Jim Kendall retweeted
During the Cold War, there were people in the West, so called Sovietologists, who knew all the red flags when delegations, political and business-like, had to go on a visit to the Soviet Union.
Why is this expertise missing nowadays, given that we‘re already in a new Cold War?
Compliance tips from the disastrous Nvidia scandal, from someone who specializes in China risk:
--This was an open secret in the China watching community for months before it broke into the public. Make sure that you're conducting highly sensitive internal investigations beforehand, so that if something like this breaks publicly, you're prepared. In other words, no one in Nvidia senior leadership or its board should have been surprised by this, and they should have a plan in place.
--When you're quantifying the risks of China exposure, remember that Chinese journalists are usually Chinese state employees, and should be treated as such. Alice Huang was a former Chinese TV journalist, which doesn't mean that she was an independent reporter from a business-minded TV station, but rather that she was a former government employee.
--More broadly, make sure you understand what your company's China exposure. It's essential that the board and the Chief Risk Officer or Chief Legal Officer understand and own these issues, so that they can make high-level, painful decisions in scandals like these.
--Usually with issues like this, there's more than one major scandal, and, when one breaks publicly, enterprising journalists and Congressional committees will look to find the others. This is an excellent time to make sure you know what those may be, so you're not caught surprised.
--Counter-intuitively, Beijing usually dislikes when American companies receive massive press attention for being too pro-China. It wants the mechanics -- around honey trapping and influence campaigns -- to stay in the shadows So far, Beijing has denied the allegations and claimed that this is a smear campaign against China. Nvidia needs to have a deep understanding of what it's China exposure is and price out the risk of offending the US versus offending China.
--For companies in the same space that aren't Nvidia: when a scandal like this breaks, journalists hunt around for trend stories. Great time to ensure that your CEO or board member isn't part of that trend. It's too early to tell if there will be several other companies who face intense scrutiny as part of this for their China exposure, or other Fortune 500 CEOs whose honeytrapping becomes public, but this is an excellent time to make sure you stay ahead of the media on this one.
Jim Kendall retweeted
Gut health is one of our culture’s last taboos. While millions of people live with IBD and its symptoms, it's something we’d rather not talk about.
That’s what makes “The Girl's Guide to Guts” so powerful. @NBCNews correspondent @ChloeMelas and co-writer @JudyBatalion share their decades of experience with ulcerative colitis in a guide that combines scientific rigor with candid (and often funny) personal stories about everything from dating and parenting to gut-healthy food choices and maintaining your most important relationships.
“The Girl’s Guide to Guts” shines a much-needed spotlight on a health journey that is too often cloaked in secrecy and shame. When the science makes it clear that our gut health impacts our brain health, stress levels, immune system, and mood, it’s a book that can have a real impact on women’s health — and help anyone who is silently struggling feel more supported. The subtitle captures how it’s all done with a light, personal touch: “Everything Your Doc Didn't Tell You (But Your Bestie Would).”
In her reporting and beyond, Chloe has used her voice to advocate for issues that impact women. Now, she’s telling her own story so others don’t have to live theirs alone. penguinrandomhouse.com/books…
Congratulations, @ChloeMelas and @JudyBatalion.
Jim Kendall retweeted
Welcome to the new Cold War. This isn’t about game of cards - lives are at stake for good.
People have no idea how sophisticated nation state activities are
If you are a target of opportunity for China it’s not unheard of for them to dedicate O(1000) humans dedicated to compromising you
This is what happened w their NYT hack in 2013, which was designed to send a message
They will compromise your friend’s friend’s friend to compromise you
And work down that chain until your friend invites you on a fun trip on a private plane to Mexico/Thailand/wherever (example)
Where some night you have a very boozy dinner and then you show back up at the house and some girls are there
You’re drunk and make a mistake and then you’re owned until you’re disposable
Nation state kompromat for “target’s of choice” is a system designed to find any individual’s weakness (you’re bisexual; a gambler, an alcoholic, drug addict, have a debt, adulterous, etc) and then force them into a situation of maximum amplification of this weakness
99% of people can be compromised using nation state capabilities and tactics
nytimes.com/2013/01/31/techn…
Jim Kendall retweeted
Profit isn't the only signal. Feeling great about helping people. Changing people's lives. Helping your country. Putting people in a position to succeed. To enjoy their lives. People get to pick their own motivations. If they are fortunate, they will reach those goals.
That's the beauty of capitalism. People get to choose the reward that motivates them.
Entrepreneurs can choose to make as much money as possible. Or not. They can choose to make enough money to focus on using their most valuable asset, their time, to not have to work at all. They can choose to make money to help people.
But. Every entrepreneur that wants to reach their goals needs people. People to work for them, buy from them, sell to them. Even the person in the basement with nothing but AI, needs to connect to humans to reach their personal goals.
Capitalism works. But not for everyone.
Where Capitalism fails people, Capitalism isn't the problem. It's the people that put profits above all else that are the problem.
If you put your personal net worth or cash flow above all else, you may make insane amounts of money, but you will suffer the greatest indignity. You will be hated. Your time will not be your own. You will never experience the joy that comes from helping others.
No one is born knowing where their life will take them. We get to do our best, in our circumstances, to try to enjoy our lives.
Capitalism allows us to try to get there. Capitalism allows people who have achieved those goals to help others. Capitalism allows us to choose our own personal path.
Unfortunately, we don't all get there. But we get to try to choose the path we want.
The signal is personal choice. Not profit.
Mark. Do you hear yourself?
You say government doesn't have to make a profit, and that is true. It is the whole problem. Profit is the signal that tells a producer he created more value than he consumed. Government has no such signal, which is why it cannot know whether anything it does is worth doing. That is not a friction AI removes. It is the absence of the one piece of information AI would need.
And everyone else in your plan does have to make a profit. The researcher who spends ten years on a molecule that may never get through the FDA. The engineer who designs the scanner. The company that risks capital on a manufacturing line. The doctor who borrowed three hundred thousand dollars for the right to work ninety hour weeks. The nurse. The hospital that has to keep the lights on. Every one of them has to take in more than they put out or they stop, and when they stop, the care stops with them. Government not needing a profit means nothing if the people who make the thing still do.
Then there are the people whose money you intend to run through the Treasury. They earned it. They need it. And they have a right to it that does not depend on whether your commission has a good use in mind. A government that doesn't have to make a profit is a government that only has to take, and the taking is the part you keep leaving out of the pitch.
You know all of this. You built Cost Plus on exactly these premises. Publish a price, earn a margin, let the customer decide. You just refuse to grant the people who make medicine the same thing you granted yourself.
Jim Kendall retweeted
This is very important
Jim Kendall retweeted
NEW podcast episode is up!
"Lucky #888 — My Tour of Designing Luck in China, Japan, and Korea"
For episode #888, I couldn’t resist going down a rabbit hole about the number eight. Join me for a nerdy tour of China, Japan, and Korea, including a million-dollar license plate, disappearing hotel floors, a casino room designed around one gambler’s birthday, and much, much more.
Please enjoy!
Jim Kendall retweeted
CVS is splitting into two companies in a major reversal of the mergers that created its $117 billion healthcare empire cnn.it/4z45oWd
Jim Kendall retweeted
This guy realizes the biggest gap in our life: Constructivism vs Real World.
Either you allow someone else to construct your reality and tell you how to live and what to think, or you take action and responsibility, and face the real world out there in all its terror and beauty.
Jim Kendall retweeted
Now we'll finally learn what's in the Epstein files. Mike Johnson is no longer in a position to shut down the House in order to prevent votes on measures to force their release. It's time. It's past time.
Jim Kendall retweeted
For @nytimes, Callie Holtermann asked members of Gen Z what it's like to look for a job right now, and one feeling came up again and again: it's like staring into a void. Applications disappearing without a reply. Interviews conducted by chatbots. Rejections arriving two minutes after applicants hit submit. As one person summed up what so many are feeling: “Could someone please just give me a chance?”
I know what rejection feels like. My second book was rejected by 37 publishers. By rejection 25, I had run out of money, and I remember walking, depressed, down St James Street in London and seeing a Barclays Bank. I walked in and, armed with nothing but a lot of Greek chutzpah, asked to speak to the manager and asked for a loan. Even though I had no assets, the banker, whose name was Ian Bell, gave me one. It changed my life, because it meant I could keep things together for another 13 rejections. And then finally I got an acceptance.
So many of today’s applicants are describing a search where the human never appears. How can we find our humanity, our shared connection, around these tough moments?
To everyone who has experienced rejection — and at some point, we all do — what’s your advice for Gen Z job-seekers? I’ll be reading and responding in the comments.
Read the piece here: nytimes.com/interactive/2026…
Jim Kendall retweeted
The only country that has ever taken my unlocked phone and laptop into a back room for hours is the US, not China.
Readers asked how I secured my devices for a week in China. Full write-up: the real risks, what I did, what I skipped, what was overkill.
fabricegrinda.com/my-digital…
Jim Kendall retweeted
I'm in Vienna and “Infinite∞” is live in the bookstore at the @GDruckerForum! Come by and say hi! 👋
infinitecompany.ai
Jim Kendall retweeted
It's a great question. Here is my answer
I don't give a fuck about my net worth. I have enough. My family has enough.
My next dollar can impact other people's lives a lot more than mine.
That's why we started CostPlusDrugs com
That's why I did Shark Tank for 15 years.
That is what drives my investments
I look for ways to have an impact.
I pay my taxes.
I don't care about moving up on the Forbes 400
Still my @mcuban quote
Multiple roommates. Ramen noodles. Near public transportation. Respect to the people who do whatever it takes.
I worked as a bartender. Bar-back. $2.15 an hr plus whatever tips got shared. Worked at a retail store. Never had benefits at any job.
Had 5 roommates in a 3 br apt. Ate lousy food out of cans and ate a ton of peanuts and shit food at happy hour. Had credit cards ripped up. Etc.
But I learned a ton. Taught me what was right and wrong about running a business by watching my bosses and their bosses
Yeah I know. It was much easier then, when inflation was 15 pct and national unemployment was 10 %. I know I was fortunate when I finally got fired from the store, and had to start my own business with zero cash. Bill collectors everywhere.
Even luckier when I found my first customer so I could pay my bills
But I recognize it’s so much harder today.
Which is why I respect the people who are willing to do what it takes to get started
34
First we have amalgamation and then the disintermediation commences.
Seems to often be the ebb and flow of commerce and $ $ made and lost in each cycle @mcuban
46
Jim Kendall retweeted
Mark Cuban's advice for young people boils down to "there's gonna be two types of companies: those who are great at AI and those who have gone out of business."
"And then there's two types of people in how they use AI: those who use AI to learn anything, and those who use AI so they don't have to learn anything."
"And if you're one of those people who uses AI so that you can learn anything, and you realize what type of companies and problems aren't being solved by AI, don't be shy to just talk to your AI."
"And I say this not just to kids, but to 50 60, 70-year-old entrepreneurs. The biggest challenge right now with entrepreneurs using AI is the comfort level of talking to your AI... there's still a lot of hesitancy."
"Just like back in the day, those first spreadsheets, people still had their 10-key adding machine, and they would check it to make sure the spreadsheets were right."
"So when you ask me, is there one thing I truly believe, it's everything. Everything will change. This is the greatest transitional technology we have ever seen, and I've been around for all of them, right? This blows them all away."
@mcuban @julesyoo @eriktorenberg
Mark Cuban scaled Cost Plus Drugs from about 100 generics to roughly 4,000 at a flat 15% markup, forcing incumbents to change prices in ways decades of policy never did.
He thinks AI could transform healthcare, but it won't fix opaque prices and broken incentives on its own.
Mark sits down with a16z's Julie Yoo and Erik Torenberg to discuss what he's learned building Cost Plus Drugs, why trust is its core product, and how greater transparency could put pressure on healthcare costs.
They also explore why drugs designed for your DNA could cost close to nothing, the football field-sized drug plant his team shrank into tractor trailer-sized pods, his plan to make generics in Dallas for less than he pays manufacturers in India, and why every company will either be great at AI or go out of business.
0:50 Cost Plus beat decades of policy
3:15 111 generics to 4,000 drugs
5:00 A drug plant shrunk to 5K sq ft
5:55 $20M drug factories in a trailer
8:10 Hospital deals with zero denials
9:50 Why health plans are rigged
14:05 1,335 pages no human can check
18:35 "Where are they f**king me over?"
22:45 Making drugs cheaper than India
26:50 Why you still need entry-level hires
31:45 Nonprofit hospitals must offer aid
35:55 DNA-matched drugs for near $0
39:30 Why AI will mean more doctors
48:00 Mark's plan: "bye bye insurers"
52:25 Why AI labs' ads are useless
56:35 Get good at AI or go out of business
YouTube: youtu.be/5UWDUD6qaM4
@mcuban @julesyoo @eriktorenberg