Richard Cohan

Overconfident and underinformed. Life-long tortured Vikings fan. Always looking for a golf round.

[Mike Solana @micsolana]

amazing

[Clifford Asness @CliffordAsness]

President Ronald Reagan famously said: “Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

[Mark Cuban @mcuban]

Ro, “in your scenario, the founder could sell to pay a one time 5 percent tax or the state could sell it if he defaults on the loan”

Ro, this is the biggest fuck you in the history of entrepreneurship. Ever.

Creating jobs but don’t have cash. Fuck you

Can’t sell shares, we will sell it for you, to whoever. Fuck you.

Creating jobs. Paying great wages instead of taking cash out yourself. Fuck you

Reinvesting into your company and community. Fuck You.

Don’t you know that Jensen, and Lisa Su, and people who have vast amounts of liquidity already have no problem with it. Fuck You

There is a huge difference between someone with liquidity , running a huge public company, and someone who has dedicated every minute of who knows how many years, to building a company, to finally have a dream financing come true , only to be insulted by a politician. “We will sell your shares for you “

GTFO

[Richard Cohan @expatcoldhands]

@twigmaster I grew up playing Minikahda but haven’t played in 40 years. Has it been redone?

[Richard Cohan @expatcoldhands]

@Tyler_A_Harper @whignewtons The former feeds the latter

[Clifford Asness @CliffordAsness]

I have spent about 10 minutes flipping through this, but wow, when did Bloomberg become the agitprop wing of the DSA?

First impressions (there may be more):

- Deferring not eliminating taxes isn’t the 0% they brazenly put in their graphic (they even modify the zero immediately in the explaining text to “near zero” which it’s also not — do they even have compliance there @MikeBloomberg?).

- Tom Steyer, give back all the money you apparently think you stole based on the carried interest exemption before you say a damn word (an exemption which hedge funds mostly don’t get btw: https://t.co/siEdgDThrM). Or were you just “following the law”? Does that reason work for everyone Tommy? Also, as a personal message from me to you, kiss my ass you desiccated 5x loser. You found you couldn’t suck up to the DSA enough to get elected huh, so you desperately try to stay relevant this way. Oh, and Morris Pearl, whoever the hell that is, late of Blackrock, with his Patriotic Millionaire bullshit (non-binding virtue signaling crap from mostly a bunch of vicious personal tax optimizers) might want to scroll here to find “long-short tax aware investing”: https://t.co/uq7CJmnJYc

- Lots of quotes out of context. As usual the left (and I’m talking to the left who both wrote and consume this BS) loves to take jokes and make them sound real when they don’t like someone invariable viewed as being on the other team (amazing they didn’t quote me saying there are “fine people” on both sides of the tax debate). When I wrote “only death is certain now” it was whimsical. But when your class enemies use whimsey you pretend it was real and attack right? Because you’re “journalists.” Also when you are honest with the world, as right or wrong anyone following me knows I have been for 35 years in this business, they make it a gotcha when I, on my own, share a funny self-deprecating story with the world. I joke about this one with self-deprecation (https://t.co/UJRHKvb8W0) but the “journalists” will seize on it like they ferreted it out like Woodward and Bernstein. Yeah, I punched a computer monitor, 18 years ago, and I’ve written about it and joked at my own expense (i.e., the monitor was embarrassingly unhurt). You guys got me good! The tattoo however is real. Got me. It’s going away though. That is not a fun process and they lie to you about how many painful sessions it will take. Kids, stay in school and don’t get tattoos.

- A subtle one. I gave kudos to him because I read Rob Arnott’s paper on taxes eating your alpha back in 1993 (when the NY Rangers had still gone 53 year without a Stanley Cup). They make it sound like I was a silent movie mustache twirling villain waiting 20-25 years since then to finally pounce. Again, journalism.

- Most importantly, the moral issue, and there is one here just not the one these MS NOW aspirants highlight, is that of working in your clients interests. We use the same pre-tax alpha models for all our investors, taxable and non-taxable (non-taxable is where we started and still manage > 100B). Now, if you manage for both, how do you not, within the law (and it’s well within the law for any administration despite that slimy backhanded quote), minimize or defer the tax burden on your taxable clients to the best of your abilities and still think you’re remotely acting in their interests? Remember post GFC when it was all the rage to insist managers act in their clients interests (we always did)? Apparently that’s suspended, and is actually immoral, when it’s a successful hedge fund manager managing for taxable people of means (and, again, pre-tax for pension funds and charitable endowments and mutual fund investors etc.).

Oh, and while most things you took out of context and with prejudice, which is shameful (do you think you are down the middle journalists?). The one you got right is my comments on Mamdani. In context. I take back not a word of that.

Otherwise you guys did really well.

https://t.co/K0mdRtSJdc

[Richard Cohan @expatcoldhands]

@JCChicagoHusky Good old fashioned tweet rant on a Friday afternoon. Love it

[Richard Cohan @expatcoldhands]

@Top100Rick But I think it was a 1 iron

[Richard Cohan @expatcoldhands]

@Top100Rick Great photo. This is framed on my wall in my office.

[Richard Cohan @expatcoldhands]

@ShaneRyanHere Too bad. Stick is a low bar for sure

[For Those About to Rock @richdruler]

This dude is in my local parade today because he lost his fantasy football league 🙂

[Noam Blum @neontaster]

The absurdity of members of congress lobbying to pack the supreme court so it decides in their favor in cases like this instead of rewriting the laws in question - the literal reason they exist! - cannot be overstated.

[Justin Amash @justinamash]

People wildly overestimate their favorite candidates for office. A politician who is genuinely principled is so rare that maybe only one such candidate will appear on your ballot in a generation.

[Richard Cohan @expatcoldhands]

Great book.

[Richard Cohan @expatcoldhands]

Great episode. Teared up from the answer to last question

[Patrick OShaughnessy @patrick_oshag]

Krishna Rao is the CFO of Anthropic, and this is his first podcast appearance.

He joined the company two years ago when run-rate revenue was about $250M. Today it is $30B. He has helped raise ~$75B and is responsible for the procurement and allocation of compute.

I feel lucky we get to hear what it is like to sit inside a company this consequential at a moment this pivotal.

We discuss:
- The cone of uncertainty
- How he allocates compute across Trainium, TPUs, and GPUs
- What investors misunderstand about model companies
- Why the returns to frontier intelligence keep rising
- Platform vs application and where Anthropic builds its own products
- How Anthropic uses Claude internally

I have asked my closing question about the kindest thing more than 500 times. Krishna's answer is one I have never heard before.

Enjoy!

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
2:38 The Compute Canvas
6:51 The "Cone of Uncertainty"
11:58 Why the Returns to Frontier Intelligence Are So High
16:45 Recursive Self-Improvement
20:20 Scaling Laws
23:30 Sourcing $100 Billion in Compute
28:05 Platform vs. Application Strategy
32:52 Pricing Dynamics
38:48 How Anthropic’s Finance Team Uses Claude
43:24 Raising Capital & Overcoming Investor Skepticism
52:32 Public Perception, Risks, and Government Regulation
57:25 Mythos Release
1:12:33 What Could Derail the AI Revolution?
1:13:47 Biotech and Healthcare
1:15:31 The Kindest Thing

[Eric Thompson @eric_j_thompson]

With the #mnwild season ending tonight, there have now been 138 consecutive combined seasons for Minnesota’s NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, and MLS teams without a finals appearance.

The last time any of those teams participated in a championship round was 12,618 days ago.

[Caleb Hull @CalebJHull]

Literally no one wants this. Stop ruining The Masters.

[Richard Cohan @expatcoldhands]

Like him even more

[Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter]

Projected No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza has informed the NFL that he is not planning to attend the NFL Draft in Pittsburgh this month, per sources. Mendoza wants to share the draft experience with his family in Miami.

[Richard Cohan @expatcoldhands]

Got a chance to hear him speak in person. True American hero.

[Jaynit @jaynitx]

In 2014, Admiral William McRaven gave a 19-minute masterclass to 8,000 students on changing the world.

He led missions that changed history

His lessons:
• Never, ever ring the bell
• The little things matter
• Don’t fear the circuses

10 lessons from 36 years as a Navy SEAL: