Shant

dot connector • first principles maxi

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

Legal AI superempowers normal individuals with no legal background to fight big institutions in bureaucracies and in courts on a level knowledge/skill playing field, for the first time in human history. As such, it is one of the most inspiring applications of AI.

[Shant @smaroo]

@andy8052 If interested in more, here’s a solid overview of the agentic finance stack, thanks to @chuk_xyz

https://t.co/cTNLYgfB8N

[Jacob Shell @JacobAShell]

The controversy over AI data centers feels to me a lot like the controversy over hydrofracking 10-15 years ago. The idea that the big companies are looking to scam local communities, destroy all the local water, poison the air and soil, etc. The idea that there won't be any real negotiation because capitalism is theft and can't produce new value, so therefore the companies' entire business plan requires paying locals nothing. This all feels very familiar.

And I'm skeptical of the more damning claims of the anti-data center activists for this reason: I remember the anti-fracking movement's claims turned out to be very over-the-top (local water supply didn't burst into flame everywhere like in that documentary "Gasland"). Mainstream progressives warmed up to fracking pretty fast. And when the activist left realized their claims weren't really correct and weren't doing anything for them politically, they dropped the topic and moved on to the bigger abstraction of "climate."

So, I think the data center issue is going to be what fracking turned out to be: everyone has their price. The big companies will negotiate with local communities. Locals will get paid. It will become business as usual.

[Shant @smaroo]

The sources of USD’s power is its position as the petrodollar, along with its deep capital markets, institutional trust, network effects, and the US’s military / geopolitical power.

ETH’s value accrual from being a blockdollar, only matters if ethereum & base’s blockspace become a top commodity everyone needs because they are the only things set by policy to be paid in ETH, which drives purchasing beyond the supply and demand dynamics of speculative investors.

All other goods and services being denominated in ETH rely on capital market depth and social consensus of the asset as a reliable store of value, backed by the full faith and credit of the Ethereum blockchain.

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
—Douglas Adams

[Ben Lang @benln]

Jack Dorsey on how every company can now be a mini-AGI:

[Riley Brown @rileybrown]

Proximity to SF doesn't matter if you use Twitter Correctly.

https://t.co/fIBkJVm26e is 2 months ahead of SV/founders/eng
(if you curate your feed correctly and are in the right group chats)

[Shant @smaroo]

@danrobinson @gakonst This.

[Matt Van Horn @mvanhorn]

Introducing the Printing Press, a CLI-factory and a CLI-library. Built with @trevin. 🏭🖨📚

Most APIs suck for agents. Most MCPs suck for agents. Most official CLIs suck for agents. They waste tokens and time. @steipete started making his own because of this.

📚 A Library of agent-native CLIs you install today (Linear, ESPN, Flight GOAT (Google Flights + Kayak nonstop), Contact Goat (LinkedIn + Happenstance + Deepline more) +30+ more)
🏭 A factory that prints new ones for any service - just type /printing-press <product name>

CLIs are fast, local, SQLite-backed. Work in Claude Code, Codex, OpenClaw, Hermes.

🌐 https://t.co/GjnN9E9yTH

[Shant @smaroo]

Great write up

[James | Snapcrackle @Snapcrackle]

https://t.co/nnA7XCDkTA

[Shant @smaroo]

Risks feel riskier under threats of public scrutiny from a recording device in every hand and unrecoverable reputational damages from globally discoverable internet records.

An unforgiving culture is a sterile culture.

A risk intolerant culture is a brittle culture.

We must protect values of forgiveness and redemption to allow learning from risk taking to balance all-time highs of public accountability.

Zoomers and gen alpha also need less reminders of what they can lose, and more of what they can gain from the risks of social experiences and offline hobbies.

This is the way to a vibrant, adaptable, and resilient civilization.

New Media can play a role in this to counteract any bleaker, more mainstream alternatives.

[Shant @smaroo]

The United Labs of DeFi

[Stani @StaniKulechov]

@aave DeFi United.

[Shant @smaroo]

Many such cases:
- If targeting emerging markets, focus on wealth preservation.
- If targeting developed markets, focus on yield generation.

[Fern Gouveia @fernxyz]

https://t.co/SGhwvgymaZ

[Shant @smaroo]

The localized small business economy is here

More competition -&gt; higher quality goods and services -&gt; lower prices -&gt; consumers win

[Patrick Collison @patrickc]

Stripe Atlas just hit 100,000 all-time incorporations.

Q1 2026 is +130% Y/Y.

[Shant @smaroo]

Co-sign

[Haseeb ＞|＜ @hosseeb]

Most people have never managed anyone. Those who have, most have never managed anyone smarter than themselves.

This is about to change for everyone. You will be surrounded by agents that are smarter than you, working for you 24/7. In a world of cognitive abundance, your understanding becomes the bottleneck.

You can genuinely delegate a lot of cognitive work now. This is not sci-fi. It's already permanently changed the texture of knowledge work.

But the less you understand what your agents are doing and how they're doing it, the less you will be able to get out of them. This is why it's still important to understand things like software, coding, economics, math, statistics, game theory. Not because you need to DO them (you don't), but you need to understand what's easy and what's impossible.

Try to be as smart as your agents. You will inevitably fail, but you don't need to get all the way there. You just need to become smart enough to manage things smarter than you.

[kache @yacineMTB]

you can outsource your thinking
but you cannot outsource your understanding

[Shant @smaroo]

Wow

[Stripe @stripe]

Introducing the new Stripe Treasury:

• Hold funds in multiple currencies and stablecoins.
• Instantly transfer money to US businesses on Stripe for free.
• Pay anyone in 160 countries with just their email address.
• Earn credits on balances to apply towards Stripe fees.
• Spend funds with a Stripe card.
• Get 2% cash back on card purchases.
• View balances in the Stripe mobile app.
• Use Treasury from any AI app with the Stripe MCP.