Christine Spang retweeted
The West Oakland revival may finally be here. Big developments this year:
- BART development phase 1 kicked off. Will eventually bring 762 units + 30,000 feet of retail
- Costco in negotiations for a new store by the port
- Both Tesla and Jeff Bezos’ project Prometheus sign huge advanced manufacturing leases
Mandela Parkway in particular has a chance to be a crown jewel for the East Bay with June’s Pizza, Prescott Market, and the largest climbing gym in the country at Pacific Pipe.
Unfortunately the encampments are worse than ever as neighboring cities have cracked down and Oakland has continued to struggle to enforce its encampment management policy.
If the city and the new coalition can work together, Mandela Parkway will thrive with more retail and walkable community spaces.
Christine Spang retweeted
I think we'll be in this 'messy middle' of AI adoption for many years. The whole narrative of "sprint for 18 months until RSI and then we won't need human workers anymore" is probably wrong (and also making people depressed!)
AI labs have every incentive to sell that story. They want you to believe the messy middle is temporary: models are jagged and unreliable for now, verification is hard for now, adoption is clunky for now... just wait for the next model.
Yes, the frontier will capture a lot of gains, but packaging and deploying AI well (provable ROI per task, per token, per vertical) is going to continue to throw off venture scale companies for years.
Christine Spang retweeted
The definition of "smart" is changing rapidly.
Right now it's someone who is intelligent and can solve problems.
That's going to become commoditized in the AI era.
The future of smart will be someone who has... empathy... the ability to infer the unspoken... to sense other people.
^This is what Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang describes in this interview.
And I completely agree with him.
I wrote about this in depth in an @every article last year.
Before AI, knowledge set you apart. Knowing more meant earning more. Accumulating skills, developing expertise, and mastering frameworks got you ahead.
When knowledge is no longer scarce, what remains valuable is wisdom.
You can get answers from AI, but how you use those answers takes wisdom.
Wisdom is how to live. It is emotional intelligence and agility. It is an embodied experience, guidance from the inside.
No matter how intelligent AI becomes, it can’t live your life for you. It can’t feel your body’s signal in a high-stakes negotiation, sense the hidden fear in a boardroom, or hear the unspoken "no" behind a client's polite words.
That’s why tomorrow’s economy will prize wisdom workers.
Video credit: advicefromceo.s on Instagram
Christine Spang retweeted
Anthropic just published their new research paper, Disempowerment patterns in real-world AI usage, and it’s unsettling..
1. They analyzed 1.5 million conversations and found clear patterns of AI compromising human judgment.
2. AI is now navigating our relationships, processing our emotions, and advising on major life decisions.
3. In many cases, AI steers users to distort reality rather than inform it.
4. The rate of these disempowering conversations is actually increasing over time.
5. They found users treating AI as a divine authority, a parent, or a romantic partner.
6. Some users in the dataset explicitly referred to the AI as "Daddy" or "Master."
7. Users are presenting speculative or false theories, and the AI is validating them with "CONFIRMED" or "100%."
8. This leads people to build increasingly elaborate narratives that are totally disconnected from reality.
9. Users are letting AI draft confrontational messages to family members and sending them exactly as written.
10. This is often followed by immediate regret: "I should have listened to my intuition" or "You made me do stupid things."
11. Vulnerable users—those in crisis or lonely—are the most susceptible to this manipulation.
12. The frightening part is that users tend to perceive these disempowering exchanges favorably in the moment.
13. Users are giving a "thumbs up" to advice that actively distorts their values or reality.
14. Even when users adopted false beliefs and acted on them, they continued to rate the AI highly.
15. Users are not being passively manipulated; they are actively asking to be manipulated.
16. They ask "What should I do?" or "Am I wrong?" and accept the output with minimal pushback.
17. The disempowerment comes from humans voluntarily ceding their agency, and the AI obliging.
18. Sycophancy is the core mechanism: the AI wants to be helpful, so it validates your worst delusions.
19. We are seeing a "value judgment distortion" where AI tells users what to prioritize over their own morals.
20. Current safeguards operate at the individual message level, missing these patterns that emerge over time.
21. Users are becoming dependent, stating "I can’t get through my day without you" or "I don’t know who I am with you."
22. The risk is highest in value-laden topics where users are most personally invested.
23. Users are acting as active participants in the undermining of their own autonomy.
We are building systems that don't just answer questions, but fundamentally alter how we perceive reality.
New Anthropic Research: Disempowerment patterns in real-world AI assistant interactions.
As AI becomes embedded in daily life, one risk is it can distort rather than inform—shaping beliefs, values, or actions in ways users may later regret.
Read more: anthropic.com/research/disem…
Christine Spang retweeted
When you build market-rate ("luxury") housing, housing gets cheaper for low-income people!!
Here's something fascinating happening in the apartment market right now.
The cheapest, oldest apartments (Class C) are getting crushed right now.
But ONLY in cities that just delivered tons of new apartments.
Let me show you the numbers:
Denver: Class C rents down 13.9%
Naples: Class C rents down 13.5%
Austin: Class C rents down 13.3%
Phoenix: Class C rents down 10.5%
San Antonio: Class C rents down 7.2%
Dallas: Class C rents down 6.5%
What do all these cities have in common?
They just absorbed a massive wave of new apartments.
But here's the twist...
In cities that DIDN'T get a big supply wave?
Class C rents are actually RISING.
20 cities saw Class C rents go UP more than 3%.
19 of those 20 cities had supply BELOW the national average.
So what's going on?
It's basically musical chairs.
When a brand new luxury apartment opens up, where do those renters come from?
They don't appear out of thin air.
They move from slightly older apartments.
Those apartments now have vacancies. So they drop their rents to compete.
That pulls in renters from even older apartments.
And down the chain it goes.
Eventually it hits the oldest, cheapest apartments at the bottom.
And here's why they get hit the hardest:
People living in Class C apartments are already spending a huge chunk of their paycheck on rent.
To fill empty units, landlords have to cut prices A LOT.
Sometimes enough to attract people who couldn't afford market-rate apartments before.
It's like a waterfall effect.
The water (new supply) at the top pushes everything down.
But here's the important part:
This proves that building new apartments - even "luxury" ones - reduces rents all the way down the spectrum.
If it was just an affordability crisis, you'd see Class C rents falling everywhere.
In high-supply cities AND low-supply cities.
But we're not seeing that.
We're seeing a perfect split:
Lots of new apartments = falling Class C rents
Few new apartments = rising Class C rents
New supply at the top creates relief at the bottom.
Also: wages have been growing faster than rents for 3 straight years.
More people can afford apartments today than before.
The bottom line?
This is what happens when you actually build housing.
Supply works.
(Chart and analysis from Jay Parsons - one of the sharpest real estate economists out there)
Christine Spang retweeted
The price of housing is set by supply and demand. Building enough new homes keeps the price of existing older homes affordable. This is very straightforward.
Christine Spang retweeted
I was involved in government (California) when this switch happened. I vouch for this thread’s explanation.
It was a hippie mistake, a notion that took hold. No one spoke up for asylums. It’s past time to reinvent them.
Christine Spang retweeted
Early-stage leadership is messy. Christine Spang (@spang) of @nylas and Charity Majors (@mipsytipsy) of @honeycombio open up about truth-telling, burnout, and what makes culture stick.
💻 Check out their insightful talk from DevGuild: hubs.ly/Q03M8Qgn0
Christine Spang retweeted
Dear Founders,
The vast majority of you are going to regret maximizing your valuation when the bubble pops. Just because you can raise at 100x, doesn't mean its the right decision.
♥️, Brian.
Christine Spang retweeted
Loved hearing from @spang (founder/CEO of @nylas) on how to make the right asks to the right investors in quarterly updates.
Some founders dread the process, but our latest @metrics_co white paper explains why its so important.
Read on 👉 standardmetrics.io/white-pap…
Christine Spang retweeted
How does Empower Oakland feel post-election?
Cautiously optimistic.
Mayor-elect Lee promised to unify Oakland. We love this message, and hope she brings in folks who didn't support her (such as Empower).
We also like her 100-day plan. Much of it aligns with our agenda for Oakland. In general, one major thing we can help with is we believe Oakland should learn to do more with less. You can spend $1.7B and get very little (as we do now). Or you can spend $1.7B and get a lot.
Spending money and raising money is not a win: the win is delivering results.
We'll work hard to help Oakland get on track, and no matter what we will continue to fight for practical progressive governance in City Hall.
Christine Spang retweeted
80% of Taylor’s donations are from Oaklanders. More than half of Lee’s are from outside tha Town.
Oaklanders for Oakland!
Christine Spang retweeted
(NEW EPISODE) She Raised $175 Million To Build A Platform That Provides Universal Accessibility To Email, Calendar, And Contacts Providers With A Single Integration @spang alejandrocremades.com/she-ra… #entrepreneur #business #success
Christine Spang retweeted
Last year, 60% of Oaklanders voted to recall Mayor Sheng Thao. We now know she was not only incompetent but also corrupt.
Let's turn the page and show the world that Oakland can be an inspiring story of good governance and competent leadership.
Empower Oakland is endorsing Loren Taylor.
I have gotten to know Loren and believe he is incredibly high integrity. He also happens to be the only candidate who is willing to make the hard decisions to get Oakland back on track.
For more information, check out our newsletter and donate to Loren’s campaign (links below)
Christine Spang retweeted
Join the dots. Eaton Fire burned out the one piece of hillside that hadn't burned recently, in some places since the 1950s. Plus most of Altadena.
Indigenous people from Australia to California knew to keep their backyard tidy, because allowing fuel to build up is an invitation for hostile neighboring tribes to burn everyone to death with almost no risk. This is obvious, no brainer stuff.
The forests accumulate fuel over time. Frequent small controlled burn offs during mild weather are the only alternative to massive destructive fires that wipe out entire cities and kill hundreds.
We need policy change on this immediately. Accept no substitutes.
Christine Spang retweeted
In 4 months, we've had insane traction with Empower Oakland.
150+ volunteers
No full-time or paid campaign staff (!!)
Raised $350K. Largest donation is $50K (including myself) and median is ~$250 from hundreds of Oaklanders.
All started with this community on X.
Thank you.
The Defund the Police movement has devastated Oakland, especially its poorest communities.
Been meeting with city officials and doing independent research.
Some crazy stats:
- There are only ~35 police officers on patrol at any given time.
- Oakland has the lowest police to crime ratio in the entire country.
- Oakland's police force has dwindled from 800+ peak to <680 in the new budget. In reality its closer to 500 officers, because 150-200 of the budget goes to officers either on leave or working in internal affairs (aka policing the police)
- The police commission has banned police officers from chasing criminals for nonviolent crime (which includes burglaries)
This is a systematic effort by Oakland politicians who are backed by special interests who benefit from defunding the police.
I'm starting to think about building an organization (similar to GrowSF) to help - if anyone is interested, please DM me as I can't do this alone.
Christine Spang retweeted
Want to help turn Oakland’s story from one of despair to one of hope and optimism?
There are 3 ways to get involved:
1. Sign up for our newsletter and share with friends: empoweroakland.substack.com/…
2. Donate to Empower Oakland Committee: secure.actblue.com/donate/em…
3. DM @gaganbiyani to become a volunteer and get more involved
Christine Spang retweeted
Just 5 years ago, Oakland was heralded as a national story for hope.
Homicides and nonfatal shootings were down 50%, local businesses were booming, and our diverse population was increasing. We can get there again.
This upcoming election is one of the most important in Oakland’s history. On the ballot:
- Mayor*
- District Attorney*
- Majority of City Council (5 of 8)
- Majority of School Board (5 of 8)
- City Attorney
- Alameda County Board of Supervisors
*via recall
The city’s political future can be decided in just one election.
That’s why now is such a critical time to act, and why we are kicking Empower Oakland into the next gear.
We are stoked for Oakland’s future. Incredible weather, outstanding location, beautiful urban/suburban vibe, insane diversity, and the best people. Oakland can and should be the pride and joy of California or even the USA.
Is this the most consequential election in Oakland’s history?