Abundance and Tariffs

AI fragmentation, the middleware debate, thinking vs doing

This was supposed to be my Abundance book review post but it seems hard to talk about that in any kind of interesting way absent the tariffs and potential impending economic calamity.

The idea of abundance that Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson lay out is a vision of more good things (energy, housing, wealth, etc.) vs either less overall (degrowth) or actively rolling back the good (MAGA Maoism). We are legitimately dealing with multiple, interrelated but distinct crises across our climate, cost of living, democracy, and debt burden that will require massive coordinated efforts to solve.

But Democrats have made massive errors by failing to tell the truth and acknowledge our problems. We undermine the credibility of liberal government when we celebrate process and inputs instead of progress and outputs.

You can’t convince people to embrace radical change in a scarce, insecure world. Scarcity breeds conflict as people fight over limited resources. Capping the total units of wealth or resources guarantees more conflict and less compassion. Persuading people to accept poverty is ruinous politically and fundamentally inhumane. So Abundance paves the way for radical social change and also requires it.

The abundance platform is based on reform (ending the well-intentioned scope creep that makes progress hard), state capacity (the ability for the government to actually accomplish its goals), and ambition (the tendency to set higher goals and reach further).

Sometimes that requires unleashing innovation to find new solutions like we've done in the past. In many cases we have the tools to save ourselves even without breakthrough technologies (wind and solar, home building, transit, etc). But in failing to deploy them and use the tools we have, we consign ourselves to bitter scarcity and future generations to degradation and deprivation.

The alternative to abundance is what Trump is doing now: remaking America into a third world country that he and his cronies can dominate. Trump’s is a political vision based on scarcity, deprivation, fear, and control. Rolling out massive tariffs, killing port automation, halting renewable energy projects, shutting science and research funding, etc. all undermine America's ability to do more and create a brighter future.

MAGA is a nihilistic, decel ideology that sees America’s failings and inadequacies as evidence of a terminal disease instead of a series of solvable challenges. MAGA is fundamentally pessimistic and can only be overcome by a muscular, positive liberalism that inspires. Abundance can be that rallying cry.

I Wrote

• Will AI drive fragmentation or consolidation? Yes.

  • things which are fragmented may become less so and vice versa. The biggest can get even bigger through AI-enabled coordination and communication (expansion of the org chart Dunbar number) and the smallest can get more plentiful and nimble (operating more efficiently like sophisticated firms).

• Help think vs help do - why I like investing early

  • At the earliest stages, VCs can actually make a difference on outcomes by helping founders do the right thing rather than trying to help them do the thing right. As companies age, they get further into “do” mode and my ability to be helpful and impact outcomes diminishes proportionally.

• The great middleware debate: do you want to build the future, enable the future, or live in the future.

  • I want to work with founders who have the clarity of vision to call a shot about the future and make a specific bet at the app layer.

I Read

• The Secrets and Misdirection Behind Sam Altman’s Firing From OpenAI - WSJ

• Don’t blame Islam for grooming gangs - The Critic

• The Right Amount of Fraud in Seed Stages Startups is Greater than 0% But It Shouldn’t Be Pardoned - Hunter Walk

• Fire Island: New Urbanist Paradise or NIMBY Success? - Charles Rubenfeld

• An Orchestrated Recession? Trump’s Tariffs, AI, and the Future of US Power - Kyle Scanlon

And economic systems do exist to serve human needs, not the other way around. When we start treating market turbulence as therapeutic (as a necessary cleansing rather than a failure of management) we've inverted this relationship entirely. We've put the system above the people it's meant to serve.

The promise was economic nationalism that would benefit American workers. The reality we're seeing unfold is policy that's likely to hurt those same workers while primarily benefiting those with enough money to weather the storm and capitalize on distressed assets afterward.

Help me

TBA Newco (stealth) is an NY-based company building for 1099 workers and is led by a repeat technical founder who sold his previous YC-backed company.

Newco is looking for help (consultant, advisor, PT hire) on Tiktok and/or from someone who has done social/marketplace growth. Help is very much appreciated.

Help me help you

Dump worthless shares, crypto, or NFTs for $1. No matter what.

Don't get stuck holding the bag. Dump worthless stock to offset gains, simplify operations, and save time at audit.

Check out writeoff.co to learn more.