If @SenWarren shared her $67M and lived on the $285K (itself a great salary) every public school teacher in her state could receive a $900 bonus and she would still make more than 3x the average salary of those teachers.
#YouGoFirstSenator
Elon Musk is a trillionaire. I am not a trillionaire. This strikes me as unfair. Nobody should be allowed to have more than me. The amount of money a person should be allowed to have is exactly the amount I currently have, and no more. I am smart. I really am. I’m serious.
Fred Rogers met with a child psychologist every week for 22 years to build his show. She shaped everything: every script, prop, and song. The whole point was to give a child's nervous system time to slow down. In 1984, a single regulatory decision ended all of it.
The psychologist was Dr. Margaret McFarland, who co-founded the Arsenal Family and Children's Center alongside Benjamin Spock and Erik Erikson. She and Rogers understood that the prefrontal cortex in children, the part of the brain that controls impulse, emotion, and attention, takes decades to fully develop. At the start of every episode, Rogers tied his sneakers and changed his sweater while children settled in. Those pauses were intentional, designed to help a child's nervous system shift into a calmer, more focused state.
What ended it had nothing to do with child development science. In 1984, Reagan's FCC chairman Mark Fowler abolished the advertising limits that had protected children's programming from commercial pressure. Toy companies moved within months. Between 1984 and 1985, cartoons tied to toy lines increased by 300%, from a handful of shows to more than 40 animated series. In almost every case, the toy was designed first. The cartoon was built to sell it.
Researchers later put numbers to what parents were already noticing. A 2011 study in Pediatrics from the University of Virginia tested 60 four-year-olds across three groups: one watching SpongeBob, which cuts scene every 11 seconds; one watching a slow PBS show, which cuts scene every 34 seconds; and one drawing. Nine minutes later, all three took tests on attention, impulse control, short-term memory, and problem-solving. The SpongeBob group scored significantly worse across every measure.
In the 1970s, children began watching television around age 4. Research from pediatrician Dimitri Christakis found that by 2009, the average age of first screen exposure had dropped to 4 months, as the content got faster and the audience got younger. Researchers separately found that each additional hour of daily screen time at ages 1 or 3 raised the risk of attention problems at age 7 by 9%.
To get a sense of scale, here’s how the $85.7b SpaceX just raised compares to what they’ve historically spent on different programs.
People aren’t ready for the magnitude of things to come
Packing thousands of straws together basically creates a low-tech pixel screen.
Each straw acts as an independent light pathway, perfectly mimicking how data channels work.
Elon Musk got rejected by Netscape. He walked into the lobby, was too shy to talk to anyone, and walked out. Never got the job.
At his first company Zip2, the board demoted him. Twice. They refused to let him be CEO.
He got fired from PayPal as CEO while flying to his own honeymoon. The board voted him out mid air.
He almost died of malaria in 2000. Ten days in intensive care. Lost 45 pounds. A day from death.
His first child died at 10 weeks old.
His first rocket exploded. Falcon 1, flight one. Burned on the pad.
His second rocket exploded.
His third rocket exploded. The last of his money was nearly gone.
Tesla nearly went bankrupt in 2008. The closest he ever came to a nervous breakdown.
Both companies almost died on the same Christmas Eve.
He was sued by investors. Mocked by the people who built cars before him.
His childhood heroes, the astronauts who inspired him, testified against his company to Congress.
The Cybertruck window shattered on live stage in front of the world.
He overpaid for Twitter by his own admission and watched its value collapse.
He was beaten unconscious as a child and thrown down a flight of stairs.
He has said he goes to sleep alone and it kills him.
He failed in public, over and over, for thirty years.
He is the richest man in the history of the world.
The difference was never the absence of failure. It was the refusal to stop after it.
Interview with Elon Musk from 2012: " My proceeds from PayPal after tax were about $180M, $100M of that went into SpaceX, $70M into Tesla, and $10M into SolarCity and I literally had to borrow money for rent."
Oh yes, I remember that Bond film where the villain decarbonized the auto industry, brought fast internet to everyone on the planet, and helped paralyzed people interact with the world again.
The Bitcoin low could be in for the cycle, price wise only. Doesn’t need deeper.
But I’d argue strongly it’s going to need 3-5 months (sideways) to build a base from which the next Cycle can launch from.
I love the cadence of this chart
Bitcoin % of Supply in Profit/Loss
As I said previously, you start looking for major market cycle bottoms *after* they cross, not before.
They just crossed.
Such a great chart for keeping people on the right side of the market in midterm years
Ethiopia was never colonized.
For much of its history, it was one of the poorest countries on the continent.
Meanwhile, Vietnam was colonized by the French, devastated by decades of war, and is now on its way to serious economic prosperity.
If colonialism were the answer to why Africa is poor, Ethiopia should be rich and Vietnam should be broke. Neither is true.
Can we please retire this excuse?
In a few months profits will temporarily flow out of TradFi (cool off phase after IPOs).
People will want to know where to put their money because everything already went up so much.
And there Bitcoin will be, ready to begin the next four year cycle.