Since November I’ve been beating the drum that we have only two options for New York City.
We can remake NY to be a beacon of what good, effective government can accomplish. We can invest in critical infrastructure to improve housing, transit, and renewable energy. We can bring down crime and end street homelessness. Or we can be a punching bag and a symbol of blue city incompetence fueling a rightward national turn.
Last night along with Ryder and Catherine from Abundance NY I brought together a group of motivated people from my community – founders, investors, operators from tech, startups, and real estate energized to learn about the Abundance Agenda, get involved, and make positive change for New York.
It was so energizing to see the latent demand for change and gave me even more confidence that we can win. We can save New York.
We are in a unique moment for our city now on the brink of multiple, interconnected emergencies (pollution, worsening transit, insufficient housing, the specter of crime, etc.) but I believe that this community of innovators and leaders can step up and save NY. We will win because we must.
And Abundance New York can become a crucial node not only in city politics but in spurring the national movement toward abundance and away from a politics of scarcity.
To get involved join Abundance New York at abundanceny.org and follow along or reach out to get added for future events, especially ahead of the upcoming mayoral primary this summer.
Now is the time to empower the proponents of change and make the opponents of progress afraid to get in the way.
I Wrote
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5 ideas to scale mental healthcare.
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We have to ration access to high acuity care. We need to direct the highest quality, most resource intensive care to the highest acuity cases. Right now mental healthcare basically works the opposite way based on willingness/ability to pay. The most experienced, most highly trained providers spend their time doing cash visits for well heeled members of the PMC and comprehensive care is out of reach for the people who need it.
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Solving that requires diverting people into cheaper, lower intensity options so they (we – I am part of the problem) don’t needlessly suck up resources, thus creating barriers to care. The solution can’t just be “spend more” ad infinitum.
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I am vindicated and right about OpenAI: If OpenAI is ultimately successful it won’t be because it’s the best at training the best models. Deepseek just proves that further. No, if OAI wins it’ll be because Open AI successfully differentiates a commodity through a developer experience, ecosystem, features, etc. just like Stripe did with payments.
It’s also just utter insanity watching all of these “American dynamism” people drool over a Chinese AI. Just like with TikTok, the issue isn’t primarily “stealing our data,” it’s that Deepseak vector information warfare, soft power, and targeted spying at least when run through their consumer app. We know that the CCP sees these tools as dangerous information weapons – why else would they ban the western internet – we should maintain a very defensive, skeptical posture to their own.
Abundance
The dinner with the Abundance NY team was great and I definitely intend to find more ways to bring the startup community into this project. With Eric Adams teetering between resignation and presidential pardon, the fight for NY is on. We have to demand more and better from our government and getting organized is the first step.
For anyone else interested in joining the fight to save New York and spur the abundance agenda nationally, please let me know (I’ll add you to my list) and you should join ANY directly to get on their newsletter.
A Special invitation
I’m hosting private dinners for founders, operators, and owners building in the real economy for small businesses (Feb in NY and March in SF). To request an invitation, please fill out this application. Space is limited but we’ll do more programming around this idea.
No founder is too early in their journey to attend.
We believe that empowering long tail, real economy entrepreneurship makes markets more efficient and decentralized, and brings more software into the real world. If you believe the same, I’d love to hear from you.
Podcast
I went on the New to Venture Podcast to talk with Taiki Chung about my theory of venture, building a career, funding illegible businesses, etc.. Was a lot of fun though I have already gotten roasted for not having a better camera and mic set up so be warned.
I Read
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The Cruel Kids Table – Brock Colyner, NY Mag
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Cement Wars – Marc Rubinstein, Net Interest
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“Gazing out of the car windows between destinations, I caught sight of cows blocking roads, tuk-tuks laden with cargo and what looked to the untrained eye like multiple traffic near-misses. But more surprising was the amount of cement advertising that adorned our route. Billboards promoting brands like Platinum, Shree, Ambuja, Birla, Wonder, and JK Lakshmi dominated roadside walls. While ads for Coca-Cola are as ubiquitous as they are elsewhere, cement seems to command a share of available advertising space totally out of proportion with consumers’ propensity to buy.”
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I had the exact same experience in India. It became a meme among my friends to hype up the different cement companies. Marc helps explain why.
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PS
It worked.