John Fox

Dad / Husband / Farmer / Views are my own. Working wonders with duct tape.

[Clara Gold @Clara_Gold]

6 months ago, I moved to San Francisco.
It’s the best place in the world to build, and one of the worst places to stay human. My unfiltered take:

1. SF is both overhyped and underrated

The overhyped part: there are a lot of people with incredible resumes who are deeply unimpressive in real life. They were at the right company, at the right time, in the right market, and got carried by the wave. They made money, got comfortable, and now spend their time “exploring opportunities” over coffee, wasting your time.
The underrated part: the top 1% here is insane. But almost impossible to get. Hiring in SF feels like being a guy on a dating app: everyone you want is out of your league, and everyone in your league wants someone out of theirs. The best people have unmatchable packages, endless options, and are optimizing for maximum impact: labs, frontier companies, or startups raising $100M pre-seed rounds.
If you raised $10M from Tier 1 investors, you’re not hot shit here. You’re a B-player. It’s humbling.

2. There are fewer mission-driven people than I expected

Especially on the application layer. A lot of people are in “secure the bag before it’s too late” mode. And honestly, it gives me the ick.
The real religious builders I’ve met are often in labs, hardware, biotech, deeptech, defense — places where the work is hard enough that you can’t fake obsession.

3. The status game favors builders

This is what SF does better than anywhere else. It rewards obsession. It rewards weirdness. It rewards people who make building their entire personality. Europe punishes that. SF gives it status. If you’ve felt like an outsider your whole life because you care too much, work too much, think too radically, or refuse to be chill about things that matter, this city will make you feel less insane.

4. The market liquidity is absurd

Even if you don’t build a billion-dollar company, if you manage to build a strong product with a great team, someone smart might still acquire you for $ 100M. Yeah I know, it’s not your dream outcome as a founder, but on the days you feel desperate, it helps to keep going.

5. SF does not care about the meaning crisis that’s coming

Anyone paying attention here can feel that something massive is happening with AI. But I’m shocked by how little people talk about the meaning crisis coming next. Everyone wants to talk about AI liberating humanity. Almost no one wants to talk about what happens when work — the thing that gives most people identity, structure, dignity, status, and purpose — starts disappearing. The vacuum will not be peaceful. People are underestimating the chaos that comes from humans suddenly having no idea why they matter. And I really feel like no one cares.

6. Personally, I’ve never been more unhappy

I moved to SF and entered the matrix. I’ve always been intense. I’ve always worked crazy hours. But here, I lost the last parts of myself that were not about building.
I don’t go to events. Most networking events feel like theater for people pretending to be important. The only events worth going to are small, curated dinners with people who are actually alive. I’ve made 0 real friends. I don’t do well with transactionality. I don’t do well with people constantly performing greatness. I don’t do well with rooms where everyone is optimizing and no one is being honest.

So yes, SF is lonely, transactional, delusional, addictive, inspiring, boring, extraordinary, and completely insane.
But it is still the only place to be right now if you’re a founder trying to build the next wave of humanity.

And for now, that’s enough.

[vx-underground @vxunderground]

BREAKING: USERS ARE SHOWING THE SUPREME OMNIPOTENT POWER OF THE CLAUDE MYTHOS.

QUIT YOUR JOB IN CYBERSECURITY AND START PUTTING IN APPLICATIONS FOR MCDONALDS NOW

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

Imagine you walk into a coffee shop...

[LaurieWired @lauriewired]

the most low-effort / high reward thing you can do for security is installing the Russian language pack

(not even joking, it's ridiculous how often that prevents execution)

[GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg]

What are the best businesses to be in a post-AGI world?

[PLA Military Updates🇨🇳 @PLA_MilitaryUpd]

🇮🇳Indian Army firing a single artillery round 😂

While we wait for them to finish those dance moves,🇨🇳Our artillery has already fired 2 dozen rounds and flattened their base 🤣🤣

This might be the clownery of the century 🤣🤣

[Marco @maarcoofdezz]

CURSO COMPLETO DE CLAUDE DE 4 HORAS

Esta es la guía más detallada de Claude que he visto en línea.

Guarda esta página antes de que se te olvide.

Construye herramientas.
Automatiza el trabajo.
Aprende cómo las personas construyen bots y sistemas.

[Alok Kumar @Alokkumarzz]

Instead of watching an hour of Netflix, watch this 2-hour Stanford lecture on AI careers. It will teach you more about winning in the AI race than all the AI content you’ve scrolled past this year.

[Evan Francen @evanfrancen]

“Best practice” is too often just what everyone else is doing wrong.

Especially in cybersecurity.

[The Figen @TheFigen_]

Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada spoke about the contradictions of human nature:

“Some people dream of having a swimming pool at home, while those who have one hardly ever use it. Those who have lost a loved one feel a profound sense of loss, while others often complain about their living relatives. Those without a partner long for one, while those who have one often don't appreciate it. The hungry would give anything for a meal, while the satiated complain about the taste of their food. Those without a car dream of owning one, while those who have a car are always looking for a better one.”

The key to happiness is gratitude: truly seeing and appreciating what we already have, and understanding that somewhere, someone would give anything for what we take for granted.

[theendeavorpath @theendeavorpath]

This speech will change your life.

[Kim Dotcom @KimDotcom]

Imagine building Microsoft and your legacy is Epstein and Covid-19.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Even though I knew his death was coming, as he told us it would, I still can’t believe he has died.

Rest in peace, good and great man, rest in peace.

[Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives @dom_lucre]

🔥🚨DEVELOPING: Scott Adams' "User Interface for Reality" clip has started going viral again on X. Adams can be seen doing what he does best by teaching people about the way this world operates.

[John Fox @johnfox415]

@_0b1d1 Pdf

[Beff (e/acc) @beffjezos]

Having children is holding a stake in the future.

Aligns incentives beyond one's own lifetime.

Without this, humans can become temporally greedy and overfit systems to a single generation rather than investing in the future.

[Paul Couvert @itsPaulAi]

So Google Sheets now has a "=AI" formula?!

You can process data that was impossible before in a spreadsheet.

Gemini understands what's in the cells and returns a tailor-made answer according to your instructions.

Examples and formulas below

[Shadow Prince @AnimeAlchemy24]

Before and After

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Very important concept!

[vx-underground @vxunderground]

We're absolutely cooked