Matt Cook

AR / VR / XR Metaverse, Web3, AI Non Code Prompt Engineer, Business Development…

[Chris Bakke @ChrisJBakke]

For the last 6 years I’ve been buying well-run small businesses for 5x earnings.

In the first 30 days, I take the websites offline, move the companies to sad office parks with drop ceilings, install fax machines at the front desk, and bringing in 75 year old actors to pose as the CEO.

I then sell the companies to people with MBAs for 10x revenue so that they can feel useful “turning the company around”

[Matt Cook @mattcook]

You are both right…What Mark is alluding to is the classic Hobbesian state of nature — that without government regulation or enforcement, a pure free market would devolve into a ‘war of all against all,’

[Palmer Luckey @PalmerLuckey]

@mcuban Also it is kind of weird to keep quote-tweeting the exact same tweet with slightly different critiques each time, it basically resets the argument and hides the responses from previous tries.

[Walter Kirn @walterkirn]

The Pratt supporters making viral AI ads are going to get the technology outlawed if they don't stop soon!

[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.

[Matt Cook @mattcook]

@bernsteind Check this out…Co-Op with Y Combinator?

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

AI for Low-Pesticide Agriculture
@garrytan

Farmers are stuck in a bad loop: use more chemicals, get diminishing results, pay more, take on more risk. And they can't just stop, because if pests win, crops die.

AI that can identify individual weeds in real time, robotics that can treat one plant instead of blanketing a field, and new biological solutions mean this problem finally looks solvable.

[Eric Balchunas @EricBalchunas]

I instinctively knew that tennis was super healthy (plus I play w a doctor who told me that) but I didn’t realize it was this next level. 10 extra years? Nice.

[Matt Cook @mattcook]

@TheDylanBerry

[Tony Parisi @auradeluxe]

What the actual fuck

[Tony Parisi @auradeluxe]

What the actual fuck

[Mike Solana @micsolana]

this is not technically a fraud story, because most of the money was blown legally. the problem here is organized labor has reshaped the state government. its purpose now, more than anything else, is to feed them. and that is what it does.

[Mark Cuban @mcuban]

I don’t think people realize how much healthcare costs are driving big companies to fire and not hire.

It costs them $30k per family, per year for premiums and care. Most of that goes to the massive, vertically integrated insurance companies that send weekly bills that no one reviews in details. And it doesn’t include the company overhead to deal with it all. It’s usually the 2nd largest expense after payroll. Which is insane

It’s far easier to blame AI than it is to blame Healthcare costs.

Want to increase jobs, wages and improve affordability for every American ?

Break up the biggest insurance companies. Make divest non insurance companies. They don’t need thousands of subsidiaries. That’s how they game and abuse the system and increase costs for all of us.

Call your senator and tell them to support the BreakUp Big Medicine Bill by @HawleyMO and @SenWarren.

[@jason @Jason]

Can someone show Tiger Woods and Justin Timberlake the uber app?

[@jason @Jason]

Founders: take my advice... do not talk to the press, go direct and do long-form podcasts.

Wired and the NYT are as biased as Fox News and MSNOW these days

This is a function of their need to pander to one side to survive, be it through $ 3-a-month subs or rage-baiting ad-based stories.

Attacking tech gets views (see Karen Swisher)... and views get advertisers (paradoxically, tech advertisers support the folks trashing tech! let that sink in!)

Founders: If you talk to the NYT or WIRED, they will trash and misrepresent you 95% of the time in order to get more subscribers and page views

It is what it is...

[Mark Cuban @mcuban]

Everyone wants me to rip on TrumpRx. Reality is, it’s saving patients money on IVF and a few other drugs. A lot of money.

IMO, anything that saves patients money is a win.

And they truly do have some great people that are making smart moves. You just don’t know their names. Chris Klomp. Mark Atalla, Abe Sutton and so many more.

When you talk to them, and see the work they put in, it’s obvious they are focused on trying to do the right thing for patients.

Don’t forget they didn’t give the insurance industry a price increase they wanted, and those stock prices got crushed.

TrumpRx is just getting started. @costplusdrugs is just getting started.

[HustleBitch @HustleBitch_]

🚨 “REALTORS ARE SCAM ARTISTS” — VIRAL VIDEO TORCHING THE INDUSTRY IS GOING NUCLEAR

A skit exploding across social media is ripping into the real estate industry, and it’s hitting a nerve.

In the video, a homebuyer slowly realizes something about the process that makes it look suspicious.

Every time she tries to make an offer, the real estate agent suddenly claims there’s “another bid.”

But when the buyer asks basic questions like who the bidder is, what they offered, or if they’re even real, the response is always the same:

“I can’t say.”

Then the realization hits.

If the price goes up… the agent’s commission goes up too.

Seconds later the house is “sold” and the real estate agent walks away with a $50,000 commission.

Now the internet is arguing.

Some say agents protect buyers through complex deals.

Others say it’s just the most expensive middleman job in America.

Be honest: are realtors worth it… or is the whole system a scam?

[David Roberts @recap_david]

I turned a Zillow listing into a cinematic property renovation video for $15 (no camera, no drone, no film crew)

Just listing photos + Calico AI.

The average agent pays $100-$500 per property for videos like this. Sell this output to realtors and agents and make $$$.

Here's how the system works:

→ Pull listing photos from any property (Zillow, Redfin, wherever)
→ Lock in a consistent renovation style for the entire property
→ Generate photorealistic renovated images
→ Animate each room transformation
→ Create a cinematic closing shot featuring the realtor's contact info
→ Generate a custom music track
→ Edit everything together

The result: a scroll-stopping property video that makes buyers reach out — built from photos that were already sitting on the listing.

No videographer.
No staging budget.
No waiting for golden hour.

RT & Comment "RENOVATE" and I'll send you the full workflow + all the prompts + a step-by-step video showing how to do this (must be following so I can DM you!).

[Zach Brown @the_zb_]

There are some real misunderstandings here about the grumbling surrounding the regulations.

I’ve seen several voices claiming that people upset about the regs are just “sour grapes” because it looks like Mercedes will dominate.

That’s a mistaken take.

People and drivers are aggrieved and extremely disappointed in the inherent NATURE of the regulations, and how the cars must be driven (not driven, as the case may be), and how heinously offensive it is to watch. That will not change no matter what the development trajectory looks like.

The product on track looks offensive. It’s awful. And it’s inherent to the nature of the regs - it’s not changing.

Harvesting for such electrification means a permanent and unchangeable sacrifice of driver differentiation in high speed. That is obvious at this point, the needs of the regulation mandate this. There’s no room to engineer around this, physics is physics.

And that is a damning, heinous thing to watch. It’s so anti-racing and so anti-F1 that it’s an exercise in cognitive dissonance watching an onboard.

I hope to goodness that we all refuse to try and condition ourselves to accept this as “normal” or just “something to get used to”.

It’s not about parity, it’s not about who is in front or behind. You may or may not believe me when I say that, but this product would be no better if Ferrari were 2 seconds ahead of everyone.

This is not F1.

And I hope there is a swift and decisive fix, and a colossal push toward regulatory overhaul by 2029 with turbo V8’s with mild hybrid assist (turbo lag mitigation) and sustainable fuels. That is the solution.

[Cyan Banister @cyantist]

This is something you won't want to miss! Come see what people are building and thinking about on the edge!!

[Justine Bateman @JustineBateman]

David Ellison, I sincerely hope you will be giving @meganeellison a division in your studio(s). She has excellent film taste. She was A24 and Neon before A24 and Neon. @annapurnapics @ParamountPics

[@jason @Jason]

Excited to talk @openclaw with board member @davemorin today at 10am PT / 12pm Texas time

Live here and YouTube (search this week in startups)