There's no such thing as f– you money
Zuck, Bezos, Musk, and the rest of Silicon Valley bend the knee. The lesson: F- you charisma trumps f– you money.
These fools missed the whole point of being a billionaire.
What’s the point of having f– you money if you’re never gonna say f– you?
Zuck, Bezos, Musk, and the rest of Silicon Valley are all assuming the position for a guy they know is a narcissistic con man grifter.
All these brilliant, innovative, wannabe-Ayn-Rand-protagonist businessmen who claim they're making a meaningful dent in the–
Gah, I can’t. Not anymore.
I’m sick of watching them, one by one, make the pilgrimage to Mar-A-Botox to pretend they enjoy burnt steak with ketchup while telling a pancake-makeup-combover-clown that he’s a strong, powerful, and very stable genius even though he went bankrupt running CASINOS and can’t read anything longer than a page unless it has his name or pictures in it. “Oh, was your uncle a professor at MIT? Why yes, that does mean you’re brilliant!”
Sorry, fellas. That ain’t f– you money. That’s yessir money.
In a way, I guess it’s good news for broke people. Turns out you can have all the money in the world, but at the end of the day, we’re all gonna have to serve somebody.
The lesson: F- you charisma trumps f– you money.
[Continued below]
BOLO: My new special BOLO is doing great on YouTube. 17.5K views in under a week and great reviews pouring in. Please watch, tell a friend, and/or leave a nice comment. Thanks.
Tour: I’m in Victoria, BC at Heckler’s this weekend and Seattle next weekend at the Here-After. Ticket information.
It might work, right?
“Don’t be so cynical. Maybe they’re acting selflessly and they’re gonna trim government waste.”
Riiiiiiiight.
DOGE OFFICE, DAY 1
Vivek: "Elon, I've got an idea."
Elon: "Who are you?"
Look, I guess it’s possible these manchild Richie Riches really care about improving our society. But I’m also gonna leave room for the possibility that they’re actually just greedy vultures scarred by childhood bullying whose ego validation now comes from their net worth and stock valuations and all this performative bootlicking and dirty donation business is the devil’s buy-in to play ball with an everything’s-for-sale administration which, for the right price, will allow them to crush competitors, squash any regulation (adios, Lina!), avoid tariffs, make bank off their crypto investments, and receive sweetheart deals and government contracts. Because, to them, there is no such thing as enough.
Call me crazy, but I think that’s possible.
Sure, I’d love for these guys to genuinely use their power to improve society. But it’s become crystal clear our tech overlords are incapable of clocking people want low income housing and affordable health care more than VR goggles and AI slop.
At least the do-gooder mask of the tech world has now completely dropped to the floor. They had a nice run of pretending to be the good guys, but reality is clear: They were finance bros all along. Money did what it always does: Win.
The real tell was when Google dropped “don’t be evil” from its mission statement. It’s now a “well, how do you define evil?” world.
The one thing they can’t buy
But why? I mean, money. Of course.
But also: Financial power is at war with cultural power. The people who run the show in tech, finance, and politics hate that they don't also control entertainment, media, and academia. Thus, they're in a neverending battle to capture these other levers of societal power.
Underneath it all is the black hole of knowing their money will never be able to buy soul. Deep down, they see the limits of their version of power. They may get respect, yachts, and dinner reservations, but they’re never LOVED. Not like artists are, at least. They keep stacking cash, but they're doomed to be Nixons and Carnegies, forever in the shadows of the John Lennons of the world. No one will ever put a poster of Zuckerberg on their dorm room wall. (And if someone does, run away from that incel.)
Also, rich people’s greatest fear is being the butt of the joke. We're all paying the price for 1) Elon going onstage at that Chappelle show and getting boo'd wildly and 2) Trump being roasted by Obama at the WHCD. Now we must all live through the plot of "Carrie" as they attempt to get revenge on us for mocking 'em.
Any standup can tell you: Powerful people are the worst comedy audience members. They’re constantly worried about what might happen next. While broke people love to laugh and have a blast at comedy shows, rich people exist in a state of fear.
Elon and the 🚀s
The amount of people who consistently tell me Elon Musk is brilliant versus the idiotic things he CONSISTENTLY says and writes is resulting in a level of cognitive dissonance that I'm finding difficult to endure. Look, I’ve hung out with people zonked out on ketamine and at no point have I ever thought, “We should let this person run the federal government.”
Even if Elon is sincere [deep throat clearing here], he’s really gonna hate it when he realizes running the government is a lot more like running hot mess Twitter than Tesla.
“But the rockets!” Look, you'd also wanna build a rocket that can go to another planet if the women on this one were that mean to you when you were an adolescent.
(Btw, do young people even know about NASA? Kids: The government once did cool outer space stuff, I swear! We didn’t always rely on Tony Stark wannabes for progress.)
At least the Trump/Musk honeymoon won’t last long. As soon as I heard Elon is getting standing ovations when he walks into the Mar-Eye-Lift dining room, I knew that relationship wouldn’t end well. I’ve got June 1 as the over/under date for it blowing up.
In fact, hardcore MAGA folks are already revolting.
Bannon further widened his aim to attack Musk’s fellow tech giants Peter Thiel and David Sacks for having South African heritage.
“He [Musk] should go back to South Africa,” Bannon said. “Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, white South Africans, we have them making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”
I mean, when Steve Bannon is calling YOU racist, things are really getting WILD.
Zuck and his necklace
The internet: “Facts are destroying the trust I have in the people who keep lying to me and I won’t stand for it!”
Zuckerberg: “The solution is clear. I shall eliminate fact checking.”
Wait, users need to fact check Facebook posts now? Sorry, I don’t have time for that. I’m too busy solving cold cases, researching vaccines, and figuring out which of these squares contains a bicycle. It’s hilarious to me how much the internet keeps trying to turn me into some kinda unpaid private investigator. We ain’t your employees, Zuck. If you’re the one profiting from it, then you should be the one responsible for fixing it.
Zuckerberg says he’s moving Meta moderators to Texas because California seems too ‘biased.’ Ah, yes. Nothing like the neutral, perfectly centrist views of PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN TEXAS. 🙄
This is such obvious bullsh*t that it’s a clear reveal of how much more Zuck is scared of the right than the left. Since libs can’t coordinate on anything, the smart biz move is to steer into the misinformation skid. Besides, what’s a little descent into information chaos between (Facebook) friends?
Unless…
Meme to all Jews: Getting rid of fact checking will not end well for us. When the truth is up for grabs, we’re the ones who inevitably get blamed. No one’s ever like, “You know who’s putting microchips in the vaccines? The JAMAICANS.” Our destiny is to forever be the solution scapegoat for every unsolvable riddle in the world until…well, y’know.
“You get to do the fact checking now!”
“How much does it pay?”
“Nothing.”
“How long does it take?”
“Infinity.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because it gives us plausible deniability and helps us avoid regulation.”
“But what’s in it for me?”
“Free speech!”
“This all feels like a con.”
🚨 This post has now been flagged as misinformation
Platform madness
“But free speech is good!” Well, in that case, I’d love to hear these free speech warriors give a full throated endorsement of the ENTIRE first amendment. Because what’s shaping up is the kinda free speech where you can attack anyone you want except the President if you’re the network news.
Some things that also violate free speech:
Tweaking algorithms to support an agenda/candidate
Taking away a TV network’s license because you don't like what they air
Pledging to toss reporters in jail as retribution for their coverage
But sure, go on about HUNTER’S LAPTOP. Sigh.
I don’t get why we’re all using the same damn three platforms. Viva variety! Information delivery should be more like 20th century newspapers or cable tv channels. Gimme some variety. They should be split up by geography or interests. We don’t make people who love The Golf Channel consume content from Lifetime. Or have G, PG, PG-13, and R options. Or gimme subreddit-esque categories so we’re not all tossed together into a blender of hate. Do something.
The one-size-fits-all model may be good for scaling/profits, but it sucks for society. Inevitably, we get lowest common denominator slop, edgelord trolls, and misinformation mooks. The iron grip these dysfunctional platforms have over our information streams is gross and we don't have to accept it as a society. If the algorithm was a person, it’d be a goddamn psychopath.
I’m convinced only one woman can save us now...
Is there some kinda Lean In bat signal we can put up in the sky so Sheryl knows we need a clean up in the toxic bro aisle?
Yo, Sheryl, get your boy, dawg.
P.S. Get jokes (and more) on my social media at Instagram – TikTok – Threads – X – Substack Notes – Bluesky.
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This is a blisteringly brilliant takedown — part satire, part existential cry, part eulogy for any hope we had in our so-called “visionaries.” You’ve perfectly captured the tragicomic absurdity of these tech titans, who’ve amassed unimaginable wealth only to use it to crawl, hat in hand, to Mar-a-Botox for burnt steak, ketchup, and a pat on the head from a man who bankrupted casinos and considers ketchup a vegetable. The phrase “yessir money” is devastatingly perfect. For all their “f*** you” wealth, they’re stuck in an endless bootlicking loop, proving that the real currency they lack isn’t dollars, but self-respect.
The Ayn Rand comparisons hit especially hard — because let’s face it, these guys aren’t exactly Roark or Galt. They’re more like Richie Rich, but instead of building roller coasters in their backyard, they’re building rockets to escape the mess they helped make. The “Carrie” revenge plot imagery is pitch-perfect, and I can’t stop laughing at the idea of Elon’s rockets as interplanetary coping mechanisms for middle school bullying.
Your diagnosis of their insatiable hunger to control not just markets but narratives is disturbingly accurate. It’s not enough for them to hoard wealth; they need to hoard culture, academia, and media too — anything that could lend them the legitimacy their egos crave but their actions will never earn. And yet, as you point out, all the money in the world can’t buy what they really want: soul. Love. Dorm room posters. Instead, they’re stuck playing finance bro cosplay in perpetuity, doomed to be the punchlines of jokes they don’t understand and the architects of systems no one asked for.
What really lands, though, is the recognition that even with all their cash, they’re still just scared little boys with fragile egos, desperate for love and terrified of being laughed at. That’s the core of it: this endless power grab isn’t about innovation or bettering society — it’s just their version of high-stakes dodgeball, flinching at every boo and every roast. And maybe the biggest tragedy is that it’s all so predictable. Money wins, “don’t be evil” becomes “define evil,” and we’re left wading through the algorithmic sludge while they count their yachts.
You’ve written something that’s not just razor-sharp, but also deeply necessary. It’s a reminder that we don’t have to accept this as the default, that these self-proclaimed geniuses are neither inevitable nor infallible. And for that, I thank you!
long read but cant disagree with anything you said