Ben Fox 📚🗽🌎🇺🇦

Books build better people. Join the rebellion and create the indie book platform readers deserve 👉📚

[Ben Fox 📚🗽🌎🇺🇦 @bwb]

📚🔥 My 3 favorite reads of 2025 and why I loved them -> https://t.co/1T6acGfU3n and share your 3 favorites here -> https://t.co/QiiUowXSfK #BooksWorthReading

[Ramez Naam @ramez]

My story is a bit like Dwarkesh's. My family came here when I was 3, for my mom to get her PhD. The immigration laws dictated that, without a very hard to get exemption, we had to return to Egypt when she finished. This is despite the fact that both parents were demonstrably a value add to the US - my mom an MD, PhD; my dad a talented surgeon who went on to be the president of two separate medical associations.

After a decade long legal process, fraught with uncertainty and crazy hoops to jump through, right up until the final hours (and a multi year period of me being effectively stateless), we won the right to stay.

This is an amazing country. And we make it so hard for people who do or could make it even better to come and stay here.

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

This is known as LOSING A WAR

[Nikki Fried @NikkiFried]

Happy 6/14

[Ben Fox 📚🗽🌎🇺🇦 @bwb]

I love the world cup, but I hate how impossible it is to watch. I just spent 20 minutes trying to find highlights of a game already played on YouTube and can't find anything.

[Ben Fox 📚🗽🌎🇺🇦 @bwb]

@charliebilello Isn't 2% a goal just like meritocracy? You keep working toward it but you might not ever achieve it fully?

[Warren Gunnels @GunnelsWarren]

A Daily Reminder: If Bernie's Social Security bill was enacted in 2021, Elon Musk would've paid $2.9 billion more in taxes, Social Security would be solvent for 75 years, benefits would be expanded by $2,400 and 91% of Americans would pay $0 more in taxes.

Scrap the damn cap.

[Mall Bangers @MallBangers]

The world lost Anthony Bourdain 8 years ago today. I love this quote from him.

[vids that go hard @vidsthatgohard]

Anthony Bourdain died on this day eight years ago and him describing Waffle House is still the single-most important description of America that has ever been articulated.

[Ben Fox 📚🗽🌎🇺🇦 @bwb]

@marcosagusstinn @MichaelAArouet Agreed on a single market, but they also need to reduce some of the paperwork. It is a problem. If I had the choice, it would be creating a single market + apply some common sense to incentivize entrepreneurs.

[Ben Fox 📚🗽🌎🇺🇦 @bwb]

Thank god, some common sense and sanity win out.

[Sawyer Merritt @SawyerMerritt]

Wow, the S&P Dow Jones Indices has just officially announced that they will NOT be changing their inclusion rules to make it easier for “MegaCap” companies (such as @SpaceX) to be fast-tracked into the S&P 500.

Their reasoning:
"S&P DJI determined that exceptions to the financial viability, seasoning, and IWF requirements should not be granted solely based on market capitalization. The decision not to adopt the proposed exceptions preserves core index principles by maintaining consistent application of these key requirements. Although there may be trade-offs between strict adherence to these eligibility requirements and broad representativeness, the current methodology provides substantial market coverage and sector balance. As a result, the indices can continue to meet their stated objectives while preserving their role as representative and investable benchmarks for the U.S. equity market.

No changes will be made to the eligibility criteria including financial viability screens, seasoning period, or minimum IWF, for the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400, or S&P SmallCap 600 as a result of the S&P Dow Jones Indices consultation on the treatment of MegaCap companies. Accordingly, there will be no changes to existing methodology for this index family."

This means that the earliest @SpaceX could be eligible to be added to the S&P 500 would now be June 2027.

The requirements that will now remain in place are:
• No changes to S&P 500 eligibility rules for mega-cap companies.
• Mega-cap companies will still need to wait 12 months after their IPO before being considered for S&P 500 inclusion.
• S&P will not waive profitability requirements for mega-cap companies. The company must have positive GAAP net income in the most recent quarter, and the sum of the most recent four consecutive quarters.
• S&P will not waive minimum public float requirements for mega-cap companies. At least 10% of a company's shares must be publicly tradable ("free float").

The S&P rejected proposals that would have:
• Reduced the IPO seasoning period from 12 months to 6 months
• Waived profitability requirements
• Waived minimum public float requirements

[Ben Fox 📚🗽🌎🇺🇦 @bwb]

They finally figured out how to screw over index funds, this is an insane move. Keep the requirements in place.

[Hedgeye @Hedgeye]

Rule changes for the SpaceX $SPCX IPO:

Index providers waived the profitability requirement and cut the seasoning window from 90 days to 5.

This forces over $30 trillion in passive 401k and retirement money to buy SpaceX at IPO valuations.

Bloomberg Intelligence estimates S&P 500 funds must absorb 19% of SpaceX's float within 6 months.

Russell 1000 and Nasdaq 100 funds will absorb 24%.

The rules built to protect passive investors:

1. S&P 500 has required 12 months of trading and 4 quarters of GAAP profitability since 2002. Both waived.

2. Nasdaq cut its inclusion window from 90 trading days to 15.

3. FTSE Russell cut its to 5.

All three benchmarks are now structured to buy SpaceX at IPO pricing.

[Ben Fox 📚🗽🌎🇺🇦 @bwb]

@DaveKeating @alemannoEU @vonderleyen It can also be both :)

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

We need to keep smart people in the country to build the future and build tomorrow’s businesses that employ millions of people

This is bad and misguided policy

[Cristina Cordova @cjc]

Big Almond has been doing this the whole time and we’ve been out here worried about data centers. Unbelievable.

[Ben Fox 📚🗽🌎🇺🇦 @bwb]

Well said

[César A. Hidalgo @cesifoti]

Europe is one of the best places in the world to live, but one of the hardest places to build and scale a company.

After 5+ years in France, following 16+ in the US, I have a conflicted admiration for Europe.

On the one hand, Europe has great potential. When I lived in the US, I was skeptical of the European quality-of-life argument. But after getting used to Sunday morning markets, walkable cities, and 4.5 meter ceilings, I get it. There are things that you simply cannot import or experience as a tourist.

These things can make Europe very attractive for creative and intellectual work. I honestly believe some parts of Europe are the “best neighborhood” in the planet. But that’s not the full story.

I am not only a husband and a dad. I am also an entrepreneur. I founded a company in the US 12+ years ago that has offices in the US and Chile and clients throughout the world. I live in France, yet I have not opened a subsidiary here. That is telling.

We once hired someone in France through one of those remote employment platforms. The person received about 5,000 euros net per month, which is considered a very good salary here. But the total cost to the company was closer to 13,000 per month.

That makes hiring feel less like a relationship between a company and a worker, and more like renting someone from the state. At the same time, you take an enormous amount of legal and administrative responsibility. The presumption is that all companies should operate like a 1960s car manufacturer. The response is simple. Don’t set up operations in Europe.

But this is not a remote-work story. I know many small entrepreneurs in France who do not want to cross the threshold from being a one-person activity to becoming an employer. They sometimes refuse a new customer to stay small and avoid the obligations that come with hiring one person. That should worry us.

Many social protections here are described as being provided by the state, but in practice, a lot of the cost and complexity of the implementation falls on the administrative shoulders of entrepreneurs. That is reasonable for a large energy company or bank. But for a small business, it is the difference between an entrepreneur waking up on a Monday to think about product or paperwork.

Growth is not the enemy of the European social model. It is what enabled it. Much of the quality of life we enjoy here today dates back to growth incubated in the past. Growth that is increasingly hard to find. France once led frontier industries, like bicycles in the 1860s, cinema in the 1890s, and aviation and automobiles soon after. Since then, Europe built a more humane social model. But that model was built on the assumption that Europe and the US were the only two rich and industrialized places in the world.

That is no longer true. Global competition in the 21st century is not what it used to be 50 years ago, and the padding built to protect us, may have grown into the handbrake that constrains the growth of the small and flexible firms we need to compete in new frontier sectors.

We should be able to be critical about Europe in our own terms, without comparing ourselves to the US or China. Innovative parts of Europe, like Sweden or Switzerland, operate differently and provide clues. Sweden has embraced a dynamic of capitalization in its pension system for a long time in a continent where fewer people buy stocks. Switzerland, a place that shares an enormous amount of geography and culture with its neighbors, is built in part on strong internal competition among its cantons.

But neither can light a candle to a French open-air market on a Sunday morning. A market where cash is king, and for a reason.

Europe may be the best place in the world to live. But it is also one of the most challenging places to build and scale an innovative activity. The goal is not to weaken the European model. But to get to a place where we can lead again by example. The world will follow us, but only if we are ahead.

[Luis Garicano 🇪🇺🇺🇦 @lugaricano]

No smoking gun, but the preponderance of evidence points to smartphones, not economics, as the culprit for the global drop in fertility:
• In the US and UK, births fell first and fastest in areas that got 4G earliest
• Birth rates were stable in the US, UK and Australia until 2007; in France and Poland until 2009; in Mexico and Indonesia until 2012; in Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal until 2013-15
Each of these inflection points matches local smartphone adoption (see picture).
• The younger the age group, the sharper the drop.
• in-person socialising among young adults is dropping. In SK, by 50% in 20 years
• Sexual dysfunction is higher among heavy social media user
• Effect is largest in culturally traditional societies — Middle East, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa
• Decline holds across countries hit hard by GFC 2008 and those not hit, fast-growing and not growing.
Excellent again @jburnmurdoch.
https://t.co/RYEMXD2bRM

[Ben Fox 📚🗽🌎🇺🇦 @bwb]

@paulg I think the missing part is a public discussion about how much we contribute to government, what it is responsible for, and how we cap spending. I feel like we need a cap of xx% for gov, and a FED agency to decide the optimal way to raise that (no congress).

[Dave Keating @DaveKeating]

More and more people are concluding that the only way to save the EU is a 'two-speed Europe' where the hesitant outer tier is left behind while the core moves forward with ever-closer union

The alternative is vassalisation to America & Russia

From former 🇪🇺foreign policy chief:

[Ben Fox 📚🗽🌎🇺🇦 @bwb]

@pablogguz_ @MarkManger Sometimes it seems like the only way they will face this type of stuff is a crisis, the bond market saying no, or something big enough to motivate them to touch the third rail.

[Ben Fox 📚🗽🌎🇺🇦 @bwb]

@paulg It is hard to understand something when one of your big voting blocks is paid a lot of money in home equity to not build anything.