Morgan Bender

Rugged individualist 🇺🇸, ex @a16z, co-founder @ (acquired by

[Atlas Press @realAtlasPress]

Leonardo da Vinci's greatest paragraph

[Alex Rampell @arampell]

Imagine telling someone in 1990, when McDonald's finally opened in the USSR (w/ 50% ownership by Soviets):

“The Soviet Union will collapse, China will embrace markets, and an American senator will propose confiscating 50% of the country’s most important technology companies.”

[Morgan Bender @MorganWBender]

💯

[The Rabbit Hole @TheRabbitHole]

Capitalists want to earn your money.

Socialists want to steal your money.

[Morgan Bender @MorganWBender]

✌️

[Spencer Pratt @spencerpratt]

As a Trojan i would never go off a UC Berkeley poll.

FIGHT ON!

[Spencer Pratt @spencerpratt]

When I was in my 20’s I was on a TV show. When Karen Bass was in her 20’s, she was training in terrorist tactics and guerrilla warfare with communists in Cuba. Back when the LA Times was still in LA, and used to tell the truth…

[Daniel S. Loeb @DanielSLoeb1]

As an investor (and a human generally) I can’t stress how important it is to understand that well financed, often foreign enemies are trying to influence public perception on a range of topics from AI to Capitalism. They also sow discontent around social issues and have largely created what some have observed as the woke mind virus. If there’s one thing we should and are failing at is teaching our children to think critically, a difficult task since many of their teachers aren’t capable themselves. It’s a bummer but as parents we also have to teach our kids to see the opinions of their school teachers and college professors with the same skeptical eye.

[Morgan Bender @MorganWBender]

Love to see this! Some of my fondest memories at a16z are from board meetings with Peter (and narrowly avoiding spur of the moment ice climbing treks).

[Peter Levine @PeterL4e]

I am thrilled to announce my return to a16z as a full-time General Partner. Having made a full recovery from cancer and navigated some of life’s most taxing personal hurdles, I am returning with a sharpened sense of purpose and a deep optimism for the future, both personally and professionally.

My time away reinforced that living to one's fullest capacity requires doing what you love with the people you trust. While I’ve continued to support my boards and founders, I’ve realized my greatest impact happens when I am 'all in.' I believe he current pace of innovation in infrastructure is unmatched, and I couldn't be happier to be back in the trenches with my colleagues and close friends on the a16z Infra team.

[Morgan Bender @MorganWBender]

So accurate. I know people with siblings who are locked into the street drugs cycle.

1) They don't want to get off the streets.

2) Every time they get arrested, their families pray for a long sentence so they have a chance to get sober.

3) They always get let right back out.

[Spencer Pratt @spencerpratt]

If that addict on your street were your own son, what would you do? That is the defining question that guides my 5 step plan to fix the homelessness problem in LA. We *must* end this evil racket of corrupt politicians and NGOs who profit off the misery of these poor souls. They launder money and feed them more drugs, so they can keep their customers locked in this hell on our streets. We have a moral obligation from God to help them and make our city safe and clean for everyone. Karen Bass and Nithya Raman have forsaken this city. Time for real leadership. Time for real compassion.

[MissionLoco @MissionLoco]

Come to San Francisco to visit:
$9/toll
$40/parking
$300/hotel
$100pp/dinner
$25/sip of wine/cocktail
$500/sports or music tickets

Come to buy fentanyl and cause trouble:
$100,000/yr in freebies incl. drug use amenities, cash, cell phone, housing, meals, medical + incidentals.

[Spencer Pratt @spencerpratt]

Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down

[Morgan Bender @MorganWBender]

😂

[Handre @Handre]

Socialist: "Nordic countries prove socialism works."

Economist: "They rank higher on economic freedom than the US."

Socialist: "But they have universal healthcare."

Economist: "Funded by 25% VAT taxes on the poor and 180% car taxes."

Socialist: "They're more equal."

Economist: "Sweden has more billionaires per capita than America."

Socialist: "That's not real socialism."

Economist: "Correct. Real socialism is Venezuela, where toilet paper costs $100."

Socialist: "That's different."

Economist: "Is it."

[Chris Bakke @ChrisJBakke]

My favorite bit is that 100% of her anti-AI posts has an em dash

[Morgan Bender @MorganWBender]

@rookie_of_Ph @josefabregab @OndoFinance @chainlink 👆

[Garrett Langley @glangley]

They called @Flock_Safety a "Snitching-Ass Startup". Now, the Mayor we serve is one of America's favorites.

In a San Francisco Chronicle poll, Mayor Daniel Lurie has reached a staggering 74% approval rating. The data is clear: when you prioritize safety, you revitalize the city.

[Geiger Capital @Geiger_Capital]

It will soon be common knowledge that China has been pushing harmful policies from inside of our own country…

DEI, absurd climate regulations, wealth taxes, soft-on-crime reforms, illegal immigration and even the anti-standardized test movement.

[Morgan Bender @MorganWBender]

🔥

[Charles Curran @charliebcurran]

LA is worth saving. Vote Spencer Pratt.

[Mark Fabela @markdfabela]

The fentanyl clouds are fine. It’s the Marlboros that crossed the line.

[zerolore @zerolore]

LayerZero is the golden standard for cross chain interoperability BECAUSE of its high level of customizability. Unfortunately, this means application owners need to invest serious resources to match the security standard that the capital moving through our rails demands.

At @USDT0_to this has been our main priority from day 1. Security IS the product.

From our very first conversation, the @LayerZero_Core team made extremely clear to us what it would take to hit the security bar our infrastructure required. We did not launch into production until each of those steps was achieved.

Our system pins libraries, runs our proprietary veto-powered DVN with invariance checks developed specifically for our threat vectors, and owns multiple other invaluable parts of the security stack to make sure we are ALWAYS owning our security stack from A to Z.

My Co-Founder and CTO @0xKeno put together an overview of how we approach security at USDT0.

You can find it below.

We are the largest asset on the LayerZero network. We were fully unaffected by this incident because we built on top of the protocol responsibly. We did our homework well before this attack was on everyone’s mouth. Since then, USDT0 moved $4B across chains.

We have been, and will keep on, safeguarding our user's funds to the highest security standards available in this industry.

We are standing strong next to @PrimordialAA, @ryanzarick and the rest of the LayerZero team. Interoperability is hard. It is dangerous. It is constantly under attack by nation-state actors, with virtually unlimited resources. It’s like open heart surgery, every time something is changed.

It is also absolutely needed in the future-economy we are all trying to build.

The only way to avoid the next exploit is to understand the system deeply, invest resources in understanding the technology and build on a platform that lets applications own the vast majority of their building blocks.

For us, this platform is LayerZero. We’ll keep building on top of LayerZero.

[Morgan Bender @MorganWBender]

@LayerZero_Core 💪💪💪

[Morgan Bender @MorganWBender]

🔥