The plane crashed because of…DEI!
Also, where have all the tech bros gone?
That plane crash? DEI air traffic controllers!
Wildfires? LA’s DEI mayor!
Ya gotta admit, it's a brilliant get-out-of-whatever card: "Lipstick on my collar? Honey, I'm not having an affair. The problem is that damn DEI dry cleaner!"
Plus, there’s a nifty side effect for a certain segment of anti-woke folks: "DEI" has become the n-word for those too scared to come right out and say it. “I crossed the street ‘cuz one of them DEIs was coming towards me.”
They can’t cancel you for that. And with folks out here openly “Roman saluting,” everything’s on the table now. (Gulp.) 😳
MIA tech honchos
But what I’m most curious about lately: Where are all the techies now?
Amazingly, there are no interviews with all those Silicon Valley execs, VCs, and billionaires about 🍊 now that he’s in charge. Just radio silence. We can't get a single quote on how they feel about J6 pardons, the impact tariffs will have on inflation, the firing of prosecutors/FBI brass/inspectors general, etc. Just COMPLETE SILENCE? Astounding.
Same as it ever was for our Teflon tech titans: They get all of the profits and none of the blame.
Insiders keep telling me I’m wrong about ‘em though…
🗣️ “Tech leaders are fed up because [insert ethical stance here].”
Ya really think that’s it? Eh, here’s a quote I made up:
“It is difficult to get a Silicon Valley VC to understand authoritarianism when his net worth depends upon his not understanding it.”
-Updated Sinclair
Silicon Valley's unofficial godfather, Marc Andreessen, led the tech pivot to 🍊.
And here’s something to know: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has a $7 billion crypto fund.
And wowza, look at this:
What a lucky break. And speaking of…
🗣️ “Elon wants to reduce government inefficiency.”
OK, and this (below) has nothing to do with it?
Could it be that our tech overlords’ devotion to 🍊 is more about enriching themselves than it is about any of this being good for the country/the economy at large?
Could it be that we're about to witness a massive transfer of wealth toward those who own Bitcoin/crypto –– and all this other meshugas is largely a distraction so the normies don’t clock it before it’s too late?
(Ruby’s big financial tip ‘o the week: Don’t put all your savings into Bitcoin, but also don’t have zero savings in Bitcoin.)
CEO of JPMorgan Chase Jamie Dimon says Bitcoin is the crypto of choice for 'sex traffickers, money launderers, ransomware.’
Me: ‘Oh, so it’s the good one. Got it.’
🗣️ “We’re getting rid of mods because free speech rules.”
It’s funny how frequently free speech and cutting costs align for tech platforms. I’ll believe tech execs’ zeal for free expression is legit when they start giving up profits to enforce it. (And when they go to bat for freedom of the press too.)
And Zuck. Ugh.
He wants me to do "community fact checking" now? I’ll get on that as soon as he offers community profit sharing. Call me old fashioned, but I think if you own the store and profit from it, then it's your job to clean it. Trader Joe's doesn't make me mop up some kid’s spill in aisle three while saying, “It’s time to get back to our roots around free spillage of tomato sauce.”
It’s all so damn insulting.
Also, I refuse to take Zuck seriously when he’s out here dressing like a junior on the Massapequa high school lacrosse team. Someone please tell him: “Mark, you’re a big boy now!”
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Greed vs. fear
To be fair, I don’t think it’s pure greed that’s driving these tech bros.
See, it's easy to mistakenly identify fear as greed. And when I look at these sycophantic tech billionaires, I don't see voracious appetites. After all, they can’t even consume the bounty already on their plates.
What I see is insatiable fear. Fear of what will happen if they don't capitulate. Fear of shareholders, competition, and regulation. Fear that their moats will someday be breached.
It’s the flip side of their riches: An in-the-red black hole is incessantly chasing them. And if they get sucked into it, their interiors will lose all value. The more you have, the more you wind up living a life of fear.
The Sterling Rule
🗣️ “They’re rich because they’re so brilliant.”
Dumb people love to think being rich means you’re smart. Americans especially believe in a direct correlation between wealth and brilliance.
But there’s one group who knows for a fact how untrue this is: sports fans. Follow pro sports for long enough and you clock just how moronic insanely wealthy owners can be.
Because we’ve seen the Knicks’ James Dolan repeatedly trade for aging superstars on bad contracts. And the Cowboys’ Jerry Jones be a godawful GM who keeps spouting off about “glory holes” for some reason. And Colts owner Jim Irsay get pulled over with oxycodone, hydrocodone and alprazolam in his system.
We’ve seen the harassment lawsuits, the racist slurs, and the nepo babies who fail over and over yet never go away. Just ask a D.C. football fan about Dan Snyder and then back the f– up. Follow sports and eventually you can’t help but realize how many of these wealthy clowns are lucky, corrupt, or coasting on whatever their daddy did.
Yet they get away with it for decades.
And when one of their teams does manage to win a championship, the owner’s first in line to get the trophy. Not the star player, not the coach, not the GM. The rich geezer who never stepped between the lines gets to hog the glory and have all the TV cameras pointed his way because...
He gloats and sips champagne, but deep down, he knows the same thing every fan knows too: He probably doesn’t deserve this.
So when all these broligarch billionaires act like they're a superior race, keep in mind: The ultrarich can be just as dumb as you and me. I mean, we never woulda traded Luka.
BOLO
Quickies
🎯 Maybe podcasts are booming because they are the only form of media that isn’t relentlessly negative.
🎯 “TikTok gives me community.” Sure. A social media platform provides you with "community" the same way a plastic rose provides you with "beauty."
🎯 U.F.Guy - any dude obsessed with both UFC and UFOs
🎯 Gotta think a big reason death metal guys are so angry is because they have to wear leather all summer long.
🎯 Social media algorithms present you with random stuff you’ll dislike because it leads to engagement. It’s basically the digital equivalent of “This milk has gone bad…here, smell it.”
🎯 I’ve never not been in boarding group F.
🎯 Dating apps turn women into the sharks on shark tank. “You have a photo holding a fish and you can’t spell you’re correctly. And for that reason, I’m out.”
🎯 We're dealing with a massive dong misallocation! Young dudes watch too much p0rn and can't get it up. Meanwhile, old fogies keep getting 🍆s due to ED pills. This has created an unsustainably top-heavy b*ner economy.
🎯 Something new in the past five years: People routinely sell out 20,000 seat arenas even though 99% of random people have no idea who they are. We now live in an era of microfame.
🎯 Service dogs get a red vest to prove they’ve been taught how to behave. Men should have something like this. Like, once a guy does therapy for five years, he should get a special vest so everyone knows he won't growl at your girlfriend or sh*t on the floor.
🎯 Eye contact makes us behave. Anonymity makes us narcissists.
🎯 The single best question to ask in any conversation: What was the most surprising thing about that? Surprise = interest.
🎯 Super Bowl tip for the Eagles: The only way to stop a "tush push" is with an all out blitz called the "tuchus ruckus."
🎯 THEN: This meeting could have been an email.
NOW: This video could have been a blog post.
🎯 We were built for scarcity and now we’re overwhelmed with abundance and our brains/bodies can’t handle it and that explains 99% of what's gone wrong in society.
🎯 Actual journalism frequently forces you to encounter things that don't align with your pre-existing views. As a society, we've decided this unpleasantness produces too much cognitive friction. So we’ve retreated to echo chambers where we are given an endless ego massage.
🎯 Bari Weiss is the Elizabeth Holmes of media. She realized if she keeps telling rich, aging men what they wanna hear, they’ll pay right up.
🎯 Of course the internet turned out to be super creepy. Our first tell shoulda been how it’s constantly asking us if we’re willing to "Submit."
🎯 Jamie Dimon says bitcoin is the crypto of choice for 'sex traffickers, money launderers, ransomware'.
Me: ‘Oh, so it’s the good one. Got it.’
Comedy
🃏 Social with me: Get jokes (and more) on my social media at Instagram – TikTok – Threads – X – Substack Notes – Bluesky.
🃏 NYC weeklies: 1) GOOD EGGS (Mondays) at 7:30pm at NY Comedy Club (Upper West Side). 2) HOT SOUP (Tuesdays) at 10:30pm at Comedy Cellar. 3) GOOD EGGS (Wednesdays) at 8pm at NY Comedy Club (East Village).
🃏 FUNNY HOW: I have another newsletter all about the craft of doing standup. Check it out.
5-spotted
🗯️ Does it make Bill Burr uncomfortable that his past material lives online forever?
No, not at all. I love when people bring that up because then I go, “You were alive when I said that. You had 15 years to get offended — you’re just getting around to it now?” That sort of crap has happened to comics that I grew up watching. They did these jokes, and generally everybody laughed. Then the needle moves 20 years later, and the same people who laughed get to act like they didn’t. But the comedian gets frozen in time. All the comedian is showing you is where society was at the time.
A lot of that is phony Caucasian behavior. They feel like because they call out a comedian that made a joke 20 or 30 years ago, they’re now an ally, and they’re appeased of all their wrongdoings in society. So much of that stuff is cringeworthy. You’re going to make your Instagram page dark for one day so you can be on the right side of history? That’s all it took? You didn’t even have to leave your house? Then white people on the other side yell at the white people who do it, and nobody of color is even involved. It’s just us posturing and yelling and getting offended. The whole thing is stupid.
🗯️ The Unabomber ain’t no hero.
What is lost in this lionization of one of the most notorious terrorists in American history is that for Mr. Kaczynski, the desire to kill came first, and the ideological justifications followed. Lonely rage defined him, and he spent far more time tormenting his neighbors than he did on his grandiose plans to bring down industrial society. He killed dogs for their barking, strung razor wire across dirt bike paths and fantasized about murdering a neighboring toddler. The manifesto and its carefully constructed veneer of Luddite and anarchist philosophies were a con to lure others into his world of despair and hatred.
🗯️ David Foster Wallace on language.
A lot of us are very sloppy in the way that we use language. And another advantage of learning to write better, whether or not you want to do it for a living, is that it makes you pay more attention to this stuff. The downside is stuff begins bugging you that didn’t bug you before. If you’re in the express lane and it says, “10 Items or Less,” you will be bugged because less is actually inferior to fewer for items that are countable. So you can end up being bugged a lot of the time.
🗯️ No one knows what they’re doing, according to John Cleese.
When I was writing with this therapist, I got to know him very well and I said to him, "How many people in your profession really know what they're doing?" And he said, "About 10 percent."
I was so intrigued by that. After that, every time I met someone who I suspected was particularly good, I would say to them, "How many people in your…?" The highest I ever got was 20 percent.
Mostly it was 10–15 percent, one or two people who went as low as 5 percent. But why don't the 85 percent get better? Because they don't know they need to. They think they're good already. Do you see what I mean? And if you think you're good enough already, you're not learning.
🗯️ The 70% rule.
If you’re roughly 70% happy with a piece of writing you’ve produced, you should publish it. If you’re 70% satisfied with a product you’ve created, launch it. If you’re 70% sure a decision is the right one, implement it. And if you’re 70% confident you’ve got what it takes to do something that might make a positive difference to the increasingly alarming era we seem to inhabit? Go ahead and do that thing. (Please!)
Thanks for reading.
-Matt
P.S. Check out my newsletter WORKING METHODS with creativity ideas from art legends:
“Wait, you mean it’s all about money?”
“Always has been”
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