USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.
Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.
I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."
"They just come with the table, man."
They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.
This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.
I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then โ I must report this calmly โ the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.
"Did weโฆ?"
"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."
Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.
My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."
Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished โ an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.
I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.
Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.
I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.
Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.
> youโll never start a rocket company
> youโll never build your own engines
> youโll never be able to use off-the-shelf parts
> youโll never survive three launch failures
> youโll never reach orbit
> youโll never win NASAโs trust
> youโll never launch cargo to the ISS
> youโll never compete with Boeing
> youโll never compete with Lockheed
> youโll never make rockets reusable
> youโll never land a rocket vertically
> youโll never land one on a drone ship
> youโll never reuse a booster
> youโll never fly the same booster 10 times
> youโll never fly the same booster 20 times
> youโll never fly the same booster 30 times
> youโll never recover and reuse the fairing
> youโll never lower launch costs
> youโll never launch every month
> youโll never launch every week
> youโll never launch multiple times a week
> youโll never carry astronauts
> youโll never replace Roscosmos
> youโll never fly civilians to orbit
> youโll never manufacture satellites at scale
> youโll never build the biggest constellation ever
> youโll never make satellite internet work
> youโll never make satellite internet fast
> youโll never make satellite internet affordable
> youโll never serve rural customers
> youโll never serve aircraft and ships
> youโll never build a methane rocket engine
> youโll never make full-flow staged combustion work
> youโll never build the most powerful rocket ever
> youโll never build a rocket bigger than Saturn V
> youโll never build it out of stainless steel
> youโll never launch Starship
> youโll never separate Super Heavy and Starship
> youโll never relight Raptor in space
> youโll never bring Super Heavy back
> youโll never catch a booster with Mechazilla tower arms
> youโll never launch 85% of mass to orbit worldwide
> youโll never change the economics of space
> youโll never force the entire industry to copy you
> youโll never win
> youโll never IPO
ย
Congratulations to @elonmusk and the SpaceX team. You did what countless people said was impossible, and you did it time and time again.
ย
Today is your day. You deserve this. May it be a glorious one.
California is one of the most dynamic places on the planet.
The paradox of the state today is that its successful economy is attached to a failing model of governance.
My latest column:
https://t.co/s9a2keoPQR
250 years ago today, June 12, 1776, the Virginia Declaration of Rights was adopted by the Virginia Constitutional Convention. Written by George Mason, this document would be copied by other colonies and would form the basis for the Bill of Rights.
Today marks 10 years since a gunman took 49 lives at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, FL.
We honor those lost while continuing to strive for a country where LGBTQ+ people can safely be themselves.
On this day in 2016, Afghan "refugee" Omar Mateen carried out the 2nd largest Islamic terrorist attack in US history.
He shot over 100 people, of whom 49 died. He targeted Pulse, an LGBT themed nightclub in Orlando, FL.
College students once tried to make their work look polished. Now, some say theyโre making mistakes on purpose to avoid AI accusations.
https://t.co/pBUDDpS49J
Ok so retail investors got access to the biggest IPO in history but with a catch??
Every brokerage offering SpaceX allocations, except Schwab attached strict antiflipping rules.
- Fidelity, sell within 15 days and you're banned from IPOs for 6 months. Second offense, a year. Third, permanent.
- $HOOD, the self declared retail stronghold, tracks your shares for 30 days, sell early and you're locked out of IPO access for 60.
Why? The underwriters demanded it.
Morgan Stanley and the banks controlling allocation told brokerages directly, take this stock, but guarantee your clients don't toss it back on day one.
If u donโt, your platform gets zero allocation on the next hot deal
All the brokerages complied instantly, their IPO especially with (OpenAI & Anthropic) IPOs coming, their pipeline is worth more than retail trading freedom.
But the hedge fund that got allocation through its prime broker can flip at the open with zero consequence.
The retail account that got 5 shares through Fidelity gets penalized for doing the same thing.
Retail was given access to the demand side of this IPO. The exit remains institutionalโฆso again is this an exist liquidity?
"Democratized finance" as long as you hold what they need you to hold, for exactly as long as they need you to hold it and thereโs a new report on SpaceX only selling shares to people that are not selling but staying long๐