Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

A Happy Holiday and Merry Christmas to all those celebrating, from @PalantirTech CEO Alex Karp and the whole Palantir family. pic.twitter.com/QYq5wemQOr

— Jacob Helberg (@jacobhelberg) December 22, 2023

ah not great

this palantir?

💥 NEW 💥

Leaked emails reveal that the tech giant Palantir has hired Topham Guerin to pay influencers to attack Good Law Project on social media – but the source of the money is to be kept “confidential” 👀 https://t.co/MYezV0sNtP

— Good Law Project (@GoodLawProject) December 22, 2023

brb going to go fight xenophobia by *checks notes* attacking non-western values

I work on the same floor in the same building as Palintir. They replaced Spotify and Wework. I don’t know what’s wrong with my building. But I have a really hard time taking the elevator with those kids (and they’re all kids) with the marching corporate backpacks. On their way to program AI software and drones to I guess fight non western values?

what is up with the editing of that video

I hope Karp and every single person at Palantir dies

So creepy. Also great that they found the one place in the lower 48 that currently has snow on the ground.

Just starting this https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/trillbilly-workers-party/id1227003413?i=1000639339639 re an Appalachian “silicon holler” agritech startup

Y Combinator CEO wishes death to SF supervisors

Am I missing where we're talking about the SBF sentencing? Goddamn the statements from the defense are *something*

He got 25 years? That's real time, I wonder if he'll be in a real prison or one with free ping pong and a vegetable garden

I’m sure he’ll go to minimum security. Which tbh, doesn’t bother me that much. Our prisons are overly punitive.

He’ll probably develop PrisonCoin or something. When Madoff was in prison, supposedly inmates regularly asked him for financial advice.

even max security prisons prob have ping pong, but my understanding is for long sentences they dont send you to minimum security, regardless there are no nice prisons

*due to the fact that it would be too tempting for someone looking at 25 years to escape from a minimum security prison

https://www.businessinsider.com/madoffs-butner-prison-is-the-crown-jewel-of-federal-prison-system-2009-7

Min security might not be the technically accurate term but probably what people think of when they think of minimum security

eh, he'll be out in his 40s if he behaves. honestly not a bad deal in return spending his 20s as the personal beneficiary of the biggest white collar crime in history. i don't think i'd take the deal, but i'd think about it.

i def would not take it terrible deal he spent most of his time in the office on computer

Min security might not be the technically accurate term but probably what people think of when they think of minimum security

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, March 28, 2024 1:52 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah i heard theyre playing golf over there they give you foot massages lol https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/madoff-beat-up-in-prison-report/1880747/

"A former felon also serving time at the prison on drug charges confirmed the assault to the WSJ and said the argument focused on money the alleged attacker reportedly believed Madoff owed him."

I mean, caveat emptor at that point

xxp

right but you would not spend most your time on the computer. you would spend ten years partying.

anyway my point is 25 years with likely parole for a 32 year old is not like 25 years for madoff at age 70. it honestly seems pretty lenient. he'll probably do it again when he gets out. love that for him.

i personally would do a smaller scam and get away with it, no going on 60 minutes nothing like that

Are his parents still teaching legal ethics at Stanford Law?

the thing with him and elizabeth homles is it seems like they really did want to become steve job, its a different kind of scam theyre looking to go legit, its too much delusion if youre scamming you should be honest with yourself and plan accordingly

elizabeth homles really cant be topped cause from the beginning every expert was saying her plan wasnt going to work because its just not enough blood, a hard physical reality, but she was just like no i will figure it out i will wear turtlenecks, also fucking up medical things is frowned upon in ways that making a bad computer program is not

likewise stealing money is also frowned upon, whereas the wework guy got away with a billion dollars and is free to go to the coffee shop if he feels like it, he just made a very dumb company and got a japanese bank to give him infinite money, when the business failed no one went to jail

Holmes fraud is worse because lives at least hypothetically could have been at stake, except it's hard to imagine things ever would have actually reached the stage where they were.

elizabeth homles really cant be topped cause from the beginning every expert was saying her plan wasnt going to work because its just not enough blood, a hard physical reality, but she was just like no i will figure it out i will wear turtlenecks

― lag∞n, Thursday, March 28, 2024 11:13 AM (six minutes ago)

really an icon for this tbh

did a husky voice, my god, she was really doing her best

the voice thing was so wild lol

Holmes fraud is worse because lives at least hypothetically could have been at stake, except it's hard to imagine things ever would have actually reached the stage where they were.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, March 28, 2024 2:19 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

no theranos was actually performing blood tests and fucking them up

This was a federal sentence, he'll have to serve 85%, he's 32, he'll get out when he's 53-54.

https://bsky.app/profile/mitchellepner.bsky.social/post/3korf5o3jcb2i

apparently he's eligible for parole after 13 years

i thought 85% was standard in the feds too

some light googling is confirming this fwiw

There is no possibility of parole in federal criminal cases, but Bankman-Fried can still shave time off his 25-year sentence with good behavior.

"SBF may serve as little as 12.5 years, if he gets all of the jailhouse credit available to him," Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor, told CNN.

Federal prisoners generally can earn up to 54 days of time credit a year for good behavior, which could result in an approximately 15% reduction.

Since 2018, however, nonviolent federal inmates can reduce their sentence by as much as 50% under prison reform legislation known as the First Step Act.

Epner says the First Step Act was billed as a civil rights measure, to help minority offenders who committed non-violent drug-trafficking offenses.

"It has turned out to be an enormous boon for white-collar criminal defendants, who are already given much lower sentences ... than drug-traffickers," Epner added.

ah ok well good luck to him

Biden can pardon him if he makes a hefty donation to the DNC

wonder if hes got any wallets he forgot about

never forget

Sequoia took down their SBF profile but the internet ensures it will live forever pic.twitter.com/0P3DWookmY

— BuccoCapital Bloke (@buccocapital) March 28, 2024

guys who control billions of dollars of capital losing their minds at the idea of buying a banana

also saying super app but then describing a banking app he couldnt even be bothered to say you can call an uber from it too, low energy

guys who control billions of dollars of capital losing their minds at the idea of buying a banana

Guys like that know that the best way to be fabulously wealthy is to insert yourself into financial transactions that involve incredibly huge amounts of money and raking off a small percentage of it, over and over again. SBF was selling them the idea of a service that would insert itself into every financial transaction on earth. Achieve that dream and you control humanity. Surprised they didn't jump out the window in an ecstatic transport.

he didnt say anything like that he just said you could buy a banana

Everyone wants to remake PayPal

It's one banana! What can it cost, ten dollars?

while ago amazon started giving out free bananas in seattle cause they were getting bad pr about taking over the city, thats what im talkin about free bananas costs zero no app needed thank you mr bezos for the banana

This Sequoia piece is so good with the benefit of hindsight.

https://web.archive.org/web/20221027180943/https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/sam-bankman-fried-spotlight/

The math couldn’t be clearer. Very high risk multiplied by dynastic wealth trumps low risk multiplied by mere rich-guy wealth. To do the most good for the world, SBF needed to find a path on which he’d be a coin toss away from going totally bust.

I can't believe they lost their entire investment in this guy.