Bravo Johnson (bravojohnson)

Now swap "Austin comedy scene" for "Silicon Valley VC/billionaire class": They think threatening to leave California over the 5% tax (or regs, or "woke") is building leverage—"We'll take our money, talent, and innovation to Texas/Florida/Miami. California will beg us to stay." But California's broader economy (and the global tech/investment machine) treats geography functionally: Talent is in the Bay because of universities/networks, not because of all in podcast. Capital is global. Startups will still cluster where the engineers are. No one's coming begging. The state will consume the innovation at arm's length (remote founders, satellite offices, global LPs) without granting the old deference. And the cruelest parallel: Many of these "disruptors" are nostalgic for the old California system—low friction, massive public subsidies, minimal accountability, automatic cultural goodwill. They want the state to resume the 90s–2010s deal: let us extract unchecked, give us hero status, don't ask questions.

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The Austin comedy collapse is funny because it exposed a fundamental misread: they thought they were building leverage when they were actually burning it. Hollywood treats geography purely functionally — Canada is cheap labor, New York is a writer farm, Atlanta is a tax haven. None demand ideological buy-in. Austin tried to be a *branded alternative* with political identity. But Hollywood doesn’t need validation of your reasons for leaving. It needs interchangeable talent that slots in without baggage. The comedians assumed the move itself was the value — that Hollywood would come begging. Instead, it kept hiring people who never left in the first place even if they were in NY, Atlanta or Toronto. Now they’re stuck: can’t leverage Austin (collapsed), can’t easily return (without admitting failure), can’t get validation. The punchline: they wanted to be a power center while operating like refugees. Hollywood called the bluff by not caring.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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5% is less than gas fees

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People who dislike people shouldn’t build social networks. You can’t design a public square if you resent the public. It’s not ideology; it’s temperament. When builders treat their own aversions as irrelevant, the product ends up haunted: features lean toward control, moderation toward sterilization, and the whole thing reflects the founder’s conflict more than user needs. Seeing what’s wrong isn’t the same as being suited to fix it. Fixing problems usually means doing more of the thing you already can’t stand. Move fast and break things wasn’t a strategy; it was a personality tic. Zuckerberg liked the technical puzzle, not the humans using it and it created tye current hellscape. Web3 is this problem distilled. Its builders hate platform power but avoid anything that accounts for normal users. They distrust institutions, resent hand-holding, scorn existing habits, and idolize complexity. Then they’re baffled that only people like them—or grifters—join.

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I really hope Farcaster doesn’t collapse. I just bundled all my followers into a Collateralized Disciples Obligation, tokenized it, fractionalized the tokens, and staked the fractions in a yield farm backed entirely by their future engagement. If the platform goes under, I’m going to have to explain to my LPs why my community defaulted. It’s hard telling pensioners their retirement evaporated because my memes failed as an asset class

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Marc Andreessen arrived in Hell with the same expression he wore in board meetings: a serene, self-satisfied glow, like a man who had just discovered the concept of fire without noticing it was already burning him alive. A demon with a clipboard—formerly middle management at a failed fintech startup—checked him in. “Reason for arrival?” the demon asked. Marc smiled. “Thought leadership.” They walked through a canyon of tormented souls, all screaming in a way that suggested they’d been asked to navigate a crypto wallet with a broken CAPTCHA. Marc inhaled deeply. “Lucifer has agreed to see you”, said the demon. They passed a river of lamentation clogged with souls who’d been sentenced to set up smart home devices with no Wi-Fi. Every few seconds, one shrieked, “WHY DOES IT NEED MY LOCATION?” Marc inhaled the sulfurous air like it was fresh VC capital. He strolled into the throne room as if he owned Series A in damnation.

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It’s hilarious that New Yorkers elected Mamdani. Obama’s opponents imagined a radical, foreign-born Muslim boogeyman—so now here comes, actually born in Africa, actually Muslim, actually leftist… and he’s crushing NYC politics with exactly the sort of unapologetic progressive vision they feared Obama might secretly harbor. It’s like the birther fantasy accidentally willed itself into being—but 15 years later, and way more ideologically potent. Progressives win when they stop running from the insult and start owning the slur flipping it—whether it’s “queer,” “dyke” or “whatever,” or in this case “Muslim born in Africa”—the moral panic collapses under its own weight.

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