Julie Cooper

Fundraising copywriter for great causes. I help nonprofits send better donor comms to raise more money.

[Paul Graham @paulg]

I have never knowingly finished reading an email signed by a human but written by AI. It feels like being lied to, and who would stand for that?

[Julie Cooper @gocooper]

@ComEd Here's how it unfolded: I asked Google Gemini about recycling a fridge. It cited an article that described the program. Looking at the article, I see now it's from earlier in 2026 BUT not a ComEd official site, I believe. https://t.co/ZbkxQzk9Zv Thanks for having me search it!

[Julie Cooper @gocooper]

I called @ComEd to inquire about picking up a working fridge at my home. The rep informed me the energy-efficient program was discontinued in 2020 — and, unfortunately, they haven't updated their website to reflect this. Really ComEd? It takes longer than 6 yrs to edit your site?

[Matt Shumer @mattshumer_]

https://t.co/ivXRKXJvQg

[Alex Lieberman @businessbarista]

I stole this idea and now use it with every single employee.

It’s the best illustration I’ve seen of teaching someone to be high agency.

It says there are 5 levels of work:

Level 1: “There is a problem.”

Level 2: “There is a problem, and I’ve found some causes.”

Level 3: “Here’s the problem, here are some possible causes, and here are some possible solutions.”

Level 4: “Here’s the problem, here’s what I think caused it, here are some possible solutions, and here’s the one I think we should pick.”

Level 5: “I identified a problem, figured out what caused it, researched how to fix it, and I fixed it. Just wanted to keep you in the loop.”

Using this framework, here’s what I say to every new employee…

You will live at Level 4 from Day 1 and as we build trust you will rise to Level 5.

Being high agency doesn’t just mean tackling problems in this way. It means your entire way of working should be oriented to being a Level 4+ employee.

Plz feel free to steal it as well.

And ty @stephsmithio for the framework!

[Julie Cooper @gocooper]

“There is always a cost of entry. An unavoidable price you must pay to achieve the things you say you want. Pay it with pride.”

Great read from @sahilbloom today! https://t.co/kRZq76ZbYC

[Julie Cooper @gocooper]

“The storm is the cost of entry.”

An inspiring read from @sahilbloom to start the week. https://t.co/zKbCkXRLjE

[Zach W. Lambert @ZachWLambert]

This photograph was taken two days ago at the FBI Academy in Quantico and submitted to the NYT under the condition of anonymity.

If a picture is usually worth a thousand words, this one is worth millions.

[Denisa @Denisa2025]

Ooooh… I felt this in my bones.

I do not experience imposter syndrome because I’ve met too many of the “big guys”.

[Claire Axelrad @CharityClairity]

Clairity Click-it: Cornucopia of Nonprofit Links + Free Resources https://t.co/57Uw3MRSIe via @bloomerangTech @npquarterly @StevenScreen @gocooper @AndreaKihlstedt @SNonprofits... and many more! #nonprofit #fundraising

[Denisa @Denisa2025]

Buckle up buttercup.

https://t.co/5gqboDssFX

[Kamala for PA @KamalaforPA]

Listen to this from @JordanHarrisPA.

[Eric Feigl-Ding @DrEricDing]

Here is what a 15 foot hurricane storm surge looks like folks.

[Marc Broklawski @marcbroklawski]

.@KamalaHarris: “The true measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up.”

We’re done with the anger, the chaos, the bullshit. Harris and Walz are here to bring the change we’ve all been waiting for—because this time, it’s about pushing America to be its best self. #HarrisWalz2024

[Brian J. Karem @BrianKarem]

Watching the teleprompter I can report that a healthy amount of his speech was add libbed - including nearly all of the last 10 minutes.

[Alex Cole @acnewsitics]

I love this so much!

[The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln]

JD realizing he's going to have to debate America's Dad

[Gurwinder @G_S_Bhogal]

How American couples meet, 1930 to 2024. Love is sparked in the real world with increasing rarity; the majority of relationships are now formed online.
https://t.co/u27AwO5igK

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

I am going to put together a thread covering Kamala Harris's rally in Atlanta, Georgia. Follow along for clips and commentary 👇

[Alexey Guzey @alexeyguzey]

I'm terrified of old people.

I used to be extremely confident in myself.

I was barely 20 years old and I would tell people how to sleep [1], how to make friends [2], and how to live their lives [3]. I started a nonprofit aiming to literally rebuild the institutions of science from the ground up [4]. I was dismissive of everyone who didn't impress me in the first 7 minutes of talking to them. I was especially dismissive of old people.

I'm 26 years old now, I (hope that I) got a tiny bit wiser but I'm pretty sure I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm embarrassed for having published all of these articles giving people advice on how to live their lives; I'm amazed that the nonprofit actually managed to run great programs and fund dozens of young scientists; and I'm absolutely terrified of old people.

I've always wanted to prove myself to the world; if I were a 60 year old, trying to impress a random 25 year old would be the last thing I'd be trying to do.

First, wanting to impress people is the result of not knowing what you want and by the time you're 50 or 60 or 70 you do know what you want. Second, the stupider people think I am, the better. I just want to do my thing and I don't want anyone to think highly of me and start actively interfering with whatever it is that I'm doing.

I've always thought that I was very competent. Now I at least realize that I have no fucking clue how anything works.

Which makes me think: I have like 5 years of experience of real life. What kind of tricks under their belts do people in their 50s, 60s, 70s have? What kinds of crazy heuristics and meta-heuristics they've got in their minds, hearts, and muscles after decades of poking the world? I have no clue and this is what makes me really worried about them.

I wouldn't be surprised if these decades-in-the-making lessons are so qualitatively different from whatever I believe now that even if someone tried to tell them to me I simply wouldn't be able to comprehend them.

I also suspect that the declining intelligence measurements of old people are mostly attributable to slower-lookup and "shallow" reactions rather than any actual decline in quality of decision-making.

There's exactly one person who I suspect might be running the simulation and he's not 30 or even 40. He's in his 70s.

People ask me why I don't publish much these days. How about because I have a bunch of stupid shit [5] on my blog that's going to follow me into the grave now and because now whenever I talk to someone they usually "remember" me writing something even dumber than what I actually wrote ("oh, Alexey, weren't you the guy who thought that sleeping 4 hours a night is totally fine?" "No, I wrote that sleeping 4 hours a night didn't make me dumb AND that it was absolutely terrible, please stop asking me about this")?

I think about Sam Altman's "honestly, i feel so bad about the advice i gave while running YC i’ve been thinking about deleting my entire blog" [6] a lot.

I do think the majority of my pieces stood the test of time and I'm very proud of them (for example "Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible" [7] which is nearing its 6th anniversary), so maybe I'm overreacting. But it's still unnerving.

(Ok, back to old people.)

Many things just take time.

Having 0 close friends is qualitatively different from having 1 close friend from having 5 close friends. Just as knowing them for 1 year versus 5 years versus 25 years. So much stuff in the world can only be achieved via close long-term connections. Probably most of the important stuff. Again, the only way to get these connections is to literally just wait. No other way.

My biggest problem running the company, for example, was simply not knowing enough people to be able to hire for the roles the organization needed the most and instead burning through many months and enormous amounts of nerves figuring out if people I just met were (1) right for the role, (2) work well with me, (3) I work well with them. If I'm starting a company today, I'm simply not doing it until I have an incredible operations person on board from day 1.

I understand why you need to be at least 35 years old to become President.

Patrick Mackenzie once noted that "people consistently overestimate how widely distributed individual technologies are, even where those technologies are clearly better than alternatives, easy to implement, and have minimal downside risk or cost to reverse adoption."

How come? Again — things just take time. A huge portion of life is simply about building years-long and decades-long muscle memories for "simple" technologies. To stop the brain when it gets into over-analyzing spirals. To error-correct appropriately when things go wrong. To ask for help. [8]

No amount of reading insights or writing will get you to truly learn this stuff. In fact most of it sounds like empty platitudes & the more you read and write the less time you have to apply it with your body and with your muscles. If I told this to my 16-year old self, he'd tell me to go fuck myself.

And, sure, no 80-year old is going to be as idealistic or energetic or attractive as when they were 20.

But if you ask me if I'd rather have a President who is 20 or who is 80, I'll pick the 80-year old in a heartbeat.