Mike Simmons

e/elec. CEO @ Superpower Energy. Previously CEO @Driveway. Electro-optimist.

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

Relativism is soul crushing.

[Brad @BradleyKellard]

Malcolm Gladwell revealed why you shouldn't go to Harvard:

1. America does not have a shortage of students who want science and math degrees. It has a shortage of students who finish them. Half of all high school seniors who intend to study STEM drop out by the end of their second year. The problem is not interest. It is persistence.

2. The obvious assumption is that smarter students persist longer. So Gladwell tested it. At Hartwick College, a small liberal arts school in New York, the top third of math SAT scorers took the majority of STEM degrees. The bottom third dropped out in large numbers. The data seemed to confirm it. Smarter kids stick around longer.

3. Then he looked at Harvard. The bottom third of Harvard's math SAT scores are equal to the top third at Hartwick. By the logic above, everyone at Harvard should graduate with a STEM degree. They are all brilliant. Nobody should be dropping out.

4. Harvard showed the exact same pattern as Hartwick. Top students graduated. Bottom students dropped out like flies. Even though the bottom Harvard students were objectively brilliant by any global standard. Something else entirely was driving the dropout rate.

5. That something is called relative deprivation theory. Human beings do not measure themselves against the world. They measure themselves against the people immediately around them. A Harvard student in the bottom third does not think I am in the top one percent of all students globally. They think that kid next to me keeps getting everything right and I keep getting it wrong. So they quit.

6. The research from UCLA puts a specific number on it. Your odds of graduating with a STEM degree fall by two percentage points for every ten point increase in the average SAT score of your peers. Choose Harvard over the University of Maryland and your chance of finishing a STEM degree drops by thirty percent. Thirty percent. Just to put a brand name on your resume.

7. Relative position matters more than absolute position when it comes to confidence, motivation, and self belief. The eightieth percentile student at Harvard looks up at the people above them and feels like they cannot compete. The number one student at a state school feels like they can conquer the world. That feeling drives everything.

8. The practical hiring implication is radical. Class rank matters more than institution name. Gladwell argues companies should have a don't ask don't tell policy for where someone went to college. Hiring only from top schools means missing the top students from every other school. That is not smart hiring. That is brand worship.

9. When choosing a college, never go to the best school you get into. Go to the school where you are guaranteed to be near the top of your class. Being a big fish in a smaller pond does not just feel better. It statistically produces better outcomes than being a small fish in the most prestigious pond available.

10. So why do we keep choosing Harvard over Maryland? Because we are flattered. Because the acceptance letter feels like validation. Because we make an irrational decision in a moment of enormous flattery and call it ambition. Gladwell's conclusion is simple and brutal. When we have the chance to join an elite institution we do things that are genuinely against our own interest and we feel great about it the whole time.

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

🤙

[John Cocozza @johncocozza]

Surfing at The Wedge, Newport Beach
June 9th, 2026

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

@WolffOnYourSide Good luck today 🤞. I’m getting out the vote for you in OC 🫡

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

Chatted with a water resource economist at an event in California yesterday.

The state’s water “shortage” really is one of the most unforced errors in policymaking.

Key stats:

- farmers use 80% of the developed water supply

- residents use 20%

- cities pay ~20x higher prices (!) for water than farmers (~$722/acre-foot vs ~$36/acre-foot)

- some of the biggest agricultural districts in the state pay literally $0 for their water

- meanwhile agriculture accounts for just ~2% of California’s economy

It’s crazy that politicians tell residents to take shorter showers or get rid of their lawns instead of just charging farmers the market price for their water usage.

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

@LargeFamDad I was kinda that guy before i had kids. Then I had the same epiphany you had. Now I’m the guy that tells everybody it goes by SO fast 😂🥹

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

We need more @friedberg

[Molly O’Shea @MollySOShea]

BREAKING: David @friedberg says "California is functionally bankrupt"

"People don't realize how screwed California is, & I worry that if California falls, so does the union.

"$250 billion to $1 trillion short."

"This is because for California to get rescued would be a big cost to red states, & I think it creates in the years ahead a lot of tension."

"California's functional bankruptcy is a major risk to the country. & I think we need to figure out what we can change to fix it."

How we got here:
"California has a public pension system, & that public pension system retirees have paid into it & they get some benefits out, & the amount that they're owed back out is somewhere between $250 billion - $1 trillion dollars more than has been paid in.

$250 billion to $1 trillion short.

If it was the federal government, it would be like, okay, we'll just print more money. California doesn't have the ability to print money, so California has to pay this out, and you can't restructure retirement benefits.

There is a Supreme Court case in California that said that once an employee has been offered retirement benefits, even if they're currently an employee, you can never restructure their retirement benefits.

It has to stay forever, and the state cannot declare bankruptcy. There's no way for the state to functionally declare bankruptcy. There's no law to allow it. No state has ever declared bankruptcy, and the retirement benefits sit senior to the bonds in California.

So you have to pay out the retirement benefits before you pay out all the bond holders that have loaned California the money that they use to run all their programs and services."

Hill & Valley Forum 2026 (@HillValleyForum)

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

Honored to share this update.

[Trung Phan @TrungTPhan]

Google Translate for Linkedin Speak is definitely the killer app AI use case we been looking for

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

@paulg 💯. Safari beats Chrome on tab hunting.

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

Claude has B2B revenue and B2C taste.

[signüll @signulll]

i have a lot to say about these ads but holy fucking shit… this might be the most tasteful & brutal takedown of a category leader i’ve ever seen. & during the fucking super bowl? insane.

usually these things almost always fall flat (see: slack “welcoming” microsoft teams with a fucking newspaper ad & how cringe that was), but this one lands dead center.

even normies will clock the subtlety. the capturing of chatgpt’s drift in personality, tone, & vibes is absolutely unreal. almost surgical. normal ppl i know make fun of how chatgpt talks.

imo openai made themselves vulnerable here by simply trying to do so much (enterprise, codex, consumer, etc) & lacking a singular cohesive narrative other than they have 800m users. like even google is taking shots about openai being forced to run ads.

anyway i’ll post more but this was an absolute master class (i have posted about how openai competitors should handle their ads play, & this is a great start). also i would not count anthropic out of the consumer race yet (they have a lot of room to grow & even potentially acquire small startups).

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

Hey @Jason, this is your guy. Get the @theallinpod besties on board and do your magic. You bailed on us in CA so you owe us one 🙏

[Mayor Matt Mahan @MattMahanSJ]

A couple weeks ago, I came home and my wife, Silvia, said something I almost couldn’t believe.

She looked at me and she said, “I think our state needs you.” Because she believed I could help our kids. Help San José. And help California.

And if you know anything about Silvia — when she talks, you listen.

So I’m running for Governor of California — because we can do better.

I know we can, because we’re proving it in San Jose.

We’ve reduced unsheltered homelessness by nearly 1/3rd after a decade of growth. We were rated the safest big city in America last year for the first time in over 20 years. We’re the only city to have solved 100% of homicides nearly 4 years running. And we’re taking on affordability with urgency and honesty — unlocking thousands of housing units in the past couple years. 

We need to stand up for our rights, for our freedoms and for our neighbors. We need to use the tools we have at hand to protect our democracy.

One tool is the law. The other tool is our results. We have to use both.

That’s how we fix California.

We don’t just need to be against something. We need to be for something — a government that proves it can solve problems for working people again.

And before we ask Californians to give more, we owe them proof that their government can do better.

So I’m running to bring focus back to government. To give cities the tools they need to succeed. To show that the best resistance to division is results.

And to prove that California can work again — for everyone.

That’s why I’m running.

And that’s the future Silvia and I are fighting for.

https://t.co/OgrVAthfeW

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

@MattMahanSJ Thank you sir 🫡. Let’s go!!!

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

Great thread on China.

[John Arnold @johnarnold]

Just returned from my first trip to China, mostly looking at the energy and robotics industries. Fascinating. Random observations, both business and general, below...
1/x

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

@v_computer Yes please 🙏

[Ben Casnocha @bencasnocha]

Some people go their whole life without learning the difference between “less” and “fewer”

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

@jemooney @ilbiscom @YouTube That cameraman wasn’t doing his job on the solo 🤦‍♂️

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

@chamath Honestly don’t get why @RoKhanna would push wealth tax instead of carried interest+margin loans. He knows former doesn’t work and he’d get bipartisan support for latter.

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

@balajis China is lapping Tesla while Tesla is laps ahead of Detroit. Detroit’s response: add a lawnmower engine to the truck.

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

Great thread. Everyone knows the car dealership buying experience is broken. This gets to some of the root causes. Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome.

[Zach Shefska @shefska]

We contacted 100 @Ford dealers nationwide asking for the out-the-door price on the same truck.

Same vehicle.
Same MSRP (within a few hundred dollars).
Same buyer profile.
The only difference was the dealership.

What happened next explains why car buying is broken 🧵👇

[Mike Simmons @MichaelSSimmons]

@pitdesi GOOG vibe today

[Burgers and Blitzes @Not2BeTrite]

Every coach in the nation got this one waiting on the boys Monday morning.

[Peter Reinhardt @reinpk]

My lobbyists are very nervous about me posting this, but over-regulation is working against us all. The costs are astronomical to us all, but hidden.

So, I'm taking a risk, and sharing my stories from Charm and Revoy:
https://t.co/UsaltST5gJ