ian gardner

Father, husband, entrepreneur, monk.

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

Come find your Purpose...

[Acraya @the_Acraya]

“Thousands of yogis have been doing this.”

A Bön monk on the unbroken lineage behind one of the oldest contemplative practices on Earth, from a monastery built in exile to now.

When you enter the dark, you’re not starting something. You’re joining it.

Follow us for more.

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

@RoKhanna @elonmusk @EleanorClift @MarkHalperin Or maybe just less corruption, waste and incompetence?

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

@newstart_2024 You mean the Russell Brand who repeatedly sexually assaults women to satisfy his uncontrollable desires?

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

@RoKhanna Except the data shows that billions of $ into Dept of Edu over last 50 years has actually resulted in poorer education performance.

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

Raising children in the dark in a cave?

https://t.co/wx9DJ1gsFe

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

Coming soon in Costa Rica!

https://t.co/0daXCT8C6s

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

https://t.co/hNw3aQSTP6

[Scott Britton @britton]

People often ask me who about who is successfully balancing a deep consciousness path and external success.

@ianagardner is the first people I think of.

We recently did a podcast to talk about his journey and incredible new business Acraya.

Acraya is creating a tech-enabled network of dark room retreats.

It is the epitome of blending new tech with spiritual tech and I love it.

I had no idea that dark rooms had been intentionally hidden for thousands of years because wisdom keepers believed humanity wasn't ready for it.

Now that's changed.

It is time to bring this to the broader populace and its exciting.

I was always curious about dark room retreats, but after this conversation, I'm 1000% going to be doing one in the next few years.

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

And there you have it....

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

Elon Musk avait dit un truc qui m'avait marqué sur l'allocation de ressources. En substance : passé un certain niveau de richesse, l'argent n'est plus de la consommation, c'est de l'allocation de capital.

Cette phrase change tout.

L'économie, dans le fond, c'est juste un problème d'allocation. Tu as des ressources finies et des usages infinis. Qui décide où va quoi ?

Imagine une cour de récré. 100 enfants, des paquets de cartes Pokémon distribués au hasard. Tu laisses faire. Très vite, un ordre émerge. Les bons joueurs accumulent les cartes rares, les collectionneurs trient, les négociateurs trouvent des deals. Personne n'a planifié. Et pourtant chaque carte finit dans les mains de celui qui en tire le plus de valeur. Le système maximise le bonheur total de la cour. C'est ça, la main invisible.

Maintenant fais entrer la maîtresse. Elle trouve ça injuste. Léo a 50 cartes, Tom en a 3. Elle confisque, redistribue, impose l'égalité. Trois effets immédiats. Les bons joueurs arrêtent de jouer, à quoi bon. Les mauvais n'ont plus de raison de progresser, ils auront leur part. Les échanges s'effondrent. La cour est égale, et morte. Elle a maximisé l'égalité, elle a détruit le bonheur.

Le problème de la maîtresse, c'est qu'elle ne peut pas avoir l'information que la cour avait collectivement. C'est le problème du calcul économique de Mises, formulé en 1920. L'URSS a essayé de le résoudre pendant 70 ans avec le Gosplan. Résultat : pénuries, queues, effondrement. Pas parce que les Soviétiques étaient bêtes, parce que le problème est mathématiquement insoluble en mode centralisé.

Quand Musk a 200 milliards, il ne les consomme pas, il les alloue. SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink, xAI. Chaque dollar est un pari sur le futur. Et lui a un track record. PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX. Il a démontré qu'il sait identifier des problèmes immenses et y allouer des ressources avec un rendement spectaculaire.

L'État aussi a un track record. Hôpitaux qui s'effondrent, éducation qui décline, dette qui explose, services publics qui se dégradent malgré des budgets en hausse constante. Le marché identifie les bons allocateurs, la politique identifie les bons communicants.

Le profit n'est pas une finalité, c'est un signal. Il dit : tu as alloué des ressources rares vers un usage que les gens valorisent suffisamment pour payer. Plus le profit est gros, plus la création de valeur est grande. Quand Starlink est rentable, ça veut dire que des millions de gens dans des zones rurales ont enfin internet. Quand un ministère est en déficit, ça veut dire qu'il consomme plus qu'il ne produit. L'un crée, l'autre détruit, et on appelle ça redistribution.

Dans nos sociétés il y a deux catégories d'acteurs. Les entrepreneurs et les bureaucrates. L'entrepreneur prend un risque personnel pour identifier un problème, mobiliser des ressources, créer une solution. S'il se trompe il perd. S'il a raison, ses clients gagnent, ses employés gagnent, ses fournisseurs gagnent, l'État collecte des impôts. Il est la cellule de base du progrès humain.

Le bureaucrate ne prend aucun risque personnel. Son salaire est garanti. Au mieux il maintient une rente existante. Au pire il la détruit par excès de réglementation, mauvaise allocation forcée, incitations perverses qui découragent ceux qui produisent. Mais dans aucun cas il ne crée.

Regarde les 50 dernières années. iPhone, internet civil, SpaceX, Tesla, Google, Amazon, Stripe, mRNA, ChatGPT. Toutes des inventions privées, portées par des entrepreneurs, financées par du capital risque. Pas un seul ministère n'a inventé quoi que ce soit qui ait changé ta vie au quotidien.

La France est devenue le laboratoire mondial de la dérive bureaucratique. 57% du PIB en dépenses publiques, record absolu. Une administration tentaculaire, une fiscalité qui pénalise la création de richesse. Résultat : décrochage face aux États-Unis, à l'Allemagne, à la Suisse. Fuite des cerveaux. Désindustrialisation. Dette qui explose.

Et le pire c'est que la mauvaise allocation s'auto-renforce. Plus l'État prélève, moins les entrepreneurs créent. Moins ils créent, moins il y a de base fiscale. Plus l'État s'endette et taxe. Boucle de rétroaction négative parfaite. La maîtresse pense qu'elle aide, et chaque année la cour produit moins.

Dans nos sociétés, ce sont les entrepreneurs, toujours, qui font avancer la civilisation. Les bureaucrates au mieux maintiennent une rente, au pire la détruisent. Aucune société n'a jamais progressé en taxant ses créateurs pour subventionner ses gestionnaires.

La question n'est jamais qui a combien. C'est qui alloue le mieux la prochaine unité de ressource pour maximiser le futur de l'humanité. La réponse depuis 200 ans n'a jamais changé. Ce ne sont pas les fonctionnaires.

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

https://t.co/OLKCbB65Em

[Joe Rogan Podcast News @joeroganhq]

RFK Jr: "Corporate America has not produced an infant formula that is superior… to the infant formula that God made, which is the infant formula in a mother’s breast... We at HHS are encouraging mothers to breastfeed as long as possible."

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

If you're thinking about buying an @Rivian R1, read this so you're eyes wide open.

Bought this vehicle new for my wife. $100k soccer mom mobile.

Salesperson promised 6 months of charging credits. Never received them, multiple follow ups. Bait and switch.

Delivery person told us the vehicle could charge on @Tesla supercharger network. Partial truth, only some of them (and they don't tell you which ones). Not good when your wife is stranded two hours from home with no way to charge the vehicle and you're 14 time zones away in an airport.

They said the vehicle can charge at the Rivian network. Also not true UNLESS you order (separately) a charger adapter. For $330.

You read that right. You pay $100k for the vehicle, but you can't charge on their own network, unless you spend another $330 on a charger adapter.

Completely brand destroying experience.

Love the vehicle and the tech. Euphoric to drive.

Experience rates below buying a Yugo.

Buyer beware.

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

A great job of a very difficult task by a great leader.

And this is the canary in the coal mine....

[jack @jack]

we're making @blocks smaller today. here's my note to the company.

####

today we're making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: we're reducing our organization by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. that means over 4,000 of you are being asked to leave or entering into consultation. i'll be straight about what's happening, why, and what it means for everyone.

first off, if you're one of the people affected, you'll receive your salary for 20 weeks + 1 week per year of tenure, equity vested through the end of may, 6 months of health care, your corporate devices, and $5,000 to put toward whatever you need to help you in this transition (if you’re outside the U.S. you’ll receive similar support but exact details are going to vary based on local requirements). i want you to know that before anything else. everyone will be notified today, whether you're being asked to leave, entering consultation, or asked to stay.

we're not making this decision because we're in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. but something has changed. we're already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. and that's accelerating rapidly.

i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now. i chose the latter. repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead. i'd rather take a hard, clear action now and build from a position we believe in than manage a slow reduction of people toward the same outcome. a smaller company also gives us the space to grow our business the right way, on our own terms, instead of constantly reacting to market pressures.

a decision at this scale carries risk. but so does standing still. we've done a full review to determine the roles and people we require to reliably grow the business from here, and we've pressure-tested those decisions from multiple angles. i accept that we may have gotten some of them wrong, and we've built in flexibility to account for that, and do the right thing for our customers.

we're not going to just disappear people from slack and email and pretend they were never here. communication channels will stay open through thursday evening (pacific) so everyone can say goodbye properly, and share whatever you wish. i'll also be hosting a live video session to thank everyone at 3:35pm pacific. i know doing it this way might feel awkward. i'd rather it feel awkward and human than efficient and cold.

to those of you leaving…i’m grateful for you, and i’m sorry to put you through this. you built what this company is today. that's a fact that i'll honor forever. this decision is not a reflection of what you contributed. you will be a great contributor to any organization going forward.

to those staying…i made this decision, and i'll own it. what i'm asking of you is to build with me. we're going to build this company with intelligence at the core of everything we do. how we work, how we create, how we serve our customers. our customers will feel this shift too, and we're going to help them navigate it: towards a future where they can build their own features directly, composed of our capabilities and served through our interfaces. that's what i'm focused on now. expect a note from me tomorrow.

jack

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

@BillAckman "people" would be more forgiving of the maybe- innocent if ANY of the guilty were brought to justice

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

From your mouth to God's ears

[Ray Dalio @RayDalio]

I Love and Endorse the Bipartisan 3 % of GDP Budget Deficit Solution

In the House of Representatives there is now a bipartisan bill in the works to enact, and a growing agreement that we need, a 3% cap on the budget deficit. The bill was introduced by Representatives Bill Huizenga (R) and Scott Peters (D) to reduce and maintain the federal budget deficit at or below 3% of GDP. While most responsible members of both parties don't agree on much, they agree on this, which is also urged by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and almost all knowledgeable investors, economists, and business leaders beyond them.

Treasury Secretary @SecScottBessent has long been a supporter of this path, publicly saying, “I would urge [President Trump] to make public his desire to get the deficit down to 3% by the end of his term.”   In my book How Countries Go Broke: The Big Cycle, I described the mechanics of how the United States will go broke unless it gets the budget deficit down to 3% of GDP, which I describe as my "3% 3-Part Solution." All leaders from both parties I spoke with in private agree. The only impediment is their fear of the political consequences of being in favor of raising taxes and cutting benefits if that is required to reach the 3% GDP budget deficit. Passing this bill would be a step toward overcoming that objection as it would help legislators argue for fiscal responsibility. A stated 3% GDP ceiling goal would become a benchmark for accountability across administrations, providing both a rule and a report card. With it in mind, each year we would naturally ask, “Is the nation moving toward or away from sustainability?” That stated goal and progress toward fiscal responsibility would strengthens markets, bolster investor confidence, and reduce the risks of the U.S. experiencing a sovereign debt/currency crisis.

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

Keep going!

[Ro Khanna @RoKhanna]

.@RepThomasMassie & I called on DOJ to stop protecting this man & underact his name. They relented. Then I took to the House floor to name names. Today, he resigns.

We will not rest until there is elite accountability for the Epstein class.

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

From your mouth to God's ears....

[John Pavlovitz @johnpavlovitz]

I wonder how a human being finds themselves sitting in that chair in front of the watching world in a moment of such gravity, so completely bereft of empathy, so seemingly unencumbered by other people’s suffering, and so strident in the face of simple accountability.

But as the father of a daughter, I want you to know that I fully detest what you are doing to so many other people’s children right now.

I abhor your callous disregard for the daughters who stood courageously before you today, whose eyes you did not have the dignity to look into; women whose cavernous hell you know full well, because you’ve pored over it countless times in words, photos, and videos.

It sickens me to my core to know that thousands of survivors, girls and young women not unlike my daughter, have experienced unspeakable horrors and are finding in you, not a fierce and willing advocate, not a steadfast warrior who will deliver them justice, but an unexpected, shame-throwing avatar of the men who brutalized them.

https://t.co/sKn8QLIzss

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

Hard honest truth. Our generation has sat idly by believing the lies and manipulation, assuming it wasn't true.

Well.

It was true. And now we see. And the reckoning is coming....

[Man in America @Maninamerica]

https://t.co/clq17ysP4B

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

@RoKhanna The rot goes all the way to the top. Don't give up!

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

@cecegkh Old oak....

[ian gardner @ianagardner]

@RoKhanna Don't quit... There are so few who will fight for what's good and right.

For those of us who don't have your power or influence, DON'T GIVE UP! We need good to prevail ...