Dave Kirkbride

Entrepreneur, travel enthusiast, pilot. Always searching for a perfect bite of food and the next start-up.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

The upside of extremism

[Dave Kirkbride @davekirkbride]

@elonmusk Smart move!

[Dave Kirkbride @davekirkbride]

@alexwg Thanks as always for the informative read. I would have missed Bilevel Autoresearch and the corresponding 5x improvement. Now, if I can simply convince my 93 year old father to use Tesla FSD!

[Dave Kirkbride @davekirkbride]

@alexwg Fascinating and informative as always. Consciousnesses and Artificial Consciousness beg for a universally accepted definition. Perhaps another agentic project?

[Dave Kirkbride @davekirkbride]

@mikeroweworks I love your message Mike! We are in the middle of an employment paradigm shift. It presents a tremendous opportunity to think outside the box and return to the values and work ethic that built America!

[Dave Kirkbride @davekirkbride]

@matt_vanswol @ClemsonUniv Agreed.

[Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson]

We wept bitterly putting this together...

Charlie Kirk did not fear death. Charlie told us what his legacy would be. Charlie's greatest passion was his faith in Jesus Christ.

Just hours before he was assassinated, Charlie stood on stage, openly proclaiming his love for Jesus Christ. Unafraid, unwavering, and full of conviction. He lived every moment guided by that faith, and in the end, he was taken home by his Savior.

Charlie is a true Christian martyr.

His example is not just inspiring, it is a call to all of us. To stand firm in our beliefs, to shine light into darkness, speak truth and to live boldly in our faith. Charlie showed us what it means to live, and die, with purpose.

This is the legacy he leaves...

[Dave Kirkbride @davekirkbride]

@DataRepublican I admire and appreciate you sharing your gifts with the world. There are more silent fans than you know! Keep it up!

[Dave Kirkbride @davekirkbride]

@Cliffinkent @elonmusk KPI #1 - Respond to your emails in a timely fashion!

[Dave Kirkbride @davekirkbride]

@elonmusk What a joke!

[Dave Kirkbride @davekirkbride]

@AndreaSJames Thank you for a thoughtful analysis of what’s actually going on!

[Andrea S. James @AndreaSJames]

Gently, softly, calmly, let’s talk about what’s happening in DC right now.

Friends, have you ever been through a ZBB process? If not, let me give you my take. So, in a corporation where expenses are out of control, you have to put the entire company through a zero based budgeting process. It is one of the most painful things that people in a company experience.

You basically have to justify every. single. expense. And you also cut a bunch, and then only add back after you’ve gone through a proper ZBB cycle.

The US government is going through a ZBB right now. And that is necessary because spending is out of control. The complexity is so vast that I expect it will take AI to decipher.

You cannot tell me that a government that accidentally wires hundreds of millions of dollars to the Taliban has its finances in order. That signals an underlying disaster. That signals bad stewardship of resources.

In fact, it is a disaster. Over the last 20 fiscal years, the US government has made ~$2.7 trillion in "improper payments," according to the US Government Accountability Office. Trillion! With a T!

That financial management disaster was not caused by @elonmusk. And there is no painless way to clean it up.

Elon is doing what any executive would do walking into a giant mess. You ZBB and then build back.

So, I don’t believe that America is going to be on the wrong side of global right and wrong, as some are saying. I don’t believe that America is going to be permanently isolationist. I do believe that unwatched finances will get out of control in any human system, and that the GAO has been trying to ring this bell for years, and that scaled complexity requires scaled financial management.

Because the US has the largest budget in the world, it will now go through the single most complex ZBB ever undertaken in the history of the world.

Some states do ZBB, but it's never been done at the federal level. President Jimmy Carter tried, but the bureaucratic systems were too complex, and President Ronald Reagan abandoned the attempt.

So, if there is one person in the world chosen to lead this Grand Canyon of projects, we would hope for the president to choose one of the best capital allocators on the planet. Better if that human is also one who can leverage AI and technical talent to manage the massive complexity.

Anyone who has lived through a ZBB at the corporate level will tell you that it’s hell and everyone hates it. This is why I feel really bad for federal workers -- I have a lot of empathy for civil servants and people doing a great job every day for the United States. No doubt, the uncertainty is trying and stressful for many. It's an unfortunate situation.

So, that's my take. I don't want to speak beyond what I know and can observe from the other side of the country. I've worked both in the private sector and the public sector -- the cultures are different. And an Elon-Musk-style culture is going to be the most hard core of them all. No doubt, it's jarring. It's gonna be a lot.

But what I also know is that every time I have ever doubted Elon, I ended up being the one who was wrong.

[Dave Kirkbride @davekirkbride]

@elonmusk Seems like an opportunity for ICE!

[Dave Kirkbride @davekirkbride]

43 pounds of fentanyl has the potential to be lethal for approximately 9.7 million people, based on the estimate that a lethal dose is about 2 milligrams per person. However, this is a very rough estimate because:

- The actual lethality can vary significantly based on purity, method of consumption, and individual tolerance or sensitivity.
- Fentanyl is often mixed with other drugs, which can alter its potency and effects.

Sounds like a significant problem to this father!

[Dave Kirkbride @davekirkbride]

@RepJayapal @PiperK Everyone would be well served by researching the facts before posting hyperbole and innuendo.

[Dave Kirkbride @davekirkbride]

@elonmusk Merry Christmas!

[Dave Kirkbride @davekirkbride]

@elonmusk https://t.co/1YTXV8KZ2h

[Dave Kirkbride @davekirkbride]

@elonmusk I’ve read the last two, where is the text on this one…

[Dave Kirkbride @davekirkbride]

@VivekGRamaswamy DOGE it!!

[Robert F. Kennedy Jr @RobertKennedyJr]

This earns @realDonaldTrump a space on Mount Rushmore.