You are a taker, not a maker. All you’ve done your whole life is take from the makers of the world. The zero-sum mindset you have is at the root of so much evil. Once you realize that civilization is not zero-sum and that it is about making far more than one consumes, then it becomes obvious that the path to prosperity for all is just let the makers make. Regarding Tesla, the reality is that I have been given nothing. However, if I lead Tesla to become the most valuable company in the world by far and it stays that way for 5 years, shareholders voted to award me 12% of what is built. Anyone who wants to come along for the ride can buy Tesla stock. If Tesla “merely” becomes a $1.999 trillion dollar company, I get nothing. This is a great deal for shareholders, which is why they voted so overwhelmingly to approve this, for which I am immensely grateful. And they did so by a margin far more than you won your political seat.

Can you become a millionaire?

Petty crime in London is out of control @MayorofLondon. My phone was snatched at approx 10:15pm walking home behind the British Museum. Two men on a moped. I got slightly dragged and ended up with a ton of cuts/bruises/scrapes. Reported it to @metpoliceuk. Officers finally turned up at 12:50am. Said they won't do anything although one saw my arm and said that makes it more of a robbery. Other officer said technically no. This is becoming more and more common in Central London. Noticeable deterioration of safety. And no one cares.

Can you become a millionaire?

Goodbye for now

The population data just came out and revealed that over 1% of the UK population arrived in 2024. @garyseconomics keeps sounding the alarm about “rapidly expanding wealth inequality”. From a purely mathematical perspective if the UK brings in 700k people who have no income and no assets then the data will show an explosive shift in wealth inequality. If a millionaire is having dinner with 3 people who have good jobs and a home and then a broke student sits down at the table, the data would show a massive drop in wealth and income equality. Additionally, if there is a pool of resources allocated for low income / low assets individuals (supply) and then you add an additional 700k of demand for low income/wealth support you’d expect to see a breakdown in those support structures. I’m not blaming anyone for wanting to come to a wealthier country to improve their life; however maybe the data Gary is looking at reflects this trend. The “collapse in living standards” he shouts about could simply be 700k people per year starting from scratch in a new country.

Listening to All In on a walk this evening: Chamath: “Europe is largely uninvestable.” @chamath love to have you on 20VC to discuss.

Removal of Entrepreneurs Relief & mooted changes to CGT (first suggested under the Tories) are bigger factors. Risk to the country from the flight of entrepreneurs is much greater than that of non-doms. Cc ⁦@TenThinkTank⁩ ⁦⁦@StartupCltn⁩ spectator.co.uk/article/the-…

Nigel Farsge lunching at Scott’s Mayfair in the most expensive street in the U.K. today. To be fair I’m certain he was working on constituency business - although it didn’t sound like it.

~1/3 of my team have been assaulted / had their phone stolen since moving to London & UK to work with me. It is something that deeply troubles me. Aside from expensing Ubers home late (already offer this) - what other ideas do you have to help me address this?

Recently I’ve been engaging with people who feel rich people are the problem in the UK. They have a lot of negativity towards anyone earning a lot, owning/running a business or holding assets. There are 3 ideas people seem to come back to: 1. - Workers earn what employers will pay them. 2. - Rich people avoid taxes through dodgy tax schemes. 3. - Wealthy people have so much and we could run the economy if we just take it from them. Let's discuss: 1. Workers don't earn what employers pay them. Workers are free to sell their labour to the highest bidder. Employers must bid the highest amount necessary to secure people in a job. If they can't find someone for that job at that price they have to be willing to pay more or find another way to get that job done. Workers are completely free to leave any job that isn't paying them a high-enough rate and to switch jobs to work for anyone who will pay then more. They can also set up a business for about £150 and deal directly with customers if they chose. To use my personal experience... I worked at McDonald's for £1.25 per hour, then I discovered the local bar paid £2.50 per hour then I delivered pizzas and earned £4 per hour, then I started a nightclub promotion business and made £3000 in a night. I didn't ask my employer for more money, I moved to where more money was being offered. If it were possible for employers to dictate wages, every airline could save money by telling pilots that they are now on minimum wage. Or I could start a new consulting firm to compete with Accenture and make more money by paying my consultants way less than they’d make elsewhere. Obviously this wouldn’t work. 2. Rich people pay taxes like everyone else but they earn money in different ways. Typically they set up companies as a vehicle to attract capital, talent and other resources. This company can pay people wages, dividends or it can be sold and there are different rates associated with each activity. Some businesses get so big that they have customers all over the world and those businesses typically need to set up international structures to do business and pay taxes in the other places they do business. The UK has tax treaties with these countries. In most cases it makes sense for a business to accumulate its cash in lower tax countries. When a country like the UK tries to tax a large global business on its global earnings it doesn't reflect the nature of that business and if push comes to shove, businesses would simply have to avoid doing business with a country that didn't respect global trading norms. It is perfectly legal, moral and accepted trading practices for businesses to expand globally through international structures that allow for this. A successful global business like Dyson might be valued at billions but those billions reflect its value in the world as an ongoing trading entity not the value of James Dyson as an individual citizen. The NUMBER ONE way rich people ultimately avoid paying UK tax is to leave the UK - which anyone is legally aloud to do. Guy Hands is a billionaire who left the UK to avoid tax. So did Lewis Hamilton. So did James Dyson. So did Philip Green. So did Jim Ratcliffe. So did countless musicians and entertainers. When these people leave to avoid high-taxes the UK gets ZERO. Overtaxing people COSTS the UK money. If it were possible for these people to avoid taxes and stay in the country they would. The non-dom issue is also just political. Many countries do not tax citizens on their overseas earnings. The total theoretical taxes the UK is missing out on is £3.2B from non-doms. This is less than a day of government spending. 3. The richest 350 people in the UK are on a list called the Times Rich List. Collectively these people are worth £795Billion (and much of this wealth is actually overseas). The UK Government spending is £1.15Trillion - equivalent to 45% of the GDP of the country (ridiculously high). If we could somehow tax the ENTIRE fortunes from the UKs richest families it would run the government for less than 9 Months. In reality, taxing everything off the richest people would not work. What would be the value of Dyson if it were suddenly owned by the UK government? How would you take Richard Branson's international businesses off him? How would India react when you try to enter their borders to take over some of their biggest companies (owned by British Indian Families). Why would Ed Sheeran continue to perform if he knew his wealth was going to be taken from him? If you try to take it away slowly (say a 1% wealth tax) then you simply create a deterrent for anyone to build wealth in the UK and you create an incentive for people with wealth to leave. Ultimately you do more harm than good. Here’s the harsh truth. The UK economy is now 45% government spending. That isn’t a real economy - it’s a fake, unsustainable economy. When regulators put cuffs on the UK banking industry in 2008 we reduced the effectiveness of a mayor British industry (maybe rightly). When we left the EU we detached from being the leading voice of one of the largest economic regions on earth. Both of these events shrunk the real economy and now the government spending of £17k per person represents nearly half of the economy - this isn’t sustainable. The longer we hide from the truth the more the UK will spiral down.

The British government says the new India trade agreement does not change immigration policy. But that’s not what the Indian government says. A quick thread (1/n).

A depressing trend. UBS estimates that UK will lose ~500,000 millionaires by 2028, taking plenty of tax revenue with them. thetimes.com/uk/politics/art…

I asked Oxford educated economist @garyseconomics how he would fix wealth inequality. Gary says a 1% tax on people who have more than £10M net worth will fix our issues. In the UK there are about 30,000 people who have £10M or more. Let's say each of them has an average net worth of £25M and would have to pay £150K more in taxes per year than they already do (1% of the £15M above £10M). Let's also say that none of them leave the UK as a result of wealth taxes (which historically cause a wealth exodus). If all goes to his plan we would collect £4.5B in new taxes. The UK Government spends over £23Billion per week. Gary's plan would cover 36 hours of government spending ... while making the UK one of the most anti-wealth places on earth. It wouldn't change the £10B+ per month of additional debt we are running up Gary says he's a master at mathematics. He has a degree from LSE and Oxford. I have a no qualifications other than a drivers license and I can see this plan won't work.

When you interviewed me - you asked me repeatedly and I told you repeatedly GDP is a terrible way to measure heath & well being. As a Tory peer who also is a radio host - you seemed confused by that. It's also a position held btw by Simon Kuznet who designed the idea of GDP.

There's a ban on air con in new builds??

boom *APPLE PULLS CLOUD ENCRYPTION FEATURE IN UK AFTER BACKDOOR ORDER

On the surface, I have - Raised $3m - Gotten into Y Combinator - Graduated from Harvard - Worked at McKinsey - Helped 1000s of companies build AI workflows with Vectorshift Under the hood - Rejected by 100+ VCs - Got rejected by 6 other Ivy league colleges - Got rejected by 20+ big tech and large finance companies - Only got 3 signups after launching Vectorshift last year I have failed over and over and over again. But I treat “No” as nothing more than motivation. Be relentless. Pick yourself up. Dust yourself off. And get back in the game, because nothing great ever comes easy.

A national economy does not work like a household credit card. In fact: the more the government is in "debt", that's the more money we have potentially flowing around our economy & improving our living standards. A self imposed rule to "balance the books" is dangerous nonsense.

The UK is losing its most productive people. 10,800 millionaires left in 2024, an increase of 157% on 2023.

This is why therapy often backfires

The Economist on firing people in the US versus Europe: There are two ways for Western companies to sack lots of people. The American one involves the boss inviting hundreds of unsuspecting employees on a Zoom call, offering them a few months’ wages as severance and insincerely wishing them luck in their future endeavours (oh, and to have their desk cleared by lunchtime). The European method is more circuitous. Companies wanting to enact mass lay-offs typically start with consultations with unions, representatives of which sit on companies’ boards in Germany. A plan social is drafted. Strikes inevitably ensue. Politicians get involved, and badger the employer into firing fewer people than it had originally planned, or to pay for its soon-to-be-ex staff to be retrained. The full cost of downsizing is only known once labour courts are called to rule on the matter, years later. Meanwhile the company in question often cannot hire more employees lest it be made to hire those who were just let go. The European method seems “nicer” but hinders innovation and hurts workers themselves in the long run by hindering economic growth and more productive jobs from being created.

The role of VC analysts & associates has permanently changed Access > Analysis AI can now handle majority of market research & memo writing The next generation will primarily win by bringing elite founder & talent networks to the firm

Caught up the other day with a founder that had an M&A offer that would have made him $130,000,000 in 2022 Today, they can’t raise another round and are a bit stuck Just a reminder how thin liquidity is in 99% of start-ups It’s there, and then, oftentimes, it’s gone

A tale in three acts:

Bezos, 1999, in the basement where he launched Amazon

🌟 Next up – here’s who made the cut for spots 11-20. #TytoTech500

What Brexit did to the UK economy. Astounding. ft.com/content/bc19bbf4-2939…

This is Andrew Johnson from Peterborough. He is the train driver whose quick thinking saved lives by diverting the LNER train so that emergency services could rapidly board it following the mass stabbing attack last night. He is an Iraq War veteran and a brave unsung hero. 💪🏽

An exit tax won’t solve the problem you think it will. It will accelerate the exodus of our best and brightest. linkedin.com/posts/bhusseyye…

Heard from a company in London: We have found the UK visa sponsorship process to be excellent - we’ve sponsored several visas for super talented engineers. Process takes jut a couple of weeks and costs £5-10K. One of the advantages of building in London over US!

"Whatever you care about, whatever your vision for this country, it will be much easier to achieve it if we make the UK rich again." @matthewclifford at LFG: Make or Break 🚀

Have yet to see a true pre-seed round in over four months. Companies are all raising 4M out of the gate, largely with no product and no revenue. All expecting 30M post. Until the past few weeks, most rounds were getting done. Tide shifting quickly. Finally.

America still needs to update its priors on Europe In 2007, Europe was our equal partner, someone to be negotiated with In 2024, Europe is just our vassal state, someone we should be using carrots vs sticks on when they behave how we like vs not More like a petulant child

So Britain basically followed the advice of Thomas Piketty style socialists and they destroyed the country.

I love the energy and setup at @fdotinc someone should build this in London. Gym, gaming room, podcast studio, video studio, work space, hardware shop with 3d printers, cafeteria all in one space. Crazy builder energy 🤌🏽