2.5 in MA with an epoxy biz, we should chat!

[Henshi @HenshiG]

From Stephen Ackerman:

Whatever his reason was, I do not care.
A man tried to bomb a synagogue and school. That is the story. Not his feelings. Not his biography. Not his excuse.
And that is exactly why the mayor should never have mentioned the man’s alleged reason in the first place. Once you introduce the attacker’s personal grievance into an official statement, you have already done something damaging. You have shifted the focus from condemning anti-Jewish terrorism to explaining the emotional state of the terrorist.
When Jews are the target, too many people suddenly become amateur grief counselors for the attacker. They start digging for context, as if there is some magical amount of personal pain that turns attempted mass murder into something to be understood instead of condemned.
It is moral cowardice dressed up as compassion.
It is a disgraceful double standard.
It is the softening of evil through selective empathy.
On October 7, 2023, 1,200 Jews were butchered by Muslims. That must have left well over 10,000 parents, children, spouses, siblings, and other family members devastated, traumatized, and grieving.
So tell me: how many American Jews responded by loading a car with explosives and trying to blow up a mosque?
None.
Not one.
Because civilized people do not answer grief with terrorism.
And let’s stop pretending ideology has nothing to do with this. There is a long tradition of anti-Jewish incitement in Islamic texts and slogans, including references to fighting Jews and chants like “Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews.” So no, this should not be laundered into a story about grief alone.
The mayor’s job was to say plainly that a terrorist tried to bomb a synagogue and school, and to condemn him, his actions, and the ideology behind them. Full stop.
Instead, the statement reads like a political balancing act: a nod to the Jews who were targeted, followed by a reassurance to the people who are sympathetic to the attacker and his ideology.
He chose evil. That is the only context that matters.
His grief did not make him do it. His ideology did. His hatred did. His belief that Jews are acceptable targets did.

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

@salvin_joseph Framingham, MA? We’re up the street in Natick

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

@RMcCoy30 @AskSynchrony This is the only answer ^

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

@tannerdripjobs @MelissaAmaya32 How often are you refunding the 500 dollar deposits? We’ve done this maybe twice in the last 800 jobs?

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

@tannerdripjobs We’re 50% but now you have me interested

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

@tannerdripjobs Does it improve conversion rate? Referral equity? I’m intrigued

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

@MatthewMcCrac18 They hold up well! We offer a 10 year warranty to all of our residential customers to ease concerns

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

I’m Amir, owner of Garage Floor Coating of Boston.

We transform 500+ boring garages and business floors each year with with premium concrete coatings. Check out our work — free quotes available! Check out this awesome floor we just did!

For $250 off your project fill out this free quote link - https://t.co/Rx2ceBq3MH

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

@kendramiddleton Is that @CameronNewton?

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

@tannerdripjobs @BryanShankman haha crush is strong ... but yeah its a good business, our numbers are slightly different also ... 1000 sqft garages aren't super common up here :)

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

Great gig working with Dan!

[Dan Magazu @DannyMagazu]

We are hiring a VP of Strategy & Client Success who can get OBSESSED with Facebook group marketing,

You'll help lead our 150+ clients + team.

Pay will be competitive.

You will be a leader.
You will help shape our business.
You will lead our clients to success.

We are a Fast-growing startup.

If you've crushed it with organic lead gen, we need to talk (Send me a DM).

Tag anyone you know who lives and breathes organic marketing!

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

@jamesonhaslam I feel like I used those to mount monitors to my desk

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

@jamesonhaslam @Nads_Shariff Have seen commission but haven’t seen cc fees … makes sense though! Would be a good conversation in @DannyMagazu’s slack!

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

@SavageSports_

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

@DannyMagazu @ahmadibrahim @tannerdripjobs @irentdumpsters And I’m a DripJobs client :)

Happy to chat!

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

@recoveringbankr @J00cyJ00ce @ChadCarleton @BowTiedBroke Can also think about it like this: at most through fidelity you’re getting 2% back, I’ve seen Amex points redeemed at over 6% with some awesome travel

[Amir Learner @AmirLearner]

@ianncushing @noman_semantic Commercial is all over the place given the different types of systems and massive range of square footage

On the residential side of things our typical project is about 5k

This always varies in different markets, some are more saturated than others