I help CROs and CCOs in enterprise software turn sold value into adopted, renewed, and expanded revenue.
Atlanta, GA
Joined July 2013
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Don Purvis retweeted
Mehr Eier als all unsere Männer in der Regierung zusammen.
@GiorgiaMeloni : „In Italien entsteht ein neuer Straftatbestand: die gewalttätige Teilnahme an einer Demonstration.
Konkret heißt das: Wenn Sie sich während eines Zuges oder einer Demonstration einer Gruppe von fünf oder mehr Personen anschließen, Steine, Böller oder Stöcke werfen und die Sicherheit aller gefährden, riskieren Sie bis zu fünf Jahre Gefängnis und bis zu 20.000 Euro Geldstrafe. Wenn Sie das Gesicht bedeckt hatten oder jemand verletzt wurde, steigt die Strafe. Auch die Strafen für diejenigen, die in der Gruppe verwüsten, werden erhöht.
Der präventive Arrest (fermo preventivo) kann künftig auch auf Minderjährige angewendet werden
Wer etwas zerstört, zahlt – und wenn ein Minderjähriger etwas zerstört, zahlen seine Eltern. Bei Schäden an öffentlichem Eigentum (Bushaltestelle, Ampel, Polizeifahrzeug) schickt der Präfekt einen Zahlungsbescheid nach Hause. Bei Schäden an privatem Eigentum (Schaufenster, Geschäft, Auto) geht der Eigentümer zum Richter und erhält einen sofort vollstreckbaren Zahlungsbefehl.“
Don Purvis retweeted
Two days ago I wrote about the trap this generation keeps falling into. 1.5M of you read it. The most common reply: "OK, but who builds the trap?"
Fair question. Here's my answer. And let me be clear from the start: there is no secret room. No puppet master. What exists is far more banal and far more durable: a machine of incentives, where every person in the chain is paid to keep the same story alive. Nobody has to coordinate. The money does it for them.
Let's start at the bottom of the machine, with the person nobody ever looks at.
PART ONE: THE MACHINE, LINK BY LINK
A. The NGO bureaucrat.
His salary depends on the problem existing. He isn't paid to solve it. He's paid to document it, denounce it and campaign about it. An NGO that actually solved housing would have to lay itself off. So the incentive is never "fix." It's "mobilize." And nothing mobilizes like a villain.
B. The program officer.
The person who decides which NGO gets funded. He has to show "impact" to his board, and impact means reports, campaigns, reach, people in the street. A group that quietly builds 200 homes produces a boring report. A group that fills a square produces a great one.
C. The fiscal sponsor.
The plumbing. Many activist groups have no legal structure of their own, so their money flows through an umbrella nonprofit that receives and redistributes it. This is legal and common, and it makes the money nearly impossible to trace from donor to banner.
D. The university administrator.
Subsidized tuition didn't buy better teaching. It bought administration: entire offices whose job is to read every interaction between students as a power relation. Remove the lens and the office has no reason to exist.
E. The academic.
Careers run on grants and peer committees. Publish inside the dominant frame and you rise. Publish outside it and you're "problematic." Nobody has to forbid anything, because everyone can read the incentives.
F. The subsidized artist.
Film, theater and festivals are funded by committees that reward the "right" themes. The capitalist villain isn't a creative choice. It's a funding criterion nobody writes down.
G. The public broadcaster.
Paid by the taxpayer, never by the viewer. It never has to win you over. It has to please the people who renew its budget. Guess which villain it will never investigate.
H. The teacher.
Usually sincere, usually underpaid, trained in the same universities as everyone else. He passes on the lens he received, in good faith. That's what makes it so effective: the people transmitting it believe it.
I. The international institution.
Agencies and programs built around permanent crises. When a crisis ends, so does a budget. The narrative of eternal oppression becomes, quite literally, a business model.
J. The politician.
The last link, the one who cashes in. The machine produces anger. The politician harvests it and sells, as the cure, more of what caused the disease.
Ten links, and not one of them needs to be evil. Each one just follows its interest. That's what makes the machine so hard to stop: you can't arrest an incentive.
PART TWO: NOW THE REAL NAMES
The European Commission.
Between 2021 and 2023, more than €7.4 billion of EU money went to NGOs, in internal policy areas alone. In 2025 the EU's own Court of Auditors concluded that nobody, not even Brussels, has a reliable overview of where it all goes. When MEPs looked into the LIFE environmental program, the Commission itself admitted that some NGO work programmes it had funded contained "undue lobbying activities." In plain terms, public money paid activists to lobby the institutions that pay them. The auditors found nothing illegal, and that's exactly the point. It's all legal: the state paying people to ask the state for more state.
Open Society Foundations.
Less a puppet master than a patron. By its own records, it gave Jewish Voice for Peace $875,000 between 2017 and 2022, a group active in the Columbia protests, and it has funded the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. Does it pay kids to pitch tents? There's no evidence of that. It does something more powerful. Year after year, it funds the organizations that produce the frames, the slogans, the trainings and the talking points. You don't need to pay the protester when you pay for the lens.
The fiscal sponsorship networks.
The money doesn't have to go to the group on the poster. It goes to an umbrella, which passes it on. That's how fact-checkers can honestly say "no direct grant to the student group" while the ecosystem around it is funded. Both statements are true. That's the design.
The French state.
€1,714 billion of public spending in 2025, 57.3% of GDP, the highest in Europe. Public debt hit €3,595 billion at the end of June, 119% of GDP, a record since INSEE started measuring. Interest alone runs around €79 billion this year. On top of the bill sit public universities, public broadcasting, a centralized curriculum and culture funded by committees. In France the machine isn't an ecosystem. It's an administration.
New York City.
In June, a Rent Guidelines Board with six of its nine members appointed by the mayor voted to freeze rents on about a million stabilized apartments. That included the first two-year freeze in the city's history. One board member resigned, saying the board had been rebuilt to deliver the freeze. The first leases under it took effect on October 1st. Watch what happens to maintenance, to new construction, to the vacancy rate. Every city that has run this experiment got the same result. And when it fails, the machine will already have its culprit ready: the landlord.
THE LOOP
Now put it together. The state funds demand and blocks supply, so prices explode. The young suffer. The state then funds the NGOs, universities, culture and media that explain to them why they suffer. Those institutions point at the market. The young vote for more state. More state funds more NGOs, and the loop closes.
The flag on those kids' shoulders the other morning wasn't the start of anything. It was the output, the last screen of a machine that runs all day, every day, on your taxes.
You can't arrest an incentive. But you can cut its funding, and you can teach people to see it.
That's what this account is for.
On my way to the office this morning, I passed a group of young people protesting, a Palestinian flag draped over their shoulders.
And I asked myself a question I can't shake: why does this generation always fall into the same trap? No matter the history. No matter the context. Even the ones from wealthy families, who went to the best schools, who were dealt every good card. Always the same trap.
I don't think it's stupidity. I think it's a mechanism. And a mechanism can be taken apart, piece by piece.
A. The observation: everything the state touches becomes unaffordable.
Look at economist Mark Perry's famous chart, the one people call "the chart of the century." It tracks US prices since 2000.
At the top, what explodes: hospital services, college tuition, textbooks, childcare, housing. Increases of +100%, +150%, up to +250%, far above general inflation.
At the bottom, what collapses: TVs, software, phones, toys, clothing. A TV today costs a fraction of what it did in 2000, for an infinitely better product.
Look at what separates the two groups. It isn't technology. It isn't complexity. It's one variable: how much the state is involved.
At the top, sectors that are subsidized, regulated, shielded from competition, where the state funds demand and blocks supply. At the bottom, sectors where companies fight every single morning to serve you better and cheaper.
B. The mechanism: why it's systematic.
When the state subsidizes demand without freeing supply, prices rise. Every time. Guaranteed student loans, and universities raise tuition. Housing aid plus blocked building permits, and rents skyrocket. Administered healthcare, and bureaucracy eats the budget before it ever reaches the patient.
In France it's even more vicious, because the price doesn't disappear: it hides. You never see the hospital bill, you pay it through payroll contributions. You never see the cost of school, you pay it through taxes. Public spending at 57% of GDP, one of the heaviest tax burdens in the world, more than €3.4 trillion in debt. And the result? Overflowing ERs, falling PISA scores, young people who can't afford to live in the city where they work.
The market didn't fail in these sectors. It was never allowed in.
C. Suffering demands a culprit.
A 22-year-old lives all of this in their bones. They can't find a place to live. Their degree either buries them in debt or opens no doors. The future feels blocked. That suffering is real, and I don't deny it for a second.
But human beings can't stand suffering without a culprit. They need a face. A scapegoat.
And this is where everything is decided: who taught them how to read the world?
D. Whoever tells the story picks the villain.
Schools are public. Universities are public. Culture runs on grants. Film goes through funding committees. Public broadcasting shapes the narratives. The people handing down the interpretive framework are, overwhelmingly, paid by the very system that creates the problem.
Do you really think that system is going to name itself as the culprit?
No. It names the capitalist. The boss. The landlord. "The rich." The multinational. The commercial West. Same role, same casting, every time.
E. One lens, a thousand causes.
And this brings me back to that flag. A generation taught to read every situation through a single lens, oppressor on one side, rich, Western, capitalist, oppressed on the other, will apply that lens everywhere. To housing. To climate. To conflicts on the other side of the world. The cause changes, the lens stays. That's why the trap is always the same: it's not the cause that draws them in, it's the way of thinking that was installed in them.
F. The perfect inversion.
Here's the irony. Capitalism is the force that drove down the price of almost everything it touched. The state is the force that blew up the price of almost everything it captured. And young people blame the first for the crimes of the second.
It's like blaming the firefighter for the fire because you saw him at the scene.
G. The ballot box confirms it.
In the US, a few weeks out from the midterms, a large share of urban young voters is getting ready to vote Democrat for more state, more spending, more regulation. New York elected a self-described socialist mayor, carried by young voters, on promises of rent freezes and city-run grocery stores. Rent freezes, the policy that has made housing scarcer everywhere it's been tried. The cure that worsens the disease.
In France, it's the same play in two acts. Part of the youth votes for the radical left, which promises more state. Another part votes for the center, which promises to "manage" the state well, and has dug the debt deeper than ever. Two different ballots, one shared assumption: the problem is the market, the solution is the state.
H. The way out.
These young people aren't stupid. They're right to be angry. They're just aiming at the wrong target.
The day they understand that their rent, their tuition and their hospital are expensive precisely because the state runs them, their anger will change direction. They'll stop protesting against those who create. They'll start protesting against those who capture.
That day, the greatest intellectual scam of our time will be over.
Don Purvis retweeted
Ben Horowitz: “The most dangerous thing going on in AI is Anthropic and Bill Gates”
“Anybody can go say, ‘AI is going to kill us,’ and you'll be on every major news station and every newspaper and so forth.
I think it's extremely dangerous, though, when it comes from Bill Gates because he is so credible, because he did build Microsoft, and people think of him that way, and then certainly he's been a big political donor, so he has a lot of political juice, particularly on the Democratic side.
The big risk that everybody talks about is that the models are going to recursively self-improve, and then they're going to take off, and then they're going to become so smart and run away from us.
Well, what would be the preconditions for that?
Ali Ghodsi from Databricks had a great formulation of, ‘Well, what would be the preconditions for that?’
And he had four preconditions.
One is that the next model has to require fewer GPUs than the last.
The second thing is the next model has to take less time to train.
And then the accuracy of the next model has to be better than the last, so it's got to be a better model.
And then finally, it's gotta keep happening again and again and again.
Zero of those four have been met.
We're not on track for any of those four to be met, and so we're really talking about a risk that's entirely theoretical at this point that we're not mapping to.”
Don Purvis retweeted
Wow, wow, wow. I just left the National Press Club where Minister of Communications @AnikaWells spoke. She repeatedly and brazenly lied about the fake accounts, claiming they were only for enforcement, even though the legislation says in black and white that the eSafety Commissioner can use them in unlimited ways for "educational" and "promotional" purposes.
One big moment came when a Politico reporter got up and said something about how mean people like @PaulineHansonOz were to eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant. Seriously. A supposed reporter was white-knighting for a government official during the official Q&A. The same reporter had come up to me before Wells' speech and asked if I had criticized Inman-Grant. Who needs government censors when you have Politico?
After he asked his question, Wells showed the most emotion, describing online criticism of Inman-Grant as "abuse." She also talked about her own staff's supposed suffering. I kid you not. The mask dropped, and you could see what really upset her: people — including a sitting Senator — criticizing government officials.
After gaslighting the audience about fake accounts, Wells repeatedly insisted the government wasn't trying to censor content. She said this after filling her speech with examples of content she claimed harmed people. You couldn't make it up.
This legislation is the culmination of decades of progressives equating words with physical violence. Wells cynically compared her legislation to prevent psychological "harm" to various laws that protect people from physical harm, like seat belt laws.
BTW, Wells never said what content it was that she thought caused eating disorders. Pictures of skinny women? Dietary advice? Who knows. Nobody asked.
Another important moment came when Wells explicitly said Australia would be pursuing censorship alongside other nations, including the UK, France, and Spain—all countries where governments risk losing power to populists.
I spoke with Julie Inman-Grant before the speech began and asked about the fake accounts. She insisted they were there just for enforcement, and when I asked why the law allowed them to be used for government propaganda, she said she might write an "enforcement memo," which, of course, would have no impact on the legislation.
After her speech, I went up to Wells and asked if she was seriously saying the legislation didn't allow the government to use fake accounts for government propaganda. She refused to answer. A man who said he was from the National Press Club stepped in front of me and said I could interview her afterward. But that wasn't possible because they rushed her out the back to avoid any difficult questions.
So there you have it. The pettiest people in Australia are seeking to silence citizens and their political opponents in the name of protecting children. These deeply intolerant and cynical people want to control what you can see and say online. And they're doing it with most of the media's support. Australia has reached a new low in its rapid descent into dogmatism, intolerance, and censorship.
The government today will introduce sweeping censorship that @AlboMP & @AnikaWells lie about. Below she claims the government wants to create a bot army of fake accounts for “research” when the bill clearly intends for them to be used in partisan warfare against fooled citizens.
Don Purvis retweeted
Small cities, school districts and rural hospitals guard our most sensitive data with the fewest resources to defend it.
Today we’re launching Securing America’s Infrastructure Foundation, a new nonprofit, bringing AI-powered cyber defense to them at no cost.
SAIF starts with focused goals for on the ground impact and $25M in committed funding by a16z's founders. I’m joined by a founding board of Brian Barrios, @GoldsmithOnGov, Bob Lord, @vishalmisra and @philvenables.
If you lead a small city, rural school district or hospital system or want to join our team, please reach out: [email protected]
Read our full announcement here: a16z.news/p/introducing-secu…
Amen!
I’m French. I want to talk to Americans who are about to vote Democrat. Not to insult you. To warn you.
I come from your future.
In France we did everything your progressive politicians promise. Free healthcare, free college, generous welfare, strong unions, heavy regulation, high taxes on the rich, a state that takes care of everything. Public spending close to 57% of GDP, one of the highest on the planet. On paper, it’s the dream.
Here’s what it looks like from the inside. France hasn’t passed a balanced budget since 1974. Our debt is above 3,300 billion euros. Interest on that debt is becoming one of the biggest items in the national budget. Our hospitals are collapsing despite record funding. Our schools rank lower every year. Young people with degrees can’t afford an apartment in the city they were born in. Our best engineers leave for London, Zurich and San Francisco. And the rich you wanted to tax? They left too, and took the jobs with them.
The promise was protection. The result is stagnation.
The worst part is that nobody in France voted for decline. Every single step sounded generous, compassionate, reasonable. One more program. One more regulation. One more tax to fund it. Each step alone makes sense. Fifty years of them, and you wake up in a country that can no longer build a nuclear plant on time or keep its streets safe.
I love America because it’s the one place on earth where people still believe they can build something from nothing. I came to Silicon Valley as a self-taught kid and it changed my life. That spirit is the most precious thing your country has.
Before you vote, ask yourself one question: is the program you’re voting for making America more like America, or more like France?
Trust me. You don’t want to be France.
Don Purvis retweeted
Attention Young Men:
I am surrounded by 20 year old girls in my life that are smart, capable, hard working and cute. Nobody is dating them. Not sure what the deal is, but I don’t get it.
Step 1: Stop playing video games
Step 2: Head to great clips and get that lettuce cleaned up
Step 3: Hit a shower (when dating hygiene is critical)
Step 4: Go clean your car
Step 5: Sign up for a yoga class
Step 6: Go to the yoga class
Step 7: Ask a cute for her phone number at yoga class (yes you can meet girls IRL and not just on the apps - 10/10 the Dirt Dog highly recommends)
Step 8: Follow up within 2 days with a phone call and ask them out for this coming weekend Friday or Saturday night.
Step 9: IMPORTANT - come up with a good game plane for date night. Get a dinner reservation, get an activity planned. Let them know in advance what you are doing so they can dress appropriately. I know you are gunna roll off the couch and head to date night, but they are not. They are going to stress about what to wear and call at least 6 different people on FaceTime to ask their opinion.
Step 10: I highly recommend you bring flowers to the door step. I’m not covering that you go to the doorstep, because if you don’t do that you have no hope here. Women want men to date them. You don’t need to break the bank on flowers. Head to Trader Joe’s. Grab 2 different kinds of flowers. If you don’t know what matches find the closest looking lady to your mom at TJ’s and ask her. Wrap the 2 flowers into 1 bouquet with paper. Bonus Points you can cut open a TJ bag and use that as the paper.
Step 11: Be a gentleman on the date. She isn’t there to hear your life story. Ask her about her. For every 1 question you answer, ask her 3. Open Doors, pay for the meal, be polite.
Provided you follow most of this guideline you are highly likely to get yourself an opportunity for date number 2.
Keep going until you find someone that you can’t imagine not being around all the time. That’s when you have found a good one for you.
My life is complete with my wife as my companion. I wish you the same fortune in life. Happy Hunting.
Don Purvis retweeted
YOU MISSED SOME GREAT ARTICLES ON X!
I am fixing that!
Every day your @Grok @Bot will find build you a morning summary of the last 24 hours of the top X Articles on the topics of your choice!
Try it!
See what you are missing.
Link: x.ai/bot/UmGyUKTHDS4-ziSOlsU…
Don Purvis retweeted
What's new in Grok Bot
0:00 Main @Bot
1:32 Engineering updates
2:18 Knowledge work and Google connectors
3:00 Team Bots in Slack
4:15 Team Bot voice calls and status lines
4:39 Plugin search with Command K
Don Purvis retweeted
Not exactly. SpaceX requires that there be no annoying “portal” to use Starlink.
Starlink WiFi must just work effortlessly every time, as though you were at home.
Delta wanted to make it painful, difficult and expensive for their customers. Hard to see how that is a winning strategy.
Don Purvis retweeted
United said it themselves: "The rumors are true." 😂✈️
Delta fliers, your status gets matched, and you get Starlink Wi-Fi on board right now instead of waiting until 2028. 🛰️
Well played @united.
Don Purvis retweeted
You're not going to believe how nasty Delta is.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian got caught trashing Elon Musk at internal meetings to explain why they rejected Starlink. But don't buy the corporate moral high ground for a second.
Delta tested Starlink, but Elon refused to let them trap passengers behind ad-tracking portals to farm and sell user data. SpaceX wanted instant connection just like home, with zero data harvesting.
So what did Delta do? They signed with Amazon’s completely untested satellite network which won't even launch fleetwide until 2028. Strictly to monetize passenger information.
United flyers get 300 Mbps; Delta flyers get dial-up and a data harvest.
Don Purvis retweeted
Delta CEO Ed Bastian is facing major backlash from his own loyal customers for rejecting Starlink for Delta passengers while competitors are rapidly installing it across their entire fleets
Bastian reportedly said:
“We do not want to be with Elon Musk. Trust me.”
Meanwhile, United is already rolling Starlink out across its entire fleet, while Delta is looking up at the sky waiting for the magical version of Starlink from Amazon Leo, which won’t even begin installations until 2028 lol
You don’t have to like Elon Musk…but it’s pretty stupid to not provide Starlink to your loyal customers when they desperately want it just because you have a personal ego against Elon and you don’t like him
Again, betting against Elon Musk is a seriously dumb move….that usually doesn’t end well
Don Purvis retweeted
Yesterday at the White House, leaders from across our industry came together to sign the White House Accord on Super Intelligence.
The principle is simple: the companies building this technology have the primary responsibility to develop and deploy it safely, and to be accountable when they fall short.
The Accord reinforces that responsibility with robust internal controls, independent external evaluation, and board level oversight.
Super Intelligence offers an extraordinary opportunity to advance discovery, productivity, security, health, and prosperity.
The future of Super Intelligence will be shaped not only by what it can do, but by the confidence it earns. By building with ambition, rigor, and responsibility, we can help ensure this extraordinary technology expands opportunity and improves lives for generations to come.
