https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_...
Oh cool, can't wait for the vibe-coded autopilot to CFIT into the Rockies or dump itself into the ocean that it thought was totally a runway while a completely untrained, inexperienced hot shot with $10 million to blow flies this generation's V-tailed doctor killer[1] to their final destination.
Airplanes have had autopilot (the genuine kind, not Musk's snake oil) for ages now. Commercial airlines have been using autoland on well-equipped airports for decades. Garmin's fully autonomous emergency autoland has already saved a few Cessna owners' lives. With the ongoing adoption of CPDLC the ATC-to-pilot link is also actively being automated and standardized.
There are no big technical hurdles left to solve! The main thing preventing fully-automated flight from taking off is the industry and regulators (rightfully) being incredibly conservative, and preferring paying pilots over the horrible PR fallout of an incident aboard an automated flight killing hundreds of people. Artificial intelligence isn't going to be of any help here!
So... basically, an even more digital cockpit with more touchscreens and less verbatim information presentation on the screens. Why give you multiple engine gauges for N1, N2, temps, etc, when we can just give you one dumb "Thrust" gauge? Why make programming the autopilot a fifteen day course on the ground when you can just have a LLM figure out what your flight plan should be and punch it all in automatically?
It's like how Cirrus positions themselves to be the family SUV of the skies with their products and falls back on "just pull the chute / push the Autoland button, bro".
The Garmin Autonomí autoland system is an amazing technical achievement but it's intended as a last-ditch way to save the passengers when a Part 91 single pilot is incapacitated. It would never be approved for routine non-emergency use and can't even take VHF radio instructions from controllers.
Pilots are supposed to rigidly follow their checklists - to the point of having to execute some of them from memory. A computer could easily do the same for the vast majority of emergencies.
The "Miracle on the Hudson" is called a miracle for a reason: the expected outcome is for everyone to die. Same with UA232. Nobody would've blamed the pilots if there had been zero survivors! Even with human pilots it is the exception, not the rule.
The fact that you are willing to blame an autopilot for not improvising a 1-in-1000 Hail Mary attempt is exactly the conservatism I mentioned: we prefer routine human failure and the occasional miracle over predictable automated performance.
Not like a truck where people quickly wonder why they haven't seen it in motion.
Wild!
“I walk into meetings now, and I’ll get high-fives from the most wealthy people in the world,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Welcome to the club. You can withstand the fire. We can trust you now.’”
The WSJ interviewed him and is reporting information about his past. I think the article portrays him as extremely shady and untrustworthy. Not sure what you could be seeing here to demean the WSJ.
Myself, I think people are mature enough to be able to read past a headline and come away from this with a clear eyed view of this fraudster.
How many times are you willing to forgive? Trevor has seen prison only once. But frauds? Many.
Headline is what is presented to the world. Headline is the claim being made to people who dont find the topic interesting. And majority of the people dont find all the fine details of pardoned CEO situation interesting. So, yes, if the headline lies, the news deserve to be criticized.
What trainwreck of misconceptions could possibly compel an otherwise reasonable person to believe something so ridiculous?
I don't know Trevor Milton. I have never met him. Maybe he isn't a compulsive liar but just got in over his head and was trying to make it work. But I know I would never invest in something he is doing.
He obviously thinks you should learn from your mistakes and that you must be an avid and quick learner.
But learning skills is not what introspection / dwelling is.
It's spending times on thoughts like "what should I be doing with my life". "I can't believe how much of a victim of the system I am".
And he specifically contrasted it against doing stuff.
Writing code >>> walks in the woods.
Obviously reflection is necessary to recognize mistakes of the past. What Andreessen was talking about that you should spent majority of your time acting not reflecting. Not that you should spent 0 time reflecting.
It's surprising to me that you consider these equivalent.
Introspection is a process of discovery, to uncover a deeper cause why you did something.
Dwelling is when you can't let go.
Introspection is important. Dwelling is problematic.
How else do you decide what to do?
If you're wealthy time and personal energy are the most valuable, irreplaceable resources you now possess. Why squander them on fruitless, random pursuits if you could think strategically and do something that really matters?
Theyre not exactly wrong
I have followed Trevor for many years. And I think anybody who has done the same will tell you, lying is very very central to his inner core. He lies even when he has zero need to. He just cannot help himself. It satisfies some inner need.
The social taboos of cultures around the world are fighting a ceaseless battle to reign in these endemic outliers.
But of course they'll leverage their connections and get high paying jobs like in this case.
Like it won't be just "vertically integrating pallet construction", it'll be "a heartwarming revolution in the construction of pallets, now with AI and blockchain".
Kind of like how TFA mentions that Milton's new SyberJet will "pioneer AI flight".
And to be clear he's not been convicted of fraud, he walked away from the cash bonfire with over a billion dollars.
I wouldn't trust her to make my coffee.
Best justice money can buy.
> He’s now raising funds for a new jet he claims will transform flying
With his history building the "truck that can roll unpowered down a hill" I shudder to think just how his jet would transform flying.
Therefore, I wish only the best of luck to never-committed-a-crime Trevor Milton and to the infallibility of our dear leader in his wise and judicious use of the power he has been given by God and the Constitution.
This really needs to be taken away. Or at least severely limited. Maybe you could pardon at most 10 people. And that too has to be approved by congress or the senate.
Why? I struggle to understand the incentives + motivations here.
But having founders that raise lots of money also have a value in itself even if the business fails in the long run.
The truly amazing thing, especially the second time around, are the supposedly sophisticated investors who fall for it. "Oh, he's learned his lesson -- he won't do it again!".
Sort of. I get the capital extraction part, but you also need to be a good steward of capital and make a profitable business out of it. He failed badly at the later part, and his reputation is an obstacle for the former.
Not saying you are wrong, but if I am a "capital allocator" at a16z, he would be no-go.
Basically, you’re saying he mislead investors and got a bunch of money, so those investors see themselves being ripped off as a valuable skill, so they invest in him again. Wut?
I say again — why would investors trust him if his only track record is losing investor money?
But, IMO the reason they're still giving him more money is that they're stupid and greedy. They know WeWork was a disaster, but it was a huge disaster. That shows them he's good at running a con, and they want to get in on the next one.
Class solidarity doesn't hurt either. Being a billionaire makes him an actual person in the eyes of other rich people.
EDIT: Also, it's funny you used a16z as an example:
> Not saying you are wrong, but if I am a "capital allocator" at a16z, he would be no-go.
because Andreesen Horowitz are the ones investing in his new WeWork 2.0 startup Flow.
Because they look at a serial fraudster and see themselves in him.
Its like people who invest into a ponzi scheme knowing full well it is a ponzi scheme, just thinking they are smart enough to leave before it all comes crashing down. And once you get enough critical mass, other people will invest based entirely on the fact that there is a lot of other investors and a rising price.
Yes! The only metric that matters is assets under management, since that’s where funds take their cut. Nothing else matters.
A16Z used to be a respected investor, then they went crazy deep into crypto scams and their AUM exploded, so they made more money than ever before.
But that is neither here nor there. What is important is the now, and in the now you are in the presence of someone who is Good At Making Money. And you too, by joining forces, will be Making Lots Of Money with this charismatic person, who can clearly achieve great things and will be clearly avoiding any past missteps that may have caused their downfall right before reaching greatness (but weren’t their fault anyway).
Think of the future, not the past!
I swear there are some people who control a lot of money who are just having fun ruining people's lives for laughs.
There are people who spend years working for some company, betting their career on it but it turns out the whole thing was some kind of inside joke.
My view is that some companies are basically somebody's toy and the employees are part of the entertainment like a personal reality TV show for some rich person so they can play-act as a hotshot entrepreneur.
Probably it serves as some kind of inflation control mechanism. If you have a lot of money and want to spend it without driving inflation, you have to find things with extreme diminishing returns and you have to invest in people who value such things.
The only thing I can add (regarding the motivations of people willing to invest with a fraudster) is that many people invest with the belief that they'll make money because they are just part of the scam and they assume there's a greater fool somewhere down the line.
But that's probably obvious.
It's just hard to imagine that anybody would give a f about this fraudster. Only explanation is he must know some dirt on someone.
It's clear now. Modern society runs on blackmail. There's a blackmail hierarchy all the way to the top.
I bet there are many people out there just making a living from just knowing dirt about people.
Trump when pardoning Trevor Milton said that he didn't know the guy, but heard that he said nice things about him.
And Milton made a $1m donation.
> Milton and his wife had also donated at least $3.2 million to Trump’s 2024 election and to political groups and people in Trump’s orbit, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The rich VCs and billionaires and aspirational billionaires only care about doing what they want to do and don't care what the peons like us think or care about.
This article is not praising trevor milton tho.
If you've ever worked with narcissists and sociopaths, you'll soon enough discover that they will do anything to get what they want. And they are professionals at playing people.
They know what to say, how to present themselves, how to make their story, and what strings to pull on the people they try to convince.
Some investors are also willing to suspend their disbelief - thinking that if they are the first to ditch to bag, there's money to be made...as long as they're not the ones holding the bag.
Why would you get $800k back? Also why would owe $400k in taxes for "keeping a million"? Nothing you've said makes any sense.
We're mid tax season but I really hope you hired a CPA.
The fraud might have a low close rate but the top of the funnel is huge. The unknown upstart can't even get meetings.
Still don’t get it.
My guess is that they're good talkers. They make it sounds like they learned their lesson or were framed but regardless if you hire them they'll make you rich!
Putting two and two together it seems to me that this business is a front for money laundering or something.
"He's got the hustle to do what it takes to succeed and is unencumbered by a moral compass. Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet."
"Pssh that's nothing compared to the fraud I committed to get here. Fake it till you make it baby!"
"It takes balls to defraud powerful people and then do it again. I respect the machismo."
Take your pick.
I believe the word he was looking for is "chutzpah", and no, it isn't a virtue, and no, it cannot be respected.
Trash.
In return, he got to trade on their reputation which allowed him to rope in more respectable partners and appear more legitimateto potential customers. It’s a vicious cycle.
See also:
"the powers that be could nail anyone they scrutinized for what they got him for, the conviction means nothing".
[0] It might have been this one, but I can't find it in the transcript https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/fraud-as-infr...
Even with SBF I'm 50/50 on that.
SBF, similarly, happened to have FTX invest in Anthropic early, and while we don't know how that's gonna play out now that they're at odds with the DoW, the value of Anthropic has already increased enough that it would have made whole all the money he was wasting/embezzling, so there's going to be a path for people to claim that he's directionally worth investing more money in, if he's out anytime soon.
1. his $1.8M donation to Trump shows other felons and fraudsters that paying Trump will pay back in dividends (Trump profits)
2. By pardoning thousands of frauds, con artists and outright violent nazis (Jan 6), Trump builds himself an army of loyalists who owe him their lives
3. By putting pardoned frauds, con artists and violent nazis in charge of government functions, Trump replaces the entire US government with one that will do his personal bidding
textbook autocrat stuff
And/or they're part of the Trump rich people's club. They all tend to stick together and help each other.
Venture guys aren't as smart or analytical as their propaganda would lead one to believe. A lot of them are just people who got lucky once.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/two-women-file-sexual-abuse-...
Birds of a feather flock together.
That and a $1 million donation. He bought his pardon fair and square.
She will forever be a walking timebomb for a lot of powerful people. That’s too much risk for some of them.
but isnt it weird how these women filed a complaint together 20 years later, after he became a billionaire?
I just read the article and by his cousins own testimony, they were BOTH minors, and he heinously sexually assaulted her by groping her breasts after she consented to... take off her own shirt down to a bra, during a "massage"... but the shirts off massage turned into a sexual assault when he touched her breasts/removed her bra?
He denies all of it, and it happened 20 years ago, and maybe he is a fraud, and maybe he is a creep, but there is no way to prove any of it.
No. Not in the slightest.
From work I once did, essentially IT support for a Royal Commission inquiry into sexual abuse and assault, it's extremely common for all manner of sexual assault victims to remain silent for many years.
Regardless of the wealth of the alleged perpetrator(s).
Eg: ~ 50 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Cable#Sexual_abuse_claim...
also, say, Rolf Harris, Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile, and numerous other rock spiders.
edit: comparing Jimmy Seville, and this 17 year old kid who touched his cousins tits during a consensual massage 20 years ago is a reach
Read more carefully, note well: " Regardless of the wealth of the alleged perpetrator(s)."
> comparing Jimmy Seville, and this 17 year old kid who touched his cousins tits during a consensual massage 20 years ago is a reach
No, they had a reach around.
Moreover, I didn't compare them, I merely noted that large time gaps are common place. Again, please read carefully.
Them filing complaint when they are in better position in life, when politics slightly change so there is an illusion someone will care etc makes perfect sense.
And yes, consenting to massage is not the same as consenting to sexual assault or anything else sexual. Among other reasons, that is why married people can get massage without it being cheating.
https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA1YRlL9...
Why would anyone give him money? Really. I'm blown away.
To make him sound credibly he agree to really shitty deals (for him) with credible companies. So he could say 'we are in business with X'. Of course GM was the biggest fish they got in that regard, of course the GM CEO at the time was on crusade to claim they were doing 'EV' so I think even they knew it was mostly scam, but it got them into the media.
He should be in prison.