Our informal rules around the shop are: 1) don’t tell anyone who you are voting for (save friendships), 2) no cable news (just puppets), and 3) no political labels (obsolete and manipulative). Given our Silicon Valley roots, we are more comfortable trying to stick to the reality of the math.
The reality of the Presidential election math so far supports one of our end-of-year predictions—that Trump will win the election (remember, don’t shoot the messenger 🤠). We discuss a little of this math below and offer some bold ideas on how Democrats can reinvent themselves.
‘The candidate who I honest-to-God think has a better chance (Trump) isn’t the candidate I’d rather have win (Biden),’ says the founder of FiveThirtyEight.
The algorithms show that Trump has a 65.7% chance of victory over President Biden on November 5. The model shows Biden edging out Trump in the popular vote by a thin margin (47.2% to 47.1%) but Trump winning 287 electoral votes (270 needed to win).
We are sticking with our other prediction, that Joe Biden will be swapped out for another candidate before November, and tonight's debate could be the tipping point for the mutiny. Our gut says that the powers-at-be can see the electroencephalogram chart on the wall and will be waiting in the shadows, chronicling mental fumbles and freezes to help shove the Big Guy off the ticket. It turns out Nate Silver is also for the big swap-out. Who are the Fat Cats thinking of replacing him with?—We have no idea.
Like Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, the late civil rights activist and founder of the United Farm Workers Union (UAF), employed tactics inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, including nonviolent civil disobedience, strikes, fasts, and marches.
Give unto Cesar what is Cesar’s
The most lasting impressions of my sit-down interview with then-Texas Governor and presidential candidate George W. Bush in 1999 were his punctuality—our 9:00 a.m. interview started right on the dot, our ‘30-minute’ interview went on for two hours with no aide in sight, and his perspective on the US immigration issue has stuck with me to this day.
“I’m not an economist, but the one indicator I look at is whether the smartest, most clever people in the world still desire to come to America to pursue their dreams. If this is not the case it means we broke the system. I want to increase the availability of H-1B visas that allow skilled workers from other countries to come and work in the United States to keep the best talent coming our way. Our country is a huge magnet, and we should feel proud of that and take advantage of it.
In terms of illegal immigration, Texas has the biggest border to Mexico of any state, so I understand the issues. The best way to enforce our borders is to stop people from coming into the country in the first place. But I will tell you if I am on that side of the border and I am only making $50 a month, and all I have to do is swim across the Rio Grande, and I can make $500 and send $400 home to my family—I’m swimmin’. It would not be legal, but our need to feed hungry mouths is core to the human condition.”
—George W. Bush, Governor's office, Austin, Texas, 1999
Spinning even further back, I had the great privilege of meeting and collaborating with the late Cesar Chavez. At the time, I was California Governor Jerry Brown’s student campaign manager. Part of my duties was to produce and MC a huge outdoor—day-before-election—rally at UC Davis and help produce another big rally on Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley. Both rallies featured the entire California Democratic Party election slate and our friend Cesar Chavez.
Jerry Brown and his 18-year-old student campaign manager at a UC Davis rally. I am wearing a United Farm Worker Union button given to me by Cesar Chavez, who made me promise I’d wear it.
The percentage of US citizens who identify as Hispanic has risen dramatically, growing from 9.6M in 1970 to 62.5M in 2022. Latinos now represent over 19 percent of the US population and 15 percent of eligible voters. The economic success of the Laitinos who immigrated during this growth period is nothing short of breathless. While Latinos represent only 19% of the people, they were responsible for 39% of the US's real GDP growth in 2020 and 2021—representing $3.2 trillion in new wealth in 2021 alone. US Latino GDP output is now greatern than the UK, France, and India, and, if segmented, would rank as the 5th largest economy in the world.
Roughly 30.9 million foreign-born people held jobs in May 2024, up 5.1 million from May 2021.
Not surprisingly, US Latinos see unfettered immigration as a threat to what they have built and seek a fairer share of the wealth they are creating. These two issues, in particular, plus their faith in God, have tipped their political party card in favor of the Republicans.
According to this New York Times poll, Trump’s support amongst Latinos is up to 46%, and he earned 32% of Latino support in 2020.
There are also now signs that many within the Jewish community are also moving away from the Democrats due to the Party's seeming lack of recognition and empathy for the 360% surge in antisemitic incidents (34 incidents per day—many at 'top' universities) in the US since the Hammas attack last October 7, and the Party's perceived distancing from the state of Israel. The bottom line is the migration of the Dems traditional demographic base to the Republican Party means—statistically—the Democratic Party as we know it is basically dead.
Corporate media outlets sympathetic to the Demos are blowing a gasket over the flight of ‘people of color’ to the Republican Party. 🤯
George W. had it right, 'The best way to enforce our borders is to stop people from coming into the country in the first place.'He was also right that we must maintain a robust H1-B visa program and continue to import intellectual capital. A whopping 50+ percent of Silicon Valley startups are founded by immigrants, including Taiwan-born Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Chinese immigrant Eric Yuan, founder of Zoom, and Aravind Srinivas, the founder of Perplexity AI, who was born in Chennai, India.
To mount any comeback, the Democrats must embrace an orderly border with a well-managed and targeted immigration program. The days of thinking open borders are just a sly way of building voter ranks are over. History shows that Latinos and other law-abiding new immigrants from India, China, Iran, Taiwan, Russia, and the former Eastern block countries rise quickly and look for leaders with sound economic policies that do not threaten their livelihoods over the long run. The bet that unfettered borders help recruit new Democrats has ironically backfired.
I admit that I'm with GW in crossing the Rio Grande to feed my family—I'm swimmin'! And I think most of us would, too. That's why, however we confront this pressing issue; we do it with compassion, humility, and gratitude.
¡Viva las Américas (y el Partido Demócrata)!
If the Democratic Party wants to become relevant again, it must return to its Civil Rights, Berkeley Free Speech, and fiscally responsible-loving self. Jerry Brown, for example, advocated the ‘Balance Budget Amendment’ when California state budgets were gushing surpluses and UC tuition was $300.00 per quarter!
Claudia Sheinbaum—Mexico's newly elected president and the first woman (and person of Jewish heritage) to hold this position in the country's 200-year history.
It used to be about ‘Power to the People!’ It's now ‘Power to the Fat Cats’ that live off of campaign contributors and our taxes, build walls around their homes under armed guard, and host maskless wine parties during COVID while their constituents suffer in isolation. Oh, the hypocrisy of it all. It’s time to shake off the ‘new elites’ brand, the condescension (‘you ain’t black if you don’t…’), and dismantle the rusted and broken political machinery that breeds mediocrity—Gavin Newsom & Kamala Harris? 🙄
It’s also a time to be bold. This is a big subject that we will continue to cover, but there is an incredible opportunity for the Democrats to take a leadership position on the crypto and DeFi boom both at home and throughout the Américas.
Domestically, this means pushing the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) to clarify its rules regarding whether KYC/ML regulation-abiding cryptos can be classified as 'commodities,' not 'securities.’ While the SEC has generally accepted Bitcoin as a commodity, the agency has not explicitly assigned Ethereum or other cryptos that status. However, in October 2023, the SEC approved Ethereum futures ETFs and stated in its filing that ‘digital assets such as bitcoin, ether, litecoin and tether are all commodities.’ The US is far behind the EU, and almost every developing nation in this critical regulatory area, which threatens our ability to compete in the Web3 boom era where we will be re-writing how we do everything all over again.
Populist Javier Milei triumphed in the Argentina presidential election last November, promising to combat inflation by eliminating the Central Bank and replacing the peso with the US dollar.
Internationally, it’s startling but not surprising that the emerging new generation of leaders in Latin America is mainly pro-digital USD and Bitcoin. Some, such as the Brazilian Central Bank, have been working on a digital Brazilian real of their own called Drex.
Democrats should call for the creation of a digital USD ASAP and work with Latin leaders to adopt USD alongside Bitcoin as their primary currency, as El Salvador has done. We should bolster this effort by creating a free trade and no-tariffs pact between the US and all Latin countries. This way, countries such as Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, and Chile can put their currency devaluation and hyperinflation days behind them.
In September 2021, under Nayib Bukele's leadership, El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin alongside the US Dollar as legal tender.
This move would also spur massive investments across Latin America and create a path to help 122 million unbanked Latinos join the modern economy. We have proven that investing in the Latin work ethic more than doubles your money. These moves would bring together the Américas in a manner in which all boats can rise.
Banking on the unbanked—Where are they?
Peru: 43% unbanked
Colombia: 40% unbanked
Argentina: 28% unbanked
Brazil: 16% unbanked
Chile: 13% unbanked
Advocating this change would also make good politics for the Democrats. A prosperous Latin America means less pressure on the southern border. Helping the unbanked is a good investment and a noble cause. A Latin America economic boom would put downward pressure on the drug and human trafficking industries. Finally, if we don’t do it, the Chinese Communist Party will, and the CCP’s digital yuan (the e-CNY) and the crypto wallet you need to transact with it are traceable. If Big Brother has arrived, his name is e-CNY.
As a person who lives a third of his life South of the border, largely in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, and Medellin, Colombia, I can promise you one thing for sure. Other than a few, most Latinos would rather stay in their home countries. As my then 14 year old daughter reported after coming home from helping build a school in Guatamala and living with a local family in a home with a dirt floor—’Dad, they are a lot happier than we are.’ If we can help spread prosperity across the Américas, then people will have more power to choose where they live and work, stay close to their families, and keep their peace.
Brian Armstrong and Coinbase launched a non-profit called Stand With Crypto (SWP), which we recommend checking out. SWP was formed in 2023 to promote pro-crypto policies and legislation in the US and provide the crypto community with tools to engage directly with policymakers.
SWC members are hosting larger Presidential debate watch parties in select cities; see below for a list. If you can’t attend or host a watch party, make sure to join us on Discord.
The Cryptonite Weekly Rap—Your timely insider view on the global Silicon Valley, delivered with panache. Become a paid member and get the best from us! Peace✌🏼
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(Overheard on the streets of the global Silicon Valley. Got any hot insider tips? Email us editor@cryptoniteventures.com)
A fascinating Wall Street Journal mini-expose on OpenAI's 39-year-old CEO Sam Altman uncovers his 'sprawling Investment empire worth at least $2.8 billion' and raises some eyebrows about potential conflicts of interest between his role as CEO and investor. Interestingly, Sam has repeatedly said he holds no ownership or profit-sharing stake in OpenAI, which is still a private company and was last valued at $86 billion. Can you get your CEO for free and leverage the power of OpenAI for personal investment gain? Can you do this? On the one hand, Silicon Valley turned 'conflict of interest' into an industry, so is it all above board?
The man who makes billions by not being compensated for his primary job as CEO of OpenAI.—Illustrated by A.I.
Either way, we shall leave that investigation to the sturdy Journal. In the meantime, it was interesting to see the inside view of where Sam is placing his bets. He is not a rookie in the game; he has been standing in front of the best deal flow out of Silicon Valley since 2011, when he was funded by the world's most powerful incubator, Y Combinator, where he joined as a partner in 2011, and was named President in 2014. During this tenure, he got in early on deals like Stripe, Airbnb, and Reddit and has invested in an estimated 400 private companies in total. Sam's shot-gun investment style includes drawing on a debt line from JPMorgan Chase, which allows him to pour hundreds of millions of dollars more into private companies—trading on a rare personal gamble even amongst high-rolling VCs.
Overlapping Corporate Interest
“Off all the checklist items, this is the one that is an absolute non-starter. No one operating a venture backed startup should be simultaneously running another corporate entity that has overlapping interest, competing interests or even potentially competing interests. The standard should be the appearance of impropriety. The potential for bad behavior is simply too great. If there was a recipe book for corporate fraud, this would be the first chapter. Just say no. Plain and simple.”
Recent deals involving Sam Alton have raised eyebrows due to their potential conflicts of interest with OpenAI. For instance, his investment in Helion, a fusion energy startup where he serves as Chairman, is proposing to sell' vast quantities of electricity to provide power for data centers' to OpenAI. Additionally, OpenAI has just cut a licensing deal with Reddit, in which Sam and the entities he controls own a 7.6% stake, to incorporate their data into ChatGPT. These situations, if not appropriately managed, could lead to a breach of the Gurley startup governance principles, which would require Sam to hand the OpenAI CEO baton to a non-conflicted new commander.
Coming soon to a website near you!
AI Tracker
Meanwhile, OpenAI cofounder Elon Musk is now suing the company and building Grok, a chatbot competitor to ChatGPT developed by his new company, xAI. To compete, 'xAI is primarily focused on the development of advanced AI systems that are truthful, competent, and maximally beneficial for all of humanity.' (Take a puff, hold in.) 'The company's mission is to understand the true nature of the universe.' (Blow out 😚💨).
Sam and Elon—No longer seeing eye-to-eye.
xAI just completed $6 billion in new funding at an $18 billion valuation from investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal. Valor is a Tesla and SpaceX investor. Vy Capital backed the Twitter purchase; the Saudi billionaire prince rolled his $1.9 billion stake into the privatized Twitter.
Pope Francis is the first pontiff to speak at a G7 meeting, which was held last week in Fasano, Italy.
Our guy may be walking around bumping into walls and trying to shake hands with people who don’t exist, but Pope Francis, six years Slumpin’ Joe’s senior, is at the top of his AI game. It turns out that the Argentinian-born Pope has been contemplating the threat and promise of AI innovation for over ten years, and he shared his concerns with fellow world leaders last week at the annual Group of Seven meeting last week in Puglia, Italy.
"AI represents a true cognitive-industrial revolution that will lead to complex positive and potentially negative epochal transformations. AI and robotics, as with the Internet, will continue to democratize access to knowledge, spur the exponential advancement of scientific research, and reduce demanding and arduous human work. But we must remain wary, as these advancements may also create greater injustice between advanced and developing nations and dominant and oppressed social classes. We pray that the progress of robotics and artificial intelligence may always serve humankind."
Way back in the 1200s, the Catholic Church helped develop the scientific method by separating natural philosophy (science) from Aristotelian metaphysics (philosophy). This approach emphasized empirical observation, experimentation, and logical reasoning as the basis for acquiring knowledge about the natural world.
A research team from Ohio State University may have solved the question as to why there has been a surge in the number of young adults diagnosed with colon cancer. Their study suggests overeating sugar and not enough fiber causes the gut to produce a bacteria that 'speeds up the aging' of cells, which makes them more susceptible to mutations that lead to cancer.
No Red Bull.
Diets low in fiber and high in sugar produce the bacteria Fusobacterium, which increases inflammation throughout the gut. Fiber slows the release of glucose in the blood (blood sugar) and feeds healthy gut bacteria that lower inflammation. As of March 2023, 32 percent of adults ages 18 to 29 regularly consume energy drinks like Red Bull, which research believes is one of the primary culprits to feed the cancer-inducing gut bacteria.
Pura Vida (pure life)
Night moves. Moderate to vigorous physical activity in the late afternoon to early evening is particularly effective at lowering daily blood sugar levels, according to a new research study published in Obesity.
“Our results highlight the importance of the field of precision exercise prescription. In clinical practice, certified sports and medical personnel should consider the optimal timing of the day to enhance the effectiveness of the exercise and physical activity programs they prescribe.”
—Jonatan R. Ruiz, PhD, professor of physical activity and health, University of Granada, Spain. Ruiz is one of two corresponding authors of the study.
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