Every entry pairs a person's own words, dated and sourced, with the record that followed: a filing, a vote, a disclosure, a court position. Five kinds of pairing live in one ledger. Filter by kind, or search a name. For one person's positions over time, see By person.
51entries
35people and companies
5kinds of pairing
Said out loud: on the record, verbatim, with the speaker's own context.
Context The question was: "You would prefer the human race to endure, right?" Douthat had to note, on the record, "You're hesitating," before Thiel eventually answered "Yes" and pivoted to transhumanism — hoping technology will "radically solve" death. The full exchange is in the Times' published transcript; the hesitation itself, from the chairman of a…
Context Musk was describing what he called "suicidal empathy" — a concept he credited to marketing professor Gad Saad — and argued empathy is being "weaponized" as an "exploit" in Western societies, comparing it to a bug in a computer program. He added the qualification: "I believe in empathy, like, I think you should care about other people," but framed the…
Context A maxim attributed to Napoleon, posted — and pinned — by a sitting president while his administration faced court orders over frozen congressional spending. The White House reposted it on official channels. Posted as a sentence with no context, it asserts exactly what it says: that law does not bind the president when he deems the cause sufficient.
Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world and, when it's necessary, to scare enemies and on occasion kill them.
Context Closing remarks to investors on a quarterly earnings call — not a leaked aside. Karp has repeatedly used similar framing in public ("mostly to kill our enemies," to Axios; adversaries should "wake up scared and go to bed scared"). Palantir holds some of the largest data-integration contracts across U.S. defense, intelligence, and immigration enforcement;…
Context His answer to how much time he spends on self-reflection. Andreessen — whose firm's "Techno-Optimist Manifesto" lists "tech ethics" and "risk management" among its enemies — described introspection itself as an early-1900s invention he declines to practice. From one of the most influential capital allocators in AI, "zero introspection" is a governance…
Context Said approvingly, not as a warning — during an hour-long investor Q&A pitching Oracle's AI infrastructure. Ellison described a future where police body cams, drones, and street cameras feed continuously into AI that "will report that problem to the appropriate person," supervising officers and citizens alike in real time. He was describing a product…
Context Posted under a video of far-right rioting in Liverpool — days after the Southport stabbings, while mobs were attacking hotels housing asylum seekers. Viewed 9.6 million times on the platform he owns and whose amplification rules he sets. The UK Prime Minister's office responded on the record: "There's no justification for comments like that." Musk did not…
It's time for us to just put the imperial hat back on, to say, we're going to govern those countries … 'cause enough is enough, we're done being invaded.
Context Prince was arguing the U.S. should directly govern "incapable" countries in Africa and Latin America. When his co-host warned listeners would call that colonialism, Prince answered: "Absolutely, yes." From a man who builds and sells private armies — including pitches to do exactly this kind of work — it reads less as provocation than as a business plan.…
Context The manifesto's own "The Enemy" section then names the ideas: a "mass demoralization campaign" waged "against technology and against life" under the names "existential risk," "sustainability," "ESG," "social responsibility," "stakeholder capitalism," "trust and safety," "tech ethics," "risk management," and "de-growth." The document declaring safety teams…
Context His own answer, as OpenAI's CEO, to the worst-case scenario for the technology his company leads the race to build. He added that he is "more worried about an accidental misuse case in the short term" and stressed safety and alignment work. The entry pairs with his 2015 quip above: a decade apart, the stated downside has stayed "the end of the world" while…
Fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state. Replace them with our people. And when the courts stop you … stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say, 'The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let…
Context Advice he said he would give Trump for a second term: mass-replace the civil service and openly defy the Supreme Court if it objects. The Jackson line he cites is the (likely apocryphal) response to Worcester v. Georgia — the ruling Jackson's government ignored on the way to the Trail of Tears. Vance has been asked about the quote repeatedly since becoming…
AI will probably, most likely, sort of lead to the end of the world. But in the meantime, there will be great companies created with serious machine learning.
Context Delivered with a laugh line, months before he co-founded OpenAI — the company now racing to build the technology in question. The joke's structure is the alarming part: existential risk and shareholder upside in the same breath, priced as compatible. A decade later he runs the leading lab and the quote circulates without the second sentence; both halves…
Context Not a gotcha — the thesis of his own business book: "monopoly is the condition of every successful business," and founders should build companies that escape competition entirely. Silicon Valley adopted it as a bible. Read against the platform's antitrust and regulatory-capture files, it is the strategy document for much of what those files record.
Context Written in Thiel's own essay, not paraphrased by a critic. The same piece argues that "the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of 'capitalist democracy' into an oxymoron," and calls on libertarians to find "an escape…
Context Sent at 19, shortly after launching TheFacebook, about the users handing him "over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses." Zuckerberg confirmed authorship to The New Yorker and said he "absolutely" regrets the messages. The entry stays on the ledger because the regret concerns the wording, while the two decades of privacy consent decrees, FTC fines, and…
