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𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐏𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐈 𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒 𝟔’𝟏𝟎” 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 | 𝐓𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐨, 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐚 ⁃Rim-runner ⁃Positional size & length ⁃Insanely high ceiling ⁃Very good athlete ⁃Started every game Full highlights #𝘍𝘭𝘺𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘜𝘴

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Casper College MBB

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15,787 views • 1 year ago •via X (Twitter)

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Cole Anthony Film + Notes 🧵🪡 Best thing I saw: Very good at getting into the paint. I think it’s by far the best trait in his game. Can get 2 feet into the paint and give himself a chance to finish from basically anywhere on the floor. Biggest Concern: Very average to below average 3pt shooter and not a very good C&S 3pt shooter. This alone could put a cap on your ceiling and playability alongside Giannis, especially as a smaller guard. NEEDS a jump here to be a real piece. Positives - extremely quick first step - looks to push the ball at every opportunity - is going to get to the rim a ton. Has the ability to get 2 feet in the paint whenever he wants - very crafty finisher at the rim - has a variety of finishes he’s able to go to in the paint (goes to a cool step through move more than anyone in the league) - Not afraid of having to step up and take on a bigger role offensively - Very active on the boards for someone his size - super high energy player. Doesn’t have all the height to do much defensively but that doesn’t take away from his effort. He’ll always give you everything he has defensively - tries to make all the hustle plays at all times Negatives - will probably be closer to 0 then negative on defense but just not great on ball most of the time - Not great out of the PnR as a play maker - not reliable as a 3pt shooter. C&S or pull up. - Somewhat limited offensively if his shot isn’t falling - Not going to give you much off ball - the lack of size defensively just hurts him
0:47

Cole Anthony Film + Notes 🧵🪡 Best thing I saw: Very good at getting into the paint. I think it’s by far the best trait in his game. Can get 2 feet into the paint and give himself a chance to finish from basically anywhere on the floor. Biggest Concern: Very average to below average 3pt shooter and not a very good C&S 3pt shooter. This alone could put a cap on your ceiling and playability alongside Giannis, especially as a smaller guard. NEEDS a jump here to be a real piece. Positives - extremely quick first step - looks to push the ball at every opportunity - is going to get to the rim a ton. Has the ability to get 2 feet in the paint whenever he wants - very crafty finisher at the rim - has a variety of finishes he’s able to go to in the paint (goes to a cool step through move more than anyone in the league) - Not afraid of having to step up and take on a bigger role offensively - Very active on the boards for someone his size - super high energy player. Doesn’t have all the height to do much defensively but that doesn’t take away from his effort. He’ll always give you everything he has defensively - tries to make all the hustle plays at all times Negatives - will probably be closer to 0 then negative on defense but just not great on ball most of the time - Not great out of the PnR as a play maker - not reliable as a 3pt shooter. C&S or pull up. - Somewhat limited offensively if his shot isn’t falling - Not going to give you much off ball - the lack of size defensively just hurts him

Bucks Breakdown

44,801 views • 1 year ago

Kentucky will have to move on to another C in the 2027 class after Obinna Ekezie Jr reclasses to 2026, and commits to Louisville. Obinna wasn’t just Kentucky’s #1 C, he was their #1 overall player. Things were going well enough they hadn’t offered another C’ in 2027, (til recently) So what’s next? Kentucky has made prior contact with the 4 C’s we’ll talk about today, but it might be too late to get in seriously with a couple of them. First up: (#11) 5⭐️ Paul Osaruyi. (AZ) 6’9 220lb. Breakdown: Has the highest ceiling of any of the bigs. A+ Motor/Athlete. Elite rebounder, always in the right position. Extremely versatile defender. Defends the perimeter, the paint, the rim. Very high defensive IQ. His offense is still coming along. He’s got good hands, he makes tough catches in traffic under the rim, he catches plenty of lobs, and he’s an elite rim runner who can catch and put the ball on the floor in the open court. Solid handle when not being pressured, but he doesn’t have the best footwork right now,’ so he’s limited in the post with the ball in his hands. Has a decent enough jumper he can face up, even pop out and knock one down, slips really well off screens into a push shot. But once the tools are sharpened, once he gets with some elite coaching, like I said could be the highest ceiling of all them. Very versatile offensive potential. Reclass was talked about early, still could be a possibility as well. Something to watch as Kentucky just recently extended an offer. West Virginia, Houston, Arkansas, Kansas, BYU, thought to be the main schools right now. WVU has strong ties. #BBN #KentuckyBasketball
1:14

Kentucky will have to move on to another C in the 2027 class after Obinna Ekezie Jr reclasses to 2026, and commits to Louisville. Obinna wasn’t just Kentucky’s #1 C, he was their #1 overall player. Things were going well enough they hadn’t offered another C’ in 2027, (til recently) So what’s next? Kentucky has made prior contact with the 4 C’s we’ll talk about today, but it might be too late to get in seriously with a couple of them. First up: (#11) 5⭐️ Paul Osaruyi. (AZ) 6’9 220lb. Breakdown: Has the highest ceiling of any of the bigs. A+ Motor/Athlete. Elite rebounder, always in the right position. Extremely versatile defender. Defends the perimeter, the paint, the rim. Very high defensive IQ. His offense is still coming along. He’s got good hands, he makes tough catches in traffic under the rim, he catches plenty of lobs, and he’s an elite rim runner who can catch and put the ball on the floor in the open court. Solid handle when not being pressured, but he doesn’t have the best footwork right now,’ so he’s limited in the post with the ball in his hands. Has a decent enough jumper he can face up, even pop out and knock one down, slips really well off screens into a push shot. But once the tools are sharpened, once he gets with some elite coaching, like I said could be the highest ceiling of all them. Very versatile offensive potential. Reclass was talked about early, still could be a possibility as well. Something to watch as Kentucky just recently extended an offer. West Virginia, Houston, Arkansas, Kansas, BYU, thought to be the main schools right now. WVU has strong ties. #BBN #KentuckyBasketball

Dylan

165,526 views • 3 months ago

I've been seeing a lot of talk about how CM 15 is "The worst CM to date" and really just general negativity around the state of this CM. I wanted to give my perspective as someone who has felt this is most fun CM in recent memory, using what people would generally consider one of the worst strategies. I know this won't apply to everyone and RNG factors in a lot, but I still think it's good to have the discussion. I started this CM originally with my usual plan on a Medium track around Late OG Nice Nature and double dom debuffers. The plan was to C4 velo bomb with unique and shadow break, using Dober, Red-Shift and Nimble to accel. I used my usual setup Front/Pace/Late, to give Natie the best opportunity to hit Nimble and overtake. While doing practice rooms, I found 2 things. 1) Natie was unable to get into position a lot of the time due to high front lobby composition. 2) When putting my Debuffers at end instead, Natie would have no one to overtake. Now don't get me wrong, she won sometimes but it was clear that every variation I was trying would not be able to catch up with a front or XOguri. So that left me with a problem. How do I close that 3-4 length gap? After talking with some of my knowledgeable friends, there was one mechanic I had mostly written off due to the environment. Dueling. I've always been an avid enjoyer and user of Dueling but really underestimated its power here. The clip on this post shows just how insane Dueling can be on this CM. It's more powerful than double dom for backliners. Now how you force duel to work in your favor? The best answer, a second ace. I know for a lot of solo ace players this is a non-starter, but I feel for this CM as a backliner, Dueling is the best weapon we have to win. And having a second ace drastically increases your chances to duel with each other, giving you the power you need to catch up. The second piece to the puzzle was going back to my CM7 roots and stacking final straight velocity. Normally you have to stack a lot of mid game to keep up with the pack to stay in position, but I felt that saccing a small bit of it for more late game velocity had more value. There's also probably my favorite skill this CM, It's On. This skill along with good pace up from high Wit really handled a lot of my issues. Keeping a front debuffer that would fall back in the mid game gave me almost a full guaranteed proc of It's On every race. These changes to my team saw so much success in practice lobbies, it was pretty insane to see. I was able to win almost every variation of lobby composition that is common this CM. The only one that would always be the toughest is a full front lobby. Most of my races here would be losses as both Natie and Muteki would not be able to get into a good position to hit Dober/Red-Shift. I will say I have been extremely lucky in my lobby rolls this CM to have very few of them. I've also had a few wins even in those high front lobbies despite the odds being against me. Being able to solve this puzzle to best of my ability was very fun and to see the results has been awesome. My main takeaway would be is, if you have another Oshi outside of your main one that you've always wanted to race but didn't because you were doing solo oshi, give duo oshi a shot. You might find something new that you really enjoy. It's really awesome to watch both of my favorite umas win races😊
1:01

I've been seeing a lot of talk about how CM 15 is "The worst CM to date" and really just general negativity around the state of this CM. I wanted to give my perspective as someone who has felt this is most fun CM in recent memory, using what people would generally consider one of the worst strategies. I know this won't apply to everyone and RNG factors in a lot, but I still think it's good to have the discussion. I started this CM originally with my usual plan on a Medium track around Late OG Nice Nature and double dom debuffers. The plan was to C4 velo bomb with unique and shadow break, using Dober, Red-Shift and Nimble to accel. I used my usual setup Front/Pace/Late, to give Natie the best opportunity to hit Nimble and overtake. While doing practice rooms, I found 2 things. 1) Natie was unable to get into position a lot of the time due to high front lobby composition. 2) When putting my Debuffers at end instead, Natie would have no one to overtake. Now don't get me wrong, she won sometimes but it was clear that every variation I was trying would not be able to catch up with a front or XOguri. So that left me with a problem. How do I close that 3-4 length gap? After talking with some of my knowledgeable friends, there was one mechanic I had mostly written off due to the environment. Dueling. I've always been an avid enjoyer and user of Dueling but really underestimated its power here. The clip on this post shows just how insane Dueling can be on this CM. It's more powerful than double dom for backliners. Now how you force duel to work in your favor? The best answer, a second ace. I know for a lot of solo ace players this is a non-starter, but I feel for this CM as a backliner, Dueling is the best weapon we have to win. And having a second ace drastically increases your chances to duel with each other, giving you the power you need to catch up. The second piece to the puzzle was going back to my CM7 roots and stacking final straight velocity. Normally you have to stack a lot of mid game to keep up with the pack to stay in position, but I felt that saccing a small bit of it for more late game velocity had more value. There's also probably my favorite skill this CM, It's On. This skill along with good pace up from high Wit really handled a lot of my issues. Keeping a front debuffer that would fall back in the mid game gave me almost a full guaranteed proc of It's On every race. These changes to my team saw so much success in practice lobbies, it was pretty insane to see. I was able to win almost every variation of lobby composition that is common this CM. The only one that would always be the toughest is a full front lobby. Most of my races here would be losses as both Natie and Muteki would not be able to get into a good position to hit Dober/Red-Shift. I will say I have been extremely lucky in my lobby rolls this CM to have very few of them. I've also had a few wins even in those high front lobbies despite the odds being against me. Being able to solve this puzzle to best of my ability was very fun and to see the results has been awesome. My main takeaway would be is, if you have another Oshi outside of your main one that you've always wanted to race but didn't because you were doing solo oshi, give duo oshi a shot. You might find something new that you really enjoy. It's really awesome to watch both of my favorite umas win races😊

DT

33,740 views • 1 month ago

🚨New: Yan Diomande on why he turned down PSG, Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal — and why Real Madrid is the only move he consider: 🗣️Yan Diomandé: “The interest from PSG, Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal was flattering on paper. But when you actually look at how those teams play and what they would ask of me, the mismatches were obvious. At PSG the system is fluid and star-heavy. They need attackers who can constantly rotate positions and share the ball with three or four other high-profile forwards. I play my best football with clear space to attack 1v1 and finish moves myself. That setup never felt like the right environment for a winger who wants to be decisive every week rather than one of several options. Manchester City is even more specific. The structure is world-class, but it turns wide players into disciplined positional pieces. You have to track inside, hold your shape, and sacrifice a lot of the freedom that makes a dribbler dangerous. I didn’t want to become another efficient cog in that machine, no matter how many trophies it wins. Liverpool’s intensity is impressive, but the way they attack relies on constant chaos and overlapping runs from full-backs. My game is more about control, timing the dribble, and isolating full-backs in space. That high-tempo, transition-heavy style just doesn’t suit how I see myself developing. Arsenal are building something solid under Arteta, but their possession phases are very structured and patient. Wingers are expected to stay in tight positions and recycle the ball a lot. I’m not looking to join a project that is still refining its identity at the highest level. I want a team that already knows how to win the biggest matches. Real Madrid only came into the race late, and that actually made the difference clearer. Their interest felt different. They don’t try to force you into a rigid system. They give attackers freedom to create in the final third while still demanding the mentality to perform when everything is on the line. That combination of freedom and history is what stood out for me. Once those conversations started, the other options stopped mattering.
0:41

🚨New: Yan Diomande on why he turned down PSG, Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal — and why Real Madrid is the only move he consider: 🗣️Yan Diomandé: “The interest from PSG, Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal was flattering on paper. But when you actually look at how those teams play and what they would ask of me, the mismatches were obvious. At PSG the system is fluid and star-heavy. They need attackers who can constantly rotate positions and share the ball with three or four other high-profile forwards. I play my best football with clear space to attack 1v1 and finish moves myself. That setup never felt like the right environment for a winger who wants to be decisive every week rather than one of several options. Manchester City is even more specific. The structure is world-class, but it turns wide players into disciplined positional pieces. You have to track inside, hold your shape, and sacrifice a lot of the freedom that makes a dribbler dangerous. I didn’t want to become another efficient cog in that machine, no matter how many trophies it wins. Liverpool’s intensity is impressive, but the way they attack relies on constant chaos and overlapping runs from full-backs. My game is more about control, timing the dribble, and isolating full-backs in space. That high-tempo, transition-heavy style just doesn’t suit how I see myself developing. Arsenal are building something solid under Arteta, but their possession phases are very structured and patient. Wingers are expected to stay in tight positions and recycle the ball a lot. I’m not looking to join a project that is still refining its identity at the highest level. I want a team that already knows how to win the biggest matches. Real Madrid only came into the race late, and that actually made the difference clearer. Their interest felt different. They don’t try to force you into a rigid system. They give attackers freedom to create in the final third while still demanding the mentality to perform when everything is on the line. That combination of freedom and history is what stood out for me. Once those conversations started, the other options stopped mattering.

Vfynn_🥷🏼 𐙚

19,727 views • 11 days ago

15 YEARS OF TRADING ADVICE I started trading in 2011, and my first lesson was brutal but simple: trust the process and focus on getting better every day. My start was awful. Real-time trading was fast, chaotic, and unforgiving. I hesitated on entries, chased moves, and held losers far past my stop. I made the same mistakes over and over. Before long, I was at the back of my training class at Trillium Trading. Progress didn’t come from trading more — it came when I stepped back and built a framework for improvement: deliberate practice, structured review, and systemizing my work. I wasn’t making money yet, but my win rate and consistency were improving. That mattered. In 2012, I learned something that changed everything: most profits come from very few opportunities. I coined the “Broken Slot Machine” concept and drastically narrowed my focus to in-play stocks — names with exceptional volume, volatility, or fresh news. Cutting out noise was a turning point. I still trade this way today. 2013 was my breakthrough year. I stopped chasing complexity and built a small playbook of “easy money” trades — simple, repeatable setups with defined risk. A few mean-reversion plays. Small, consistent wins. Fewer unforced errors. That’s when my PNL finally stabilized and my confidence started compounding. In 2014, I nearly blew up my career. A fat-tail after-hours loss wiped out over $100K in minutes. That drawdown forced me to build strict drawdown protocols — daily, weekly, and monthly loss limits with zero exceptions. Those rules didn’t just save my career — they’ve saved countless others since. By 2015, I shifted my mindset away from obsessing over PNL and toward improving expected value every day — what I now call the Bobblehead Concept. Red days became feedback. Growth became the metric. That mindset carried me through the emotional swings of trading. In 2016, I learned how much environment matters. Trading isn’t purely an individual sport. Being surrounded by serious traders — sharing ideas, accountability, and lessons — accelerated growth faster than anything else. In 2017, I adopted the Daily Report Card habit. Daily reflection. One improvement at a time. Treating trading like a professional athlete reviewing game film. This single habit was foundational to everything that followed. In 2018, I stopped trying to be early. I learned to wait for the right side of the V — letting moves exhaust before entering. Risk dropped. Win rate rose. Size increased. Being right mattered more than being first. From 2019 onward, it was about 1% improvements, adaptability, and pressing size only when edge was extreme. 2020 rewarded preparation. After almost 10 years of trading, COVID hit and it was a day trader's dream market. Most traders scale linearly, but the real outlier performance comes from identifying when you have an A+ setup and absolutely maximizing it. Doing so allowed me to have my first year making over $10m in PNL. By 2021, my technical skills were dialed in. What mattered most was psychology and performance optimization. I realized that how I managed my mental game determined how consistently I could execute at the highest level. Once you have edge, your mental state is what determines how consistently you stick to your system and capture the opportunities in front of you. Strong mental game allows you to avoid FOMO, ragetrading, and other bad habits that leech our PNL. 2022 the markets slowed down and punished many that didn't adapt. I realized that survival in trading isn’t about always being aggressive—it’s about trading based on what the market requires of you. The best traders don’t try to force the market to fit them, they fit their trading to the market and evolve faster than everyone else. 2023 I started allocating more energy toward swing trading—holding positions for days rather than seconds or minutes. This, coupled with selling options premium, gave me the space to step back, zoom out, and build a more sustainable lifestyle. I was no longer glued to the screen 10 hours a day. It reminded me that trading is a means to an end. 2024, I pushed myself to go beyond stocks. I dove deeper into options, futures, and overnight trading. Each new product came with its own quirks, nuances, and edge opportunities. Learning these instruments wasn’t just about more tools—it was about building a truly diversified and adaptable trading approach that maximizes your expected value based on the situation. At the elite level, the more markets and products you open yourself up to, the more opportunities you have to profit and the more mediums you have to express your trade in the most effective way possible. Now at the end of 2025, after 15 years, the biggest lesson is this: There’s no finish line in this game. The best traders stay curious. They stay hungry. And no matter how good you get, if you’re going to stay relevant in markets, you need to always be learning. I'm excited to see what 2026 will bring and I wish you all nothing but health, happiness, and the success you all are looking for.
14:26

15 YEARS OF TRADING ADVICE I started trading in 2011, and my first lesson was brutal but simple: trust the process and focus on getting better every day. My start was awful. Real-time trading was fast, chaotic, and unforgiving. I hesitated on entries, chased moves, and held losers far past my stop. I made the same mistakes over and over. Before long, I was at the back of my training class at Trillium Trading. Progress didn’t come from trading more — it came when I stepped back and built a framework for improvement: deliberate practice, structured review, and systemizing my work. I wasn’t making money yet, but my win rate and consistency were improving. That mattered. In 2012, I learned something that changed everything: most profits come from very few opportunities. I coined the “Broken Slot Machine” concept and drastically narrowed my focus to in-play stocks — names with exceptional volume, volatility, or fresh news. Cutting out noise was a turning point. I still trade this way today. 2013 was my breakthrough year. I stopped chasing complexity and built a small playbook of “easy money” trades — simple, repeatable setups with defined risk. A few mean-reversion plays. Small, consistent wins. Fewer unforced errors. That’s when my PNL finally stabilized and my confidence started compounding. In 2014, I nearly blew up my career. A fat-tail after-hours loss wiped out over $100K in minutes. That drawdown forced me to build strict drawdown protocols — daily, weekly, and monthly loss limits with zero exceptions. Those rules didn’t just save my career — they’ve saved countless others since. By 2015, I shifted my mindset away from obsessing over PNL and toward improving expected value every day — what I now call the Bobblehead Concept. Red days became feedback. Growth became the metric. That mindset carried me through the emotional swings of trading. In 2016, I learned how much environment matters. Trading isn’t purely an individual sport. Being surrounded by serious traders — sharing ideas, accountability, and lessons — accelerated growth faster than anything else. In 2017, I adopted the Daily Report Card habit. Daily reflection. One improvement at a time. Treating trading like a professional athlete reviewing game film. This single habit was foundational to everything that followed. In 2018, I stopped trying to be early. I learned to wait for the right side of the V — letting moves exhaust before entering. Risk dropped. Win rate rose. Size increased. Being right mattered more than being first. From 2019 onward, it was about 1% improvements, adaptability, and pressing size only when edge was extreme. 2020 rewarded preparation. After almost 10 years of trading, COVID hit and it was a day trader's dream market. Most traders scale linearly, but the real outlier performance comes from identifying when you have an A+ setup and absolutely maximizing it. Doing so allowed me to have my first year making over $10m in PNL. By 2021, my technical skills were dialed in. What mattered most was psychology and performance optimization. I realized that how I managed my mental game determined how consistently I could execute at the highest level. Once you have edge, your mental state is what determines how consistently you stick to your system and capture the opportunities in front of you. Strong mental game allows you to avoid FOMO, ragetrading, and other bad habits that leech our PNL. 2022 the markets slowed down and punished many that didn't adapt. I realized that survival in trading isn’t about always being aggressive—it’s about trading based on what the market requires of you. The best traders don’t try to force the market to fit them, they fit their trading to the market and evolve faster than everyone else. 2023 I started allocating more energy toward swing trading—holding positions for days rather than seconds or minutes. This, coupled with selling options premium, gave me the space to step back, zoom out, and build a more sustainable lifestyle. I was no longer glued to the screen 10 hours a day. It reminded me that trading is a means to an end. 2024, I pushed myself to go beyond stocks. I dove deeper into options, futures, and overnight trading. Each new product came with its own quirks, nuances, and edge opportunities. Learning these instruments wasn’t just about more tools—it was about building a truly diversified and adaptable trading approach that maximizes your expected value based on the situation. At the elite level, the more markets and products you open yourself up to, the more opportunities you have to profit and the more mediums you have to express your trade in the most effective way possible. Now at the end of 2025, after 15 years, the biggest lesson is this: There’s no finish line in this game. The best traders stay curious. They stay hungry. And no matter how good you get, if you’re going to stay relevant in markets, you need to always be learning. I'm excited to see what 2026 will bring and I wish you all nothing but health, happiness, and the success you all are looking for.

Lance Breitstein 🇺🇸🌎

45,319 views • 7 months ago

It's not about what we have or don't have that drives our trading decisions—it's what we're afraid of losing. This fear of loss has often led me down the false path of perfectionism. Yet true mastery and profitability in trading, like in art, comes from embracing the craft's imperfections. ✉️ At the recent Mumbai traders' meetup, Chhirag Kedia spoke a line that has resonated with me all week— वो आदमी सफल होने से कोई रोक नहीं सकता जो अपनी कश्ती जला कर आया हो! It made me reflect on my trading journey and how my risk-taking appetite has evolved over the years. I'm inherently risk-conservative as an individual, though my career decisions and trajectory paint a completely opposite picture. I've never gone bust or even had a significant drawdown in my trading life—initially because I was too cautious, and now because my skills have improved. When I look back at my interactions with other traders and analyse my own performance graph, I am noticing a pattern: traders who started recklessly or faced major drawdowns—but persistently improved their execution—often developed better and faster learning curves than those who began cautiously with small positions. Even Quallamaggie (Q) and Zanger (Z) demonstrated similar patterns—their initial failures didn't reduce their risk appetite or aggression. Rather, they increased their risk appetite as their accounts grew larger. When ordinary traders dismiss Q and Z as exceptions in the trading world, they're likely rationalizing their own fears—fear of bouncing back from setbacks beyond their risk comfort zone, and fear of not having enough skin in the game. After all, as Taleb says, courage is the only virtue you cannot fake. I wonder if I would have been a better trader today had I started more aggressively—even borderline recklessly—and then learned to control that aggression, rather than the other way around. Has my obsession with perfection (or trying to get close to it) actually slowed down my learning curve as a trader? Perfectionism and Self-Abuse In every trade—even with flawless setups and meticulously calculated risks—there are countless ways to feel wrong, whether you make money or not: You buy and it goes down You don't buy and it goes up You buy, it falls, you sell—then it goes up It goes up, you sell, and it keeps going up It goes up, you buy, it goes up further—then drops You buy with half size and it moves up; you pyramid with full size and it goes down You buy with double size and it drops; you buy with half size and it doesn't go up as much . . . and the list can go on But there is only one way you'll feel right: When you buy and it immediately goes up, and when you sell and it immediately goes down. And this is a very very rare instance. But the pursuit of perfect trade—trying to capture both the first and last eighth of every trade—is where much self-belief and confidence is needlessly lost. The search for the perfect chart, perfect market conditions, and perfect mindset was probably the most paralyzing form of self-abuse in trading I had done. It led me to the comfort of inaction rather than risk the ego to scrape the imperfect rewards on offer. Lets take up an example that was discussed in the last Mumbai meetup - PDMJE Paper - Trade Objective An Episodic Pivot setup, gapping out of a big base, to be held as a longer positional play. Entry (Orange lines) 29th October 2024 Entry 113.95, Stop Loss 2% - 111.7 (~Day low) Risk on Trade 0.75% of portfolio, Size - 35% Sells (Blue Lines) 50% Sell at 6R - 128.6 - This was not a planned sell, but I observed weak market depth with sporadic volumes over the next 3-4 days. As a precaution, I reduced size in this illiquid counter. = 3R 50% sell at ~12R - 143 - The swing move had become overextended, moving far from the 10/21 EMA. The position was sold when price broke below the opening range lows in weakness. = 6R Impact of portfolio - 6.75% Analyzing this trade up to this point, it was executed well with little room for improvement—almost perfect. This was also a very obvious EP trade, and many others had executed it similarly. In the group discussion of this trade, even though everyone had profited, regret about the price movements after exit overshadowed the satisfaction from actual gains. If you had missed the pullback entries near the 21 EMA on November 13th (which wasn't actually setup-ready) or the breakout entry that triggered on November 29th (when markets were strong and many stocks were breaking out), you would have likely missed the 80% move that happened in less than a month, which I did. The traders in the group spent much of their emotional energy obsessing over this missed opportunity, ultimately accumulating emotional debt from the markets. The paradox of trading is that while realized losses may dent our account, missing potential gains often dent our confidence. Each time we let the fear of missed opportunities overshadow our actual successes, we unconsciously train ourselves to trade smaller, not bigger - precisely when our proven profitability should be empowering us to scale up. It took me years to understand that successful trading doesn't require feeling happy. I can make sound decisions and evaluate my performance objectively, even when I feel frustrated about missed opportunities. The only true nobility in this business is making money, not chasing dopamine highs. The Adjustment Taking a loss is straightforward—we simply follow our stop loss. The real challenge—and greatest potential for regret—lies in managing profitable positions, particularly when a stock has made big moves in a short period. This is particularly common in magnitude trades like an EP or IPO where our objective is to hold for a longer duration and sell into weakness, but often have moments when the stock is overextended in the short term with a high probability of pulling back. However, we hesitate to sell either because it conflicts with our original trade objective or because we fear missing the chance to buy back during the pullback. This is where many professional traders actively manage their core positions. Rather than passively waiting for a deeper trailing stop loss to trigger during weakness, they sell a portion when the price becomes extended and buy back the same amount at a lower price. This strategy proves more effective than enduring drawdowns while waiting for a formal pullback setup at support levels or moving averages. Let's take a recent example of IGIL (5 min chart) - Trade Objective An early-stage IPO setup displaying a typical volatility contraction pattern (VCP) on intraday charts. The plan is to hold this as a longer-term position, treating it as an All-or-Nothing trade. Entry (Orange line) 24th December 2024 Entry 504, Stop Loss 2% - 493.95 Risk on Trade 0.50% of portfolio, Size - 23% of pf Adjustment Context - 27th December 2024 The stock had surged powerfully over the previous two days, hitting Upper Circuits. On the third day, despite gapping up at open, it immediately broke down during the opening range - like a typical parabolic short setup. This was a point with a high probability of a short-term pullback or consolidation. Sells (Blue Line) 27th December - 585 - 50% size Buyback (Orange line 2) 27th December - 565 - 50% size - Gained 1R Rationale - My anchor bias was for the price to cool off for a bit. - At the 27th open, the price was already at ~8R+ for me. Even if the stock rose further after I sold my partial position, I wouldn't regret it much—I had already secured 4R with half my position still pending, well above my journal averages. This served as an important emotional anchor point for this adjustment. - When buying back, I was simply looking to average down my costs without a specific target or a perfect setup in mind. In this case, I bought back at 565, as the buyback itself presented a good psychological point to cover (10 Rs initial stop loss, 20 Rs points averaged ~1R at half size). It could have been lower too if the breakdown was slower. This was more intuitive and intentionally imperfect. - I close most of these adjustments on the same day since they are just short-term pullbacks and my overall bias remains bullish. A magnitude trade can also be looked at as a combination of several intraday trades around a core position. - This adjustment method applies specifically to magnitude trades like EP and IPO positions, where the trade objective aligns with pyramiding or averaging costs. Caveat You might think this is a cherry-picked example—and you'd be partly right, since it's one of my better and more recent trades (you can see similar patterns in Care or TI). However, I urge you to stay open to the concept. Look back at your previous trades where you held positions too long passively—you'll often find that temporary extensions and pullbacks were easily visible, offering opportunities to capture additional R’s along the way. Traders commonly face similar emotions and dilemmas when deciding how to act in these situations. End Note
0:45

It's not about what we have or don't have that drives our trading decisions—it's what we're afraid of losing. This fear of loss has often led me down the false path of perfectionism. Yet true mastery and profitability in trading, like in art, comes from embracing the craft's imperfections. ✉️ At the recent Mumbai traders' meetup, Chhirag Kedia spoke a line that has resonated with me all week— वो आदमी सफल होने से कोई रोक नहीं सकता जो अपनी कश्ती जला कर आया हो! It made me reflect on my trading journey and how my risk-taking appetite has evolved over the years. I'm inherently risk-conservative as an individual, though my career decisions and trajectory paint a completely opposite picture. I've never gone bust or even had a significant drawdown in my trading life—initially because I was too cautious, and now because my skills have improved. When I look back at my interactions with other traders and analyse my own performance graph, I am noticing a pattern: traders who started recklessly or faced major drawdowns—but persistently improved their execution—often developed better and faster learning curves than those who began cautiously with small positions. Even Quallamaggie (Q) and Zanger (Z) demonstrated similar patterns—their initial failures didn't reduce their risk appetite or aggression. Rather, they increased their risk appetite as their accounts grew larger. When ordinary traders dismiss Q and Z as exceptions in the trading world, they're likely rationalizing their own fears—fear of bouncing back from setbacks beyond their risk comfort zone, and fear of not having enough skin in the game. After all, as Taleb says, courage is the only virtue you cannot fake. I wonder if I would have been a better trader today had I started more aggressively—even borderline recklessly—and then learned to control that aggression, rather than the other way around. Has my obsession with perfection (or trying to get close to it) actually slowed down my learning curve as a trader? Perfectionism and Self-Abuse In every trade—even with flawless setups and meticulously calculated risks—there are countless ways to feel wrong, whether you make money or not: You buy and it goes down You don't buy and it goes up You buy, it falls, you sell—then it goes up It goes up, you sell, and it keeps going up It goes up, you buy, it goes up further—then drops You buy with half size and it moves up; you pyramid with full size and it goes down You buy with double size and it drops; you buy with half size and it doesn't go up as much . . . and the list can go on But there is only one way you'll feel right: When you buy and it immediately goes up, and when you sell and it immediately goes down. And this is a very very rare instance. But the pursuit of perfect trade—trying to capture both the first and last eighth of every trade—is where much self-belief and confidence is needlessly lost. The search for the perfect chart, perfect market conditions, and perfect mindset was probably the most paralyzing form of self-abuse in trading I had done. It led me to the comfort of inaction rather than risk the ego to scrape the imperfect rewards on offer. Lets take up an example that was discussed in the last Mumbai meetup - PDMJE Paper - Trade Objective An Episodic Pivot setup, gapping out of a big base, to be held as a longer positional play. Entry (Orange lines) 29th October 2024 Entry 113.95, Stop Loss 2% - 111.7 (~Day low) Risk on Trade 0.75% of portfolio, Size - 35% Sells (Blue Lines) 50% Sell at 6R - 128.6 - This was not a planned sell, but I observed weak market depth with sporadic volumes over the next 3-4 days. As a precaution, I reduced size in this illiquid counter. = 3R 50% sell at ~12R - 143 - The swing move had become overextended, moving far from the 10/21 EMA. The position was sold when price broke below the opening range lows in weakness. = 6R Impact of portfolio - 6.75% Analyzing this trade up to this point, it was executed well with little room for improvement—almost perfect. This was also a very obvious EP trade, and many others had executed it similarly. In the group discussion of this trade, even though everyone had profited, regret about the price movements after exit overshadowed the satisfaction from actual gains. If you had missed the pullback entries near the 21 EMA on November 13th (which wasn't actually setup-ready) or the breakout entry that triggered on November 29th (when markets were strong and many stocks were breaking out), you would have likely missed the 80% move that happened in less than a month, which I did. The traders in the group spent much of their emotional energy obsessing over this missed opportunity, ultimately accumulating emotional debt from the markets. The paradox of trading is that while realized losses may dent our account, missing potential gains often dent our confidence. Each time we let the fear of missed opportunities overshadow our actual successes, we unconsciously train ourselves to trade smaller, not bigger - precisely when our proven profitability should be empowering us to scale up. It took me years to understand that successful trading doesn't require feeling happy. I can make sound decisions and evaluate my performance objectively, even when I feel frustrated about missed opportunities. The only true nobility in this business is making money, not chasing dopamine highs. The Adjustment Taking a loss is straightforward—we simply follow our stop loss. The real challenge—and greatest potential for regret—lies in managing profitable positions, particularly when a stock has made big moves in a short period. This is particularly common in magnitude trades like an EP or IPO where our objective is to hold for a longer duration and sell into weakness, but often have moments when the stock is overextended in the short term with a high probability of pulling back. However, we hesitate to sell either because it conflicts with our original trade objective or because we fear missing the chance to buy back during the pullback. This is where many professional traders actively manage their core positions. Rather than passively waiting for a deeper trailing stop loss to trigger during weakness, they sell a portion when the price becomes extended and buy back the same amount at a lower price. This strategy proves more effective than enduring drawdowns while waiting for a formal pullback setup at support levels or moving averages. Let's take a recent example of IGIL (5 min chart) - Trade Objective An early-stage IPO setup displaying a typical volatility contraction pattern (VCP) on intraday charts. The plan is to hold this as a longer-term position, treating it as an All-or-Nothing trade. Entry (Orange line) 24th December 2024 Entry 504, Stop Loss 2% - 493.95 Risk on Trade 0.50% of portfolio, Size - 23% of pf Adjustment Context - 27th December 2024 The stock had surged powerfully over the previous two days, hitting Upper Circuits. On the third day, despite gapping up at open, it immediately broke down during the opening range - like a typical parabolic short setup. This was a point with a high probability of a short-term pullback or consolidation. Sells (Blue Line) 27th December - 585 - 50% size Buyback (Orange line 2) 27th December - 565 - 50% size - Gained 1R Rationale - My anchor bias was for the price to cool off for a bit. - At the 27th open, the price was already at ~8R+ for me. Even if the stock rose further after I sold my partial position, I wouldn't regret it much—I had already secured 4R with half my position still pending, well above my journal averages. This served as an important emotional anchor point for this adjustment. - When buying back, I was simply looking to average down my costs without a specific target or a perfect setup in mind. In this case, I bought back at 565, as the buyback itself presented a good psychological point to cover (10 Rs initial stop loss, 20 Rs points averaged ~1R at half size). It could have been lower too if the breakdown was slower. This was more intuitive and intentionally imperfect. - I close most of these adjustments on the same day since they are just short-term pullbacks and my overall bias remains bullish. A magnitude trade can also be looked at as a combination of several intraday trades around a core position. - This adjustment method applies specifically to magnitude trades like EP and IPO positions, where the trade objective aligns with pyramiding or averaging costs. Caveat You might think this is a cherry-picked example—and you'd be partly right, since it's one of my better and more recent trades (you can see similar patterns in Care or TI). However, I urge you to stay open to the concept. Look back at your previous trades where you held positions too long passively—you'll often find that temporary extensions and pullbacks were easily visible, offering opportunities to capture additional R’s along the way. Traders commonly face similar emotions and dilemmas when deciding how to act in these situations. End Note

Anuragg Venkatakrishnan

24,423 views • 1 year ago

SS Dean Curley (Tennessee Baseball) is one of the top Sophomore-eligible prospects in this year's Draft. Earned the starting shortstop job as a Freshman and hit .285/.386/.502 with 10 2B, 12 HR, and 50 RBIs. After winning the National Title, Curley also enjoyed a productive stint with Team USA. Curley has a big league body at 6'3" and 212-lbs with length in his lower-half and strength and physicality throughout. Slightly crouched setup in the box with a medium-high handset. Small stride with a minimal load in which he deploys a slight barrel tip. Curley has big time hand speed and an engaged lower-1/2 - fan of the scissor action with his back leg. It's an under control operation/easy operation with minimal moving parts, and one in which he takes a short and direct path to contact. Head stays level. There's a really appealing compact explosiveness to it. Curley has a knack for finding the barrel to go along with plus bat-to-ball skills. Sported an overall IZ contact rate of 90% last season, including 93% against FB. Difficult to beat with the heater and handles velocity well. Hit .304/.515/.348 against 94+, including .500/.611/.571 against 95+ (albeit a smaller sample size). While there's some swing and miss against spin, Curley has a sound approach and his swing decisions are polished. Pitch recognition skills took a step forward with Team USA, curious to see if that carries over into the spring. Comfortable giving the hit tool a 50 right now, though it's closer to a 55. On top of his hitability, Curley has above-average raw power (plus to the pull side). His highest quality of contact—and the vast majority of his HR power—is to the PS, but he has the strength to drive the baseball to all fields. Routinely impacts the baseball and is able to do so with relative ease. On top of his 90th-percentile EV of 107, Curley posted a Max EV of 110.8. Very enticing hit-power blend. Curley is a slam dunk to stick on the left side of the infield, it's just a matter of where. Started every day at SS last spring and is slated to do so again in 2025. He has an advanced baseball sense with a comfortably plus arm and some range to the arm side. There is a chance he eventually moves to 3B in pro ball where the arm and actions will both translate well. There's a lot to like with Curley from a tools standpoint on both sides of the baseball. He can impact the game in a myriad of ways and is on track to be a top-50 overall selection this July. (📽️: Tennessee Baseball)
0:25

SS Dean Curley (Tennessee Baseball) is one of the top Sophomore-eligible prospects in this year's Draft. Earned the starting shortstop job as a Freshman and hit .285/.386/.502 with 10 2B, 12 HR, and 50 RBIs. After winning the National Title, Curley also enjoyed a productive stint with Team USA. Curley has a big league body at 6'3" and 212-lbs with length in his lower-half and strength and physicality throughout. Slightly crouched setup in the box with a medium-high handset. Small stride with a minimal load in which he deploys a slight barrel tip. Curley has big time hand speed and an engaged lower-1/2 - fan of the scissor action with his back leg. It's an under control operation/easy operation with minimal moving parts, and one in which he takes a short and direct path to contact. Head stays level. There's a really appealing compact explosiveness to it. Curley has a knack for finding the barrel to go along with plus bat-to-ball skills. Sported an overall IZ contact rate of 90% last season, including 93% against FB. Difficult to beat with the heater and handles velocity well. Hit .304/.515/.348 against 94+, including .500/.611/.571 against 95+ (albeit a smaller sample size). While there's some swing and miss against spin, Curley has a sound approach and his swing decisions are polished. Pitch recognition skills took a step forward with Team USA, curious to see if that carries over into the spring. Comfortable giving the hit tool a 50 right now, though it's closer to a 55. On top of his hitability, Curley has above-average raw power (plus to the pull side). His highest quality of contact—and the vast majority of his HR power—is to the PS, but he has the strength to drive the baseball to all fields. Routinely impacts the baseball and is able to do so with relative ease. On top of his 90th-percentile EV of 107, Curley posted a Max EV of 110.8. Very enticing hit-power blend. Curley is a slam dunk to stick on the left side of the infield, it's just a matter of where. Started every day at SS last spring and is slated to do so again in 2025. He has an advanced baseball sense with a comfortably plus arm and some range to the arm side. There is a chance he eventually moves to 3B in pro ball where the arm and actions will both translate well. There's a lot to like with Curley from a tools standpoint on both sides of the baseball. He can impact the game in a myriad of ways and is on track to be a top-50 overall selection this July. (📽️: Tennessee Baseball)

Peter Flaherty III

48,911 views • 1 year ago

“Nobody was open” Caleb Williams had a throwing window to TE #84 Colston Loveland in the back of the end zone. Williams was looking right at him. Williams cocked his arm, but hesitated and “thought better of it.” Plus, he had a backside target #2 D.J. Moore in the end zone jumping around wide open on the opposite side of the field, but Williams never has seen the whole field well… Of course, nobody will focus on how the moment was too big for him and how he hesitated instead of taking the shot with the No. 1 seed in the NFC hanging in the balance. Instead, they’ll just make more excuses for him. Too harsh? No, I don’t believe it is. Some athletes want the ball in their hand in the biggest moment of their careers, and others do not. The problem with Williams is that he wanted to keep the ball in his hand, once again, way too long. I got 8.11 seconds when I put a stopwatch to it. That might be the longest he’s ever held it. It’s the longest I’ve ever seen him hold it and I studied every snap he ever took at USC and have watched many of his games with the Bears since. Ben Johnson has done a GREAT job hiding Williams behind the No. 3 rushing attack in the NFL (149.1 yards per game Team Rankings) and with YAC receivers who have accounted for about half of his “passing yardage” this season, but in the end, who players really are comes out in the big moments. In the end, the overwhelming urge for Williams to play hero ball again and do something more than just take what was there cost him and his team. Whether it was selfishness and/or fear of missing Loveland and not trusting his 57.9% arm, or a combination of both can be debated, but what can’t be debated is this right here embodies why Caleb Williams is NOT IT in Chicago, ironically in the city where another athlete lived to take the shot. Yes, Caleb Williams is a bust. Outside of all the glamorized “dink and dunk,” short little passes and sporadic highlights that misrepresent his full body of work, it’s once again confirmed that he is a bust, just like I wrote 107 days before the Bears selected him in this pre-draft scouting report: That doesn’t make me happy by the way, I just wish prospects could get fair valuations based on what they actually show in college as projections so that their NFL careers could be framed with realistic expectations and they would have their very best chance to succeed, which is one of my main goals in what I do. With Williams, the bar was set way too high, which this play confirmed, yet again. All-22 video:
0:38

“Nobody was open” Caleb Williams had a throwing window to TE #84 Colston Loveland in the back of the end zone. Williams was looking right at him. Williams cocked his arm, but hesitated and “thought better of it.” Plus, he had a backside target #2 D.J. Moore in the end zone jumping around wide open on the opposite side of the field, but Williams never has seen the whole field well… Of course, nobody will focus on how the moment was too big for him and how he hesitated instead of taking the shot with the No. 1 seed in the NFC hanging in the balance. Instead, they’ll just make more excuses for him. Too harsh? No, I don’t believe it is. Some athletes want the ball in their hand in the biggest moment of their careers, and others do not. The problem with Williams is that he wanted to keep the ball in his hand, once again, way too long. I got 8.11 seconds when I put a stopwatch to it. That might be the longest he’s ever held it. It’s the longest I’ve ever seen him hold it and I studied every snap he ever took at USC and have watched many of his games with the Bears since. Ben Johnson has done a GREAT job hiding Williams behind the No. 3 rushing attack in the NFL (149.1 yards per game Team Rankings) and with YAC receivers who have accounted for about half of his “passing yardage” this season, but in the end, who players really are comes out in the big moments. In the end, the overwhelming urge for Williams to play hero ball again and do something more than just take what was there cost him and his team. Whether it was selfishness and/or fear of missing Loveland and not trusting his 57.9% arm, or a combination of both can be debated, but what can’t be debated is this right here embodies why Caleb Williams is NOT IT in Chicago, ironically in the city where another athlete lived to take the shot. Yes, Caleb Williams is a bust. Outside of all the glamorized “dink and dunk,” short little passes and sporadic highlights that misrepresent his full body of work, it’s once again confirmed that he is a bust, just like I wrote 107 days before the Bears selected him in this pre-draft scouting report: That doesn’t make me happy by the way, I just wish prospects could get fair valuations based on what they actually show in college as projections so that their NFL careers could be framed with realistic expectations and they would have their very best chance to succeed, which is one of my main goals in what I do. With Williams, the bar was set way too high, which this play confirmed, yet again. All-22 video:

FIRST ROUND MOCK

24,667 views • 7 months ago

A new father became so terrified of never learning anything again that he accidentally dismantled the biggest lie in education. His name is Josh Kaufman, and he wasn't a neuroscientist or a professor. He was an author working from home, running a business with his wife, with a newborn daughter who had just obliterated any concept of free time he thought he had. Around week 8 of sleep deprivation, he had the thought every parent has. I am never going to learn anything new ever again. And because he was the kind of person who responds to panic with research, he went to the library and started reading everything he could find about how humans acquire skills. He read book after book, study after study. Every single one said the same thing. 10,000 hours. He had a full-body reaction to that number. 10,000 hours is a full-time job for five years. He didn't have five years. He didn't have five hours. He had a newborn and a business and a wife who was also building a business in the same house. So he kept digging. And here is where it gets interesting. The 10,000 hour rule came from a researcher named K. Anders Ericsson at Florida State University. What Ericsson actually studied was professional athletes, world-class musicians, chess grandmasters people at the absolute tip of ultra-competitive, ultra-high-performing fields. His finding was that the people at the very top of those narrow fields had put in around 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. That is all the finding said. Then Malcolm Gladwell wrote Outliers in 2007, and the message went through a game of telephone that destroyed its meaning entirely. It takes 10,000 hours to reach the top of an ultra-competitive field became it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert, which became it takes 10,000 hours to become good at something, which became it takes 10,000 hours to learn something. That last statement is completely false. And the actual research had been showing something different the entire time. When cognitive psychologists study skill acquisition, they measure a graph that looks identical across every domain they have ever tested. At the start, performance is terrible. With a small amount of practice, it improves rapidly. Then it plateaus, and subsequent gains become much harder and slower to achieve. The steep part of that curve the jump from knowing nothing to being reasonably good happens much faster than anyone tells you. Not 10,000 hours. Not 1,000 hours. 20 hours. Kaufman tested this himself. He had always wanted to learn ukulele. He picked one up, put 20 hours of focused deliberate practice into it, and stood on a TEDx stage playing a medley of recognizable pop songs in front of a live audience. The crowd went wild. He then told them that performance was his 20th hour. But 20 hours is not just a number. There is a method inside it. The first step is to deconstruct the skill. Most things we think of as single skills are actually bundles of dozens of smaller skills. You do not need all of them. You need the ones that get you to your specific goal the fastest. In music, this means most songs use four or five chords. Learn those first. Ignore the rest until they matter. The second step is to learn just enough to self-correct. Get three to five resources books, courses, videos but do not use them as a reason to delay practice. The point of learning is not to master theory first. It is to get good enough at noticing your own mistakes that you can adjust as you go. The third step is to remove barriers to practice. Not through willpower. Through structure. If the instrument is in the case in the closet, you will not play it. If your phone is in the room, you will not focus. Kaufman was brutal about this. The environment does the work that discipline cannot sustain. The fourth step is the one that actually makes the system work. Pre-commit to 20 hours before you start. Here is why this matters. Every skill has what he called a frustration barrier. The early part of learning anything is genuinely terrible. You are incompetent and you know it. That feeling is so uncomfortable that most people quit before they ever cross to the other side of the curve. By pre-committing to 20 hours, you are making a contract with yourself to push through the frustration long enough to arrive at the part where things start clicking. The barrier to learning something new is never intellectual. It is emotional. We are afraid of feeling stupid. That fear costs most people everything they could have learned. Kaufman figured this out while holding a baby and running out of time, which is the most human possible condition for having a breakthrough. Most people are waiting for the perfect season to start. He just started. 20 hours is 45 minutes a day for a month. That is it. That is the price of going from knowing nothing to being genuinely capable at almost anything you can name. The 10,000 hour rule was never about learning. It was about becoming the best in the world. You probably do not need to be the best in the world. You just need to start.
19:26

A new father became so terrified of never learning anything again that he accidentally dismantled the biggest lie in education. His name is Josh Kaufman, and he wasn't a neuroscientist or a professor. He was an author working from home, running a business with his wife, with a newborn daughter who had just obliterated any concept of free time he thought he had. Around week 8 of sleep deprivation, he had the thought every parent has. I am never going to learn anything new ever again. And because he was the kind of person who responds to panic with research, he went to the library and started reading everything he could find about how humans acquire skills. He read book after book, study after study. Every single one said the same thing. 10,000 hours. He had a full-body reaction to that number. 10,000 hours is a full-time job for five years. He didn't have five years. He didn't have five hours. He had a newborn and a business and a wife who was also building a business in the same house. So he kept digging. And here is where it gets interesting. The 10,000 hour rule came from a researcher named K. Anders Ericsson at Florida State University. What Ericsson actually studied was professional athletes, world-class musicians, chess grandmasters people at the absolute tip of ultra-competitive, ultra-high-performing fields. His finding was that the people at the very top of those narrow fields had put in around 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. That is all the finding said. Then Malcolm Gladwell wrote Outliers in 2007, and the message went through a game of telephone that destroyed its meaning entirely. It takes 10,000 hours to reach the top of an ultra-competitive field became it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert, which became it takes 10,000 hours to become good at something, which became it takes 10,000 hours to learn something. That last statement is completely false. And the actual research had been showing something different the entire time. When cognitive psychologists study skill acquisition, they measure a graph that looks identical across every domain they have ever tested. At the start, performance is terrible. With a small amount of practice, it improves rapidly. Then it plateaus, and subsequent gains become much harder and slower to achieve. The steep part of that curve the jump from knowing nothing to being reasonably good happens much faster than anyone tells you. Not 10,000 hours. Not 1,000 hours. 20 hours. Kaufman tested this himself. He had always wanted to learn ukulele. He picked one up, put 20 hours of focused deliberate practice into it, and stood on a TEDx stage playing a medley of recognizable pop songs in front of a live audience. The crowd went wild. He then told them that performance was his 20th hour. But 20 hours is not just a number. There is a method inside it. The first step is to deconstruct the skill. Most things we think of as single skills are actually bundles of dozens of smaller skills. You do not need all of them. You need the ones that get you to your specific goal the fastest. In music, this means most songs use four or five chords. Learn those first. Ignore the rest until they matter. The second step is to learn just enough to self-correct. Get three to five resources books, courses, videos but do not use them as a reason to delay practice. The point of learning is not to master theory first. It is to get good enough at noticing your own mistakes that you can adjust as you go. The third step is to remove barriers to practice. Not through willpower. Through structure. If the instrument is in the case in the closet, you will not play it. If your phone is in the room, you will not focus. Kaufman was brutal about this. The environment does the work that discipline cannot sustain. The fourth step is the one that actually makes the system work. Pre-commit to 20 hours before you start. Here is why this matters. Every skill has what he called a frustration barrier. The early part of learning anything is genuinely terrible. You are incompetent and you know it. That feeling is so uncomfortable that most people quit before they ever cross to the other side of the curve. By pre-committing to 20 hours, you are making a contract with yourself to push through the frustration long enough to arrive at the part where things start clicking. The barrier to learning something new is never intellectual. It is emotional. We are afraid of feeling stupid. That fear costs most people everything they could have learned. Kaufman figured this out while holding a baby and running out of time, which is the most human possible condition for having a breakthrough. Most people are waiting for the perfect season to start. He just started. 20 hours is 45 minutes a day for a month. That is it. That is the price of going from knowing nothing to being genuinely capable at almost anything you can name. The 10,000 hour rule was never about learning. It was about becoming the best in the world. You probably do not need to be the best in the world. You just need to start.

Ihtesham Ali

44,762 views • 3 months ago

2025 Results (First, WITHOUT my WSOP win and I explain further down why removing your biggest score can be helpful): CoinPoker: -$100k PokerStars: +$144k GG Poker: +$409k GG Rake: -$70k GG Rakeback: +$40k —————————— Total Profit: $423k Hours played: ~200 Full 8–12h sessions: 20 Day 2 / Day 3 / FT sessions (2–4h): 10 Total sessions: 30 Hourly: $2,150 —————————— Now INCLUDING the WSOP Main: Total Profit: $4,323,000 Hourly: $21,615 —————————— I play 20–24 tables. That’s my sweet spot. I often stream on Twitch → extra distraction + people seeing my game. Yes, I could play fewer tables. But 20–24 maximizes my hourly. With 10–15 tables I’d have higher ROI. But significantly lower hourly. —————————— Yes, my yearly sample size is smaller. Usually 700 – 1,200 tournaments/year. I mostly play Sundays. 2–3 sessions per month (more during big series). I have similar results for the past 10+ years (of course not as big as winning the WSOP main). A lot of my time goes into my two businesses: Raise Your Edge and ACEND CLUB . Fewer sessions = more focus. More excitement. Better preparation. And that reflects in my results every single year. And I want to show you something important: You don’t need to be a slave to poker. Even at midstakes, you can earn very well playing only a few sessions per week - depending on your goals and life outside poker. —————————— I also spend a lot of time on: • content creation • studying • researching • updating material for our students That keeps me sharp. I spot new things and exploits fast. I like systems. Simple systems. Extremely effective. I don’t follow many of the pushed GTO concepts. I believe many of them hurt winrates more than they help. I focus on: • spots that are massively underbluffed • spots where I can fold my entire bluffcatcher range • spots where I don’t need to bluff at all I train to identify those spots. Result? I need 1 second to decide. Others tank 20 - 30 seconds, think about blockers, balance, GTO… and still make a losing decision because they don’t realize the spot is under-bluffed. That speed lets me: • add tables • reduce mental load • increase profit Example: I created Postflop Rocket → one of the #12 most profitable postflop exploits for our Champions students. It’s a checklist. Easy to apply. Extremely effective. Especially if you don’t want to waste hours in solvers learning strategies that don’t move the needle anyway. People still laugh and say: “Your game is unbalanced. Easily exploitable.” Okay. Sure. —————————— Why remove the biggest score? To identify trends. In tournament poker, big scores often carry an entire year. They can also completely distort reality. Example: You’re down $100k. Then boom - $130k score. Now you’re +$30k on the year. Add rakeback → maybe +$35–40k. BUT… If your graph goes straight down for thousands of games and one score saves the year, chances are high you’re a losing player with one lucky run. Yes, we need big scores in MTTs. But be brutally honest with yourself without your biggest score: • Break-even? → Not bad • Slightly up? → Good • Decently up? → Amazing • Decently down? → HIT THE LAB! Review with friends/coaches. Find the Leaks ASAP! This is about probabilities. Are you truly winning - or just lucky? Many players overvalue their biggest score. They move up in stakes. And their bankroll disappears faster than they can react. —————————— “WOW, if I made this money, I’d quit and enjoy life.” Reality check. This mindset is exactly why you won’t succeed. Yes, money matters. Making alot of money matters to me too. But its not everything. You lack: • Passion (NOT the Passion to make money with Poker), but REAL passion for the GRIND • Fire. Fire to also get up after brutal sessions. Fire to be excited about fixing leaks and improving. • Respect for the lessons this game teaches Without the above? It puts you at a huge disadvantage. For people like me, I dont mind ... • Getting up after downswings • Studying with zero paycheck • Grinding for years without results • Appreciating the growth and learnings without seeing the $ results. Yeah its not nice. But we accept those things as part of the journey. It took me 2 years to withdraw my first dollars. Are you willing to do that? 2-4 years of serious effort with no results? To grind your way up in Poker whilst working a job? You only see the highlights. The big scores. The Instagram moments. That’s not reality. That’s not the grind. This delusion will hold you back. You won’t last. You can’t handle effort without immediate reward. Welcome to life. We can do everything right and still lose. Results are often not in our control. Only consistent effort over years makes success likely - not guaranteed. But not trying guarantees failure. If you think you’d “retire” after making X millions, you haven’t understood what it takes to win. Why quit if you love the game? If it’s your fire? That’s the difference between: • players winning for 10+ years • and those with one good year who disappear Everything has a price. Poker millions cost: • sacrifice • downswings • self-doubt • people laughing at you • pushing through anyway Most people want the millions. Not the price. That’s why I’ve never thought about quitting. Maybe one day - because something else excites me more or I don’t enjoy the grind anymore. But never because I made X dollars. —————————— If you made it this far - good sign. Most only care about the money. They look for shortcuts. The value of this post isn’t the results. It’s the messages. That’s the stuff that actually moves you forward. I wish you a STRONG 2026 CHAMP! Lets Crush!
0:20

2025 Results (First, WITHOUT my WSOP win and I explain further down why removing your biggest score can be helpful): CoinPoker: -$100k PokerStars: +$144k GG Poker: +$409k GG Rake: -$70k GG Rakeback: +$40k —————————— Total Profit: $423k Hours played: ~200 Full 8–12h sessions: 20 Day 2 / Day 3 / FT sessions (2–4h): 10 Total sessions: 30 Hourly: $2,150 —————————— Now INCLUDING the WSOP Main: Total Profit: $4,323,000 Hourly: $21,615 —————————— I play 20–24 tables. That’s my sweet spot. I often stream on Twitch → extra distraction + people seeing my game. Yes, I could play fewer tables. But 20–24 maximizes my hourly. With 10–15 tables I’d have higher ROI. But significantly lower hourly. —————————— Yes, my yearly sample size is smaller. Usually 700 – 1,200 tournaments/year. I mostly play Sundays. 2–3 sessions per month (more during big series). I have similar results for the past 10+ years (of course not as big as winning the WSOP main). A lot of my time goes into my two businesses: Raise Your Edge and ACEND CLUB . Fewer sessions = more focus. More excitement. Better preparation. And that reflects in my results every single year. And I want to show you something important: You don’t need to be a slave to poker. Even at midstakes, you can earn very well playing only a few sessions per week - depending on your goals and life outside poker. —————————— I also spend a lot of time on: • content creation • studying • researching • updating material for our students That keeps me sharp. I spot new things and exploits fast. I like systems. Simple systems. Extremely effective. I don’t follow many of the pushed GTO concepts. I believe many of them hurt winrates more than they help. I focus on: • spots that are massively underbluffed • spots where I can fold my entire bluffcatcher range • spots where I don’t need to bluff at all I train to identify those spots. Result? I need 1 second to decide. Others tank 20 - 30 seconds, think about blockers, balance, GTO… and still make a losing decision because they don’t realize the spot is under-bluffed. That speed lets me: • add tables • reduce mental load • increase profit Example: I created Postflop Rocket → one of the #12 most profitable postflop exploits for our Champions students. It’s a checklist. Easy to apply. Extremely effective. Especially if you don’t want to waste hours in solvers learning strategies that don’t move the needle anyway. People still laugh and say: “Your game is unbalanced. Easily exploitable.” Okay. Sure. —————————— Why remove the biggest score? To identify trends. In tournament poker, big scores often carry an entire year. They can also completely distort reality. Example: You’re down $100k. Then boom - $130k score. Now you’re +$30k on the year. Add rakeback → maybe +$35–40k. BUT… If your graph goes straight down for thousands of games and one score saves the year, chances are high you’re a losing player with one lucky run. Yes, we need big scores in MTTs. But be brutally honest with yourself without your biggest score: • Break-even? → Not bad • Slightly up? → Good • Decently up? → Amazing • Decently down? → HIT THE LAB! Review with friends/coaches. Find the Leaks ASAP! This is about probabilities. Are you truly winning - or just lucky? Many players overvalue their biggest score. They move up in stakes. And their bankroll disappears faster than they can react. —————————— “WOW, if I made this money, I’d quit and enjoy life.” Reality check. This mindset is exactly why you won’t succeed. Yes, money matters. Making alot of money matters to me too. But its not everything. You lack: • Passion (NOT the Passion to make money with Poker), but REAL passion for the GRIND • Fire. Fire to also get up after brutal sessions. Fire to be excited about fixing leaks and improving. • Respect for the lessons this game teaches Without the above? It puts you at a huge disadvantage. For people like me, I dont mind ... • Getting up after downswings • Studying with zero paycheck • Grinding for years without results • Appreciating the growth and learnings without seeing the $ results. Yeah its not nice. But we accept those things as part of the journey. It took me 2 years to withdraw my first dollars. Are you willing to do that? 2-4 years of serious effort with no results? To grind your way up in Poker whilst working a job? You only see the highlights. The big scores. The Instagram moments. That’s not reality. That’s not the grind. This delusion will hold you back. You won’t last. You can’t handle effort without immediate reward. Welcome to life. We can do everything right and still lose. Results are often not in our control. Only consistent effort over years makes success likely - not guaranteed. But not trying guarantees failure. If you think you’d “retire” after making X millions, you haven’t understood what it takes to win. Why quit if you love the game? If it’s your fire? That’s the difference between: • players winning for 10+ years • and those with one good year who disappear Everything has a price. Poker millions cost: • sacrifice • downswings • self-doubt • people laughing at you • pushing through anyway Most people want the millions. Not the price. That’s why I’ve never thought about quitting. Maybe one day - because something else excites me more or I don’t enjoy the grind anymore. But never because I made X dollars. —————————— If you made it this far - good sign. Most only care about the money. They look for shortcuts. The value of this post isn’t the results. It’s the messages. That’s the stuff that actually moves you forward. I wish you a STRONG 2026 CHAMP! Lets Crush!

bencb

3,158,746 views • 7 months ago

Wow. Classic Jensen style, he ended the Nvidia vs. custom ASIC competition for good. 🫡 The level of confidence with which he explains. 🎯 He was answering to UBS research analyst question on how custom ASICs will affect NVIDIA or how they are going to compete with custom ASIC. Basically he says - Your custom chip is a science project in a world where NVIDIA is building revenue-generating AI factories. While the competition is still desperately trying to copy Nvidia's last generation, their roadmap is already at the limits of physics. They don't just sell silicon; they deliver the entire, impossibly complex platform that the industry has already surrendered to and standardized on. When you must bet hundreds of billions on your company's future, there is no alternative—they are the only platform to build on, and everyone knows it. Full transcript below. Question by the Analyst - "Jensen, I wanted to ask about customer ASIC. And I ask because if, you know, we listen to some of the same CSPs that you put up on that slide, and we listen to some of the companies who are making custom ASICs, some of the deployment numbers sound pretty big. So, I wanted to just hear your position, how you're going to compete with custom ASICs, how they can possibly compete with you, and maybe how some of your conversations with these same customers would sort of form your view in terms of how competitive custom ASIC will be to you." Jensen's response "First of all, just because something gets built doesn't mean it's great. Number two, if it's not great, all of those companies are run by great CEOs who are really good at math. And because these are AI factories, it affects your revenues, not just your costs. It affects your revenues, not just your cost. It's a different calculus. Every company only has so much power. You just have to ask them. Every single company only has so much power, and within that power, you have to maximize your revenues, not just your cost. So this is a new game. This is not a data center game, this is an AI factory game. So when the time comes, that simple calculus, as I was using yesterday, that simple math that I was showing yesterday, still has to be done. Which is the reason why so many projects are started and so many are not taken into production. Because there's always another alternative. We are the other alternative, and that alternative is excellent. Not normal excellent, as you know. Everybody's still trying to catch up to Hopper. I haven't seen a competitor to Hopper yet. And here we're talking about 40x more. And so our roadmap is at the limits of what's possible. Not to mention we're really good at it and completely dedicated to it. A lot of people have a lot of businesses to do. I've got this one business to do. And we're all in on this. 35,000 people doing one job. Been doing it for a long time. The depth of capability, the scope of technology, as you saw yesterday, is pretty incredible. And it's not about building a chip; it's building an AI factory. We're talking about scale up, scale out. We're talking about networking and switches and software. We're talking about systems, and these system architectures are insane. Even the systems themselves. Notice, 100% of the computer industry, 100% of the computer industry has standardized on NVIDIA's system. Why? Because try to build an alternative. Building the alternative is not even thinkable because look at how much investment we put into building this one. And so even the system's hard. What people used to think, system is just sheet metal. Hardly sheet metal. 600,000 parts, it's hardly sheet metal. And so all of the technology is hard. We're pushing every single dimension to the limit because we're talking about so much money. The world is going to lay down hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in the next just a couple of two, three years. Let's do the thought experiment. Let's say you want to stand up a data center and you want it to be fully operational in two years' time. When do you have to place the PO on that? Today. So let's suppose you have to place a hundred billion dollar PO on something. What architecture would you place it on, literally based on everything you have today? There's only one. You can't reasonably build out giant infrastructures with hundreds of billions of dollars behind it, hoping to turn it back on and to get the ROIC on it, unless you have the confidence that we are able to provide you. And we can provide you complete confidence. And singularly so. We're the only technology company where if I had to go place a hundred billion dollars on an AI factory... Oh, that's interesting, I did. Literally the only company who's willing to place hundred billion dollar POs across the industry to go build it out. And you guys know, that's our, that's the depth of our supply chain. And we are, and we have. Give me another. Give me another one that has that depth and that length. And now to the point where we've got to go and work with the supply chain upstream and downstream to prepare the world for hundreds of billions of dollars working towards trillions of dollars of AI infrastructure build-out. Our partnerships with power companies and all of the cooling companies, the Vertivs, the Schneiders, our partnerships with BlackRock... The partnership network necessary to prepare the world to go build out trillions of dollars of AI infrastructure, that's undergoing as we speak. What architecture and what ASIC chip do you go select? That doesn't even make sense. It's a weird conversation even. And so, I think that one, the game is quite large. The investment level, therefore the risk level, is quite high. And so the certainty that you're selecting the best is quite important. And the certainty that you can execute, vital. We are the company you can build on top of. We're the company, we're the platform that you can build your AI infrastructure on. And we're the company that you can build your AI infrastructure strategy on. And so, I think it includes chips, but it's much, much more than that." --- From 'GTC Financial Analyst Q&A' session (full link in comment)
5:43

Wow. Classic Jensen style, he ended the Nvidia vs. custom ASIC competition for good. 🫡 The level of confidence with which he explains. 🎯 He was answering to UBS research analyst question on how custom ASICs will affect NVIDIA or how they are going to compete with custom ASIC. Basically he says - Your custom chip is a science project in a world where NVIDIA is building revenue-generating AI factories. While the competition is still desperately trying to copy Nvidia's last generation, their roadmap is already at the limits of physics. They don't just sell silicon; they deliver the entire, impossibly complex platform that the industry has already surrendered to and standardized on. When you must bet hundreds of billions on your company's future, there is no alternative—they are the only platform to build on, and everyone knows it. Full transcript below. Question by the Analyst - "Jensen, I wanted to ask about customer ASIC. And I ask because if, you know, we listen to some of the same CSPs that you put up on that slide, and we listen to some of the companies who are making custom ASICs, some of the deployment numbers sound pretty big. So, I wanted to just hear your position, how you're going to compete with custom ASICs, how they can possibly compete with you, and maybe how some of your conversations with these same customers would sort of form your view in terms of how competitive custom ASIC will be to you." Jensen's response "First of all, just because something gets built doesn't mean it's great. Number two, if it's not great, all of those companies are run by great CEOs who are really good at math. And because these are AI factories, it affects your revenues, not just your costs. It affects your revenues, not just your cost. It's a different calculus. Every company only has so much power. You just have to ask them. Every single company only has so much power, and within that power, you have to maximize your revenues, not just your cost. So this is a new game. This is not a data center game, this is an AI factory game. So when the time comes, that simple calculus, as I was using yesterday, that simple math that I was showing yesterday, still has to be done. Which is the reason why so many projects are started and so many are not taken into production. Because there's always another alternative. We are the other alternative, and that alternative is excellent. Not normal excellent, as you know. Everybody's still trying to catch up to Hopper. I haven't seen a competitor to Hopper yet. And here we're talking about 40x more. And so our roadmap is at the limits of what's possible. Not to mention we're really good at it and completely dedicated to it. A lot of people have a lot of businesses to do. I've got this one business to do. And we're all in on this. 35,000 people doing one job. Been doing it for a long time. The depth of capability, the scope of technology, as you saw yesterday, is pretty incredible. And it's not about building a chip; it's building an AI factory. We're talking about scale up, scale out. We're talking about networking and switches and software. We're talking about systems, and these system architectures are insane. Even the systems themselves. Notice, 100% of the computer industry, 100% of the computer industry has standardized on NVIDIA's system. Why? Because try to build an alternative. Building the alternative is not even thinkable because look at how much investment we put into building this one. And so even the system's hard. What people used to think, system is just sheet metal. Hardly sheet metal. 600,000 parts, it's hardly sheet metal. And so all of the technology is hard. We're pushing every single dimension to the limit because we're talking about so much money. The world is going to lay down hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in the next just a couple of two, three years. Let's do the thought experiment. Let's say you want to stand up a data center and you want it to be fully operational in two years' time. When do you have to place the PO on that? Today. So let's suppose you have to place a hundred billion dollar PO on something. What architecture would you place it on, literally based on everything you have today? There's only one. You can't reasonably build out giant infrastructures with hundreds of billions of dollars behind it, hoping to turn it back on and to get the ROIC on it, unless you have the confidence that we are able to provide you. And we can provide you complete confidence. And singularly so. We're the only technology company where if I had to go place a hundred billion dollars on an AI factory... Oh, that's interesting, I did. Literally the only company who's willing to place hundred billion dollar POs across the industry to go build it out. And you guys know, that's our, that's the depth of our supply chain. And we are, and we have. Give me another. Give me another one that has that depth and that length. And now to the point where we've got to go and work with the supply chain upstream and downstream to prepare the world for hundreds of billions of dollars working towards trillions of dollars of AI infrastructure build-out. Our partnerships with power companies and all of the cooling companies, the Vertivs, the Schneiders, our partnerships with BlackRock... The partnership network necessary to prepare the world to go build out trillions of dollars of AI infrastructure, that's undergoing as we speak. What architecture and what ASIC chip do you go select? That doesn't even make sense. It's a weird conversation even. And so, I think that one, the game is quite large. The investment level, therefore the risk level, is quite high. And so the certainty that you're selecting the best is quite important. And the certainty that you can execute, vital. We are the company you can build on top of. We're the company, we're the platform that you can build your AI infrastructure on. And we're the company that you can build your AI infrastructure strategy on. And so, I think it includes chips, but it's much, much more than that." --- From 'GTC Financial Analyst Q&A' session (full link in comment)

Rohan Paul

208,032 views • 8 months ago

I Cracked Polymarket Using Claude Opus 4.6: The 96,000 Dollar Script For 5 Minute High Leverage Windows most traders are currently sitting at their desks fighting a losing battle against a digital wall because they do not realize the house always wins against human emotion. while the crowd is busy chasing the next meme coin or getting washed out in a single wick an automated agent just pulled nearly a hundred thousand dollars out of thin air using nothing but raw logic. i have seen people blow their life savings in these five minute windows because they treated a high leverage prediction market like a playground instead of a laboratory i am moon dev and i believe that code is the great equalizer because through losing money with liquidations and over trading i knew i had to automate my trading. in the past i spent hundreds of thousands on devs for apps thinking i would not be able to code myself which was a massive waste of my time and resources. with bots you must iterate to success so i decided to learn live on youtube and now we are here with fully automated systems trading for me instead of getting liquidated by the market the five minute markets on polymarket are essentially a high speed game of musical chairs where the person left standing is usually the one with the fastest script. leverage makes these markets extremely dangerous because it amplifies every mistake you make until your account is completely empty. the only way to survive this environment is to stop trading based on a gut feeling and start trading based on a stress tested mathematical edge the real breakthrough happened when i started using claude opus four point six to write the execution code for these specific five minute windows. having an ai agent that can analyze microstructure data means you can find trends that are completely invisible to the naked eye. it is essentially like having a team of twenty engineers working for you around the clock without the communication lag or the massive overhead costs some of our back tests show a sixty four percent win rate which sounds like a dream to anyone who has ever spent a night staring at a red screen. however the return on these tests varies wildly based on a few specific changes to the strategy parameters and histogram filters. i found that a return of forty one thousand dollars can jump to nearly double that just by adjusting how the bot handles the macd histogram threshold the trap that most people fall into is thinking that a good back test is a license to print money immediately without any further validation. this is a dangerous lie that leads to huge losses because the market in the past is not a perfect mirror of what is going to happen today. that is why i never launch a bot with full size until it has survived the incubation phase where it trades with ten dollars at a time incubation is the ultimate reality check for any trading strategy regardless of how good the numbers look on a computer screen. it is nerve wracking to watch a bot enter its first real trade even if the size is small because that is the moment theory meets reality. most of the bots that pass a back test will fail during the first forty eight hours of incubation and that is exactly why this step is non negotiable the data i use to build these systems covers over two hundred weeks of historical one minute candles to ensure the results are robust and not just luck. we are currently moving toward a machine learning approach where the system can adapt to changing market conditions without me having to intervene. this means the bot will eventually be able to recognize when a high leverage window is too risky and simply wait for a better entry the strategy itself relies heavily on macd variations which is a well known indicator but it is used here with a very specific and proprietary twist. by filtering for trades that hit a specific threshold we can ignore the random price noise that usually liquidates manual traders. we look for an edge of at least six percent which is enough to cover all platform fees and still leave a significant profit on the table i used to think that being a successful trader meant being a genius who could predict the future with a magical crystal ball. the truth is far more boring because success is just about researching an idea and testing it until the data proves it works in the past. then you just let the bot do the work while you go live your life instead of being a slave to the candle sticks and charts this world is changing fast and the people who learn to leverage ai to automate their thinking are going to be the ones who win the next decade. i am not asking you to trust a back test or a screenshot from a website because i want you to trust the process of testing it yourself. code allows you to take your life back from the screens and finally stop the cycle of over trading and emotional liquidations the difference between the traders who make it and the people who blow up is simply the willingness to iterate on their ideas daily. you might fail on your first ten bots but the eleventh one might be the script that changes your entire financial trajectory forever. it is about staying in the game long enough for the math to finally work in your favor and removing the human heart from the execution every day i am back testing and researching new ideas to see if they can survive the stress of real market data. i launch these live bots and let them run for seventy two hours to see if they can handle the pressure of the current market trend. while everyone else is coping and complaining about market volatility we are just adjusting our parameters and letting the ai find the next profitable window vibe coding with claude opus four point six has changed the speed at which i can deploy a new strategy from weeks down to just a few minutes. you can give the ai a general strategy idea and it builds the entire trading infrastructure for you while you focus on the logic. this speed is the ultimate advantage in a market that moves as fast as a five minute prediction window on the blockchain the future of trading is not found in a chat room or a paid signal group but in the code you write and the data you process. i believe that everyone has the ability to become an automated trader if they are willing to put in the work to learn the scripts. it is the only way to escape the trap of the nine to five and the anxiety of manual hand trading in a manipulated market i want you to understand that the ninety six thousand dollar returns i see are the result of hundreds of failed tests that never saw the light of day. you have to be willing to look at a failing bot and kill it without emotion so you can move on to the next research project. that is the quantitative mindset that separates the winners from the people who are just gambling with their savings if you are ready to stop being the liquidity for the big players then it is time to start building your own automated army of bots. for the cost of a few cups of coffee you can get access to the road map and the scripts that are driving these results. i am here every day showing you the process because i want to see more people use code to find their financial freedom and beat the house at its own game
11:04

I Cracked Polymarket Using Claude Opus 4.6: The 96,000 Dollar Script For 5 Minute High Leverage Windows most traders are currently sitting at their desks fighting a losing battle against a digital wall because they do not realize the house always wins against human emotion. while the crowd is busy chasing the next meme coin or getting washed out in a single wick an automated agent just pulled nearly a hundred thousand dollars out of thin air using nothing but raw logic. i have seen people blow their life savings in these five minute windows because they treated a high leverage prediction market like a playground instead of a laboratory i am moon dev and i believe that code is the great equalizer because through losing money with liquidations and over trading i knew i had to automate my trading. in the past i spent hundreds of thousands on devs for apps thinking i would not be able to code myself which was a massive waste of my time and resources. with bots you must iterate to success so i decided to learn live on youtube and now we are here with fully automated systems trading for me instead of getting liquidated by the market the five minute markets on polymarket are essentially a high speed game of musical chairs where the person left standing is usually the one with the fastest script. leverage makes these markets extremely dangerous because it amplifies every mistake you make until your account is completely empty. the only way to survive this environment is to stop trading based on a gut feeling and start trading based on a stress tested mathematical edge the real breakthrough happened when i started using claude opus four point six to write the execution code for these specific five minute windows. having an ai agent that can analyze microstructure data means you can find trends that are completely invisible to the naked eye. it is essentially like having a team of twenty engineers working for you around the clock without the communication lag or the massive overhead costs some of our back tests show a sixty four percent win rate which sounds like a dream to anyone who has ever spent a night staring at a red screen. however the return on these tests varies wildly based on a few specific changes to the strategy parameters and histogram filters. i found that a return of forty one thousand dollars can jump to nearly double that just by adjusting how the bot handles the macd histogram threshold the trap that most people fall into is thinking that a good back test is a license to print money immediately without any further validation. this is a dangerous lie that leads to huge losses because the market in the past is not a perfect mirror of what is going to happen today. that is why i never launch a bot with full size until it has survived the incubation phase where it trades with ten dollars at a time incubation is the ultimate reality check for any trading strategy regardless of how good the numbers look on a computer screen. it is nerve wracking to watch a bot enter its first real trade even if the size is small because that is the moment theory meets reality. most of the bots that pass a back test will fail during the first forty eight hours of incubation and that is exactly why this step is non negotiable the data i use to build these systems covers over two hundred weeks of historical one minute candles to ensure the results are robust and not just luck. we are currently moving toward a machine learning approach where the system can adapt to changing market conditions without me having to intervene. this means the bot will eventually be able to recognize when a high leverage window is too risky and simply wait for a better entry the strategy itself relies heavily on macd variations which is a well known indicator but it is used here with a very specific and proprietary twist. by filtering for trades that hit a specific threshold we can ignore the random price noise that usually liquidates manual traders. we look for an edge of at least six percent which is enough to cover all platform fees and still leave a significant profit on the table i used to think that being a successful trader meant being a genius who could predict the future with a magical crystal ball. the truth is far more boring because success is just about researching an idea and testing it until the data proves it works in the past. then you just let the bot do the work while you go live your life instead of being a slave to the candle sticks and charts this world is changing fast and the people who learn to leverage ai to automate their thinking are going to be the ones who win the next decade. i am not asking you to trust a back test or a screenshot from a website because i want you to trust the process of testing it yourself. code allows you to take your life back from the screens and finally stop the cycle of over trading and emotional liquidations the difference between the traders who make it and the people who blow up is simply the willingness to iterate on their ideas daily. you might fail on your first ten bots but the eleventh one might be the script that changes your entire financial trajectory forever. it is about staying in the game long enough for the math to finally work in your favor and removing the human heart from the execution every day i am back testing and researching new ideas to see if they can survive the stress of real market data. i launch these live bots and let them run for seventy two hours to see if they can handle the pressure of the current market trend. while everyone else is coping and complaining about market volatility we are just adjusting our parameters and letting the ai find the next profitable window vibe coding with claude opus four point six has changed the speed at which i can deploy a new strategy from weeks down to just a few minutes. you can give the ai a general strategy idea and it builds the entire trading infrastructure for you while you focus on the logic. this speed is the ultimate advantage in a market that moves as fast as a five minute prediction window on the blockchain the future of trading is not found in a chat room or a paid signal group but in the code you write and the data you process. i believe that everyone has the ability to become an automated trader if they are willing to put in the work to learn the scripts. it is the only way to escape the trap of the nine to five and the anxiety of manual hand trading in a manipulated market i want you to understand that the ninety six thousand dollar returns i see are the result of hundreds of failed tests that never saw the light of day. you have to be willing to look at a failing bot and kill it without emotion so you can move on to the next research project. that is the quantitative mindset that separates the winners from the people who are just gambling with their savings if you are ready to stop being the liquidity for the big players then it is time to start building your own automated army of bots. for the cost of a few cups of coffee you can get access to the road map and the scripts that are driving these results. i am here every day showing you the process because i want to see more people use code to find their financial freedom and beat the house at its own game

Moon Dev

10,921 views • 4 months ago

Ten Takeaways From 10/21/25 ONE) NBA on NBC Hello, friends. Welcome to the 2025-26 NBA season. It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? A whole lot has changed since we last spoke. We were reintroduced to the NBA on NBC. Can’t believe it’s been almost 25 years, but here we are again. They absolutely crushed it after having some early audio difficulties. I get how cliché it is, but I seriously got chills once “Roundball Rock” started playing. Thought Carmelo Anthony, Vince Carter, and Tracy McGrady had contagious energy in the pre-game coverage. The graphics are clean and straightforward. Really like the team fouls tracking in the score bug—just a very pleasant experience. Looking forward to the “Prime” experience. God, can’t believe it costs $650 to watch basketball now. We need to talk about the MJ segment, though. If you’ve been living under a rock, NBC shocked the world and somehow convinced Michael Jordan to sign on as a “special contributor”. “Insights to Excellence” is sadly everything I thought it would be… nothing. He wasn’t in the studio or anything. Looked like some pre-recorded interview with Mike Tirico from who knows when at his house, talking about why he’s come out of hiding. The thing lasted about three and a half minutes. “To pay it forward. I had the obligation to basketball.” - MJ on the decision to join NBC Okay Mike. Hoping for some actual insight in future recordings. TWO) Champs Are Here OKC received their rings and raised their banner before the game. Vibes were immaculate. Dillon Jones was even in attendance. Good thing the Wizards waived him just in time for him to make his flight. Rockets weren’t having it, though. Ime Udoka said that they didn’t watch the ceremony and were instead focused on trying to ruin their night. Kevin Durant came out for warmups to loud boos, and so he booed them back. Everyone laughed. Meanwhile, Steven Adams still gets loud cheers because, well, who doesn’t love Steven Adams? It was a rough go-around for all Thunder not named Chet Holmgren (28 points, 11-17 FG) to start, especially SGA. He had just five points at the half on 40.0% shooting (2-5 FG), but you can only contain the league and Finals MVP for so long. He scored 24 of his 35 points in the 4th quarter and overtimes. What’s up with the four missed free throws (10-14 FT)? "I'm glad the guys enjoyed the ceremony. That's a great, great life event they had." - Mark Daigneault "It was surreal. I don't know how to describe it besides that. Seeing the banner raised was cool too... I'll remember it for the rest of my life." - SGA on the pregame ceremony THREE) Thunder Starters One of the more critical questions going into Opening Night was, “Who’s the 5th Thunder starter?” as we wait for JDub’s wrist to get right. SGA, Dort, Chet, and IHart felt obvious. Between Alex Caruso, Aaron Wiggins, and Cason Wallace, I leaned Cason mainly because of the bigger picture. Didn’t make sense to start Alex after managing him all last year, but then he started in every preseason game he played. Had to give that some sort of credit (and we did). Well, they ended up doing what they did a lot last year: change it up midway. Wallace started, and then Caruso started the second half… for Hartenstein. Here we go again. Cason’s playmaking looks improved. Daigneault went 11 deep (!!!) in the first quarter. Rookie, Brooks Barnhizer was the fourth sub off the bench, played about two minutes, and was never seen again. Part of that reason is Ajay Mitchell, who checked in after him (for Shai). There’s been some buzz, going back to his standout Summer League (19.8 ppg, 5.3 apg, 4.8 rpg, 1.5 spg). He scored 12 of his 16 points in the second quarter. “Not surprised. He was playing like this before he got hurt last year.” - Mark Daigneault on Ajay Mitchell FOUR) Jumbo Lineup It’s not much of a surprise to see Udoka start with the Steven Adams/Alperen Sengun pairing after how dominant they looked at the end of last season (+29.9 net rating, 162 minutes)—especially given the matchup, with Holmgren and Hartenstein on the other side. The real shocker is how much they leaned into it. Alpi and Adams shared the court for over 30 minutes (+8). LIKE WTF?!!! This was Adams' first time touching 37 minutes since November 9, 2022. They did just sign him to a three-year extension. You’d think they might wanna be careful with their investment. The average height of this Rockets' starting lineup is 6'10 (Thompson, Durant, Smith, Sengun, Adams), LMAO FIVE) Alpi Dominance Continues Maybe what Sengun was doing at EuroBasket 2025 (21.6 ppg, 10.1 rpg, 6.6 apg, 1.0 spg, and 1.1 bpg) translates over? Not gonna lie, I certainly had my doubts, but no… he’s looking just as dominant (I know, one game). Alperen Sengun vs Thunder: 39 PTS 11 REB 7 AST 2 STL 5-8 3P (career-high) 10-11 FT 27.7% USG Yeah, I see it too. Second time in his career, he’s attempted eight threes. Dude averaged 1.2 attempts per game last year. The hitch in his shot appears to be gone, so hey, this could be real (doubt it). All I know is that if it is, it’ll do wonders for his ceiling on sites that reward threes (DK). Also, going 10 of 11 from the line is something worth paying attention to. He was a 69.2% free-throw shooter last season. On the flip side, Amen Thompson (18 pts, 4 reb, 5 ast) had seven attempts from behind the arc and missed them all. Sucks, but his shot still looks flat. There’s no lift. While we’re here on Thompson, he had to leave the game late because of cramps. SIX) The Reed Conundrum I’ll give Reed Sheppard (9 pts, 4 ast, 37.9% TS, 28 min) this; he’s a confident motherfucker, and I love that about him (in a cute way). It’s hilarious how many times he looked off KD in this game. He’s gonna have stretches where he’s feeling it and looks automatic, but is it really gonna be worth it if his defense looks this dreadful? He can’t stay in front of anyone. The Thunder hunted and won that matchup with ease all night. Amen getting cramped up in OT1 really salvaged his minutes, cause I didn’t think he was gonna see the court again. Again, I know it’s only one game, but a couple more performances like this and things could get ugly. SEVEN) KD Gets Away With One Or should that say gets away with none? Kevin Durant (23 points, 9 rebounds) made his Rockets debut, and there’re gonna be two things you take away from it. Why’d you trade for him again? He was pretty much non-existent when they needed him most down the stretch, with a 12.5 USG% in both OT’s. There shouldn’t have been a second overtime. KD was clearly seen calling for a timeout after a rebound with about a second left on the clock. The problem is, they didn’t have any–He Webber’d it. He should have been T’d up, giving the Thunder a free throw to potentially end the game. Zarba and his buddies even got together to talk it over once the buzzer sounded, but did nothing. Strange, but luckily, it didn’t end up mattering much since OKC won in the second overtime. “Kevin definitely called timeout 3 times… They just missed it.” - SGA The Thunder beat the Rockets 125-124. EIGHT) Kuminga Starts Gallagher and I both felt pretty confident (sounds so stupid saying that with Kerr) that had Mosey Moody been available for this one, he would have been named the fifth starter, but his calf’s still bothering him. Steve Kerr decided to start Jonathan Kuminga (17 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists, 33 minutes) instead, rewarding him for a strong preseason. There might be some more rewards coming because, whew, this is exactly what they’ve been wanting to see from him for the last couple of years, especially the boards. You wouldn’t know it from looking at Luka’s box score, but JK did about as well as you could defending him; he made his threes (4-6 3PT) and consistently found the open man. I’m gonna go ahead and guess that he starts again against Denver on Thursday Let the showcasing begin. “When you ask for opportunity, you must deliver. He’s been very vocal about his opportunity and he delivered.” - Draymond Green on Jonathan Kuminga “I just wanna help JK be great… We’ve been kickin' it. Hanging out. Watching film and just working on our game together. I know how great he wants to be and how great he can be.” - Jimmy Butler on mentoring Jonathan Kuminga NINE) Jimmy Being Jimmy One of the funnier moments of the night came post-game, when Jimmy Butler talked about a bet he made with Draymond Green. The wager is that he’ll have a better free-throw percentage than Steph Curry this season. Deadass, hahaha. He admitted that it’s probably a bad bet but I still love that he does this type of shit. Two years ago, he said he was playfully aiming to shoot 50.0% from three. He obviously didn’t hit that mark, but he did shoot a career-best 41.4% that season. If you’re wondering how the bet is looking to start after Game 1: Jimmy Butler: 16-16 FT (100.0%) Steph Curry: 8-8 FT (100.0%) Will keep you updated as the season goes. Jesus, 16 free throw attempts. “No chance.” - Steph Curry when asked if Jimmy Butler has any shot at winning the bet Before we’re done with GS, a shoutout to Will Richard (5 points, 14 minutes). We tease Kerr all the time about playing these randos, but this kid looks like he can actually play. TEN) All Luka and Austin The Lakers are gonna struggle hard while LeBron’s out. They just don’t have any other guys on the team that can create. Luka Doncic (43 points, 10 rebounds, 9 assists, 34.7% USG) and Austin Reaves (26 points, 9 assists, 30.1% USG) scored or assisted on 97 of the Lakers' 109 points. So wild. Marcus Smart (9 points) was the first sub off the bench. As for DeAndre Ayton’s debut (10 points, 6 rebounds, 4 turnovers), let’s just say it didn’t take long for the Lakers’ fan base to turn on him. Poor guy looked lost out there. "We just started. This is probably the second game we've played together." - Rui Hachimura on what the difference was for the Lakers "The trend I see is that we continue to be a terrible third-quarter team." - JJ Redick The Warriors beat the Lakers 119-109.
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Ten Takeaways From 10/21/25 ONE) NBA on NBC Hello, friends. Welcome to the 2025-26 NBA season. It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? A whole lot has changed since we last spoke. We were reintroduced to the NBA on NBC. Can’t believe it’s been almost 25 years, but here we are again. They absolutely crushed it after having some early audio difficulties. I get how cliché it is, but I seriously got chills once “Roundball Rock” started playing. Thought Carmelo Anthony, Vince Carter, and Tracy McGrady had contagious energy in the pre-game coverage. The graphics are clean and straightforward. Really like the team fouls tracking in the score bug—just a very pleasant experience. Looking forward to the “Prime” experience. God, can’t believe it costs $650 to watch basketball now. We need to talk about the MJ segment, though. If you’ve been living under a rock, NBC shocked the world and somehow convinced Michael Jordan to sign on as a “special contributor”. “Insights to Excellence” is sadly everything I thought it would be… nothing. He wasn’t in the studio or anything. Looked like some pre-recorded interview with Mike Tirico from who knows when at his house, talking about why he’s come out of hiding. The thing lasted about three and a half minutes. “To pay it forward. I had the obligation to basketball.” - MJ on the decision to join NBC Okay Mike. Hoping for some actual insight in future recordings. TWO) Champs Are Here OKC received their rings and raised their banner before the game. Vibes were immaculate. Dillon Jones was even in attendance. Good thing the Wizards waived him just in time for him to make his flight. Rockets weren’t having it, though. Ime Udoka said that they didn’t watch the ceremony and were instead focused on trying to ruin their night. Kevin Durant came out for warmups to loud boos, and so he booed them back. Everyone laughed. Meanwhile, Steven Adams still gets loud cheers because, well, who doesn’t love Steven Adams? It was a rough go-around for all Thunder not named Chet Holmgren (28 points, 11-17 FG) to start, especially SGA. He had just five points at the half on 40.0% shooting (2-5 FG), but you can only contain the league and Finals MVP for so long. He scored 24 of his 35 points in the 4th quarter and overtimes. What’s up with the four missed free throws (10-14 FT)? "I'm glad the guys enjoyed the ceremony. That's a great, great life event they had." - Mark Daigneault "It was surreal. I don't know how to describe it besides that. Seeing the banner raised was cool too... I'll remember it for the rest of my life." - SGA on the pregame ceremony THREE) Thunder Starters One of the more critical questions going into Opening Night was, “Who’s the 5th Thunder starter?” as we wait for JDub’s wrist to get right. SGA, Dort, Chet, and IHart felt obvious. Between Alex Caruso, Aaron Wiggins, and Cason Wallace, I leaned Cason mainly because of the bigger picture. Didn’t make sense to start Alex after managing him all last year, but then he started in every preseason game he played. Had to give that some sort of credit (and we did). Well, they ended up doing what they did a lot last year: change it up midway. Wallace started, and then Caruso started the second half… for Hartenstein. Here we go again. Cason’s playmaking looks improved. Daigneault went 11 deep (!!!) in the first quarter. Rookie, Brooks Barnhizer was the fourth sub off the bench, played about two minutes, and was never seen again. Part of that reason is Ajay Mitchell, who checked in after him (for Shai). There’s been some buzz, going back to his standout Summer League (19.8 ppg, 5.3 apg, 4.8 rpg, 1.5 spg). He scored 12 of his 16 points in the second quarter. “Not surprised. He was playing like this before he got hurt last year.” - Mark Daigneault on Ajay Mitchell FOUR) Jumbo Lineup It’s not much of a surprise to see Udoka start with the Steven Adams/Alperen Sengun pairing after how dominant they looked at the end of last season (+29.9 net rating, 162 minutes)—especially given the matchup, with Holmgren and Hartenstein on the other side. The real shocker is how much they leaned into it. Alpi and Adams shared the court for over 30 minutes (+8). LIKE WTF?!!! This was Adams' first time touching 37 minutes since November 9, 2022. They did just sign him to a three-year extension. You’d think they might wanna be careful with their investment. The average height of this Rockets' starting lineup is 6'10 (Thompson, Durant, Smith, Sengun, Adams), LMAO FIVE) Alpi Dominance Continues Maybe what Sengun was doing at EuroBasket 2025 (21.6 ppg, 10.1 rpg, 6.6 apg, 1.0 spg, and 1.1 bpg) translates over? Not gonna lie, I certainly had my doubts, but no… he’s looking just as dominant (I know, one game). Alperen Sengun vs Thunder: 39 PTS 11 REB 7 AST 2 STL 5-8 3P (career-high) 10-11 FT 27.7% USG Yeah, I see it too. Second time in his career, he’s attempted eight threes. Dude averaged 1.2 attempts per game last year. The hitch in his shot appears to be gone, so hey, this could be real (doubt it). All I know is that if it is, it’ll do wonders for his ceiling on sites that reward threes (DK). Also, going 10 of 11 from the line is something worth paying attention to. He was a 69.2% free-throw shooter last season. On the flip side, Amen Thompson (18 pts, 4 reb, 5 ast) had seven attempts from behind the arc and missed them all. Sucks, but his shot still looks flat. There’s no lift. While we’re here on Thompson, he had to leave the game late because of cramps. SIX) The Reed Conundrum I’ll give Reed Sheppard (9 pts, 4 ast, 37.9% TS, 28 min) this; he’s a confident motherfucker, and I love that about him (in a cute way). It’s hilarious how many times he looked off KD in this game. He’s gonna have stretches where he’s feeling it and looks automatic, but is it really gonna be worth it if his defense looks this dreadful? He can’t stay in front of anyone. The Thunder hunted and won that matchup with ease all night. Amen getting cramped up in OT1 really salvaged his minutes, cause I didn’t think he was gonna see the court again. Again, I know it’s only one game, but a couple more performances like this and things could get ugly. SEVEN) KD Gets Away With One Or should that say gets away with none? Kevin Durant (23 points, 9 rebounds) made his Rockets debut, and there’re gonna be two things you take away from it. Why’d you trade for him again? He was pretty much non-existent when they needed him most down the stretch, with a 12.5 USG% in both OT’s. There shouldn’t have been a second overtime. KD was clearly seen calling for a timeout after a rebound with about a second left on the clock. The problem is, they didn’t have any–He Webber’d it. He should have been T’d up, giving the Thunder a free throw to potentially end the game. Zarba and his buddies even got together to talk it over once the buzzer sounded, but did nothing. Strange, but luckily, it didn’t end up mattering much since OKC won in the second overtime. “Kevin definitely called timeout 3 times… They just missed it.” - SGA The Thunder beat the Rockets 125-124. EIGHT) Kuminga Starts Gallagher and I both felt pretty confident (sounds so stupid saying that with Kerr) that had Mosey Moody been available for this one, he would have been named the fifth starter, but his calf’s still bothering him. Steve Kerr decided to start Jonathan Kuminga (17 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists, 33 minutes) instead, rewarding him for a strong preseason. There might be some more rewards coming because, whew, this is exactly what they’ve been wanting to see from him for the last couple of years, especially the boards. You wouldn’t know it from looking at Luka’s box score, but JK did about as well as you could defending him; he made his threes (4-6 3PT) and consistently found the open man. I’m gonna go ahead and guess that he starts again against Denver on Thursday Let the showcasing begin. “When you ask for opportunity, you must deliver. He’s been very vocal about his opportunity and he delivered.” - Draymond Green on Jonathan Kuminga “I just wanna help JK be great… We’ve been kickin' it. Hanging out. Watching film and just working on our game together. I know how great he wants to be and how great he can be.” - Jimmy Butler on mentoring Jonathan Kuminga NINE) Jimmy Being Jimmy One of the funnier moments of the night came post-game, when Jimmy Butler talked about a bet he made with Draymond Green. The wager is that he’ll have a better free-throw percentage than Steph Curry this season. Deadass, hahaha. He admitted that it’s probably a bad bet but I still love that he does this type of shit. Two years ago, he said he was playfully aiming to shoot 50.0% from three. He obviously didn’t hit that mark, but he did shoot a career-best 41.4% that season. If you’re wondering how the bet is looking to start after Game 1: Jimmy Butler: 16-16 FT (100.0%) Steph Curry: 8-8 FT (100.0%) Will keep you updated as the season goes. Jesus, 16 free throw attempts. “No chance.” - Steph Curry when asked if Jimmy Butler has any shot at winning the bet Before we’re done with GS, a shoutout to Will Richard (5 points, 14 minutes). We tease Kerr all the time about playing these randos, but this kid looks like he can actually play. TEN) All Luka and Austin The Lakers are gonna struggle hard while LeBron’s out. They just don’t have any other guys on the team that can create. Luka Doncic (43 points, 10 rebounds, 9 assists, 34.7% USG) and Austin Reaves (26 points, 9 assists, 30.1% USG) scored or assisted on 97 of the Lakers' 109 points. So wild. Marcus Smart (9 points) was the first sub off the bench. As for DeAndre Ayton’s debut (10 points, 6 rebounds, 4 turnovers), let’s just say it didn’t take long for the Lakers’ fan base to turn on him. Poor guy looked lost out there. "We just started. This is probably the second game we've played together." - Rui Hachimura on what the difference was for the Lakers "The trend I see is that we continue to be a terrible third-quarter team." - JJ Redick The Warriors beat the Lakers 119-109.

Establish The Run NBA

13,499 views • 9 months ago

Grok Imagine, right now is in my opinion best and fastest ai video generator for the masses. sure, is not perfect, but Rome wasn't built in a day. Maybe ppl from xai or Elon Musk would look on our posts and suggestions for future improvements. What is a must (for advanced users into ai video generation, been doing this game since 2022) .. 1. for longer movies , we need an option to organize like a project style, and to be able to add main prompts like the niche of the current movie, the character description and to be able to select a custom seed so we can have consistency of the characters. 2. we have now 6 seconds generation ( saw Elon promised 15 seconds soon).. BUT when we generate long movies, we end up with lots of scenes... what grok needs for the same project of the movie, would be a First Frame -Last frame scene interpolation between the scenes (take last frame from scene one, and first frame from scene 2 and generate a mid scene that would merge scene 1 with scene 2 .. and continue for the other scenes (this could be very easy implemented with some python lines of code , like before spitting final video, select all scenes.. extract frames etc etc etc etc.. simple af, when u have all scenes + the interpolation scenes combine evrything with ffmpeg ). 3.. list is long... and i dind't finished my coffee yet, so here is a grok TEXT to video short movie (coz lol u hit the limit for today). Prompts i used for each scene are a little more advanced, so i can see what grok is able to do .. the prompts used are like this (can;t post all due to X limits ) : { "scene_1": { "global_cinematography": "Ultra-realistic Hollywood cyberpunk thriller in the vein of The Matrix (1999) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017), shot on Arri Alexa LF with anamorphic lenses for widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio, 24fps for fluid motion, desaturated palette dominated by cool blues, greens, and high-contrast neon reds piercing perpetual smog-choked night. Consistent VFX pipeline: Procedural green code cascades, photorealistic cybernetic augmentations with subsurface scattering, physics-based rain and particle simulations. Lighting paradigm: Volumetric god rays through haze, practical lens flares from holograms, rim lighting on metallic surfaces for depth. Sound integration: Pulsing industrial synth score with digital glitches, rain patter syncing to code interference, metallic echoes underscoring dialogue. Transitions: Seamless glitch wipes or matrix symbol dissolves ensuring narrative continuity, each scene's final beat priming the next for unbroken tension flow. Continuity directive: Scenes chain via lingering elements—rain droplets from prior shots persisting, Nova's silhouette echoing across cuts, HUD overlays threading flashbacks to present, escalating glitch distortions building to climax rupture—maintaining spatial and temporal cohesion in Neo-Tokyo's underbelly.", "shot": { "composition": "Wide aerial drone shot with 35mm wide-angle anamorphic lens on Arri Alexa LF, high dynamic range capturing smog gradients and rain refraction for immersive dystopian establishment, foreground skyscraper edges framing the descent path", "camera_motion": "Controlled descending tilt-push through layered haze, subtle forward momentum building velocity into street-level convergence, priming alley reveal for Scene 2 silhouette emergence" }, "subject": { "description": "Neo-Tokyo's jagged circuit-board skyscrapers thrusting into smog-veiled void, rain-lashed surfaces mirroring erratic neon pulses; faint pedestrian phantoms below as harbingers of oblivious simulation", "wardrobe": "null" }, "scene": { "location": "Shadowed aerial vantage over Neo-Tokyo underbelly, continuity hook from global haze motif", "time_of_day": "Perpetual neon-twilight under storm overcast, syncing with all scenes' eternal dusk", "environment": "Thick smog banks parting reluctantly, acid rain sheets cascading in synchronized sheets with volumetric depth, holographic billboards stuttering in the distance to echo Scene 7 flicker" }, "visual_details": { "action": "Drone pierces urban canopy, unveiling rain-assaulted sprawl where neon bleeds into puddles like corrupted signals, distant alley haze teasing Nova's imminent step-forward in Scene 2", "props": "Circuit-etched tower facades with embedded LED veins flickering erratically, overflowing industrial gutters spewing iridescent chemical runoff, wind-scattered debris hinting at skirmish aftermath", "action_sequence": [ {"0-1s": "High hover frames smog-piercing spires, rain droplets streak lens in slow-mo refraction"}, {"1-2s": "Descent accelerates, haze thins to reveal neon-veined edges glowing faintly blue"}, {"2-3s": "Tilt reveals grid below, rooftops hammered in static-burst impacts syncing to score pulse"}, {"3-4s": "Forward push threads alley corridors, Mandarin signs initial flicker priming Scene 7"}, {"4-5s": "Pedestrians sharpen as wireframe ghosts, AR visors glinting obliviously"}, {"5-6s": "Level to ground haze, Nova's trench silhouette materializes at frame's vanishing point, coat billow lingering into Scene 2 track"} ] }, "cinematography": { "lighting": "Desaturated neon primaries with volumetric god rays slicing haze for ethereal isolation, rain speculars adding dynamic highlights consistent across wet surfaces", "tone": "Oppressive immersion yielding to rebellious spark—global cyber-noir dread laced with glitch anticipation, flowing seamlessly to Nova's personal emergence" } }, "scene_2": { "global_cinematography": "Ultra-realistic Hollywood cyberpunk thriller in the vein of The Matrix (1999) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017), shot on Arri Alexa LF with anamorphic lenses for widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio, 24fps for fluid motion, desaturated palette dominated by cool blues, greens, and high-contrast neon reds piercing perpetual smog-choked night. Consistent VFX pipeline: Procedural green code cascades, photorealistic cybernetic augmentations with subsurface scattering, physics-based rain and particle simulations. Lighting paradigm: Volumetric god rays through haze, practical lens flares from holograms, rim lighting on metallic surfaces for depth. Sound integration: Pulsing industrial synth score with digital glitches, rain patter syncing to code interference, metallic echoes underscoring dialogue. Transitions: Seamless glitch wipes or matrix symbol dissolves ensuring narrative continuity, each scene's final beat priming the next for unbroken tension flow. Continuity directive: Scenes chain via lingering elements—rain droplets from prior shots persisting, Nova's silhouette echoing across cuts, HUD overlays threading flashbacks to present, escalating glitch distortions building to climax rupture—maintaining spatial and temporal cohesion in Neo-Tokyo's underbelly.", "shot": { "composition": "Low-angle tracking push with 50mm anamorphic prime on Arri Alexa LF, heroic distortion compressing background alley into claustrophobic funnel, foreground rain blur veiling initial fog for continuity from Scene 1 descent", "camera_motion": "Fluid forward Steadicam arc from lingering Scene 1 haze, subtle left profile tilt to frame Nova against graffiti wall, pulling back slightly to hold environmental depth into Scene 3 orbit" }, "subject": { "description": "Nova, 30s hybrid rebel with scarred synthetic pallor, cropped black hair rain-matted, holographic irises scanning with latent data flickers; sleek titanium limbs rune-etched in dormant blue", "wardrobe": "Sodden black trench coat with frayed hems from Scene 1 debris scatter, high collar shadowing jawline for motif continuity" }, "scene": { "location": "Graffiti-choked alley continuation from Scene 1 street convergence, Neo-Tokyo underbelly", "time_of_day": "Eternal neon-dusk syncing global palette", "environment": "Fog banks rolling from industrial vents as Scene 1 smog extension, wet cobblestones rippling with residual aerial rain patterns" }, "visual_details": { "action": "Nova materializes from Scene 1's terminal haze, striding assertively into sodium glow with metallic glint, coat hem dragging puddles to splash forward—teasing Scene 3 facial trace", "props": "Luminescent 'GLITCH THE SYSTEM' graffiti echoing from Scene 1 signs, overhead hover-traffic hum persisting from aerial hum", "action_sequence": [ {"0-1s": "Fog swirl from Scene 1 yields Nova's silhouette, boot first impacting puddle"}, {"1-2s": "Full stride forward, coat hem trails iridescent wake linking to blood drip in Scene 9"}, {"2-3s": "Titanium forearm catches neon, runes sequential-pulse awakening blue continuity"}, {"3-4s": "Holographic eyes iris-scan, reflecting alley code fragments priming Scene 4 overlay"}, {"4-5s": "Rain beads contour synthetic skin, parting at seams for Scene 3 macro journey"}, {"5-6s": "Profile lean against wall, vapor breath hangs, posture straightening into Scene 5 OTS"} ] }, "cinematography": { "lighting": "Harsh sodium sidelight rimming form per global motif, cool rune fill softening human remnants, prismatic rain refractions tying to Scene 1 aerial streaks", "tone": "Defiant grace in simulated decay—cyber-noir intimacy building personal stakes, camera arc ensuring spatial flow to close-up revelation" } }, etc etc etc up to scene 16. you got the point
1:34

Grok Imagine, right now is in my opinion best and fastest ai video generator for the masses. sure, is not perfect, but Rome wasn't built in a day. Maybe ppl from xai or Elon Musk would look on our posts and suggestions for future improvements. What is a must (for advanced users into ai video generation, been doing this game since 2022) .. 1. for longer movies , we need an option to organize like a project style, and to be able to add main prompts like the niche of the current movie, the character description and to be able to select a custom seed so we can have consistency of the characters. 2. we have now 6 seconds generation ( saw Elon promised 15 seconds soon).. BUT when we generate long movies, we end up with lots of scenes... what grok needs for the same project of the movie, would be a First Frame -Last frame scene interpolation between the scenes (take last frame from scene one, and first frame from scene 2 and generate a mid scene that would merge scene 1 with scene 2 .. and continue for the other scenes (this could be very easy implemented with some python lines of code , like before spitting final video, select all scenes.. extract frames etc etc etc etc.. simple af, when u have all scenes + the interpolation scenes combine evrything with ffmpeg ). 3.. list is long... and i dind't finished my coffee yet, so here is a grok TEXT to video short movie (coz lol u hit the limit for today). Prompts i used for each scene are a little more advanced, so i can see what grok is able to do .. the prompts used are like this (can;t post all due to X limits ) : { "scene_1": { "global_cinematography": "Ultra-realistic Hollywood cyberpunk thriller in the vein of The Matrix (1999) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017), shot on Arri Alexa LF with anamorphic lenses for widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio, 24fps for fluid motion, desaturated palette dominated by cool blues, greens, and high-contrast neon reds piercing perpetual smog-choked night. Consistent VFX pipeline: Procedural green code cascades, photorealistic cybernetic augmentations with subsurface scattering, physics-based rain and particle simulations. Lighting paradigm: Volumetric god rays through haze, practical lens flares from holograms, rim lighting on metallic surfaces for depth. Sound integration: Pulsing industrial synth score with digital glitches, rain patter syncing to code interference, metallic echoes underscoring dialogue. Transitions: Seamless glitch wipes or matrix symbol dissolves ensuring narrative continuity, each scene's final beat priming the next for unbroken tension flow. Continuity directive: Scenes chain via lingering elements—rain droplets from prior shots persisting, Nova's silhouette echoing across cuts, HUD overlays threading flashbacks to present, escalating glitch distortions building to climax rupture—maintaining spatial and temporal cohesion in Neo-Tokyo's underbelly.", "shot": { "composition": "Wide aerial drone shot with 35mm wide-angle anamorphic lens on Arri Alexa LF, high dynamic range capturing smog gradients and rain refraction for immersive dystopian establishment, foreground skyscraper edges framing the descent path", "camera_motion": "Controlled descending tilt-push through layered haze, subtle forward momentum building velocity into street-level convergence, priming alley reveal for Scene 2 silhouette emergence" }, "subject": { "description": "Neo-Tokyo's jagged circuit-board skyscrapers thrusting into smog-veiled void, rain-lashed surfaces mirroring erratic neon pulses; faint pedestrian phantoms below as harbingers of oblivious simulation", "wardrobe": "null" }, "scene": { "location": "Shadowed aerial vantage over Neo-Tokyo underbelly, continuity hook from global haze motif", "time_of_day": "Perpetual neon-twilight under storm overcast, syncing with all scenes' eternal dusk", "environment": "Thick smog banks parting reluctantly, acid rain sheets cascading in synchronized sheets with volumetric depth, holographic billboards stuttering in the distance to echo Scene 7 flicker" }, "visual_details": { "action": "Drone pierces urban canopy, unveiling rain-assaulted sprawl where neon bleeds into puddles like corrupted signals, distant alley haze teasing Nova's imminent step-forward in Scene 2", "props": "Circuit-etched tower facades with embedded LED veins flickering erratically, overflowing industrial gutters spewing iridescent chemical runoff, wind-scattered debris hinting at skirmish aftermath", "action_sequence": [ {"0-1s": "High hover frames smog-piercing spires, rain droplets streak lens in slow-mo refraction"}, {"1-2s": "Descent accelerates, haze thins to reveal neon-veined edges glowing faintly blue"}, {"2-3s": "Tilt reveals grid below, rooftops hammered in static-burst impacts syncing to score pulse"}, {"3-4s": "Forward push threads alley corridors, Mandarin signs initial flicker priming Scene 7"}, {"4-5s": "Pedestrians sharpen as wireframe ghosts, AR visors glinting obliviously"}, {"5-6s": "Level to ground haze, Nova's trench silhouette materializes at frame's vanishing point, coat billow lingering into Scene 2 track"} ] }, "cinematography": { "lighting": "Desaturated neon primaries with volumetric god rays slicing haze for ethereal isolation, rain speculars adding dynamic highlights consistent across wet surfaces", "tone": "Oppressive immersion yielding to rebellious spark—global cyber-noir dread laced with glitch anticipation, flowing seamlessly to Nova's personal emergence" } }, "scene_2": { "global_cinematography": "Ultra-realistic Hollywood cyberpunk thriller in the vein of The Matrix (1999) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017), shot on Arri Alexa LF with anamorphic lenses for widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio, 24fps for fluid motion, desaturated palette dominated by cool blues, greens, and high-contrast neon reds piercing perpetual smog-choked night. Consistent VFX pipeline: Procedural green code cascades, photorealistic cybernetic augmentations with subsurface scattering, physics-based rain and particle simulations. Lighting paradigm: Volumetric god rays through haze, practical lens flares from holograms, rim lighting on metallic surfaces for depth. Sound integration: Pulsing industrial synth score with digital glitches, rain patter syncing to code interference, metallic echoes underscoring dialogue. Transitions: Seamless glitch wipes or matrix symbol dissolves ensuring narrative continuity, each scene's final beat priming the next for unbroken tension flow. Continuity directive: Scenes chain via lingering elements—rain droplets from prior shots persisting, Nova's silhouette echoing across cuts, HUD overlays threading flashbacks to present, escalating glitch distortions building to climax rupture—maintaining spatial and temporal cohesion in Neo-Tokyo's underbelly.", "shot": { "composition": "Low-angle tracking push with 50mm anamorphic prime on Arri Alexa LF, heroic distortion compressing background alley into claustrophobic funnel, foreground rain blur veiling initial fog for continuity from Scene 1 descent", "camera_motion": "Fluid forward Steadicam arc from lingering Scene 1 haze, subtle left profile tilt to frame Nova against graffiti wall, pulling back slightly to hold environmental depth into Scene 3 orbit" }, "subject": { "description": "Nova, 30s hybrid rebel with scarred synthetic pallor, cropped black hair rain-matted, holographic irises scanning with latent data flickers; sleek titanium limbs rune-etched in dormant blue", "wardrobe": "Sodden black trench coat with frayed hems from Scene 1 debris scatter, high collar shadowing jawline for motif continuity" }, "scene": { "location": "Graffiti-choked alley continuation from Scene 1 street convergence, Neo-Tokyo underbelly", "time_of_day": "Eternal neon-dusk syncing global palette", "environment": "Fog banks rolling from industrial vents as Scene 1 smog extension, wet cobblestones rippling with residual aerial rain patterns" }, "visual_details": { "action": "Nova materializes from Scene 1's terminal haze, striding assertively into sodium glow with metallic glint, coat hem dragging puddles to splash forward—teasing Scene 3 facial trace", "props": "Luminescent 'GLITCH THE SYSTEM' graffiti echoing from Scene 1 signs, overhead hover-traffic hum persisting from aerial hum", "action_sequence": [ {"0-1s": "Fog swirl from Scene 1 yields Nova's silhouette, boot first impacting puddle"}, {"1-2s": "Full stride forward, coat hem trails iridescent wake linking to blood drip in Scene 9"}, {"2-3s": "Titanium forearm catches neon, runes sequential-pulse awakening blue continuity"}, {"3-4s": "Holographic eyes iris-scan, reflecting alley code fragments priming Scene 4 overlay"}, {"4-5s": "Rain beads contour synthetic skin, parting at seams for Scene 3 macro journey"}, {"5-6s": "Profile lean against wall, vapor breath hangs, posture straightening into Scene 5 OTS"} ] }, "cinematography": { "lighting": "Harsh sodium sidelight rimming form per global motif, cool rune fill softening human remnants, prismatic rain refractions tying to Scene 1 aerial streaks", "tone": "Defiant grace in simulated decay—cyber-noir intimacy building personal stakes, camera arc ensuring spatial flow to close-up revelation" } }, etc etc etc up to scene 16. you got the point

NFK

3,351,468 views • 8 months ago

Min Hee-jin (NewJeans Producer) NHK Music Interview 🔗 “Meticulously planned debut ‘Attention’” 🧢: When I was preparing to launch NewJeans, I really struggled with deciding what our first piece of content should be. I thought about it for a long time and considered many possibilities. It was a project that came with high expectations, and for me personally, it was also my first opportunity to prove myself. So how I presented it mattered enormously. Even down to the smallest details… like the impression the very first released photo might give, or what kind of impact we could make at launch. I thought hard about what kind of content would be the most effective… should it be a video or a photo? What time of day would be most effective to release it? I consider things like that very carefully. For example, the way a person experiences content at night versus during the day can feel quite different emotionally. So I even thought about those subtle aspects. Eventually, the conclusion I reached was: “Let’s make the most of our situation.” At the time, the members hadn’t been revealed, and no one knew how many of them there were or what kind of group this would be. So I wanted to maximize that curiosity. You know how the more something is concealed, the more curious people become? I wanted to build that curiosity to a peak and then release everything all at once. That’s why we decided not to release a teaser and instead go straight into a full music video. (This was actually inspired by Hyein suggesting we skip teasers.) I didn’t think still images or photos would be enough to fully convey the feeling I wanted to express. I felt that video and music together would evoke the emotional response I was looking for because people experience things synesthetically. When sound, image, and feeling come together, the emotional impact is stronger. I believed the best way to present the members’ images was through music and a moving picture… that’s why we led with a music video. In the debut music video, “Attention,” there’s a scene where the members act out a little drama. I paid very close attention to that moment and created music that would fit it precisely. For me, I don’t just make content… I design the entire process of how it should be shown for the greatest effect. And I believe that’s incredibly important. That first feeling someone gets when they encounter something… that emotion, that spark… is so important to me. I’m very detail-oriented, but I also value fun deeply. So rather than just releasing content, I want to enjoy the process leading up to it. Even when we released our second album, since we shot the entire music video across the country, the sequence of how we released the videos was critical for me. It’s hard to explain all this simply in an interview, but maybe some people noticed: the first content we released that time was actually a teaser for the last track, “ASAP,” and then we followed that with the full music video for “New Jeans,” which was the first track. That order was a carefully calculated strategy. It was designed to guide the audience’s emotional journey. Seeing the audience react just as I had hoped—that whole process was honestly so fun and thrilling for me. I think I really enjoy that kind of thing. ——— “How 'Ditto' was born” 🧢: People often praise the music of NewJeans, and I hear a lot of talk about genres. But actually, I don’t feel bound by genre at all. I love a wide variety of music. I’m not the type to insist on only one particular genre. What I love are songs that blend genres cleverly… those are my personal favorites. So going forward, my focus is not on genre but on whether something feels fresh and whether it can create an emotional moment. I don’t want to define what kind of music we make. And I think you have to experience the flow of the times to really understand what’s meaningful in a given moment. For instance, the song “Ditto” was chosen because it delivered emotion. It matched perfectly with the winter album concept I had envisioned, both in terms of timing and mood. When I hear a song, I tend to trust my gut. I have a pretty strong intuition for which songs will resonate. It’s not about objectively predicting what will be a “hit,” but about whether a song moves your heart… you can just feel it. Of course, my own taste plays a big role. But I think that’s actually my strength as a producer, not as a composer. When I hear a song, I can immediately picture the visual… what kind of story, what kind of vibe it could carry. That allows me to work faster. For example, when expressing something like school uniforms, there are so many possible variations. But I always like to start from the basics… what’s the original idea of a school uniform? I try to return to that. So with “Ditto,” I wanted to tap into something primal… the pure, basic feeling of liking someone. That kind of emotion is universal. Everyone has it; it’s wired into us. When I saw Director Shin Woo-seok’s interpretation of it, I thought, “Yes, that’s it.” That’s the kind of complete interpretation I look for. I believe the completion of a project comes from every person involved thinking about their part down to the final detail… the maximum quality they can bring out. My role is to unify and refine all of that. I draw out the essence of each person’s creativity, trimming away anything unnecessary. So the final product is something that’s polished and high-quality, just the way I envisioned it. That’s my working style. So it’s not like I’m fixated on retro or stuck in a particular style. I don’t think human taste has changed all that much. Things people liked in the past are the same things we like now. It’s just the form of expression that changes with time. I don’t feel bound by “past” or “present.” I don’t even think in those boundaries. To me, it’s all just good taste. You know how kids sometimes have their own little treasure boxes when they’re young? I think my work is kind of like that. I want to make things that never feel dated—that are timelessly enjoyable. ——— “Dance Expression and 'Hype Boy'” 🧢: I had a vision of what kind of girl group I wanted to create. That’s why I chose a song like “Hype Boy.” And to bring out that feeling, we created four different versions of the music video. Every choice had a purpose, everything was designed to maximize the experience of the song. “Hype Boy” is such a unique song. It has this strange, piercing melody that gives people chills in a good way. To emphasize that tingling feeling, I had to break away from the standard K-pop choreography format… you know, the kind where everyone is in perfect formation, doing synchronized moves. But our songs don’t suit that kind of choreography. Our dances are much harder. They require the body to move very naturally with the groove of the melody and beat. So I think our members are incredible. It’s not easy to express naturalness with your body, and you have to really enjoy it to make it look effortless. But they pulled it off so well. They’re still young, but they’re so talented. And through it all, I wanted to avoid making them look like they were performing just for business. I wanted them to show the pure joy and bright spirit that’s natural for people their age… genuine, carefree, radiant. ——— “The difference between NewJeans and conventional K-POP” 🧢: Ah, for me, it’s all about naturalness. And honestly, naturalness isn’t something you can produce or direct into existence. It comes from how I interact with the NewJeans members on a daily basis… what kind of environment they practice in, how they live and work. There are so many things that don’t appear on camera, but those unseen aspects have to be in place in order for true naturalness to come through. That’s why I wanted to create that kind of environment for the girls. And also, I wanted to shape my own working environment in that way too. Only then can something truly natural, something unforced and not overly stimulating, really come out. To begin with, I don’t believe anyone can be completely natural in front of a camera or under the gaze of others. It’s human nature to become self-conscious. That’s why I think naturalness is our strength, but it can’t be our concept. If you try to turn “naturalness” into a concept, it actually becomes incredibly artificial. So why do I place so much importance on naturalness? It’s because the girls are still so young. While other kids their age are going through school and having a wide range of life experiences, these members are living very different lives. Before they officially debuted, I told them, “This is like studying together with me.” Our standard contract is seven years, which is about the same length as going through high school and college in Korea: three years of high school and four years of university. So I told them, “We’re going to school together. We’re learning together.” And in that sense, I want to be a good teacher to them. They’re also surrounded by an incredibly professional team, people they’d never meet even in a traditional school setting. I’ve never really liked the word idol. These days, that word is used more like a job title, something manufactured by the industry, and it’s far from its original meaning. To me, the term idol feels misplaced. It doesn’t really reflect who these artists are or what they represent. And I’m not the kind of person who clings to labels or terminology. In fact, what I really want is to break the stereotypes and preconceptions that come with the idol industry. I want us to show people something different… to challenge those assumptions and redefine what this can look like. That’s the kind of mindset I have. ——— “Isn't it difficult for the members to express "naturalness"?” 🧢: There were a lot of things I considered when forming the group. First and foremost, I think it was important that the members shared a similar vibe… like how I prefer working with staff who align with my taste. It’s important for the crew to be on the same wavelength. And by that, I mean more than just getting along… it also extends to shared values. Of course, people won’t all share identical values, but when we’re facing in a similar direction, everything becomes easier. It’s also just more efficient to work with people who have overlapping tastes. Now, when it comes to our members, they each have their own individual tastes, but those preferences are still in development. Just like we all went through as kids, they’re still growing, still discovering themselves. They’re not in a finished state. So we didn’t cast them based on some complete or polished version of themselves. It wasn’t like, “This person is fully formed, let’s pick her.” It was more like, “Ah, she has potential, there’s something there.” That sense of a spark… those were the kinds of subtleties I paid attention to. I didn’t cast anyone just because they were pretty or could sing well. I don’t work like that. I really value those finer, more delicate aspects. Even the design of the light stick wasn’t something that came from a long strategic planning session… it was actually a spontaneous idea. I didn’t sit down and think, “Let’s make a light stick like this.” NewJeans didn’t have a fixed logo, but I felt we still needed a unifying symbol. So one night, just before going to sleep, I kept thinking about it. Right before dozing off, I started sketching and it turned into a rabbit’s face. When I drew it out, the shape just continued and turned into a bunny. To me, the NewJeans members are like little bunnies… playful, innocent. Their visuals also resemble rabbits in a way. And rabbits symbolize abundance. That made me think: “Ah, maybe our fans will multiply like rabbits. That would be great.” So that bunny face became both a symbol for the members and the fans. The image came to me all at once, and I imagined a venue completely filled with bunny light sticks. That vision led to the creation of the light stick itself. Since I always prioritize fun in everything I do, the next idea that came to mind was making the light stick customizable. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if fans could personalize their bunny?” That way, each rabbit would represent a different person’s character. So we included accessories, allowing everyone to customize their own bunny. It’s symbolic of all these different bunnies coming together and enjoying a good time as one. Our light stick has a big head, so when it’s used in a concert hall, it lights up in heart shapes that are very visible. That was the image I really wanted. And that bunny face… it’s also a heart. It represents both the face of NewJeans and our hearts. It’s the love we’re showing to our fans, and the love we want to receive in return. Every time I see it, I feel deeply moved. It’s very emotional for me because it’s a perfect realization of what I envisioned. As someone with a background in creative direction, there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing an idea materialize exactly the way you imagined it. That kind of work holds deep meaning for me. ⸻ 🧢: Looking back, I think in 2023 we were able to achieve almost everything we had hoped for. I’m so incredibly grateful for that. Of course, this is an ongoing challenge… and the better things go, the more pressure there is. That’s why I always try to return to my original mindset. Just like I tell the members, I try to remind myself of the beginning and keep things fun. Back then, when we were first putting out content, planning the music, and working on visuals, I felt this thrill… this rush of excitement. I don’t want to forget that feeling. So I try hard to engrave that emotion into every album we release. I’m constantly working to rediscover the joy in all of it. So for 2024, I hope everyone can look forward to us with fresh anticipation. And even if we come out with something completely new, I hope people will receive it warmly and with excitement. That’s really my deepest wish. 🙏
21:30

Min Hee-jin (NewJeans Producer) NHK Music Interview 🔗 “Meticulously planned debut ‘Attention’” 🧢: When I was preparing to launch NewJeans, I really struggled with deciding what our first piece of content should be. I thought about it for a long time and considered many possibilities. It was a project that came with high expectations, and for me personally, it was also my first opportunity to prove myself. So how I presented it mattered enormously. Even down to the smallest details… like the impression the very first released photo might give, or what kind of impact we could make at launch. I thought hard about what kind of content would be the most effective… should it be a video or a photo? What time of day would be most effective to release it? I consider things like that very carefully. For example, the way a person experiences content at night versus during the day can feel quite different emotionally. So I even thought about those subtle aspects. Eventually, the conclusion I reached was: “Let’s make the most of our situation.” At the time, the members hadn’t been revealed, and no one knew how many of them there were or what kind of group this would be. So I wanted to maximize that curiosity. You know how the more something is concealed, the more curious people become? I wanted to build that curiosity to a peak and then release everything all at once. That’s why we decided not to release a teaser and instead go straight into a full music video. (This was actually inspired by Hyein suggesting we skip teasers.) I didn’t think still images or photos would be enough to fully convey the feeling I wanted to express. I felt that video and music together would evoke the emotional response I was looking for because people experience things synesthetically. When sound, image, and feeling come together, the emotional impact is stronger. I believed the best way to present the members’ images was through music and a moving picture… that’s why we led with a music video. In the debut music video, “Attention,” there’s a scene where the members act out a little drama. I paid very close attention to that moment and created music that would fit it precisely. For me, I don’t just make content… I design the entire process of how it should be shown for the greatest effect. And I believe that’s incredibly important. That first feeling someone gets when they encounter something… that emotion, that spark… is so important to me. I’m very detail-oriented, but I also value fun deeply. So rather than just releasing content, I want to enjoy the process leading up to it. Even when we released our second album, since we shot the entire music video across the country, the sequence of how we released the videos was critical for me. It’s hard to explain all this simply in an interview, but maybe some people noticed: the first content we released that time was actually a teaser for the last track, “ASAP,” and then we followed that with the full music video for “New Jeans,” which was the first track. That order was a carefully calculated strategy. It was designed to guide the audience’s emotional journey. Seeing the audience react just as I had hoped—that whole process was honestly so fun and thrilling for me. I think I really enjoy that kind of thing. ——— “How 'Ditto' was born” 🧢: People often praise the music of NewJeans, and I hear a lot of talk about genres. But actually, I don’t feel bound by genre at all. I love a wide variety of music. I’m not the type to insist on only one particular genre. What I love are songs that blend genres cleverly… those are my personal favorites. So going forward, my focus is not on genre but on whether something feels fresh and whether it can create an emotional moment. I don’t want to define what kind of music we make. And I think you have to experience the flow of the times to really understand what’s meaningful in a given moment. For instance, the song “Ditto” was chosen because it delivered emotion. It matched perfectly with the winter album concept I had envisioned, both in terms of timing and mood. When I hear a song, I tend to trust my gut. I have a pretty strong intuition for which songs will resonate. It’s not about objectively predicting what will be a “hit,” but about whether a song moves your heart… you can just feel it. Of course, my own taste plays a big role. But I think that’s actually my strength as a producer, not as a composer. When I hear a song, I can immediately picture the visual… what kind of story, what kind of vibe it could carry. That allows me to work faster. For example, when expressing something like school uniforms, there are so many possible variations. But I always like to start from the basics… what’s the original idea of a school uniform? I try to return to that. So with “Ditto,” I wanted to tap into something primal… the pure, basic feeling of liking someone. That kind of emotion is universal. Everyone has it; it’s wired into us. When I saw Director Shin Woo-seok’s interpretation of it, I thought, “Yes, that’s it.” That’s the kind of complete interpretation I look for. I believe the completion of a project comes from every person involved thinking about their part down to the final detail… the maximum quality they can bring out. My role is to unify and refine all of that. I draw out the essence of each person’s creativity, trimming away anything unnecessary. So the final product is something that’s polished and high-quality, just the way I envisioned it. That’s my working style. So it’s not like I’m fixated on retro or stuck in a particular style. I don’t think human taste has changed all that much. Things people liked in the past are the same things we like now. It’s just the form of expression that changes with time. I don’t feel bound by “past” or “present.” I don’t even think in those boundaries. To me, it’s all just good taste. You know how kids sometimes have their own little treasure boxes when they’re young? I think my work is kind of like that. I want to make things that never feel dated—that are timelessly enjoyable. ——— “Dance Expression and 'Hype Boy'” 🧢: I had a vision of what kind of girl group I wanted to create. That’s why I chose a song like “Hype Boy.” And to bring out that feeling, we created four different versions of the music video. Every choice had a purpose, everything was designed to maximize the experience of the song. “Hype Boy” is such a unique song. It has this strange, piercing melody that gives people chills in a good way. To emphasize that tingling feeling, I had to break away from the standard K-pop choreography format… you know, the kind where everyone is in perfect formation, doing synchronized moves. But our songs don’t suit that kind of choreography. Our dances are much harder. They require the body to move very naturally with the groove of the melody and beat. So I think our members are incredible. It’s not easy to express naturalness with your body, and you have to really enjoy it to make it look effortless. But they pulled it off so well. They’re still young, but they’re so talented. And through it all, I wanted to avoid making them look like they were performing just for business. I wanted them to show the pure joy and bright spirit that’s natural for people their age… genuine, carefree, radiant. ——— “The difference between NewJeans and conventional K-POP” 🧢: Ah, for me, it’s all about naturalness. And honestly, naturalness isn’t something you can produce or direct into existence. It comes from how I interact with the NewJeans members on a daily basis… what kind of environment they practice in, how they live and work. There are so many things that don’t appear on camera, but those unseen aspects have to be in place in order for true naturalness to come through. That’s why I wanted to create that kind of environment for the girls. And also, I wanted to shape my own working environment in that way too. Only then can something truly natural, something unforced and not overly stimulating, really come out. To begin with, I don’t believe anyone can be completely natural in front of a camera or under the gaze of others. It’s human nature to become self-conscious. That’s why I think naturalness is our strength, but it can’t be our concept. If you try to turn “naturalness” into a concept, it actually becomes incredibly artificial. So why do I place so much importance on naturalness? It’s because the girls are still so young. While other kids their age are going through school and having a wide range of life experiences, these members are living very different lives. Before they officially debuted, I told them, “This is like studying together with me.” Our standard contract is seven years, which is about the same length as going through high school and college in Korea: three years of high school and four years of university. So I told them, “We’re going to school together. We’re learning together.” And in that sense, I want to be a good teacher to them. They’re also surrounded by an incredibly professional team, people they’d never meet even in a traditional school setting. I’ve never really liked the word idol. These days, that word is used more like a job title, something manufactured by the industry, and it’s far from its original meaning. To me, the term idol feels misplaced. It doesn’t really reflect who these artists are or what they represent. And I’m not the kind of person who clings to labels or terminology. In fact, what I really want is to break the stereotypes and preconceptions that come with the idol industry. I want us to show people something different… to challenge those assumptions and redefine what this can look like. That’s the kind of mindset I have. ——— “Isn't it difficult for the members to express "naturalness"?” 🧢: There were a lot of things I considered when forming the group. First and foremost, I think it was important that the members shared a similar vibe… like how I prefer working with staff who align with my taste. It’s important for the crew to be on the same wavelength. And by that, I mean more than just getting along… it also extends to shared values. Of course, people won’t all share identical values, but when we’re facing in a similar direction, everything becomes easier. It’s also just more efficient to work with people who have overlapping tastes. Now, when it comes to our members, they each have their own individual tastes, but those preferences are still in development. Just like we all went through as kids, they’re still growing, still discovering themselves. They’re not in a finished state. So we didn’t cast them based on some complete or polished version of themselves. It wasn’t like, “This person is fully formed, let’s pick her.” It was more like, “Ah, she has potential, there’s something there.” That sense of a spark… those were the kinds of subtleties I paid attention to. I didn’t cast anyone just because they were pretty or could sing well. I don’t work like that. I really value those finer, more delicate aspects. Even the design of the light stick wasn’t something that came from a long strategic planning session… it was actually a spontaneous idea. I didn’t sit down and think, “Let’s make a light stick like this.” NewJeans didn’t have a fixed logo, but I felt we still needed a unifying symbol. So one night, just before going to sleep, I kept thinking about it. Right before dozing off, I started sketching and it turned into a rabbit’s face. When I drew it out, the shape just continued and turned into a bunny. To me, the NewJeans members are like little bunnies… playful, innocent. Their visuals also resemble rabbits in a way. And rabbits symbolize abundance. That made me think: “Ah, maybe our fans will multiply like rabbits. That would be great.” So that bunny face became both a symbol for the members and the fans. The image came to me all at once, and I imagined a venue completely filled with bunny light sticks. That vision led to the creation of the light stick itself. Since I always prioritize fun in everything I do, the next idea that came to mind was making the light stick customizable. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if fans could personalize their bunny?” That way, each rabbit would represent a different person’s character. So we included accessories, allowing everyone to customize their own bunny. It’s symbolic of all these different bunnies coming together and enjoying a good time as one. Our light stick has a big head, so when it’s used in a concert hall, it lights up in heart shapes that are very visible. That was the image I really wanted. And that bunny face… it’s also a heart. It represents both the face of NewJeans and our hearts. It’s the love we’re showing to our fans, and the love we want to receive in return. Every time I see it, I feel deeply moved. It’s very emotional for me because it’s a perfect realization of what I envisioned. As someone with a background in creative direction, there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing an idea materialize exactly the way you imagined it. That kind of work holds deep meaning for me. ⸻ 🧢: Looking back, I think in 2023 we were able to achieve almost everything we had hoped for. I’m so incredibly grateful for that. Of course, this is an ongoing challenge… and the better things go, the more pressure there is. That’s why I always try to return to my original mindset. Just like I tell the members, I try to remind myself of the beginning and keep things fun. Back then, when we were first putting out content, planning the music, and working on visuals, I felt this thrill… this rush of excitement. I don’t want to forget that feeling. So I try hard to engrave that emotion into every album we release. I’m constantly working to rediscover the joy in all of it. So for 2024, I hope everyone can look forward to us with fresh anticipation. And even if we come out with something completely new, I hope people will receive it warmly and with excitement. That’s really my deepest wish. 🙏

1tokki

17,635 views • 1 year ago

👽 Did Grusch See Footage of Live Aliens? 👽 "Grusch has seen evidence that will leave you slack-jawed when you hear it." ~JF 😶 What Left Congress Speechless, and Staffers with Their Eyes Popping Out of Their Heads? 😱 ~ "Examine biological evidence of living or deceased non-human intelligence." ~Burlison Proposed Legislation (I'm gonna break all of this down and give you my speculation on what left Fox with his jaw on the floor, members of Congress speechless, and their senior staffers with their eyes popping out of their heads.) ~ James Fox: " Probably about two weeks ago (late May), we were having meetings on The Hill with members of Congress. We brought in a PR firm, 42 West, and we were having a meeting with staff members, bipartisan. We had Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Rep. Tim Burchett Press Office, Rep. Eric Burlison. We had a representative from Congressman Jared Moskowitz's office. We had a number of Chiefs of Staff (top staffer for a specific member of Congress), like, present." (Don't really know why they needed a public relations firm in attendance, but if it helps them with advice on how to handle this, so be it. Just know: it appears like members of that PR firm know what Grusch said, and we don't.) Fox: "And, I can't reveal what was said. I thought it was gonna be said at the actual event that we had yesterday (June 9th) in DC with Mr. Grusch." (Don't be mad at Fox for keeping his word to Grusch and not sharing what was said in that private meeting. But I don't blame people for being annoyed that Grusch shared this information six or so weeks ago and we still don't know what he said in that room.) Fox: "Then, what Mr. Grusch revealed to all of us, what he had seen with his own eyes, left the room speechless. It drew the oxygen out of the room. I looked at everybody in that room, and their eyeballs were popping out. My jaw was on the floor. Like, I simply couldn't believe what he'd seen with his own eyes. Like, I can't wait for it to come out. "So I asked Mr. Grusch today, 'Can I talk about what I heard?' And he's like, 'No, but I will be addressing it very soon.'" (Like I said, it's almost been one month now (June 12) since Fox said this, so what does "very soon" mean? Was Grusch supposed to share this information on CNN with Jake Tapper last week but it didn't happen because that interview was, reportedly (Fox told us), postponed?) Fox: "So that's where we stand right now. But I can tell you, Mr. Grusch has seen evidence that will leave you slack-jawed when you hear it. It's coming, it's coming." (We heard that Gruch's Op/Ed was coming soon and that was 2.5 years ago. It never happened. So, I don't blame people for being skeptical about this. If Grusch hasn't told us by this time next week, I propose someone (a member of Congress) who was in that room just tell us. That's fair, right? Total transparency from our elected representatives?) ~ Fox: "Mr. Grusch is legitimately concerned about his personal safety. He's coming out with it, I promise you, this is coming out. He assured me today that he will address this issue to the general public very soon, in the near future." (I'm glad Grusch told a room full of people what he saw, as that may offer him some protection from people who allegedly want him to stop talking.) Fox: "So I can't speak to what he's gonna say, but I'm just telling you from what I heard out of his mouth, sitting in an office of a member of Congress? And everybody (Fox laughs) in the room, you could have heard a pin drop." Clayton Morris: "Could you give us a hint? Is it related to craft? Can you maybe dance around it a little bit? I want to say, 'You're killing me, Smalls (laughs).'" Fox: "Yeah, so if you can imagine, if you know about 'Moment of Contact,' that involves captured non-human intelligent beings. Think about that for a minute. Think about that case. I heard it out of his mouth, and I can tell you, I was in the room. And I looked around the room, and I'm looking at these young, like, guys in their 20s, you know, the staff guys? And their eyeballs were popping out of their head. My jaw was on the floor. I couldn't believe it." (There's a reason why I included that quote (living or deceased non-human intelligence) from the new Burlison/Carson/Crane legislation at the top of this tweet: At the very least, I'm confident Grusch told them that he saw photos of dead non-human beings. Bodies. But what about evidence of LIVING non-humans, aka aliens of unknown origin? More on that at the end. Fox: "My jaw was on the floor. I couldn't believe it." (Would Grusch saying he saw photos of craft and dead non-humans have that type of effect on Fox? Seems like that's something he would have expected to hear.) ~ Fox: "It was an [out of] body experience when I heard that. But I can tell you...the impression I got, was that he felt a little more protected to talk about this because of President Trump's directive to release the files, and that this... Again, this is my speculation, okay? This is not what Mr. Grusch said. "I got the impression that he was much more relaxed - even though he was still not fully relaxed - because of President Trump's directive to release these files. And that it was something that he had seen during his official investigations just within the last few years." (Imagine how much more relaxed Grusch (and others) would feel if we had an actual Executive Order from Trump with strong language to protect whistleblowers?) Fox: "And that it...I think it had an extremely profound impact on his life when he saw this evidence that he described. Again I'm leaving it right there. I've been talking with Republicans, and they said if Joe Rogan tweets about this, that the President will hear it, And I can't overstate the significance of that." (Why hasn't Rogan already done that? No excuse. Fox has been on Rogan and I'm sure he has Joe's contact information. Make it happen.) Fox: "We need people. We're not asking for money, we're not asking to get on your show, we're just asking, Mr. President, please, as many people as possible, release the files that should not be associated with national security. And that's the alien or non-human sentient beings. That's it." ~~~ (I'm going to speculate on what Grusch may have said in that room.) Fox: "I think it had an extremely profound impact on [Grusch's] life when he saw this evidence that he described." (Grusch has said he started out as a skeptic when he started looking into this. If he was shown what he felt were photos of non-human bodies, I think that might be enough to have an, "extremely profound impact on his life." Depending on exactly what those photos showed, of course.) In "Moment of Contact," Eric Davis had this exchange with Fox: James Fox: "Put me wherever you were when you got to see photographs of crash retrieval and documents. What did that feel like?" Dr. Eric Davis: "That was startling, when I actually see recorded evidence with my own eyes. Photographs, reports, and whatnot. That took it to a higher level, that kicked it up several notches of reality. And that made it very clear that this reality is very hard, very physical, very real. "And this type of evidence, you can't come by in the open literature, it's not public, it's classified. And I can't discuss what it was, but I can tell you, yeah, it's a crash retrieval, there's a craft, and there's alien bodies. That's all I can say about it." Fox: "You swear on your life that you saw those pictures?" Davis: "Oh, I swear on my life, and everybody's...my children's life, so (laughs). Yeah, I'm absolutely telling you the truth. I saw the evidence, and it's stark! I can't tell you the exact number, because it's classified, but I'll just say, there's a few dozen total retrievals." Full exchange with video... ~~~ As I said in my other post, I think Davis, Semivan, Puthoff, Kelleher, Grusch, Lacatski, Stratton, aka The AAWSAP Gang (I just made that up), may have seen the same evidence of photos and reports. Has Grusch seen more than that? I don't know. In 2025, Davis said this... Burlison: "Can you comment on whatever species have been piloting these craft? Are they largish? Are they multiple species? What was their size, and how many are usually on a craft?" Davis: "They're typically the multiple species people are familiar with. The Greys, the Nordics. People have talked about Reptilians and Insectoids. It's not that they're Reptilian or Insectoid, it's that they resemble, to the participant, a reptile, or insect type. A humanoid, because they have this...a hand, and four limbs, and a torso, so..." Burlison: "Large? Small?" Davis: "Human size, human scale." Burlison: "How many are in a crew?" Davis: "Well, the group, well, the Greys I'm familiar with from investigating the crash at Corona, which is misnamed the crash at Roswell. It's not the crash at Roswell, it's the crash at Corona, New Mexico. Those were Greys, those were four-foot tall. And the Nordics are typically human-sized, probably...I've heard five, six-feet tall. And same with the people who mislabel Reptilian and Insectoid. They're roughly that height, too. I haven't heard anything about anything seven or eight feet or nine-foot tall, of that nature." Full post with video... ~ And this past Sunday, Davis said this to The Good Trouble Show with Matt Ford... Davis: "I can say to you guys that there are a minimum of four different alien species. The credibility of that ranges on the spectrum from no credibility to high credibility. The high credibility is the classified part." Full post: My Final Thoughts (Based on everything Davis has shared, it seems he saw classified photos of what appeared to him to be non-human craft and photos that appeared to show dead non-humans (bodies) with enough detail that he could see that some resembled reptiles and others resembled insects. Were there also photos of Greys and beings that looked human (Nordic)? I don't know. These images of non-humans would fall into what Davis deemed "high credibility" and "the classified part.") Davis: "I saw the evidence, and it's stark!" (If Davis saw close-up photos that showed details of beings that looked like Reptilians and Mantids, I'd say that qualifies as stark!) Back to what Fox said... Fox: "Then, what Mr. Grusch revealed to all of us, what he had seen with his own eyes, left the room speechless. It drew the oxygen out of the room. I looked at everybody in that room, and their eyeballs were popping out. My jaw was on the floor. Like, I simply couldn't believe what he'd seen with his own eyes." (I think what caused that reaction was Grusch describing seeing close-up photos of different types of non-human beings. Maybe.) However, Fox also said this: "...if you can imagine, if you know about 'Moment of Contact,' that involves captured non-human intelligent beings (This is the Varginha, Brazil case. ~Joe). Think about that for a minute. Think about that case. I heard it out of his mouth, and I can tell you, I was in the room." (The biggest CLAIM in that film and from that case is that a live, non-human being was captured and that Dr. Italo saw video of it, and then stood next to it for a few minutes when it was in the hospital, in a bed, being cared for by another doctor. Did Grusch say he saw evidence (photos or videos) of a live being that appeared to be non-human? Joe Rogan asked him that in his November 2023 interview... Grusch: "Once you realize the phenomenon's real, then you realize we've recovered artifacts and, you know, biologics or, you know, dead pilots, if you will, even though it's kind of creepy to think about in your world view. You don't think they were ever, you know, alive sometimes, too, right? And I'll leave it at that, only because, you know, that is something the President and his cabinet need to disclose this in a controlled manner." (He was either hinting that he's seen them alive or that them being alive and on this planet is a huge deal and not his responsibility to announce. I think it's the latter.) Rogan: "Are there discussions of interactions with live beings?" Grusch: "Uhh, there was some water-cooler talk about that kind of thing." Rogan: "But that's it?" Grusch: "But, you know, I don't even wanna get into it because it's like, uh, there was some details provided to me but it's like, it's secondary and I don't know if that's like, the telephone game and I don't know if it was hyperbolized in any way...um, you know, in the break room, so to speak. So I just... I'm so anal about making sure what I say is accurate...I don't, you know, I don't know." (Based on what he said there, it seems like he has NOT seen any evidence of live beings. If he now comes out and says that he has, it will seem like a flip flop. So, I'm gonna go with Grusch said he saw photos of non-human bodies and they were of the different types/species that Dr. Eric Davis referenced. One more flashback to what Davis said in that public, congressional briefing in May of 2025.) Davis: "It's not that they're Reptilian or Insectoid, it's that they resemble, to the participant, a reptile, or insect type." (That sounds like someone who has seen exactly what they look like, via photos.) Final point... "Examine biological evidence of living or deceased non-human intelligence." ~Burlison Proposed Legislation (That language was in the original UAPD Disclosure Act co-sponsored by Senators Schumer and Rounds, and four other senators. Why put that language in there if you haven't heard credible reports of living or deceased (bodies) non-human intelligence? Are there stories of living, non-humans on this planet? Yes, and I'll leave you with one of them.) ) (Just to make it clear: I think Grusch will say that he saw clear photos of different types of non-human bodies and some looked like reptiles and others looked like insects. It would be amazing to hear Grusch say he saw video or film of living beings, but I don't expect that. However...this still bothers me... Would Grusch describing seeing photos of craft and different kinds of dead aliens leave veteran-of-the-UFO-field, James Fox, with his jaw on the floor? I guess we're gonna see. And hopefully soon.)
4:25

👽 Did Grusch See Footage of Live Aliens? 👽 "Grusch has seen evidence that will leave you slack-jawed when you hear it." ~JF 😶 What Left Congress Speechless, and Staffers with Their Eyes Popping Out of Their Heads? 😱 ~ "Examine biological evidence of living or deceased non-human intelligence." ~Burlison Proposed Legislation (I'm gonna break all of this down and give you my speculation on what left Fox with his jaw on the floor, members of Congress speechless, and their senior staffers with their eyes popping out of their heads.) ~ James Fox: " Probably about two weeks ago (late May), we were having meetings on The Hill with members of Congress. We brought in a PR firm, 42 West, and we were having a meeting with staff members, bipartisan. We had Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Rep. Tim Burchett Press Office, Rep. Eric Burlison. We had a representative from Congressman Jared Moskowitz's office. We had a number of Chiefs of Staff (top staffer for a specific member of Congress), like, present." (Don't really know why they needed a public relations firm in attendance, but if it helps them with advice on how to handle this, so be it. Just know: it appears like members of that PR firm know what Grusch said, and we don't.) Fox: "And, I can't reveal what was said. I thought it was gonna be said at the actual event that we had yesterday (June 9th) in DC with Mr. Grusch." (Don't be mad at Fox for keeping his word to Grusch and not sharing what was said in that private meeting. But I don't blame people for being annoyed that Grusch shared this information six or so weeks ago and we still don't know what he said in that room.) Fox: "Then, what Mr. Grusch revealed to all of us, what he had seen with his own eyes, left the room speechless. It drew the oxygen out of the room. I looked at everybody in that room, and their eyeballs were popping out. My jaw was on the floor. Like, I simply couldn't believe what he'd seen with his own eyes. Like, I can't wait for it to come out. "So I asked Mr. Grusch today, 'Can I talk about what I heard?' And he's like, 'No, but I will be addressing it very soon.'" (Like I said, it's almost been one month now (June 12) since Fox said this, so what does "very soon" mean? Was Grusch supposed to share this information on CNN with Jake Tapper last week but it didn't happen because that interview was, reportedly (Fox told us), postponed?) Fox: "So that's where we stand right now. But I can tell you, Mr. Grusch has seen evidence that will leave you slack-jawed when you hear it. It's coming, it's coming." (We heard that Gruch's Op/Ed was coming soon and that was 2.5 years ago. It never happened. So, I don't blame people for being skeptical about this. If Grusch hasn't told us by this time next week, I propose someone (a member of Congress) who was in that room just tell us. That's fair, right? Total transparency from our elected representatives?) ~ Fox: "Mr. Grusch is legitimately concerned about his personal safety. He's coming out with it, I promise you, this is coming out. He assured me today that he will address this issue to the general public very soon, in the near future." (I'm glad Grusch told a room full of people what he saw, as that may offer him some protection from people who allegedly want him to stop talking.) Fox: "So I can't speak to what he's gonna say, but I'm just telling you from what I heard out of his mouth, sitting in an office of a member of Congress? And everybody (Fox laughs) in the room, you could have heard a pin drop." Clayton Morris: "Could you give us a hint? Is it related to craft? Can you maybe dance around it a little bit? I want to say, 'You're killing me, Smalls (laughs).'" Fox: "Yeah, so if you can imagine, if you know about 'Moment of Contact,' that involves captured non-human intelligent beings. Think about that for a minute. Think about that case. I heard it out of his mouth, and I can tell you, I was in the room. And I looked around the room, and I'm looking at these young, like, guys in their 20s, you know, the staff guys? And their eyeballs were popping out of their head. My jaw was on the floor. I couldn't believe it." (There's a reason why I included that quote (living or deceased non-human intelligence) from the new Burlison/Carson/Crane legislation at the top of this tweet: At the very least, I'm confident Grusch told them that he saw photos of dead non-human beings. Bodies. But what about evidence of LIVING non-humans, aka aliens of unknown origin? More on that at the end. Fox: "My jaw was on the floor. I couldn't believe it." (Would Grusch saying he saw photos of craft and dead non-humans have that type of effect on Fox? Seems like that's something he would have expected to hear.) ~ Fox: "It was an [out of] body experience when I heard that. But I can tell you...the impression I got, was that he felt a little more protected to talk about this because of President Trump's directive to release the files, and that this... Again, this is my speculation, okay? This is not what Mr. Grusch said. "I got the impression that he was much more relaxed - even though he was still not fully relaxed - because of President Trump's directive to release these files. And that it was something that he had seen during his official investigations just within the last few years." (Imagine how much more relaxed Grusch (and others) would feel if we had an actual Executive Order from Trump with strong language to protect whistleblowers?) Fox: "And that it...I think it had an extremely profound impact on his life when he saw this evidence that he described. Again I'm leaving it right there. I've been talking with Republicans, and they said if Joe Rogan tweets about this, that the President will hear it, And I can't overstate the significance of that." (Why hasn't Rogan already done that? No excuse. Fox has been on Rogan and I'm sure he has Joe's contact information. Make it happen.) Fox: "We need people. We're not asking for money, we're not asking to get on your show, we're just asking, Mr. President, please, as many people as possible, release the files that should not be associated with national security. And that's the alien or non-human sentient beings. That's it." ~~~ (I'm going to speculate on what Grusch may have said in that room.) Fox: "I think it had an extremely profound impact on [Grusch's] life when he saw this evidence that he described." (Grusch has said he started out as a skeptic when he started looking into this. If he was shown what he felt were photos of non-human bodies, I think that might be enough to have an, "extremely profound impact on his life." Depending on exactly what those photos showed, of course.) In "Moment of Contact," Eric Davis had this exchange with Fox: James Fox: "Put me wherever you were when you got to see photographs of crash retrieval and documents. What did that feel like?" Dr. Eric Davis: "That was startling, when I actually see recorded evidence with my own eyes. Photographs, reports, and whatnot. That took it to a higher level, that kicked it up several notches of reality. And that made it very clear that this reality is very hard, very physical, very real. "And this type of evidence, you can't come by in the open literature, it's not public, it's classified. And I can't discuss what it was, but I can tell you, yeah, it's a crash retrieval, there's a craft, and there's alien bodies. That's all I can say about it." Fox: "You swear on your life that you saw those pictures?" Davis: "Oh, I swear on my life, and everybody's...my children's life, so (laughs). Yeah, I'm absolutely telling you the truth. I saw the evidence, and it's stark! I can't tell you the exact number, because it's classified, but I'll just say, there's a few dozen total retrievals." Full exchange with video... ~~~ As I said in my other post, I think Davis, Semivan, Puthoff, Kelleher, Grusch, Lacatski, Stratton, aka The AAWSAP Gang (I just made that up), may have seen the same evidence of photos and reports. Has Grusch seen more than that? I don't know. In 2025, Davis said this... Burlison: "Can you comment on whatever species have been piloting these craft? Are they largish? Are they multiple species? What was their size, and how many are usually on a craft?" Davis: "They're typically the multiple species people are familiar with. The Greys, the Nordics. People have talked about Reptilians and Insectoids. It's not that they're Reptilian or Insectoid, it's that they resemble, to the participant, a reptile, or insect type. A humanoid, because they have this...a hand, and four limbs, and a torso, so..." Burlison: "Large? Small?" Davis: "Human size, human scale." Burlison: "How many are in a crew?" Davis: "Well, the group, well, the Greys I'm familiar with from investigating the crash at Corona, which is misnamed the crash at Roswell. It's not the crash at Roswell, it's the crash at Corona, New Mexico. Those were Greys, those were four-foot tall. And the Nordics are typically human-sized, probably...I've heard five, six-feet tall. And same with the people who mislabel Reptilian and Insectoid. They're roughly that height, too. I haven't heard anything about anything seven or eight feet or nine-foot tall, of that nature." Full post with video... ~ And this past Sunday, Davis said this to The Good Trouble Show with Matt Ford... Davis: "I can say to you guys that there are a minimum of four different alien species. The credibility of that ranges on the spectrum from no credibility to high credibility. The high credibility is the classified part." Full post: My Final Thoughts (Based on everything Davis has shared, it seems he saw classified photos of what appeared to him to be non-human craft and photos that appeared to show dead non-humans (bodies) with enough detail that he could see that some resembled reptiles and others resembled insects. Were there also photos of Greys and beings that looked human (Nordic)? I don't know. These images of non-humans would fall into what Davis deemed "high credibility" and "the classified part.") Davis: "I saw the evidence, and it's stark!" (If Davis saw close-up photos that showed details of beings that looked like Reptilians and Mantids, I'd say that qualifies as stark!) Back to what Fox said... Fox: "Then, what Mr. Grusch revealed to all of us, what he had seen with his own eyes, left the room speechless. It drew the oxygen out of the room. I looked at everybody in that room, and their eyeballs were popping out. My jaw was on the floor. Like, I simply couldn't believe what he'd seen with his own eyes." (I think what caused that reaction was Grusch describing seeing close-up photos of different types of non-human beings. Maybe.) However, Fox also said this: "...if you can imagine, if you know about 'Moment of Contact,' that involves captured non-human intelligent beings (This is the Varginha, Brazil case. ~Joe). Think about that for a minute. Think about that case. I heard it out of his mouth, and I can tell you, I was in the room." (The biggest CLAIM in that film and from that case is that a live, non-human being was captured and that Dr. Italo saw video of it, and then stood next to it for a few minutes when it was in the hospital, in a bed, being cared for by another doctor. Did Grusch say he saw evidence (photos or videos) of a live being that appeared to be non-human? Joe Rogan asked him that in his November 2023 interview... Grusch: "Once you realize the phenomenon's real, then you realize we've recovered artifacts and, you know, biologics or, you know, dead pilots, if you will, even though it's kind of creepy to think about in your world view. You don't think they were ever, you know, alive sometimes, too, right? And I'll leave it at that, only because, you know, that is something the President and his cabinet need to disclose this in a controlled manner." (He was either hinting that he's seen them alive or that them being alive and on this planet is a huge deal and not his responsibility to announce. I think it's the latter.) Rogan: "Are there discussions of interactions with live beings?" Grusch: "Uhh, there was some water-cooler talk about that kind of thing." Rogan: "But that's it?" Grusch: "But, you know, I don't even wanna get into it because it's like, uh, there was some details provided to me but it's like, it's secondary and I don't know if that's like, the telephone game and I don't know if it was hyperbolized in any way...um, you know, in the break room, so to speak. So I just... I'm so anal about making sure what I say is accurate...I don't, you know, I don't know." (Based on what he said there, it seems like he has NOT seen any evidence of live beings. If he now comes out and says that he has, it will seem like a flip flop. So, I'm gonna go with Grusch said he saw photos of non-human bodies and they were of the different types/species that Dr. Eric Davis referenced. One more flashback to what Davis said in that public, congressional briefing in May of 2025.) Davis: "It's not that they're Reptilian or Insectoid, it's that they resemble, to the participant, a reptile, or insect type." (That sounds like someone who has seen exactly what they look like, via photos.) Final point... "Examine biological evidence of living or deceased non-human intelligence." ~Burlison Proposed Legislation (That language was in the original UAPD Disclosure Act co-sponsored by Senators Schumer and Rounds, and four other senators. Why put that language in there if you haven't heard credible reports of living or deceased (bodies) non-human intelligence? Are there stories of living, non-humans on this planet? Yes, and I'll leave you with one of them.) ) (Just to make it clear: I think Grusch will say that he saw clear photos of different types of non-human bodies and some looked like reptiles and others looked like insects. It would be amazing to hear Grusch say he saw video or film of living beings, but I don't expect that. However...this still bothers me... Would Grusch describing seeing photos of craft and different kinds of dead aliens leave veteran-of-the-UFO-field, James Fox, with his jaw on the floor? I guess we're gonna see. And hopefully soon.)

Joe Murgia

168,599 views • 27 days ago

‘Doctor Death’ Gives Life to Gold Mines Dave Fennell chain-smoked and studied law while winning 6 Grey Cups. He sent 3 quarterbacks to the hospital in one game, becoming 'Dr. Death' and a household name in Canada. Next Dave turned to gold exploration, building 5 ventures worth ~$5 billion. He's never shared his story publicly—until now. After dominating football, Dave Fennell's Midas touch in Guyana could lead to his greatest victory. Mining legends Louis Gignac, Rick Rule and others weigh in. "I was capable of playing very violently," recalls Fennell. "If you're going to survive as a defensive lineman. The people who are opposite you, have to be afraid of you." He played 10 seasons for the Edmonton Eskimos (renamed Elks in ‘21), appearing in 8 Grey Cups (Canada’s Super Bowl). The Eskimos won 6, including 5 in a row 1978-1982. Fennell, who turned 71 Feb 4, is chain smoking Marlboros on a Zoom call with me Feb 5. He’s reflecting on a career that spans beyond the gridiron to golden ventures. His resume includes co-founding Golden Star (US $467M sale in ‘22) and Miramar ($1.5B sale in ‘08). Fennell was a tenured director of Sabina ($1.1B sale in ‘23) and Torex ($1.2B market cap). His Reunion Gold ($485M market cap) has rapidly discovered a major gold deposit after setbacks. Fennell's sons picked up his drive too. David Jr. played Michigan State football then turned engineer. John raced luge at the Sochi Winter Olympics, now he's a corporate analyst. – Raised in a middle-class Edmonton, Alberta family, Fennell was the second of four children. “I was taught very early on, you're not allowed to quit when you start something. It was not acceptable.” He completed a 4 year undergrad degree at U of North Dakota in 3 years. Fennell could have gone to the NFL, but chose to stay in Edmonton, joining the Eskimos on the condition he’d also go to law school. It's hard to imagine a pro athlete smoking, studying law, and winning six championships today. But Dave Fennell did it all. He planned to play pro for 10 seasons, and wondered, “What do you do when the cheering stops?” Joining a law firm next, the bosses leveraged his "Dr. Death" fame for networking. Fennell recalls, “They loved taking me to the Petroleum Club on Mondays.” His law practice worked with many small miners. After three years and a Guyana field trip, Fennell decided to get into gold mining himself. At 32, Fennell founded Golden Star Resources (GSR). He partnered with Roger Morton, a U of Alberta geology professor, to explore Guyana. GSR spent $20K staking the forgotten Omai gold deposit. “It was open ground.” Anaconda Copper explored Omai extensively in the late 1940s but stopped when the Korean War began. Secrets of the Anaconda Library A private detective helped Fennell find Anaconda’s geological data. They learned of a cavernous library in Montana, holding 100 years of records. A librarian, just laid off, liked Fennell and sold him the Guyana files for $30K. GSR hired SNC Lavalin, with their top supercomputer, to process this historical information. It showed a big potential mine. Placer Dome partnered on Omai in ‘87, before walking away. Fennell didn't give up. He invited Louis Gignac’s Cambior to visit Omai during a 3 day rainstorm. Cambior ended up funding construction for a 70% stake. It produced 3.7 million gold ounces from 92-05. Renowned mining investor Rick Rule says Fennell is easy to underestimate. "The physicality obscures a great intellect and a guy that's actually very kind. He's the classic entrepreneur. When he sees an opportunity, he can't not grasp it.” Next, GSR pursued Cambior to partner in Suriname. “If I had a mine each time someone told me a story about a property, I'd be a very rich man,” Gignac says. GSR’s Rosebel discovery was in region reeling after Suriname’s civil war. “David, why don’t you settle down, get married, do something easier than this,” Gignac advised him. Fennell persisted, inviting Gignac to tour Rosebel. It poured rain again on that trip, which Gignac saw as a good omen after Omai’s success. Cambior eventually built the mine. Rosebel became one of South America’s largest, yielding over 6 million ounces. Today, it’s operated by Zijin. GSR stock jumped 600% in the early '90s thanks to these wins. Investor Mike Halvorson says GSR’s work in the Guianas and Suriname put the area on the map for mining. “Back in those days, from a political point of view, it was considered high-risk to go into the Guianas,” Gignac remembers. “It took a lot of guts for [Fennell] to get involved, and a lot of guts to follow him there. We eventually mined about twice the [initial] reserves at Omai. By doing Omai, it was that much easier to do Rosebel. We were comfortable with the region and its people. There's a lot of advantages in these countries. It's simpler. Decision makers are easier to know and be in contact with.” Halvorson remembers Fennell throwing a 'chirping' analyst into a pool on one Suriname stay. The guy skipped on the water like a stone. Fennell and Halvorson connected in Edmonton in the 1980s through their love of migratory bird hunting. “Anything that walks, flies or swims, Dave has killed,” says mining engineer Bruce McLeod, who hunts and fishes with Fennell. A massive Anaconda snake skin once adorned the crown mouldings in Fennell’s Montreal offices. At 41, Fennell lucked out as the sole bidder for Sigrist House, once King Edward VIII's Bahamian villa. Fennell lived there 28 years before downsizing. In the late 90’s, Fennell clashed with GSR's board and was pushed out. Later, GSR refocused on Africa and was sold to a Chinese company. To avoid GSR conflicts, Fennell eyed new gold regions. BHP's Hugo Dummett offered him all their gold assets for $80 million. But with few flush bidders, BHP sold the portfolio in pieces. Ivanhoe got Mongolia and discovered Oyu Tolgoi. Randgold took West Africa, and Harmony got East Africa. "If you'd have kept that package together, it'd be the second largest copper company [today]. And you'd be arguing with Newmont about who was the biggest gold company," Fennell says. He bought the Canadian assets for US $20.4 million. It had Hope Bay, a 4 million ounce gold discovery in the high arctic. Fennell dealt through Cambiex Exploration (CBX), where he’d been appointed Chair and CEO in January ‘99, when CBX was a 15 cent stock with a $3.5 million market cap. CBX split the tab with Miramar, a modest gold miner sitting on cash. Miramar swallowed CBX in 2002, appointing Fennell Executive Vice Chairman. Miramar invested about $100 million in Hope Bay and led it through permitting. In 2008, Newmont bought Miramar for $1.5 billion. Every $1 invested in CBX’s equity funding when Fennell took over in early ‘99 was worth $19.50 when Newmont acquired Miramar 9 years later. CBX shareholders made even more money through a spinout company, Ariane Gold, acquired by Cambior in ‘03. Rob McLeod, a geologist at Hope Bay, admired Fennell's strong presence, humour, and optimism. Fennell built bonds with Inuit partners through fishing and Crib games, easing the permitting process. Fennell would need that optimism for his next venture. – In 2004, Fennell listed Nevada explorer New Sleeper. A name change to Reunion Gold (RGD) came in 2006, after recruiting former GSR colleagues and pivoting again to the Giuanas. The stock ran from 30 cents to over $2 in early ‘07 on the back of a Suriname gold find. It didn’t pan out. RGD crashed to 3.5 cents during the ‘08 financial crisis. “When you take your shareholder's money and you say you're going to do this, and if it's not successful, my job is to fix that and I'm not going to roll all the stock back. I'm not going to wipe shareholders out,” Fennell says, explaining RGD’s current 1.23 billion shares. Reunion roared back above $2 again after a Guyana manganese discovery. Then, metal prices crashed, cutting RGD to one penny by 2016. “You're going to fail a hundred percent guaranteed in both exploration and football,” Fennell says. “The real question is, what are you going to do after you fail?” A US $10 million sale of the manganese project provided a lifeline. In 2019, Barrick partnered with Reunion on exploration, committing $4.2 million. Reunion was a 7 cent stock in 2020 when they found gold at Guyana’s Oko project. But, Barrick quickly abandoned the alliance and skipped a $3 million commitment. They even sued Reunion after Oko's success. In 2023, Barrick and RGD settled, owing nothing to each other. Oko moved from a prospect to a major gold deposit rapidly. An initial 2023 resource estimate showed 4.3 million ounces (indicated plus inferred). Fennell believes Oko could be the best gold mine in South America. He sees a 300--400,000 ounce per year, low-cost mine, with a 12 year initial mine life. "It’s going to be much bigger and longer,” Fennell says, optimistically. “Whether we're going to live longer is a whole different question." Reunion aims to publish a PEA study on Oko before Summer. Fennell also looks forward to a feasibility study and final permits in Q1 2015, with construction to start soon after. "From a discovery to a tier one mine in [potentially] six years, it doesn't get any better," Fennell says. He’s in Georgetown this week, talking with the Guyanese government about Oko's future. Reunion’s looking at options: build, sell, merge, or partner up. Fennell wants RGD to avoid execution risk and debt. G Mining Services, led by Fennell's old friend Gignac, is advising on Oko. They've successfully built many mines, like Fruta del Norte in Ecuador (Lundin Gold - $3.7B market cap). Gignac's G Mining Ventures, doing well and on track in Brazil, could be a key player in Oko's future. “There will be a mine [at Oko]. There's absolutely no question,” says Gignac. “The size, grade, and gold content. That's going to be the next one to put on his record.” There’s a slight problem with Venezuela’s claim over Guyana’s Essequibo region, where Oko is. Fennell isn't worried. He says the US will protect it because of Exxon and Chevron’s huge oil investments there. Gignac says Fennell hasn't changed since they first met in the late 80s. "Always glass half-full, always enthusiastic. A track record as good as anybody at finding deals, doing exploration, and developing orebodies." Fennell is honest and a consummate salesman according to Rule. “I don't think in 35 years he ever lied to me, but he would polish the living shit out of the rear view mirror.” Some colourful highlights of my 2 hour Zoom with Mr. Fennell were published in raw video form below. It’s full of wisdom about gold exploration and football. “David is one of the most low key and commercially successful entrepreneurs in [mining],” Bruce McLeod wrote. “He has played a huge part in mentoring others too. Without David I wouldn't be where I am today.” Fennell says, "We always overcome challenges. I never give up." Reunion Gold (RGD-TSXV) is worth $485 million at press time, last at 39.5 cents. Fennell owns 61 million RGD shares. He has warrants and options to purchase 12.6 million more. B. McLeod, Rule & Halvorson all own the stock. All figures CAD unless otherwise indicated. Like, Share, & Follow me Tommy Humphreys for more Big Score stories!
7:45

‘Doctor Death’ Gives Life to Gold Mines Dave Fennell chain-smoked and studied law while winning 6 Grey Cups. He sent 3 quarterbacks to the hospital in one game, becoming 'Dr. Death' and a household name in Canada. Next Dave turned to gold exploration, building 5 ventures worth ~$5 billion. He's never shared his story publicly—until now. After dominating football, Dave Fennell's Midas touch in Guyana could lead to his greatest victory. Mining legends Louis Gignac, Rick Rule and others weigh in. "I was capable of playing very violently," recalls Fennell. "If you're going to survive as a defensive lineman. The people who are opposite you, have to be afraid of you." He played 10 seasons for the Edmonton Eskimos (renamed Elks in ‘21), appearing in 8 Grey Cups (Canada’s Super Bowl). The Eskimos won 6, including 5 in a row 1978-1982. Fennell, who turned 71 Feb 4, is chain smoking Marlboros on a Zoom call with me Feb 5. He’s reflecting on a career that spans beyond the gridiron to golden ventures. His resume includes co-founding Golden Star (US $467M sale in ‘22) and Miramar ($1.5B sale in ‘08). Fennell was a tenured director of Sabina ($1.1B sale in ‘23) and Torex ($1.2B market cap). His Reunion Gold ($485M market cap) has rapidly discovered a major gold deposit after setbacks. Fennell's sons picked up his drive too. David Jr. played Michigan State football then turned engineer. John raced luge at the Sochi Winter Olympics, now he's a corporate analyst. – Raised in a middle-class Edmonton, Alberta family, Fennell was the second of four children. “I was taught very early on, you're not allowed to quit when you start something. It was not acceptable.” He completed a 4 year undergrad degree at U of North Dakota in 3 years. Fennell could have gone to the NFL, but chose to stay in Edmonton, joining the Eskimos on the condition he’d also go to law school. It's hard to imagine a pro athlete smoking, studying law, and winning six championships today. But Dave Fennell did it all. He planned to play pro for 10 seasons, and wondered, “What do you do when the cheering stops?” Joining a law firm next, the bosses leveraged his "Dr. Death" fame for networking. Fennell recalls, “They loved taking me to the Petroleum Club on Mondays.” His law practice worked with many small miners. After three years and a Guyana field trip, Fennell decided to get into gold mining himself. At 32, Fennell founded Golden Star Resources (GSR). He partnered with Roger Morton, a U of Alberta geology professor, to explore Guyana. GSR spent $20K staking the forgotten Omai gold deposit. “It was open ground.” Anaconda Copper explored Omai extensively in the late 1940s but stopped when the Korean War began. Secrets of the Anaconda Library A private detective helped Fennell find Anaconda’s geological data. They learned of a cavernous library in Montana, holding 100 years of records. A librarian, just laid off, liked Fennell and sold him the Guyana files for $30K. GSR hired SNC Lavalin, with their top supercomputer, to process this historical information. It showed a big potential mine. Placer Dome partnered on Omai in ‘87, before walking away. Fennell didn't give up. He invited Louis Gignac’s Cambior to visit Omai during a 3 day rainstorm. Cambior ended up funding construction for a 70% stake. It produced 3.7 million gold ounces from 92-05. Renowned mining investor Rick Rule says Fennell is easy to underestimate. "The physicality obscures a great intellect and a guy that's actually very kind. He's the classic entrepreneur. When he sees an opportunity, he can't not grasp it.” Next, GSR pursued Cambior to partner in Suriname. “If I had a mine each time someone told me a story about a property, I'd be a very rich man,” Gignac says. GSR’s Rosebel discovery was in region reeling after Suriname’s civil war. “David, why don’t you settle down, get married, do something easier than this,” Gignac advised him. Fennell persisted, inviting Gignac to tour Rosebel. It poured rain again on that trip, which Gignac saw as a good omen after Omai’s success. Cambior eventually built the mine. Rosebel became one of South America’s largest, yielding over 6 million ounces. Today, it’s operated by Zijin. GSR stock jumped 600% in the early '90s thanks to these wins. Investor Mike Halvorson says GSR’s work in the Guianas and Suriname put the area on the map for mining. “Back in those days, from a political point of view, it was considered high-risk to go into the Guianas,” Gignac remembers. “It took a lot of guts for [Fennell] to get involved, and a lot of guts to follow him there. We eventually mined about twice the [initial] reserves at Omai. By doing Omai, it was that much easier to do Rosebel. We were comfortable with the region and its people. There's a lot of advantages in these countries. It's simpler. Decision makers are easier to know and be in contact with.” Halvorson remembers Fennell throwing a 'chirping' analyst into a pool on one Suriname stay. The guy skipped on the water like a stone. Fennell and Halvorson connected in Edmonton in the 1980s through their love of migratory bird hunting. “Anything that walks, flies or swims, Dave has killed,” says mining engineer Bruce McLeod, who hunts and fishes with Fennell. A massive Anaconda snake skin once adorned the crown mouldings in Fennell’s Montreal offices. At 41, Fennell lucked out as the sole bidder for Sigrist House, once King Edward VIII's Bahamian villa. Fennell lived there 28 years before downsizing. In the late 90’s, Fennell clashed with GSR's board and was pushed out. Later, GSR refocused on Africa and was sold to a Chinese company. To avoid GSR conflicts, Fennell eyed new gold regions. BHP's Hugo Dummett offered him all their gold assets for $80 million. But with few flush bidders, BHP sold the portfolio in pieces. Ivanhoe got Mongolia and discovered Oyu Tolgoi. Randgold took West Africa, and Harmony got East Africa. "If you'd have kept that package together, it'd be the second largest copper company [today]. And you'd be arguing with Newmont about who was the biggest gold company," Fennell says. He bought the Canadian assets for US $20.4 million. It had Hope Bay, a 4 million ounce gold discovery in the high arctic. Fennell dealt through Cambiex Exploration (CBX), where he’d been appointed Chair and CEO in January ‘99, when CBX was a 15 cent stock with a $3.5 million market cap. CBX split the tab with Miramar, a modest gold miner sitting on cash. Miramar swallowed CBX in 2002, appointing Fennell Executive Vice Chairman. Miramar invested about $100 million in Hope Bay and led it through permitting. In 2008, Newmont bought Miramar for $1.5 billion. Every $1 invested in CBX’s equity funding when Fennell took over in early ‘99 was worth $19.50 when Newmont acquired Miramar 9 years later. CBX shareholders made even more money through a spinout company, Ariane Gold, acquired by Cambior in ‘03. Rob McLeod, a geologist at Hope Bay, admired Fennell's strong presence, humour, and optimism. Fennell built bonds with Inuit partners through fishing and Crib games, easing the permitting process. Fennell would need that optimism for his next venture. – In 2004, Fennell listed Nevada explorer New Sleeper. A name change to Reunion Gold (RGD) came in 2006, after recruiting former GSR colleagues and pivoting again to the Giuanas. The stock ran from 30 cents to over $2 in early ‘07 on the back of a Suriname gold find. It didn’t pan out. RGD crashed to 3.5 cents during the ‘08 financial crisis. “When you take your shareholder's money and you say you're going to do this, and if it's not successful, my job is to fix that and I'm not going to roll all the stock back. I'm not going to wipe shareholders out,” Fennell says, explaining RGD’s current 1.23 billion shares. Reunion roared back above $2 again after a Guyana manganese discovery. Then, metal prices crashed, cutting RGD to one penny by 2016. “You're going to fail a hundred percent guaranteed in both exploration and football,” Fennell says. “The real question is, what are you going to do after you fail?” A US $10 million sale of the manganese project provided a lifeline. In 2019, Barrick partnered with Reunion on exploration, committing $4.2 million. Reunion was a 7 cent stock in 2020 when they found gold at Guyana’s Oko project. But, Barrick quickly abandoned the alliance and skipped a $3 million commitment. They even sued Reunion after Oko's success. In 2023, Barrick and RGD settled, owing nothing to each other. Oko moved from a prospect to a major gold deposit rapidly. An initial 2023 resource estimate showed 4.3 million ounces (indicated plus inferred). Fennell believes Oko could be the best gold mine in South America. He sees a 300--400,000 ounce per year, low-cost mine, with a 12 year initial mine life. "It’s going to be much bigger and longer,” Fennell says, optimistically. “Whether we're going to live longer is a whole different question." Reunion aims to publish a PEA study on Oko before Summer. Fennell also looks forward to a feasibility study and final permits in Q1 2015, with construction to start soon after. "From a discovery to a tier one mine in [potentially] six years, it doesn't get any better," Fennell says. He’s in Georgetown this week, talking with the Guyanese government about Oko's future. Reunion’s looking at options: build, sell, merge, or partner up. Fennell wants RGD to avoid execution risk and debt. G Mining Services, led by Fennell's old friend Gignac, is advising on Oko. They've successfully built many mines, like Fruta del Norte in Ecuador (Lundin Gold - $3.7B market cap). Gignac's G Mining Ventures, doing well and on track in Brazil, could be a key player in Oko's future. “There will be a mine [at Oko]. There's absolutely no question,” says Gignac. “The size, grade, and gold content. That's going to be the next one to put on his record.” There’s a slight problem with Venezuela’s claim over Guyana’s Essequibo region, where Oko is. Fennell isn't worried. He says the US will protect it because of Exxon and Chevron’s huge oil investments there. Gignac says Fennell hasn't changed since they first met in the late 80s. "Always glass half-full, always enthusiastic. A track record as good as anybody at finding deals, doing exploration, and developing orebodies." Fennell is honest and a consummate salesman according to Rule. “I don't think in 35 years he ever lied to me, but he would polish the living shit out of the rear view mirror.” Some colourful highlights of my 2 hour Zoom with Mr. Fennell were published in raw video form below. It’s full of wisdom about gold exploration and football. “David is one of the most low key and commercially successful entrepreneurs in [mining],” Bruce McLeod wrote. “He has played a huge part in mentoring others too. Without David I wouldn't be where I am today.” Fennell says, "We always overcome challenges. I never give up." Reunion Gold (RGD-TSXV) is worth $485 million at press time, last at 39.5 cents. Fennell owns 61 million RGD shares. He has warrants and options to purchase 12.6 million more. B. McLeod, Rule & Halvorson all own the stock. All figures CAD unless otherwise indicated. Like, Share, & Follow me Tommy Humphreys for more Big Score stories!

Tommy Humphreys

166,264 views • 2 years ago

FULL TRANSCRIPT OF ELON'S CYBERCAB AND ROBOVAN PRESENTATION 00:00 Welcome 01:16 Cybercab & Future of transportation 04:33 Cost 05:53 Timeline 07:13 Self-driving technology 10:05 Inductive charging 10:24 The cities of the future 11:04 Robovan 12:13 Optimus Welcome Welcome to the We, Robot party. We have quite a show for you tonight. I think you're going to like it. As you can see, I just arrived in the Robotaxi, the Cybercab. And there's 20 more where that came from. So they've been traveling, there's no people in them. As you can see, the car is just going by with no people. We have 50 fully autonomous cars here tonight. So you'll see model Y's and the Cybercabs, all driverless. You'll be able to take a ride in the Cybercab. There's no steering wheel or pedals. So I hope this goes well, we'll find out. You see a lot of sci-fi movies where the future is dark and dismal, where it's not a future you want to be in. So, you know, I love Blade Runner, but I don't know if we want that future. We want that duster he's wearing, but not the bleak apocalypse. We want to have a fun, exciting future that, if you could look in a crystal ball and see the future, you'd be like, yes, I wish I could be there now. That's what we want. Cybercab & Future of transportation So, when we think about transport today, there's a lot of pain that we take for granted, that we think is normal. Like having to drive around LA in 3 hours of traffic. Yeah, people that live in LA, I mean, you know, try to get from Pasadena to El Segundo during rush hour. You can fly to another city faster than you can get to LA. And you have to drive the whole way, unless you're in a Tesla. Of course, our Tesla already does quite well at this supervised self-driving. So, supervised full self-driving is actually working quite well. I'm sure there's people in the crowd who are using that. So, we'll move from supervised full self-driving to unsupervised full self-driving where the car, you could fall asleep and wake up at your destination. But there's also a challenge for a lot of people that cars cost too much. I mean, when you factor in everything that goes into a car and the car insurance and the car payments, storage of the car, it's very expensive. You say, like, how many hours a week are cars used? Your average passenger car is only used about 10 hours a week out of 168 hours. So, the vast majority of the time cars are just doing nothing. But if they're autonomous, they could be used, I don't know, five times more, maybe ten times more. So you could actually, for the same car, would have five times as much value, maybe ten times as much value. There's 168 hours in the week, and like I said, only ten of them are used for driving. And then, a bunch of those hours are looking for a parking spot, which can be pretty annoying at times. So, with autonomy, you get your time back. This is a very big deal. So it's not just, it'll save lives, like a lot of lives and prevent injuries. I think we'll see autonomous cars become ten times safer than a human. I mean, if you think of times past where there used to be an elevator operator in every elevator but once in a while, they get tired and accidentally shear somebody in half. Now, we have automated elevators. You just get an elevator and you press a button and you don't even think about it and it just takes you to the floor. And if you did see an elevator operator with a big relay switch, you'd be like, that's weird. That's how cars will be. And it's not just the lives saved in injuries, but if you think about the cumulative time that people spend in a car and the time that they will get back that they can now spend, well, I guess, on their phones or watching a movie or doing work or whatever you want to do you can think of the car in autonomous world as being like just little lounge. You're just sitting in a comfortable little lounge and you can do whatever you want while you're in this comfortable little lounge. And when you get out, you will be at your destination. So, yeah, it's gonna be awesome. Cost So, in fact, I think the cost of autonomous transport will be so low that you can think of it like individualized mass transit. The average cost of a bus per mile for a city, not the ticket price, because that is subsidized, but the average price is about a dollar a mile, whereas the cost of Cybercab we think probably over time, the operating cost is probably going to be around twenty cents a mile. Including taxes and everything else, it probably ends up being 30 or 40 cents a mile. And you will be able to buy one. And we expect the cost to be below $30,000. And I think there'll be an interesting business model where, let's say somebody is an Uber or Lyft driver today where they can actually sort of manage a fleet of cars and like, sort of manage, I don't know, 10, 20 cars and just take care of them. Like a shepherd tends their flock. You have a little flock of cars and you're the shepherd and you take care of your flock of cars. I think that would be pretty cool. I think it's going to be a glorious future. It's going to be really something special. Timeline We do expect actually to start fully autonomous unsupervised FSD in Texas and California next year. And that's obviously, that's with the Model 3 and Model Y. And then we expect to be in production with the Cybercab, which is really highly optimized for autonomous transport in probably, I tend to be a little optimistic with time frames, but in 2026. So, yeah, before 2027, let me put it that way. And we'll make this vehicle in very high volume. But well, before that, you will experience a robotic taxi via the Model 3 and Model Y program and model S and X, too. But the Model 3 and Y will achieve unsupervised full self-driving with permission, in wherever regulators essentially approve it. In the US, and then to follow outside the US. And Cybertruck, too. All our cars are basically, all cars that we make. Let's not get nuanced here. Self-driving technology One of the reasons why the computer can be so much better than a person is that we have millions of cars that are training on driving. It's like living millions of lives simultaneously and seeing very unusual situations that a person in their entire lifetime would not see. With that amount of training data, it's obviously going to be much better than what a human could be because you can't live a million lives. And it's also, it can see in all directions simultaneously and it doesn't get tired or text or any of those things. So, it will naturally be, like I said 10, 20, 30 times safer than a human, just for all those reasons. And I want to emphasize that the solution that we have is, AI and vision. So, there's no expensive equipment needed. The Model 3 and Model Y and S and X that we make today will be capable of full autonomy, unsupervised. And that means that our cost of producing the vehicle is low. Now, we are going to actually over-spec the computer for the Cybercab. So, our AI 5 computer will be somewhat over-spec'd because I think there's actually also an opportunity, sort of like an Amazon Web Services, where if the car is driving for 50 hours a week, there's still over 100 hours left and there's a potential there to have a massive amount of distributed inference compute, where if you've got like a fleet of 100 million vehicles and a kilowatt of efficient inference compute, you have 100 gigawatts of compute, which is really quite substantial. And if it's there, you might as well use it so that I think will make sense. So, our autonomous future is here. As I said, we've got 50 Teslas driving autonomously. We're trying to give you a sense of what cities will be like in the future. And when you get in, you'll see like, it's really quite a wild experience to just be in a car with no steering wheel, no pedals, no controls, and it feels great. So we have enough vehicles here, so everyone should be able to try it out and experience the set that we've built here. It's a very big set. So it's like really we've used I don't know, 20, 30 acres or something like that. It's really big. So, it goes on, the ride's long. And we set it up to feel like a ride, like a park ride. So, it'll be cool and you'll get to experience it tonight. Inductive charging Something we're also doing is and it's really high time we did this is inductive charging. So, the robotaxi has no plug. It just goes over the inductive charger and charges. So, yeah, it's kind of how it should be. The cities of the future One of the things that is really interesting is how will this affect the cities that we live in. And when you drive around a city, or when the car drives you around the city, you'll see there's a lot of parking lots. There's parking lots everywhere, parking garages. What would happen if you have an autonomous world is that you can now turn parking lots into parks. And so, from we're taking the inglot out of parking lot. You're welcome. So, there's a lot of opportunity to create green space in the cities that we live in. So, like, that would be quite fantastic. Robovan Oh, and also, what happens if you need a vehicle that is bigger than a Model Y? The Robovan. We're going to make this and it's going to look like that. Now, can you imagine going down the streets and you see this coming towards you? That'd be sick. So this can carry up to 20 people, and it can also transport goods. You can configure it for goods transport within a city. Or transport of up to 20 people at a time. The Robovan is what's gonna solve for high density. If you want to take a sports team somewhere or you're looking to really get the cost of travel down to, I don't know, 5, 10 cents a mile, then you can use the Robovan. One of the things we want to do, and we've seen this with the Cybertruck, is we want to change the look of the roads. The future should look like the future. Optimus Speaking of robots. Everything we've developed for our cars, the batteries, power electronics, the advanced motors, gearboxes, the software, the AI inference computer, it all actually applies to a humanoid robot. The same techniques. It's just a robot with arms and legs instead of a robot with wheels. We've made a lot of progress with Optimus. And as you can see, we started up with someone in a robot suit. And then, we've progressed dramatically, year after year. So, if you extrapolate this, you're really going to have something spectacular, something that anyone could own. So, you can have your own personal R2-D2-C3PO. And I think at scale, this would cost something like, I don't know, $20,000, $30,000, probably less than a car is my prediction, long-term. It'll take us a minute to get to the long term. But fundamentally, at scale, the Optimus robot, you should be able to buy an Optimus robot for, I think, probably $20,000 to $30,000, long-term. And what can it do? It'll basically do anything you want. It can be a teacher or babysit your kids, it can walk your dog, mow your lawn, get the groceries, just be your friend, serve drinks whatever you can think of, it will do. And, yeah, it's going to be awesome. I think this will be the biggest product ever of any kind, because I think everyone of the 8 billion people of Earth, I think everyone's going to want their Optimus buddy. And there's going to be maybe two. And then, they'll be producing products and services. I predict, actually, provided we address risks of digital superintelligence, 80% probability of good outcome, look on the bright side, the cup is 80% full, the cost of products and services will decline dramatically. And basically, anyone will be able to have any products and services they want. It will be an age of abundance the likes of which people have not, almost no one has envisioned. It will be something special. So now, one of the things we wanted to show tonight was that Optimus is not a canned video. It's not walled off. The Optimus robots will walk among you. Please, please be nice to the Optimus robots. You'll be able to walk right up to them and they'll serve drinks at the bar. I mean, it's a wild experience just to have humanoid robots and they're there, you're just in front of you. So yeah, with that, let's party!
15:37

FULL TRANSCRIPT OF ELON'S CYBERCAB AND ROBOVAN PRESENTATION 00:00 Welcome 01:16 Cybercab & Future of transportation 04:33 Cost 05:53 Timeline 07:13 Self-driving technology 10:05 Inductive charging 10:24 The cities of the future 11:04 Robovan 12:13 Optimus Welcome Welcome to the We, Robot party. We have quite a show for you tonight. I think you're going to like it. As you can see, I just arrived in the Robotaxi, the Cybercab. And there's 20 more where that came from. So they've been traveling, there's no people in them. As you can see, the car is just going by with no people. We have 50 fully autonomous cars here tonight. So you'll see model Y's and the Cybercabs, all driverless. You'll be able to take a ride in the Cybercab. There's no steering wheel or pedals. So I hope this goes well, we'll find out. You see a lot of sci-fi movies where the future is dark and dismal, where it's not a future you want to be in. So, you know, I love Blade Runner, but I don't know if we want that future. We want that duster he's wearing, but not the bleak apocalypse. We want to have a fun, exciting future that, if you could look in a crystal ball and see the future, you'd be like, yes, I wish I could be there now. That's what we want. Cybercab & Future of transportation So, when we think about transport today, there's a lot of pain that we take for granted, that we think is normal. Like having to drive around LA in 3 hours of traffic. Yeah, people that live in LA, I mean, you know, try to get from Pasadena to El Segundo during rush hour. You can fly to another city faster than you can get to LA. And you have to drive the whole way, unless you're in a Tesla. Of course, our Tesla already does quite well at this supervised self-driving. So, supervised full self-driving is actually working quite well. I'm sure there's people in the crowd who are using that. So, we'll move from supervised full self-driving to unsupervised full self-driving where the car, you could fall asleep and wake up at your destination. But there's also a challenge for a lot of people that cars cost too much. I mean, when you factor in everything that goes into a car and the car insurance and the car payments, storage of the car, it's very expensive. You say, like, how many hours a week are cars used? Your average passenger car is only used about 10 hours a week out of 168 hours. So, the vast majority of the time cars are just doing nothing. But if they're autonomous, they could be used, I don't know, five times more, maybe ten times more. So you could actually, for the same car, would have five times as much value, maybe ten times as much value. There's 168 hours in the week, and like I said, only ten of them are used for driving. And then, a bunch of those hours are looking for a parking spot, which can be pretty annoying at times. So, with autonomy, you get your time back. This is a very big deal. So it's not just, it'll save lives, like a lot of lives and prevent injuries. I think we'll see autonomous cars become ten times safer than a human. I mean, if you think of times past where there used to be an elevator operator in every elevator but once in a while, they get tired and accidentally shear somebody in half. Now, we have automated elevators. You just get an elevator and you press a button and you don't even think about it and it just takes you to the floor. And if you did see an elevator operator with a big relay switch, you'd be like, that's weird. That's how cars will be. And it's not just the lives saved in injuries, but if you think about the cumulative time that people spend in a car and the time that they will get back that they can now spend, well, I guess, on their phones or watching a movie or doing work or whatever you want to do you can think of the car in autonomous world as being like just little lounge. You're just sitting in a comfortable little lounge and you can do whatever you want while you're in this comfortable little lounge. And when you get out, you will be at your destination. So, yeah, it's gonna be awesome. Cost So, in fact, I think the cost of autonomous transport will be so low that you can think of it like individualized mass transit. The average cost of a bus per mile for a city, not the ticket price, because that is subsidized, but the average price is about a dollar a mile, whereas the cost of Cybercab we think probably over time, the operating cost is probably going to be around twenty cents a mile. Including taxes and everything else, it probably ends up being 30 or 40 cents a mile. And you will be able to buy one. And we expect the cost to be below $30,000. And I think there'll be an interesting business model where, let's say somebody is an Uber or Lyft driver today where they can actually sort of manage a fleet of cars and like, sort of manage, I don't know, 10, 20 cars and just take care of them. Like a shepherd tends their flock. You have a little flock of cars and you're the shepherd and you take care of your flock of cars. I think that would be pretty cool. I think it's going to be a glorious future. It's going to be really something special. Timeline We do expect actually to start fully autonomous unsupervised FSD in Texas and California next year. And that's obviously, that's with the Model 3 and Model Y. And then we expect to be in production with the Cybercab, which is really highly optimized for autonomous transport in probably, I tend to be a little optimistic with time frames, but in 2026. So, yeah, before 2027, let me put it that way. And we'll make this vehicle in very high volume. But well, before that, you will experience a robotic taxi via the Model 3 and Model Y program and model S and X, too. But the Model 3 and Y will achieve unsupervised full self-driving with permission, in wherever regulators essentially approve it. In the US, and then to follow outside the US. And Cybertruck, too. All our cars are basically, all cars that we make. Let's not get nuanced here. Self-driving technology One of the reasons why the computer can be so much better than a person is that we have millions of cars that are training on driving. It's like living millions of lives simultaneously and seeing very unusual situations that a person in their entire lifetime would not see. With that amount of training data, it's obviously going to be much better than what a human could be because you can't live a million lives. And it's also, it can see in all directions simultaneously and it doesn't get tired or text or any of those things. So, it will naturally be, like I said 10, 20, 30 times safer than a human, just for all those reasons. And I want to emphasize that the solution that we have is, AI and vision. So, there's no expensive equipment needed. The Model 3 and Model Y and S and X that we make today will be capable of full autonomy, unsupervised. And that means that our cost of producing the vehicle is low. Now, we are going to actually over-spec the computer for the Cybercab. So, our AI 5 computer will be somewhat over-spec'd because I think there's actually also an opportunity, sort of like an Amazon Web Services, where if the car is driving for 50 hours a week, there's still over 100 hours left and there's a potential there to have a massive amount of distributed inference compute, where if you've got like a fleet of 100 million vehicles and a kilowatt of efficient inference compute, you have 100 gigawatts of compute, which is really quite substantial. And if it's there, you might as well use it so that I think will make sense. So, our autonomous future is here. As I said, we've got 50 Teslas driving autonomously. We're trying to give you a sense of what cities will be like in the future. And when you get in, you'll see like, it's really quite a wild experience to just be in a car with no steering wheel, no pedals, no controls, and it feels great. So we have enough vehicles here, so everyone should be able to try it out and experience the set that we've built here. It's a very big set. So it's like really we've used I don't know, 20, 30 acres or something like that. It's really big. So, it goes on, the ride's long. And we set it up to feel like a ride, like a park ride. So, it'll be cool and you'll get to experience it tonight. Inductive charging Something we're also doing is and it's really high time we did this is inductive charging. So, the robotaxi has no plug. It just goes over the inductive charger and charges. So, yeah, it's kind of how it should be. The cities of the future One of the things that is really interesting is how will this affect the cities that we live in. And when you drive around a city, or when the car drives you around the city, you'll see there's a lot of parking lots. There's parking lots everywhere, parking garages. What would happen if you have an autonomous world is that you can now turn parking lots into parks. And so, from we're taking the inglot out of parking lot. You're welcome. So, there's a lot of opportunity to create green space in the cities that we live in. So, like, that would be quite fantastic. Robovan Oh, and also, what happens if you need a vehicle that is bigger than a Model Y? The Robovan. We're going to make this and it's going to look like that. Now, can you imagine going down the streets and you see this coming towards you? That'd be sick. So this can carry up to 20 people, and it can also transport goods. You can configure it for goods transport within a city. Or transport of up to 20 people at a time. The Robovan is what's gonna solve for high density. If you want to take a sports team somewhere or you're looking to really get the cost of travel down to, I don't know, 5, 10 cents a mile, then you can use the Robovan. One of the things we want to do, and we've seen this with the Cybertruck, is we want to change the look of the roads. The future should look like the future. Optimus Speaking of robots. Everything we've developed for our cars, the batteries, power electronics, the advanced motors, gearboxes, the software, the AI inference computer, it all actually applies to a humanoid robot. The same techniques. It's just a robot with arms and legs instead of a robot with wheels. We've made a lot of progress with Optimus. And as you can see, we started up with someone in a robot suit. And then, we've progressed dramatically, year after year. So, if you extrapolate this, you're really going to have something spectacular, something that anyone could own. So, you can have your own personal R2-D2-C3PO. And I think at scale, this would cost something like, I don't know, $20,000, $30,000, probably less than a car is my prediction, long-term. It'll take us a minute to get to the long term. But fundamentally, at scale, the Optimus robot, you should be able to buy an Optimus robot for, I think, probably $20,000 to $30,000, long-term. And what can it do? It'll basically do anything you want. It can be a teacher or babysit your kids, it can walk your dog, mow your lawn, get the groceries, just be your friend, serve drinks whatever you can think of, it will do. And, yeah, it's going to be awesome. I think this will be the biggest product ever of any kind, because I think everyone of the 8 billion people of Earth, I think everyone's going to want their Optimus buddy. And there's going to be maybe two. And then, they'll be producing products and services. I predict, actually, provided we address risks of digital superintelligence, 80% probability of good outcome, look on the bright side, the cup is 80% full, the cost of products and services will decline dramatically. And basically, anyone will be able to have any products and services they want. It will be an age of abundance the likes of which people have not, almost no one has envisioned. It will be something special. So now, one of the things we wanted to show tonight was that Optimus is not a canned video. It's not walled off. The Optimus robots will walk among you. Please, please be nice to the Optimus robots. You'll be able to walk right up to them and they'll serve drinks at the bar. I mean, it's a wild experience just to have humanoid robots and they're there, you're just in front of you. So yeah, with that, let's party!

Mario Nawfal

241,051 views • 1 year ago

//The Wire//2300Z July 25, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: "DATING" APP DATA BREACH HIGHLIGHTS NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -HomeFront- USA: This morning a major PII leak was exploited on the Tea app, the infamous app that has gained notoriety around the United States. This data leak was not a hack by any means; the selfie ID feature and driver's license images used to register users were stored unencrypted on the app's servers for anyone on the internet to see. Furthermore, the location data was not scrubbed from the images, so the exact GPS coordinate of each user was also leaked, with tens of thousands of users' private location data being leaked online. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: This app gained infamy as it's entire purpose is to serve as a "Yelp" for women to rate men, and to allow women to secretly share personal information regarding prospective dates, all without men being allowed to either face their accusers or even know that they are being gossiped about (thus the name of the app being a slang term that serves as a synonym for "gossip"). Most importantly, the app uses facial recognition to prevent biological males from obtaining an account. Beyond the unfortunate origins of the app and the equally unfortunate data leak, examination of the data that was leaked is likely to cause exceptionally grave risks to national security. The "gossipy" nature of this story doesn't matter, a bunch of unflattering selfies doesn't matter either; what does matter is that this may have inadvertently revealed significant national security concerns. For instance, preliminary analysis of the datasets indicates that many users of the Tea app downloaded the app, took a selfie, and registered for an account while at work. In some cases, at government facilities or on military bases...such as the rather unfortunate individual who decided it was a good idea to register for this app while stationed at Marine Corps Base Quantico. Or the person who felt that they needed to use this app while on a gunnery range at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. So far, other interesting sites located via personnel taking a selfie to register for this app at work include the following locations: - An ammunition storage bunker at Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey. - The legislative offices at the Connecticut State Capitol building. - One of the headquarters buildings at Minot Air Force Base. - A maintenance site on the airfield at Eglin Air Force Base. - Alumni Hall at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. - And the off-base housing complexes at nearly every single military base in the United States. Of course, these data points only encompass the GPS coordinates that were embedded in the metadata of the selfies taken when users created an account on the app, so the data that was leaked is merely a snapshot of wherever a person was when they registered an account. Most of the GPS points presented in this data were very precise, pinpointing users within a diameter of 36ft or so on average. GPS errors are also likely to throw off this dataset, so it's probable that quite a few data points are inaccurate. However, most of the data (as leaked) is good enough for nationstate-level malign actors to have a field day when it comes to espionage. A person who is unhappy with the person they are in a relationship with, who is also willing to submit their full legal name and street address (or GPS location) makes for a prime espionage target when this data is cross-referenced with other data. It takes exactly two clicks to import the leaked data to a map, and overlay that map with known sensitive military sites around the nation...perhaps in the process finding a few new locations as well. It is also easy to cross-reference this data with property ownership documents to find out how many people took a selfie at a different address than listed on their driver's license...or on their spouse's voter registration records. In short, what seems to be at face value a rather superfluous data breach on a gossip app, may end up having serious national security concerns now that malign actors know the exact GPS location of tens of thousands of potential blackmail targets. Regardless of how this scandal started, the intelligence agencies of dozens of nations are probably crawling through this data set right now, looking for potential vulnerabilities. Furthermore, certain areas within the dataset appear to have been geofenced...there is not a single reported user's data in the entire district of Washington D.C. or all of lower Manhattan. While this is completely speculative at this time, if this app was designed as a honeypot trap from the ground up (for espionage purposes), it's possible that certain areas of the US would be geofenced, to prevent certain powerful people (or politicians) from being caught up in the operation. Once again, this is purely speculative, but it is interesting that some of the most densely populated cities in the US had absolutely zero reported users register. In the world of espionage, one might think that politicians would be a primary target for situations like this, but this is unlikely in this case. Politicians are often compromised by men in dark suits, not normally a cheap app that allows one to gossip about other people. Their spouses however, are a different story. The prime target for these types of operations (if this is indeed more of an espionage attempt) are exactly the people who were targeted...low-to-mid level employees (and their spouses) who would be more easily blackmailed with the type of information that they submitted to the app. What will come of this is anyone's guess, but beyond the obvious embarrassment angle of this situation (and this affair highlighting actual affairs), the national security risks via blackmail are probably extremely high. What makes this risk unique is that for now, most people are focusing on the socially embarrassing side of this scandal, and not the security risks that are present. As such, when this story is dropped like a hot potato from the news cycle in a few days, that moment is precisely when national-level assets are likely to attempt to exploit the tens of thousands of targets that have now been exposed. Everyone will forget about this in a few weeks, but the espionage potential of this data leak persists well into the future. Analyst: S2A1 Research: //END REPORT//
5:51

//The Wire//2300Z July 25, 2025// //ROUTINE// //BLUF: "DATING" APP DATA BREACH HIGHLIGHTS NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -HomeFront- USA: This morning a major PII leak was exploited on the Tea app, the infamous app that has gained notoriety around the United States. This data leak was not a hack by any means; the selfie ID feature and driver's license images used to register users were stored unencrypted on the app's servers for anyone on the internet to see. Furthermore, the location data was not scrubbed from the images, so the exact GPS coordinate of each user was also leaked, with tens of thousands of users' private location data being leaked online. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: This app gained infamy as it's entire purpose is to serve as a "Yelp" for women to rate men, and to allow women to secretly share personal information regarding prospective dates, all without men being allowed to either face their accusers or even know that they are being gossiped about (thus the name of the app being a slang term that serves as a synonym for "gossip"). Most importantly, the app uses facial recognition to prevent biological males from obtaining an account. Beyond the unfortunate origins of the app and the equally unfortunate data leak, examination of the data that was leaked is likely to cause exceptionally grave risks to national security. The "gossipy" nature of this story doesn't matter, a bunch of unflattering selfies doesn't matter either; what does matter is that this may have inadvertently revealed significant national security concerns. For instance, preliminary analysis of the datasets indicates that many users of the Tea app downloaded the app, took a selfie, and registered for an account while at work. In some cases, at government facilities or on military bases...such as the rather unfortunate individual who decided it was a good idea to register for this app while stationed at Marine Corps Base Quantico. Or the person who felt that they needed to use this app while on a gunnery range at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. So far, other interesting sites located via personnel taking a selfie to register for this app at work include the following locations: - An ammunition storage bunker at Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey. - The legislative offices at the Connecticut State Capitol building. - One of the headquarters buildings at Minot Air Force Base. - A maintenance site on the airfield at Eglin Air Force Base. - Alumni Hall at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. - And the off-base housing complexes at nearly every single military base in the United States. Of course, these data points only encompass the GPS coordinates that were embedded in the metadata of the selfies taken when users created an account on the app, so the data that was leaked is merely a snapshot of wherever a person was when they registered an account. Most of the GPS points presented in this data were very precise, pinpointing users within a diameter of 36ft or so on average. GPS errors are also likely to throw off this dataset, so it's probable that quite a few data points are inaccurate. However, most of the data (as leaked) is good enough for nationstate-level malign actors to have a field day when it comes to espionage. A person who is unhappy with the person they are in a relationship with, who is also willing to submit their full legal name and street address (or GPS location) makes for a prime espionage target when this data is cross-referenced with other data. It takes exactly two clicks to import the leaked data to a map, and overlay that map with known sensitive military sites around the nation...perhaps in the process finding a few new locations as well. It is also easy to cross-reference this data with property ownership documents to find out how many people took a selfie at a different address than listed on their driver's license...or on their spouse's voter registration records. In short, what seems to be at face value a rather superfluous data breach on a gossip app, may end up having serious national security concerns now that malign actors know the exact GPS location of tens of thousands of potential blackmail targets. Regardless of how this scandal started, the intelligence agencies of dozens of nations are probably crawling through this data set right now, looking for potential vulnerabilities. Furthermore, certain areas within the dataset appear to have been geofenced...there is not a single reported user's data in the entire district of Washington D.C. or all of lower Manhattan. While this is completely speculative at this time, if this app was designed as a honeypot trap from the ground up (for espionage purposes), it's possible that certain areas of the US would be geofenced, to prevent certain powerful people (or politicians) from being caught up in the operation. Once again, this is purely speculative, but it is interesting that some of the most densely populated cities in the US had absolutely zero reported users register. In the world of espionage, one might think that politicians would be a primary target for situations like this, but this is unlikely in this case. Politicians are often compromised by men in dark suits, not normally a cheap app that allows one to gossip about other people. Their spouses however, are a different story. The prime target for these types of operations (if this is indeed more of an espionage attempt) are exactly the people who were targeted...low-to-mid level employees (and their spouses) who would be more easily blackmailed with the type of information that they submitted to the app. What will come of this is anyone's guess, but beyond the obvious embarrassment angle of this situation (and this affair highlighting actual affairs), the national security risks via blackmail are probably extremely high. What makes this risk unique is that for now, most people are focusing on the socially embarrassing side of this scandal, and not the security risks that are present. As such, when this story is dropped like a hot potato from the news cycle in a few days, that moment is precisely when national-level assets are likely to attempt to exploit the tens of thousands of targets that have now been exposed. Everyone will forget about this in a few weeks, but the espionage potential of this data leak persists well into the future. Analyst: S2A1 Research: //END REPORT//

S2 Underground

40,591 views • 1 year ago

Like seemingly everyone on this app I have plenty of opinions about Twitter > X and figure now is a good time to open up a bit about my experience at the company. I tweeted for years into the void for the love of it like many of you, but after selling my startup to Twitter in 2020 I finally got to see it from the inside. Up close it was both amazing and terrible, like so many other companies and things in life. As someone with a maniacal sense of urgency built into me, Twitter often felt siloed and bureaucratic. Dumb power plays, reorgs and team name changes for the sake of someone’s ego were distractions that occurred too regularly. You couldn’t just be a builder — you also needed to be a politician. I was shocked by how old and bespoke the infrastructure was, but there was little will to think beyond quarterly earnings calls because we were all beholden to the masters of mDAU and revenue growth as a public company. It often felt like things were held together with duct tape and glue, and that many people had just accepted that a small product change could take months or quarters to build. Management had become bloated to accommodate career growth and the company culture felt too soft and entitled for my own taste. Healthy debate and criticism was replaced by a default refrain of “no, that can’t be done” or “another team owns that so don’t touch it”. Teams could spend months building a feature and then some last-minute kerfuffle meant it’d get killed for being too risky. Just talking directly to customers could turn into a turf war and create deadlocks between functions. I recall one such episode where a teammate spent a month trying to get clearance to reach out to some creators. He went through 3 layers of management and 6 different functional teams. In the end 4 executives were involved in the approval. It was insanity, and unfortunately I saw several top performers get burnt out and demoralized after exhausting experiences like that. Most people were good at their jobs but it was nearly impossible to fire poor performers — instead they got shuffled around to other teams because few managers had the will or resources to figure out how to get them out. A high performance culture pulls everyone up, but the opposite weighs everyone down. Twitter often felt like a place that kept squandering its own potential, which was sad and frustrating to see. The person who was best at cutting through the BS and inspiring a vision during my tenure was Kayvon Beykpour, but he wasn’t fully empowered to run the company since he wasn’t the CEO. Despite those real issues, I was lucky enough to work with some of the most talented people in the business at Twitter in product, design, engineering, research, legal, BD, trust & safety, marketing, PR and more. Often it was a small cross-functional team of intrinsically motivated people who made the biggest impact by challenging some core assumption. Those teams were very fun to be on but they felt like the exception rather than the rule. The months of waiting for the deal to close in 2022 were particularly slow and painful; it felt like leadership hid behind lawyers and legal language as all answers about the company’s future notoriously included the phrase “fiduciary duty”. Colleagues openly talked about how Twitter was being sold because leadership didn’t have conviction in their own plan or ability to fix longstanding problems. Although I didn’t know much about Elon I was cautiously optimistic – I saw him as the guy who built incredible and enduring companies like Tesla and SpaceX, so perhaps his private ownership could shake things up and breathe new life into the company. My take on what’s happened since then is full of lived nuance. When people ask why I stayed it’s easy to answer: optimism, curiosity, personal growth and money. From the beginning I saw that some changes Elon was going to make were smart and others were stupid, but when I’m on a team I uphold the philosophy of “praise in public and criticize in private”. I was far from a silent wallflower. I shared my opinions openly and pushed back often, both before and after the acquisition. I made peace with the fact that I didn’t have psychological safety at Twitter 2.0 and that meant I could be fired at any moment, and for no reason at all. I watched it happen repeatedly and saw how negatively it impacted team morale. Although I couldn’t change the situation I did my best to shine a light on folks who were doing important work while being an emotionally supportive leader for those who were struggling to adapt to the more brutalist and hardcore culture. In person Elon is oddly charming and he’s genuinely funny. He also has personality quirks like telling the same stories and jokes over and over. The challenge is his personality and demeanor can turn on a dime going from excited to angry. Since it was hard to read what mood he might be in and what his reaction would be to any given thing, people quickly became afraid of being called into meetings or having to share negative news with him. At times it felt like the inner circle was too zealous and fanatical in their unwavering support of everything he said. When individuals encouraged me to be careful about what I said I politely thanked them and said I would not be taking their advice. I had no interest in adding to a culture of fear or walking on eggshells around Elon. Either he would respect me for being real or he could fire me. Either outcome was okay. I quickly learned that product and business decisions were nearly always the result of him following his gut instinct, and he didn’t seem compelled to seek out or rely on a lot of data or expertise to inform it. That was particularly frustrating for me since I believed I had useful institutional knowledge that could help him make better decisions. Instead he'd poll Twitter, ask a friend, or even ask his biographer for product advice. At times it seemed he trusted random feedback more than the people in the room who spent their lives dedicated to tackling the problem at hand. I never figured out why and remain puzzled by it. I don’t think things had to be as difficult or dramatic as they turned out to be but I can’t say I’d bet against Elon or count him out. He’s smart and has enough money to make a lot of mistakes and then course correct when things go awry. As the largest shareholder he can tank the value in the short-term, but eventually he’ll need things to turn around. His focus on speed is incredible and he’s obviously not afraid of blowing things up, but now the real measure will be how it get reconstructed and if enough people want the new everything app he is building. I learned a ton from watching Elon up close – the good, the bad and the ugly. His boldness, passion and storytelling is inspiring, but his lack of process and empathy is painful. Elon has an exceptional talent for tackling hard physics-based problems but products that facilitate human connection and communication require a different type of social-emotional intelligence. Social networks are hard to kill but they’re not immune from death spirals. Only time will tell what the outcome will be but I hope X finds its footing because competition is good for consumers. In the meantime, I have a lot of empathy for the employees who are working tirelessly behind the scenes, the advertisers who want a stable platform to sell their stuff on, and the customers who are experiencing chaotic updates. It’s been a madhouse. Twitter moved at the speed of molasses and suffered from bureaucracy but now X is run by a mercurial leader whose instinct is driven by the unique and undoubtedly weird experience of being the biggest voice on the platform. Many of you know me from the sleeping bag incident where I slept on a conference room floor, so I figure, let’s talk about that too. Going viral was an odd and interesting experience. I was attacked by people on the left and called a billionaire bootlicker, while simultaneously being attacked by people on the right for being a working mom who was demonized as an example of a woman choosing her career over her family. Thankfully I can laugh at myself and I don’t take armchair keyboard ideologues too seriously. Being the main character on the timeline, even for a few minutes, requires a thick skin and a strong sense of self. The real story is pretty simple. I was given a nearly impossible deadline for his first project and as the product lead I would never ask anyone to do anything I wasn’t willing to do myself. So I worked round the clock alongside an amazing team spanning many timezones, and we delivered it on schedule – truly against the odds. It was intense but also fun. Those first few months were wildly crazy but I wanted to be there and I have no regrets. Showing up and giving it your all should, in most cases, be celebrated. Obviously you can’t work at that pace forever but there are moments where bursts are mission critical. I’ve pulled many all-nighters in my career and also when I was a student for something that mattered to me. I don’t regret putting in long hours or being ambitious, and feel proud of how far I’ve come from where I started thanks in part to that type of work ethic. I think of life as a game, and being at Twitter after the acquisition was like playing life at Level 10 on Hard Mode. Since I like taking on difficult challenges I found it interesting and rewarding because I was growing and learning so rapidly. I realize our society today trends toward polarization but when it comes to this app, its owner, and its future, I am neither a fangirl nor a hater — I’m an optimistic pragmatist. This may really irritate the internet but you cannot pigeonhole me into some radical position of either loving or hating every change that’s occurred. I escaped my fundamentalist upbringing and am a free thinker these days. Everyone can be seen as both a hero or a villain, depending on who is telling what angle of the story. Elon doesn’t deserve to be venerated or vilified. He’s a complicated person with an unfathomable amount of financial and geopolitical power which is why humanity needs him to err on the side of goodness, rather than political divisiveness and pettiness. I disagree with many of his decisions and am surprised by his willingness to burn so much down, but with enough money and time, something new & innovative may emerge. I hope it does. Sometimes I get asked about how I felt when I got laid off, and the truth is it was the best gift I’ve ever received. Sure the headlines and punchlines wrote themselves but I was battle hardened by then. I knew that I’d worked in a way where I could walk out with my head held high. I have no bitterness about the Product Management team being dismantled, and it made sense for me to exit as nearly all of the remaining PMs were let go. Going on a sabbatical afterward has been exactly what I needed to decompress and I’m finally feeling rested and relaxed. I’m a creative and a builder, so sooner than later I’ll jump back into a high intensity company but I’m grateful for this season of thinking, reading, traveling and being with people I love. After having time to reflect I believe more than ever that the very best outcomes flow from great leadership that combines the head and the heart. I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that in all of this there is also a cautionary tale for anyone who succeeds at something — which is that the higher you climb, the smaller your world becomes. It’s a strange paradox but the richest and most powerful people are also some of the most isolated. I found myself frequently looking at Elon and seeing a person who seemed quite alone because his time and energy was so purely devoted to work, which is not the model of a life I want to live. Money and fame can create psychological prisons which may worsen mental health conditions. We’ve all seen high profile cases of celebrities who end up with some combination of depression, paranoia, delusions of grandeur, mania and/or erratic behavior. Living in an echo chamber is dangerous and being at the top makes a person even more susceptible to being surrounded by yes people when nearly everyone around you is on the payroll and somehow stands to benefit from being in your orbit. Figuring out how to keep “better angels” around in the form of family, friends, and teammates is critical to staying on the rails and enduring intense ups and downs. Everyone needs to hear hard truths sometimes and if you fire all the people who speak up then the reality distortion field may just turn into a vortex. I was drawn to Twitter because I’m obsessed with the problem of loneliness and connection between people. I find it fascinating & troubling that humans are getting lonelier as we simultaneously create a world that’s both safer and wealthier. I don’t believe that trade-off has to exist, which is why I keep returning to that theme in my personal and professional life. I realize this is too long of a tweet but Twitter was a weird and special place on the internet, and I’m grateful to have played a teeny tiny role in its story and evolution. I’m here for whatever comes next — on this app and in new places. Consumer social is very much alive and at a fascinating juncture, so I’ll be watching and participating and sharing hot takes because I don’t want to, and probably can’t, turn that part of me off. Perhaps X becomes a resounding success. Or it fails epically. Either way, I expect it will continue to be a very entertaining ride. 🫡
14:49

Like seemingly everyone on this app I have plenty of opinions about Twitter > X and figure now is a good time to open up a bit about my experience at the company. I tweeted for years into the void for the love of it like many of you, but after selling my startup to Twitter in 2020 I finally got to see it from the inside. Up close it was both amazing and terrible, like so many other companies and things in life. As someone with a maniacal sense of urgency built into me, Twitter often felt siloed and bureaucratic. Dumb power plays, reorgs and team name changes for the sake of someone’s ego were distractions that occurred too regularly. You couldn’t just be a builder — you also needed to be a politician. I was shocked by how old and bespoke the infrastructure was, but there was little will to think beyond quarterly earnings calls because we were all beholden to the masters of mDAU and revenue growth as a public company. It often felt like things were held together with duct tape and glue, and that many people had just accepted that a small product change could take months or quarters to build. Management had become bloated to accommodate career growth and the company culture felt too soft and entitled for my own taste. Healthy debate and criticism was replaced by a default refrain of “no, that can’t be done” or “another team owns that so don’t touch it”. Teams could spend months building a feature and then some last-minute kerfuffle meant it’d get killed for being too risky. Just talking directly to customers could turn into a turf war and create deadlocks between functions. I recall one such episode where a teammate spent a month trying to get clearance to reach out to some creators. He went through 3 layers of management and 6 different functional teams. In the end 4 executives were involved in the approval. It was insanity, and unfortunately I saw several top performers get burnt out and demoralized after exhausting experiences like that. Most people were good at their jobs but it was nearly impossible to fire poor performers — instead they got shuffled around to other teams because few managers had the will or resources to figure out how to get them out. A high performance culture pulls everyone up, but the opposite weighs everyone down. Twitter often felt like a place that kept squandering its own potential, which was sad and frustrating to see. The person who was best at cutting through the BS and inspiring a vision during my tenure was Kayvon Beykpour, but he wasn’t fully empowered to run the company since he wasn’t the CEO. Despite those real issues, I was lucky enough to work with some of the most talented people in the business at Twitter in product, design, engineering, research, legal, BD, trust & safety, marketing, PR and more. Often it was a small cross-functional team of intrinsically motivated people who made the biggest impact by challenging some core assumption. Those teams were very fun to be on but they felt like the exception rather than the rule. The months of waiting for the deal to close in 2022 were particularly slow and painful; it felt like leadership hid behind lawyers and legal language as all answers about the company’s future notoriously included the phrase “fiduciary duty”. Colleagues openly talked about how Twitter was being sold because leadership didn’t have conviction in their own plan or ability to fix longstanding problems. Although I didn’t know much about Elon I was cautiously optimistic – I saw him as the guy who built incredible and enduring companies like Tesla and SpaceX, so perhaps his private ownership could shake things up and breathe new life into the company. My take on what’s happened since then is full of lived nuance. When people ask why I stayed it’s easy to answer: optimism, curiosity, personal growth and money. From the beginning I saw that some changes Elon was going to make were smart and others were stupid, but when I’m on a team I uphold the philosophy of “praise in public and criticize in private”. I was far from a silent wallflower. I shared my opinions openly and pushed back often, both before and after the acquisition. I made peace with the fact that I didn’t have psychological safety at Twitter 2.0 and that meant I could be fired at any moment, and for no reason at all. I watched it happen repeatedly and saw how negatively it impacted team morale. Although I couldn’t change the situation I did my best to shine a light on folks who were doing important work while being an emotionally supportive leader for those who were struggling to adapt to the more brutalist and hardcore culture. In person Elon is oddly charming and he’s genuinely funny. He also has personality quirks like telling the same stories and jokes over and over. The challenge is his personality and demeanor can turn on a dime going from excited to angry. Since it was hard to read what mood he might be in and what his reaction would be to any given thing, people quickly became afraid of being called into meetings or having to share negative news with him. At times it felt like the inner circle was too zealous and fanatical in their unwavering support of everything he said. When individuals encouraged me to be careful about what I said I politely thanked them and said I would not be taking their advice. I had no interest in adding to a culture of fear or walking on eggshells around Elon. Either he would respect me for being real or he could fire me. Either outcome was okay. I quickly learned that product and business decisions were nearly always the result of him following his gut instinct, and he didn’t seem compelled to seek out or rely on a lot of data or expertise to inform it. That was particularly frustrating for me since I believed I had useful institutional knowledge that could help him make better decisions. Instead he'd poll Twitter, ask a friend, or even ask his biographer for product advice. At times it seemed he trusted random feedback more than the people in the room who spent their lives dedicated to tackling the problem at hand. I never figured out why and remain puzzled by it. I don’t think things had to be as difficult or dramatic as they turned out to be but I can’t say I’d bet against Elon or count him out. He’s smart and has enough money to make a lot of mistakes and then course correct when things go awry. As the largest shareholder he can tank the value in the short-term, but eventually he’ll need things to turn around. His focus on speed is incredible and he’s obviously not afraid of blowing things up, but now the real measure will be how it get reconstructed and if enough people want the new everything app he is building. I learned a ton from watching Elon up close – the good, the bad and the ugly. His boldness, passion and storytelling is inspiring, but his lack of process and empathy is painful. Elon has an exceptional talent for tackling hard physics-based problems but products that facilitate human connection and communication require a different type of social-emotional intelligence. Social networks are hard to kill but they’re not immune from death spirals. Only time will tell what the outcome will be but I hope X finds its footing because competition is good for consumers. In the meantime, I have a lot of empathy for the employees who are working tirelessly behind the scenes, the advertisers who want a stable platform to sell their stuff on, and the customers who are experiencing chaotic updates. It’s been a madhouse. Twitter moved at the speed of molasses and suffered from bureaucracy but now X is run by a mercurial leader whose instinct is driven by the unique and undoubtedly weird experience of being the biggest voice on the platform. Many of you know me from the sleeping bag incident where I slept on a conference room floor, so I figure, let’s talk about that too. Going viral was an odd and interesting experience. I was attacked by people on the left and called a billionaire bootlicker, while simultaneously being attacked by people on the right for being a working mom who was demonized as an example of a woman choosing her career over her family. Thankfully I can laugh at myself and I don’t take armchair keyboard ideologues too seriously. Being the main character on the timeline, even for a few minutes, requires a thick skin and a strong sense of self. The real story is pretty simple. I was given a nearly impossible deadline for his first project and as the product lead I would never ask anyone to do anything I wasn’t willing to do myself. So I worked round the clock alongside an amazing team spanning many timezones, and we delivered it on schedule – truly against the odds. It was intense but also fun. Those first few months were wildly crazy but I wanted to be there and I have no regrets. Showing up and giving it your all should, in most cases, be celebrated. Obviously you can’t work at that pace forever but there are moments where bursts are mission critical. I’ve pulled many all-nighters in my career and also when I was a student for something that mattered to me. I don’t regret putting in long hours or being ambitious, and feel proud of how far I’ve come from where I started thanks in part to that type of work ethic. I think of life as a game, and being at Twitter after the acquisition was like playing life at Level 10 on Hard Mode. Since I like taking on difficult challenges I found it interesting and rewarding because I was growing and learning so rapidly. I realize our society today trends toward polarization but when it comes to this app, its owner, and its future, I am neither a fangirl nor a hater — I’m an optimistic pragmatist. This may really irritate the internet but you cannot pigeonhole me into some radical position of either loving or hating every change that’s occurred. I escaped my fundamentalist upbringing and am a free thinker these days. Everyone can be seen as both a hero or a villain, depending on who is telling what angle of the story. Elon doesn’t deserve to be venerated or vilified. He’s a complicated person with an unfathomable amount of financial and geopolitical power which is why humanity needs him to err on the side of goodness, rather than political divisiveness and pettiness. I disagree with many of his decisions and am surprised by his willingness to burn so much down, but with enough money and time, something new & innovative may emerge. I hope it does. Sometimes I get asked about how I felt when I got laid off, and the truth is it was the best gift I’ve ever received. Sure the headlines and punchlines wrote themselves but I was battle hardened by then. I knew that I’d worked in a way where I could walk out with my head held high. I have no bitterness about the Product Management team being dismantled, and it made sense for me to exit as nearly all of the remaining PMs were let go. Going on a sabbatical afterward has been exactly what I needed to decompress and I’m finally feeling rested and relaxed. I’m a creative and a builder, so sooner than later I’ll jump back into a high intensity company but I’m grateful for this season of thinking, reading, traveling and being with people I love. After having time to reflect I believe more than ever that the very best outcomes flow from great leadership that combines the head and the heart. I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that in all of this there is also a cautionary tale for anyone who succeeds at something — which is that the higher you climb, the smaller your world becomes. It’s a strange paradox but the richest and most powerful people are also some of the most isolated. I found myself frequently looking at Elon and seeing a person who seemed quite alone because his time and energy was so purely devoted to work, which is not the model of a life I want to live. Money and fame can create psychological prisons which may worsen mental health conditions. We’ve all seen high profile cases of celebrities who end up with some combination of depression, paranoia, delusions of grandeur, mania and/or erratic behavior. Living in an echo chamber is dangerous and being at the top makes a person even more susceptible to being surrounded by yes people when nearly everyone around you is on the payroll and somehow stands to benefit from being in your orbit. Figuring out how to keep “better angels” around in the form of family, friends, and teammates is critical to staying on the rails and enduring intense ups and downs. Everyone needs to hear hard truths sometimes and if you fire all the people who speak up then the reality distortion field may just turn into a vortex. I was drawn to Twitter because I’m obsessed with the problem of loneliness and connection between people. I find it fascinating & troubling that humans are getting lonelier as we simultaneously create a world that’s both safer and wealthier. I don’t believe that trade-off has to exist, which is why I keep returning to that theme in my personal and professional life. I realize this is too long of a tweet but Twitter was a weird and special place on the internet, and I’m grateful to have played a teeny tiny role in its story and evolution. I’m here for whatever comes next — on this app and in new places. Consumer social is very much alive and at a fascinating juncture, so I’ll be watching and participating and sharing hot takes because I don’t want to, and probably can’t, turn that part of me off. Perhaps X becomes a resounding success. Or it fails epically. Either way, I expect it will continue to be a very entertaining ride. 🫡

Esther Crawford ✨

5,496,958 views • 3 years ago