Founders are resourceful, but not omnipotent.The FTC blocked the Figma and Adobe acquisition, in a random and illogical way, and the fallout from that has distorted M&A. It’s similar to Sarbox distorting IPOs. https://t.co/F4B0OdHYHo https://t.co/bLBgtLJX40Jerry Jiang (@TheMingjie):@balajis Why all the blame for Lina Khan?If founders want to, they can always find a way. ...

From a well-known investor I know:“Saw some people claiming common doesn’t get paid in the Windsurf acquisition. They are wrong, you are right. I checked with Windsurf investors, everyone is getting paid, including common.The one wrinkle may be employees who aren’t vested. And preferred may be taking a disproportionate tax hit, because it doesn’t qualify for QSBS, just like Scale didn’t qualify.”Caveats: I haven't seen the waterfall myself, and these deals are complicated, and I don't like to get involved i ...

Initiating violence is very expensive.(In addition to being immoral.)The US spent $5T on war, for nothing.Russia spends >$1B/day on Ukraine.So, war is an absolute last resort.Much smarter to buy from a willing seller.Land is a commodity in the Internet era anyway.Izecube 🖱️ (@its_izecube):@balajis @slatestarcodex they can just take it like the old times through some violence ...

“What key knowledge would you need to start rebuilding civilisation from scratch? Once you’ve scavenged what you can, how do you begin producing the essentials? How do you grow food, generate power, prepare medicines, or get metal out of rocks?”https://t.co/EEByUUy3VL https://t.co/avM7Tnd273 ...

An important subject.Less theoretical every day.This is a good book on the topic. https://t.co/usj7oSDxUoGrant Slatton (@GrantSlatton):Suppose you took 10,000 optimally selected people and dumped them into a region that had adequate forests, fields, and mountains for mining iron and coal, all in a 100 mile radiusThey start with only 1 season of food suppliesHow fast could they bootstrap to tech circa 1900? ...

Egypt has returned to partial stability since the chaos of the Arab Spring, but it needs money. And the UAE is arguably the best run country in the region.More context:https://t.co/PTrrLoL4nI ...

What @slatestarcodex is saying is of course tongue-in-cheek.But this is real: Egypt leased their Mediterranean peninsula to the UAE in return for $35B.It’s a win/win for both countries. As the sovereign debt crisis gets underway, expect many more deals like this. https://t.co/XbLkjH4ANeScott Alexander (@slatestarcodex):@aphysicist I am a Singapore-controlling-Michigan's-Upper-Peninsula accelerationist. Not only should they own the land, but they should institute SIngaporean law there and build a hyperfuturi ...

In short: we solve the problem of acquisitions stuck in regulatory limbo by playing the game of regulatory limbo. ...

At the same time, the end of the Soviet Union also saw the wildest conspiracy theories uncritically adopted by the population.That’s what a breakdown of trust in the state looks like. People believe nothing, and then they’ll also believe anything.https://t.co/3num0vr5n8 https://t.co/ppUOlK2G3q ...

At the end of the Soviet Union, all the secrets came out.The gulag was real, and the cancelled Solzhenitsyn was vindicated. The USSR really had murdered Poles at Katyn, while blaming it on the Nazis. Millions of innocents truly had been liquidated by Lenin and Stalin. And Chernobyl was indeed a coverup.Everything everyone had darkly suspected to be true was confirmed, and then some. The consequence was the meltdown of a nuclear-armed superpower. It lost its European satellites, and its overseas military bas ...