Ben Self

Entrepreneur & Investor. Passions: Travel, Cooking, Beer, pickleball, Politics. Current: @westsixth Past: @kydems, @bluestate. Twin Dad. Husband to @beccaself

[Ben Self @bself]

@HeyItsMeTheDev @HunterBiden @HunterFor2028 This is what the internet was created for.

[Ben Self @bself]

Ok, you’re right it is quite fun and addictive:

I just went 76-6, think you can go 82-0? https://t.co/zRO4znndmQ #NBA #82and0

[Ben Self @bself]

I do love the @RobinhoodApp credit card - esp the 3% back into your investing acct, but the combo of low credit limits + delay in applying payments (which oddly only occurs if you go over the limit) makes it super painful to use. Hopefully they get it right soon!

[Ben Self @bself]

Ugh, nooooooo!

[Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter]

Full trade terms, per ESPN sources:

🏈Rams receive: Myles Garrett

🏈Browns receive: Jared Verse, a 2027 first-round pick, a 2028 2nd and a 2029 3rd.

[Ben Self @bself]

We dropped our daughter at camp yesterday. She brought 5 photos of the dog, 3 of her favorite horse, and 1 of the rest of us.

Nice to know we made the cut.

[Chris D. Jackson @ChrisDJackson]

I’m hearing from multiple folks who would know that @AndyBeshearKY had a very good night in South Carolina.

He brought the house down at the Blue Palmetto Dinner and made a real impression at Jim Clyburn’s Fish Fry.

Clyburn reportedly called it “one of the most incredible speeches I've heard from a Democratic governor from the South.”

That matters.

A Democratic governor who wins in deep-red Kentucky, talks like a normal person, leads with decency, and can connect in South Carolina?

Keep an eye on Andy.

[Ben Self @bself]

@suekhim Geometry and decimals

[Ben Self @bself]

Finally got around to watching this - super interesting to think about how to apply this to a hospitality biz: how would @wguidara apply this to his vision of hospitality? Build around customers, with humans being the touch points at bars / restaurants? Does the customer model become the most valuable thing for any hospitality biz? And the goal to just be to build as many touch points / locations as possible?

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

In a recent batch talk, YC General Partner @t_blom broke down how to build a self-improving, AI-native company.

He walks through how to create recursive, self-improving AI loops, and why founders who get this right will run companies that improve while they sleep.

00:00 — Companies Are Roman Legions
00:54 — Copilots Are the Wrong Mental Model
01:55 — Extract the Domain Knowledge
02:24 — The Recursive Self-Improving Loop
04:12 — The Holy Shit Moment at YC
05:50 — Self-Optimizing Product and Support Loops
06:29 — Burn Tokens, Not Headcount
07:23 — Middle Management Is Over
08:05 — Make Everything Legible to AI
09:40 — Regenerating the YC User Manual
11:19 — Software Is Ephemeral, Context Is Valuable
12:18 — Where Humans Still Matter

[Ben Self @bself]

@joshhendler Hah, no kidding -- I saw that too. Also most of the tech side reads as if it was written by scorned vendors -- like the odd focus on Hawkfish.

[Ben Self @bself]

Side note, compared blood tests from @bp_blueprint, @WHOOP, and a few others and found the blueprint ones to be the most tests for the best price. Loaded the results into my drs system and whoop, and now they all understand the results.

[Ben Self @bself]

Example #432 for how our healthcare system is broken. I just got a bill for regular bloodwork through my Dr in Feb, for which they charged the insurance company ~$1700 and i paid ~180. Got all those tests + a ton more from @bp_blueprint last week for the same $180 out of pocket

[Ben Self @bself]

@joshhendler I hold no qualifications to judge but isn’t some sort of token-based tax a combo of the right incentive (max efficiency and min usage) and target (users getting the most out of it)?

[Ben Self @bself]

@JohnnyNel_ @ToastTab yes. they allow one location to connect but all the rest are $50 a month to use the API (negotiated down from $125 a month), regardless of volume.

[Ben Self @bself]

I know @toasttab talks a lot about AI, but charging ~$50/location/month just for reporting API access makes it difficult for anyone to actually build AI workflows around their own restaurant data.

In the OpenClaw/Claude Code/Codex-agent era, API accessibility feels less like a premium feature and more like core infrastructure.

[Ben Self @bself]

Genuine product question for the @ToastTab team:

As AI agents become more common for ops/reporting workflows, does it still make sense to treat reporting API access as a premium per-location add-on?

Feels like the market increasingly expects this to be baseline infra.

[Ben Self @bself]

I’m not even trying to do anything crazy or exotic.

I just want my OpenClaw to be able to answer operational questions using our Toast data across locations w/our other sources.

Hard to reconcile the industry-wide AI push w/ charging thousands/year just for a weekly API call.

[Ben Self @bself]

Can we please just talk about proper healthcare access and our broken employer-provided insurance system? That is both pro-small biz and good for everyone!

[Ben Self @bself]

I don’t understand single-issue data center voters. Just saw another post where a voter said they couldn’t support someone they liked because they weren’t anti-data center. Didn’t anyone read @ezraklein’s abundance? And with all the problems in the US, this is the most important?

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

Sanders and AOC introduced a bill to pause ALL AI data center construction. 300+ local bills filed. Half of planned 2026 data centers facing delays or cancellation. Each one brings billions to local economies.

The people who say they want American jobs are trying to block the biggest job creation engine since the interstate highway system.

[Ben Self @bself]

Not to mention, this continues to reinforce the idea that democrats (a) hate business / small biz and (b) don’t understand or know how to manage the economy. We have to stop pandering to the vocal few if we want to be broader than a minority far-left party.