Tim Schmidt

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[Jaynit @jaynitx]

In March 2010, an Apple engineer named Gray Powell walked into Gerstner's Bar in Redwood City with an unreleased iPhone 4 prototype disguised as an iPhone 3GS.

He left without it.

Jobs later explained why the phone was out in the world at all: "To make a wireless product work well, you have to test it. And there's no way to test it in a lab completely, so you actually have to carry them and test them out."

The phone ended up with a 21 year old named Brian Hogan. What happened next is still disputed. Jobs put it simply: "There's a debate as to whether it was left in a bar or stolen out of his bag."

Hogan tried to return it. Called Apple's support line. Got nowhere. So he called Engadget. Then Gizmodo.

Gizmodo paid $5,000 for it.

They published a full teardown. Front-facing camera. Flat edges. Glass back. The entire design of Apple's next flagship phone, months before launch, exposed to the world.

But here's the part most people missed. Jobs revealed: "The person that got the phone tried to activate it by plugging it into his roommate's computer. And she's the one that called the police. That's why they got the search warrant."

Not Apple. The roommate.

Police showed up at Gizmodo editor Jason Chen's house. Seized computers. Hard drives. Everything. The tech press exploded. "Apple is retaliating against journalists."

Jobs found the whole situation almost cinematic: "This is a story that's amazing. It's got theft. It's got buying stolen property. It's got extortion. I'm sure there's sex in there somewhere. Somebody should make a movie out of this."

But he wasn't laughing about what came next.

"I got a lot of advice from people that said you've got to just let it slide. You shouldn't go after a journalist because they bought stolen property and they tried to extort you."

Most CEOs would have taken that advice. Bad optics. Not worth the fight. Move on.

Jobs didn't.

"I thought deeply about this and I ended up concluding that the worst thing that could possibly happen as we get big and we get a little more influence in the world is if we change our core values and start letting it slide."

Then he said something that explains everything about how he built Apple:

"I can't do that. I'd rather quit."

He continued: "We have the same values now as we had then. We're maybe a little more experienced, certainly more beat up, but the core values are the same. And we come into work wanting to do the same thing today as we did five or 10 years ago, which is build the best products for people."

This wasn't about a phone. It was about what Apple would tolerate as it scaled. Most companies loosen their standards as they grow. They pick battles. They let things slide because fighting is expensive and messy.

Jobs saw that as the beginning of the end. The moment you compromise once, you've established that compromise is available.

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

Elon Musk avait dit un truc qui m'avait marqué sur l'allocation de ressources. En substance : passé un certain niveau de richesse, l'argent n'est plus de la consommation, c'est de l'allocation de capital.

Cette phrase change tout.

L'économie, dans le fond, c'est juste un problème d'allocation. Tu as des ressources finies et des usages infinis. Qui décide où va quoi ?

Imagine une cour de récré. 100 enfants, des paquets de cartes Pokémon distribués au hasard. Tu laisses faire. Très vite, un ordre émerge. Les bons joueurs accumulent les cartes rares, les collectionneurs trient, les négociateurs trouvent des deals. Personne n'a planifié. Et pourtant chaque carte finit dans les mains de celui qui en tire le plus de valeur. Le système maximise le bonheur total de la cour. C'est ça, la main invisible.

Maintenant fais entrer la maîtresse. Elle trouve ça injuste. Léo a 50 cartes, Tom en a 3. Elle confisque, redistribue, impose l'égalité. Trois effets immédiats. Les bons joueurs arrêtent de jouer, à quoi bon. Les mauvais n'ont plus de raison de progresser, ils auront leur part. Les échanges s'effondrent. La cour est égale, et morte. Elle a maximisé l'égalité, elle a détruit le bonheur.

Le problème de la maîtresse, c'est qu'elle ne peut pas avoir l'information que la cour avait collectivement. C'est le problème du calcul économique de Mises, formulé en 1920. L'URSS a essayé de le résoudre pendant 70 ans avec le Gosplan. Résultat : pénuries, queues, effondrement. Pas parce que les Soviétiques étaient bêtes, parce que le problème est mathématiquement insoluble en mode centralisé.

Quand Musk a 200 milliards, il ne les consomme pas, il les alloue. SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink, xAI. Chaque dollar est un pari sur le futur. Et lui a un track record. PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX. Il a démontré qu'il sait identifier des problèmes immenses et y allouer des ressources avec un rendement spectaculaire.

L'État aussi a un track record. Hôpitaux qui s'effondrent, éducation qui décline, dette qui explose, services publics qui se dégradent malgré des budgets en hausse constante. Le marché identifie les bons allocateurs, la politique identifie les bons communicants.

Le profit n'est pas une finalité, c'est un signal. Il dit : tu as alloué des ressources rares vers un usage que les gens valorisent suffisamment pour payer. Plus le profit est gros, plus la création de valeur est grande. Quand Starlink est rentable, ça veut dire que des millions de gens dans des zones rurales ont enfin internet. Quand un ministère est en déficit, ça veut dire qu'il consomme plus qu'il ne produit. L'un crée, l'autre détruit, et on appelle ça redistribution.

Dans nos sociétés il y a deux catégories d'acteurs. Les entrepreneurs et les bureaucrates. L'entrepreneur prend un risque personnel pour identifier un problème, mobiliser des ressources, créer une solution. S'il se trompe il perd. S'il a raison, ses clients gagnent, ses employés gagnent, ses fournisseurs gagnent, l'État collecte des impôts. Il est la cellule de base du progrès humain.

Le bureaucrate ne prend aucun risque personnel. Son salaire est garanti. Au mieux il maintient une rente existante. Au pire il la détruit par excès de réglementation, mauvaise allocation forcée, incitations perverses qui découragent ceux qui produisent. Mais dans aucun cas il ne crée.

Regarde les 50 dernières années. iPhone, internet civil, SpaceX, Tesla, Google, Amazon, Stripe, mRNA, ChatGPT. Toutes des inventions privées, portées par des entrepreneurs, financées par du capital risque. Pas un seul ministère n'a inventé quoi que ce soit qui ait changé ta vie au quotidien.

La France est devenue le laboratoire mondial de la dérive bureaucratique. 57% du PIB en dépenses publiques, record absolu. Une administration tentaculaire, une fiscalité qui pénalise la création de richesse. Résultat : décrochage face aux États-Unis, à l'Allemagne, à la Suisse. Fuite des cerveaux. Désindustrialisation. Dette qui explose.

Et le pire c'est que la mauvaise allocation s'auto-renforce. Plus l'État prélève, moins les entrepreneurs créent. Moins ils créent, moins il y a de base fiscale. Plus l'État s'endette et taxe. Boucle de rétroaction négative parfaite. La maîtresse pense qu'elle aide, et chaque année la cour produit moins.

Dans nos sociétés, ce sont les entrepreneurs, toujours, qui font avancer la civilisation. Les bureaucrates au mieux maintiennent une rente, au pire la détruisent. Aucune société n'a jamais progressé en taxant ses créateurs pour subventionner ses gestionnaires.

La question n'est jamais qui a combien. C'est qui alloue le mieux la prochaine unité de ressource pour maximiser le futur de l'humanité. La réponse depuis 200 ans n'a jamais changé. Ce ne sont pas les fonctionnaires.

[CyrilXBT @cyrilXBT]

A MIT professor gave a 1-hour lecture in 2019 that has 18 million views.

He died 5 months after recording it.

It was his final gift to the world.

Patrick Winston taught at MIT for 50 years.

The smartest engineers on earth sat in his classroom.

And he spent his last lecture teaching them the one skill their degrees never covered.

How to speak.

15 lessons that will change how you communicate forever:

Never open with a joke. Your audience is not ready to laugh yet. Open with a promise of what they will know by the end.

Your ideas are like your children. You are too close to them. What is obvious to you is invisible to everyone else. Explain the obvious.

The 5-minute rule: the first 5 minutes of any talk determine whether people will listen for the next 55. Spend more time on your opening than anything else.

Repeat your most important idea 3 times in 3 different ways. Once is never enough.

Build a fence around your idea. Tell people what it is NOT before you tell them what it IS.

Verbal punctuation. Pause. Let the idea land before moving to the next one.

Ask questions nobody will answer. Then wait 7 seconds. The silence is not awkward. It is processing.

Never read your slides. Your audience can read. They cannot listen and read simultaneously.

Use the board not the slides. Writing forces you to slow down. Slowing down forces clarity.

Inspire before you inform. Nobody learns from someone they are not inspired by.

End with a contribution not a summary. Tell them what you gave them. Not what you said.

Never say thank you at the end. It is weak. End with something that lands.

Stories make ideas stick. Data makes ideas understood. You need both. In that order.

The quality of your communication determines the quality of your ideas in the eyes of the world. Not the ideas themselves.

Practice is not preparation. Practice IS the skill.

Patrick Winston understood something most people spend their entire careers missing.

Your ideas are only as powerful as your ability to transfer them into someone else's mind.

You can be the smartest person in the room and be completely invisible.

Or you can master communication and make average ideas feel like breakthroughs.

He chose to spend his last lecture teaching this.

Watch it tonight.

Bookmark this first.

Follow @cyrilXBT for more lessons from the people who built the future.

[USA Hockey @usahockey]

THE GOAL HEARD AROUND THE WORLD 🥇🥇 #WINTEROLYMPICS

[Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson]

This is the best post-game interview in the history of sports.

24 year-old Jack Hughes from Florida, who scored the game winning golden goal against Canada for Team USA:

“This is about our country. I love the USA. I’m proud of Team America…”

🇺🇸

[Collin Rugg @CollinRugg]

JUST IN: Actor James Van Der Beek has sadly passed away at the age of 48.

"Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning," his family posted to his Instagram account.

"He met his final days with courage, faith, and grace. There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time."

"Those days will come. For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother, and friend."

Van Der Beek, a husband and a father, revealed in November of 2024 that he had colorectal cancer.

Back in March, the actor released the following video explaining what cancer had taught him.

RIP.

[Road To Success @_RoadToSuccess_]

11 Things People learn too late in life..

[World of Statistics @stats_feed]

Real Luxuries in Life

1. Living 10 minutes from work
2. Living 5 minutes from the gym
3. Having quiet neighbors
4. Having money left at the end of the month and investing it
5. Peace at home
6. Drinking coffee without rushing
7. Sleeping with a clear conscience
8. Laughing with people who truly get you
9. Traveling every year
10. Waking up naturally without an alarm
11. Enjoying a home-cooked meal with loved ones
12. Having time to read a book in one sitting
13. Finding joy in simple daily routines
14. Having a pet that greets you happily at the door

These are the things that actually feel rich.

[Tim Schmidt @tim_schmidt]

@FrankCurzio Over 10x average daily volume 🤔

[Interesting things @awkwardgoogle]

After ten years of saving lives, police dog Indy heard his name on the radio for the last time, and in the silence that followed, even the toughest officer broke down in tears.

[Tim Schmidt @tim_schmidt]

@AdamCarriker94 Win and I’ll love them. Lose and they can be added to the pile of all whites.

[UFC @ufc]

Last night Anthony Smith left his gloves in the Octagon

Thank you for over a decade of memories, Lionheart 🦁

[Gina Acosta @ginacostag_]

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s best career advice:

“Passion isn’t enough, you’ve got to endure.”

[Historic Vids @historyinmemes]

World’s largest time capsule opened after 50 years

[Tim Schmidt @tim_schmidt]

@HuskerMike28 Common sense would agree with you but what do I know. This take didn’t age well.

[Frank Curzio @FrankCurzio]

Powell just triggered the BIGGEST wealth opportunity since 2020.

ONE speech flipped the Fed from fighting inflation to cutting rates.

Smart money's already piling in. Everyone else has no clue.

This pivot will mint the next wave of millionaires, here's how to CAPITALIZE:

[Tim Schmidt @tim_schmidt]

@Huskers Hong Kong

[Tim Schmidt @tim_schmidt]

@tedcruz @grok Hey @grok, which states have the lowest electricity prices?