Mark Cranney retweeted
US Office of Personnel Management @skupor says @elonmusk got “a lot of shit” for his work with DOGE, but his approach was the only one that would have worked:
“To change the direction of a 2.3 million person oil tanker, you can’t do gradual incremental stuff. You have to have a big bang approach.”
“There were roughly 2.3 million federal civilian employees on day 1 when President Trump took office. Today, we're just about 2 million. We've reduced by close to 300,000 people the size of the federal government, which puts the federal government at the lowest level it's been as a percentage of the workforce since 1960.”
“The entire apparatus of government, it travels in one direction only, which is—budgets just get bigger every year.”
“We never take stuff off the plate in government. We just keep adding.”
“Elon, Steve Davis, and all these guys did an amazing job of breaking glass and saying, ‘This is how things are going to be.’ Now we have to do the long-term institutionalization of it.”
Scott Kupor (@skupor) was the first hire at Andreessen Horowitz. Marc and Ben still joke that if he had said yes sooner, the firm would be called Andreessen, Kupor, Horowitz.
His job description: "We're going to invest, and you need to figure out everything else."
Scott spent 16 years helping grow a16z from 3 people to about 700. Now he runs the Office of Personnel Management, the HR department for 2 million federal employees.
Scott explains how a16z borrowed Michael Ovitz's playbook from CAA, why only 7% of the federal workforce is under 30, and why 400 million pages of retirement records sit in an underground limestone mine in Pennsylvania.
This is a fascinating conversation about incentives, talent, and what it takes to turn a 2.3-million-person oil tanker.
0:00 Quitting HP mid-financial crisis to join a16z
1:37 His first day
4:00 How a16z copied Michael Ovitz's CAA playbook
10:18 After-hours bourbon in Marc Andreessen's office
13:31 The Skype deal that returned half the first fund
18:37 Why VCs thought marketing was beneath them
21:48 Swallowing his ego as a16z grew
27:12 Why he left a16z to run the government's HR
30:37 Why government is afraid to take any risk
33:24 Why 99.7% of federal employees get a passing grade
36:13 Recruiting 1,000 engineers into government
38:37 Only 7% of the federal workforce is under 30
40:31 Why "a job for life" is the wrong pitch
43:09 Why the government would never have hired Big Balls
46:39 Why DOGE had to be a big bang
48:56 The underground mine with 400 million pages of paper
55:28 Why government has to accept some failure
57:14 How young people can join
Includes paid partnerships.
Mark Cranney retweeted
The #Broncos went through a gauntlet of losing coaches before finally ponying up for Sean Payton, surrendering a first-round pick and $18M+ per year.
They've been one of the most successful teams in the NFL ever since.
There absolutely IS a correlation.
Jerry Jones on @1053thefan on him not paying top dollar for coaches: “There is zero correlation (in the NFL) between how much you pay a coach or how many coaches you have as to winning. There is no correlation. And that’s a random sample of years and all 32 teams involved. So put that in your hopper and smoke it.”
Mark Cranney retweeted
I promise you'll l earn something from this. It's one of the more in depth discussions I've ever had on end to end economics of robotics, why robotics cos tends to verticalize, the complication of the long tail, etc.
Tutor Intelligence co-founder and CEO Josh Gruenstein is putting AI robots to work in American factories and warehouses, taking on the back-breaking jobs they can't hire for.
Tutor builds its robots in Massachusetts and charges by the hour, with no upfront cost. When the AI gets stuck, a human "tutor" takes over and teaches it the task, creating training data along the way.
Josh joins a16z's Martin Casado and Raghu Raghuram to discuss how Tutor goes from a first sales call to a working robot in about three months, why so many robot startups died building for a single customer, why anyone will be able to start a business in the physical world, and a whole lot more.
0:50 Deploy robots, then build the data
2:50 Why smart robots aren't enough
4:38 The ultimate systems problem
6:45 Why robot companies go vertical
9:07 How remote humans tutor robots
11:00 Will robots outgrow their tutors?
14:54 How AI labs sped up robotics
16:57 Meet Cassie and Sonny
20:55 What factory work actually looks like
23:18 A robot for $16 an hour
25:51 When robots become coworkers
29:04 Why robot startups keep dying
31:21 When 1% cheaper flips a market
34:52 Robots cost more to run than to buy
38:18 China's automation bet may backfire
42:02 Real-world RL on a 100-robot fleet
YouTube: youtu.be/lXkjXSul6yg
@joshgruenstein @tutorintel @martin_casado @RaghuRaghuram
🤭
🔥 LMFAO! JD VANCE on his daughter: "I said, identify toys you want to donate. She brought me two of her BROTHER's toys! I realized that despite my best efforts, apparently I raised a DEMOCRAT."
"STEALING her brothers' toys to give to someone else!"
"In just one day, we gotta beat the Democrats and WIN FOR AMERICA." 🇺🇸
Quite the opener from JD Vance 😅
Mark Cranney retweeted
D'oh! Referees Forget To Rig Game For Chiefs buff.ly/Y9AFX3B
👀
Wytłumaczę wam co się dokładnie dzieje w Polsce.
Po zniszczeniu Nord Stream niemiecki przemysł wpadł w skrajny kryzys i zwyczajnie umiera bez taniego gazu z Rosji. Przez wojnę na Ukrainie to właśnie przez Polskę idą dwa ostatnie sprawne rurociągi z Rosji do Niemiec. Jamal z przesyłem 33 mld M2 oraz rurociąg ropy Przyjaźń. Niemcy aby ratować swój przemysł muszą przejąć kontrolę nad Polską i to właśnie robią. Reszta jest tłem.
So Good!🇺🇸
From another friend:
JFK'S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60's when DeGaulle decided to pull out of NATO. DeGaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible. Rusk responded, "Does that include those who are buried here?"
DeGaulle did not respond. You could have heard a pin drop.
When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of 'empire building' by George Bush. He answered by saying, "Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those who did not return."
You could have heard a pin drop.
There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying, "Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?" A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: "Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships. How many does France have?"
You could have heard a pin drop.
A U.S. Navy admiral was attending a naval conference that included admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian, and French navies at a cocktail reception. He found himself standing with a large group of officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks when a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English. He then asked, "Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?" Without hesitating, the American admiral replied, "Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies, and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German."
You could have heard a pin drop.
AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE...
Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on. "You have been to France before, monsieur?" the customs officer asked sarcastically. Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously. "Then you should know enough to have your passport ready." The American said, "The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it." "Impossible. Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France!" The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained, ''Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn't find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to."
You could have heard a pin drop.
I am proud to be an American, and proud of this God given heritage!
Mark Cranney retweeted
Haley Stevens’ rejection of Elf Sayed and endorsement of Mike Rogers is a good reminder that the real fight isn’t Democrats vs Republicans…it’s Americans vs communists.
Every sane person on the left and the right has to stand unified against the rise of communislam
Mark Cranney retweeted
A timely reminder that if we liquidated the entirety of the nine-figure household wealth of Ro Khanna, a leading advocate for the proposed CA wealth tax
... it would fund a grand total of ~ three fake Botox clinics in California defrauding Medicare
nypost.com/2026/10/30/us-new…
Mark Cranney retweeted
My biggest concern is that if there is a clean sweep by Democrats of the House, Senate and Presidency in 2028, they will:
1. Make DC and Puerto Rico states to gain a strong majority in the Senate.
2. Open the borders and legalize everyone living in America illegally to cement a permanent majority.
3. Increase the size of the Supreme Court to gain an immediate majority.
This would result in America becoming a permanent one-party state and the end of democracy in any meaningful sense of the word.
All that is needed to ensure this doesn’t happen is 51 Republican senators in 2029. That is why you should vote for Republican senators this election. Other reasons are irrelevant compared to this one.
Mark Cranney retweeted
DHS Agents Seize Ilhan Omar's Phone But Decide To Let Her Keep Pager buff.ly/lDpQuuJ
Mark Cranney retweeted
Joe Lonsdale on why capitalism works:
"When you create new things, the business usually captures only a very small part of the wealth it creates.
For example, if homes are going to cost way less because of [innovation], you get to make money from that but everyone gets a much, much cheaper home.
The money captured by businesses is much less than the amount captured by the general society, which is why capitalism works so well."
@JTLonsdale
