Wes Talbert

Husband, father, bodybuilder, supercar collector & former Corvette Z06 road racer.

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

After flying @SouthwestAir exclusively since 2017 for all business and personal travel, they just lost my family and I as customers. Foot and leg in a brace and the flight attendant insisted I place my bag under my seat instead of in the overhead. Medical need? Apparently not.

[Palantir @PalantirTech]

Our thoughts on the importance of AI sovereignty.

1. Your AI sovereignty dictates your institution’s future. Sovereignty is the precondition for choice. Relinquishing sovereignty transfers the future choices of your institution to others, who are likely to exploit it for their gain and your loss.

2. Data retention is your treasure. Transfer it at your own peril. Your ability to win is dictated by your ability to recognize and use your unique edges, and you keep winning by compounding the underlying data to generate new insights. Transferring that data hands over access to your pre-existing winning plays and yields the means of production for new ones.

3. Tokenmaxxing hijacks your value orientation and decreases your institutional fortitude and intelligence. The pursuit of high token usage incentivizes disposable scripts over robust software — with the addictive feeling of false progress. There is a reason why those selling tokens refuse to charge based on value.

4. Controlling your weights is controlling your fate. Weights are the distilled form of hard-won, accumulated institutional knowledge. If you let others control your weights, you are allowing them to migrate the alpha of your business to theirs.

5. There is no contradiction between sovereignty and alpha. The architecture that maximally preserves sovereignty is one that enables institutions to own their tribal knowledge, and to compound it as alpha.

6. Politicizing the technical issues involving sovereignty is what your adversary wants. Techno-politicization is the wellspring of false sovereignty. Techno-politicization drives decisions that seem to reduce dependency, but ultimately limit agency — especially on the battlefield in the West.

7. Real expertise is existential. Allowing politics or favoritism to determine your technical decisions rewards whoever is best at politics, not whoever is right. Listen to those closest to the problems, not those speaking most compellingly about them.

8. Learn from institutions that are winning or that have consistently delivered. Institutions facing existential threats do not have the luxury of making technical decisions based on political preferences.

9. Only listen to institutions, countries, and people who have a proven record of being right. A track record of correctness is the best and only signal for future correctness. Judging something as right or wrong based on who you like is exceedingly misguided.

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

@Dr_Biohacker Weight lifting 6 days a week for about 90 minutes a session. Otherwise sedentary due to job. 48 years old. 51 bpm resting heart rate.

[Brian Halligan @bhalligan]

I don't remember where I found this, but its spot on.

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

@elonmusk It is cheaper to maintain our Ferrari than our Model X. Guess we got a lemon.

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

@Tesla Our Tesla Model X had a total HVAC failure at 29,000 miles and cost us $3.3k to repair. Will never buy another Tesla product.

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

@RepCohen Why did Democrats not release it when they were in power for 4 years. We were told Trump was the greatest threat to democracy ever, yet Democrats sat on the files for 4 years.

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

@RepCohen MLGW moving away from TVA seems like a good deal short term but a terrible deal long term. Please do what you can to make the TVA too attractive for MLGW to leave and go the private provider.

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

@pearlythingz They are in command of their schedule and thus happier by default.

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

@TateTheTalisman Buy some American politicians. They’re usually for sale.

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

@hak5darren Still a great movie 🍿 #HackThePlanet

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

Time in the market 📈 will usually beat timing the market 📉

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

@BasedMikeLee Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and more yes!

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

@Cobratate It would be nice to have a brother.

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

@TuckerCNews Yes!

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

@RepCohen As a taxpayer, I demand a full and public audit of where every last tax dollar goes.

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

@RepCohen

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

@iamnot_elon Yes. Flat tax please!

[Wes Talbert @thewestalbert]

@SenSanders Thank you senator!