Christopher

Sic transit gloria mundi.
Texas lawyer. Veteran. Rambling foolishness is strictly my own.

[Christopher @TexasBabcock]

@J0hnADouglas Refried. Ignacio is rolling in his grave.

[Christopher @TexasBabcock]

I have seen things that make the angels weep.

Not even a few beans to break the monotony?

[John A. Douglas @J0hnADouglas]

Big Mex doesn’t want you to know this but the best nachos can be made at home without their involvement

[Christopher @TexasBabcock]

@ArchlichEternal “ Let me understand. I made a slip of the tongue and you want to hold me to it, consequences be damned. Are. You. Sure?”

[Christopher @TexasBabcock]

@eroc0303 More damage = more fun, so the rule should be applied in that spirit, especially if backstabbing is hard to do in ordinary combat but requires a very squishy character to take risks to pull it off.

[Christopher @TexasBabcock]

@postingpirate @JesterInABarrel Yes! Same detective I think. It’s been a long time since I’ve read Poe and it blends together.

[Christopher @TexasBabcock]

@jejeproduktion @JonahDispatch Yes. Which is why trials are important. But I think we make a mistake when we try to import due process norms into war - we often end up eroding due process instead of “civilizing” war.

[Gray Connolly @GrayConnolly]

We have waited for years (decades?) for a modern Pope who will make clear we as a Church will always repudiate 1789 & all its diabolical and murderous works.

[Christopher @TexasBabcock]

@JesterInABarrel Hah. Outed as not the millennial you pretend to me. Eye contact. We’ll get you to to bed grandpa.

[Christopher @TexasBabcock]

Wrong. 2ed lightning bolt plus some quick calculation as to angles and your lightning was hitting the same goblin 5 times.

[Chaotic Neutral Realms @CNRealms]

Seriously, why would any D&D player take any spell before Fireball as a 5th level Wizard? It's blasphemous.

[Christopher @TexasBabcock]

@emzanotti Let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Instead, let’s encourage a mass of Catholics to tear down Robespierre’s tomb and damn the memory of the First Republic.

[Christopher @TexasBabcock]

@neoavatara You know, I agree with this, but I have come to the view that meritocracy must be met with dignity for the non-meritorious

For example, if we have careers where high school dropouts can support themselves and a family, and find dignity, we can have higher standards for hs grads

[Christopher @TexasBabcock]

Why would you ship this by UPS?!?!

[The Hormuz Letter @HormuzLetter]

BREAKING: China has taken possession of sensitive US F-35 stealth parts mistakenly diverted to Hong Kong while being shipped from Australia to the US, including a cockpit canopy and a weapons-bay door both coated in radar-absorbing material, and has not returned them, per Bloomberg.

A US-contracted UPS aircraft was carrying the parts from Australia to the US for inspection. The aircraft stopped in South Korea and was routed from there to Hong Kong, with no explanation for either leg.

It comes as Xi arrives in the US today for a state visit with Trump.

[Erik Bruckner @E_Bruxxx]

Early takeaways from Austin Deep Tech Week:

1. Austin is a serious f*cking city.

SF is still the center of gravity.

LA has built an absolute monster around aerospace, defense and industrials.

But after spending a few days in Austin, I'm increasingly convinced this city has structural advantages that the coasts underestimate.

People I've met here seem to have one primary objective:

Build.

Heads down. Gas pedal pinned to the floor.

Noticeably less obsession with looking important and more obsession with actually making shit work.

Deep tech rewards exactly that mentality.

2. Texas being aggressively pro-business isn't some Twitter talking point. It's an actual competitive advantage.

Heard versions of this repeatedly from founders and investors this week.

Permitting. Regulation. Taxes. Energy. Land. Manufacturing. Expansion.

When you're building software, you can abstract yourself away from geography.

When you're building atoms, geography becomes part of your cap table.

Every additional month waiting on a facility, permit, power connection or expansion is effectively dilution.

Texas understand that speed matters.

3. The coastal migration isn't over.

SF and LA still have unbelievable technical talent density, particularly at the earliest stages.

But the requirements change when a deep tech company starts working.

Now you need 100,000 square feet.

Power.

Testing.

Manufacturing.

Suppliers.

Technicians.

Hundreds of employees.

Suddenly Texas starts looking a hell of a lot more attractive.

And founders here don't seem nearly as worried about convincing talent to follow them as outsiders assume.

4. The next chapter isn't companies moving to Texas. It's companies starting here.

Historically the playbook has often been:

Coast → prove technology → raise capital → expand into Texas.

I think that increasingly becomes:

Texas → Texas → Texas.

More technical founders will move here before starting the company.

More pre-seed and seed companies will originate here.

More headquarters will be planted here from Day 1.

And that's when the flywheel gets interesting:

Talent → startups → capital → exits → experienced operators → new startups.

Once that loop starts compounding, ecosystems become very difficult to stop.

5. Austin feels significantly less distracted.

There is obviously bullshit everywhere. Startups attract grift like flies to shit.

But there's noticeably less keeping-up-with-the-Joneses energy here.

Less worrying about who raised what round.

Less optimizing for appearances.

Less obsession with which VC follows you or which dinner you got invited to.

More:

Does the thing actually work?

That cultural difference matters more than people realize.

6. “But the capital is on the coasts” is becoming a lazy argument.

Have you ever heard of a f*cking airplane?

It's 2026.

If you're building a generational company in Austin and a great investor in SF wants into the round, they're getting on the plane.

Great companies don't travel to capital.

Capital travels to great companies.

Austin already has serious institutional capital on the ground alongside a growing ecosystem of smaller funds.

More capital will follow the companies.

It always does.

7. Austin increasingly looks built for where deep tech is going, not where venture has been.

Deep tech is becoming less about a handful of scientists sitting in a Bay Area lab and increasingly about deploying massive amounts of physical infrastructure.

Factories.

Energy.

Robotics.

Defense.

Space.

Advanced manufacturing.

Data centers.

Industrial systems.

Those businesses eventually collide with the physical world.

And the physical world cares about land, power, regulation, labor, logistics and speed.

Texas has a lot of all six.

SF still has the deepest venture ecosystem. LA has built an extraordinary deep tech machine.

But Austin doesn't need to become either of them.

It may be building something fundamentally different:

A startup ecosystem optimized not just for inventing hard technology — but for actually industrializing it.

That's a much more interesting proposition.

Came into Austin Deep Tech Week thinking this was an important emerging hard tech ecosystem.

Now thinking “emerging” might already be outdated.

Ingredients are here.

Talent is coming.

Capital will follow.

Unlike a lot of startup ecosystems I've visited, Austin feels like it actually wants you to build shit here.

That's a hell of a tailwind 🏭🇺🇸

Finally - mad props @Andercot, @CaitlinCloud9, @Jason_A_Scharf + many others for putting this together & making this a kickass week!

[Christopher @TexasBabcock]

@DietCoke_Esq The “environmental group” eating their own costs is its own reward.

[Christopher @TexasBabcock]

@JesterInABarrel I’m going to dream bigger. I want an America full of grizzled veterans of our imperial periphery, who have bonded to their nation by blood, smoking cigarettes and talking in the hint of a long abandoned accent.

What no I don’t watch much noir, why do you ask?

[Christopher @TexasBabcock]

The great thing about English history is learning this: we love Celtic Boudicca against Rome, Roman Arthur against the Saxons, Saxon Alfred against the Danes, Dane-loving Godwinson against the Normans…. Our civilization has embraced all who embrace it.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg @Jacob_Rees_Mogg]

The English are a mongrel people, not an Aryan master race.

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

Indians face far more discrimination than other groups at elite American universities.