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βThe problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.β
- Margaret Thatcher
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"If you want to know how to change the world, read Category Pirates." - Bill Walton NBA Legend
Joined November 2008
- Posts 39,134
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Christopher Lochhead π΄ββ οΈ βπΌπ reposted
21h
Brilliant post by @lochhead on why he loves America. Probably the best post that I have read recently. Thank you Christopher.
I find it fascinating that people conflate politics and patriotism.
My love of America has nothing to do with who is in the White House.
It never has. It never will.
I love this country because a kid who failed out of school at 18 with nothing could come here from Canada and build something legendary.
That happened under Republicans.
That happened under Democrats.
It happened because of America.
Not because of any politician.
Gratitude for this country is not a political position.
It is a human one.
β300 million people live here.
β170 million more want to.
Not because of who is president.
Because of what America is.
A place where anyone can come from nothing and build something legendary.
That is not a left thing.
That is not a right thing.
That is an American thing.
It has been true for 250 years.
And it will be true for 250 more.
πΊπΈ
We just published 25 predictions for America's future.
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I find it fascinating that people conflate politics and patriotism.
My love of America has nothing to do with who is in the White House.
It never has. It never will.
I love this country because a kid who failed out of school at 18 with nothing could come here from Canada and build something legendary.
That happened under Republicans.
That happened under Democrats.
It happened because of America.
Not because of any politician.
Gratitude for this country is not a political position.
It is a human one.
β300 million people live here.
β170 million more want to.
Not because of who is president.
Because of what America is.
A place where anyone can come from nothing and build something legendary.
That is not a left thing.
That is not a right thing.
That is an American thing.
It has been true for 250 years.
And it will be true for 250 more.
πΊπΈ
We just published 25 predictions for America's future.
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Christopher Lochhead π΄ββ οΈ βπΌπ reposted
We will see this at 90% , barring catastrophic policy choices.
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Christopher Lochhead π΄ββ οΈ βπΌπ reposted
Brad this is legendary. Every child a shareholder in the American economy from birth.
That is not a policy idea.
That is category design applied to citizenship.
You didn't ask how to fix inequality.
You asked a different question entirely.
What if every American child was an owner instead of an outsider from day one?
That reframe changes everything.
The most powerful force in American history has always been the same.
Give people a stake in the future and they build it.
This is that.
Congratulations on making history today.
And happy 250th birthday America.
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My wife Kari's great grandfather Dominic came to America from Italy at 18.
With nothing.
Early 1900s.
He became a fruit farmer in San Jose.
In what John Muir called "The Valley of the Hearts Delight."
Today Kari and her sister Mary run the last working orchard in that valley.
The last icon of the past.
Nestled in the very spot that creates the future.
My Scottish grandfather survived World War II and bet on Canada.
A generation later I bet on America.
Dominic came from Italy with nothing and bet on America.
Two families.
Different journeys.
Same bet.
America is not a club.
America is a catapult.
Happy Birthday America.
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Christopher Lochhead π΄ββ οΈ βπΌπ reposted
Jul 1
The American Dream has never belonged to one party. It belongs to every child. Grateful to be in Newark w @SenBooker signing up kids for @TrumpAccounts. In NJ over 1 M kids have at least $250 waiting in their free, lifetime investment account. πΊπΈπ
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I was born in Montreal.
Started my first company at 18.
No money. No connections. No options.
It failed.
I started another one.
By 28 I had sold it to a Silicon Valley public company.
I never finished high school.
I have five learning differences.
I started with nothing.
Today I'm a writer, teacher, startup-advisor and podcaster. Building things I love with people I love.
In America.
That is not a business story.
That is an American story.
Where anyone can come from nothing and rise to the highest levels of their field.
That is not a clichΓ©.
That is a miracle.
America gave me my life.
This one's for her.
πΊπΈπ΄ββ οΈ
#America250
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Christopher Lochhead π΄ββ οΈ βπΌπ reposted
Jun 30
AI is responsible for ~half of US GDP growth in 2025.
SITUATION EXPLAINED: Two contradictory AI jobs stories dropped today.
β’ Story one: call center stocks are falling on fears AI makes them uninvestable, companies replacing customer service with AI
β’ Story two: companies that spend the most on AI are increasing headcount the fastest, including entry-level positions
β’ Almost four years into the ChatGPT era, AI has been a significant net job creator, not the predicted "jobpocalypse"
β’ Headcount gains don't show up for 6-12 months and only appear at high-intensity AI adopters
β’ Almost all gains were concentrated in tech sector white-collar jobs
@theojaffee: "The AI boom may be responsible for 40-50% of US GDP growth in 2025, and the supply chain behind data centers (chips, cooling, power infrastructure, construction) likely created real blue-collar jobs too, even if the final data center itself only employs a small permanent staff"
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Christopher Lochhead π΄ββ οΈ βπΌπ reposted
Jun 30
Turns out I have the fifth biggest Substack in the United States
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Christopher Lochhead π΄ββ οΈ βπΌπ reposted
Market the category, not the brand.
Jun 26
Marc Andreessen says Alex Karp almost never talks about Palantir in interviews. He calls it the single best marketing strategy he has ever seen and then revealed the number that proves it works better than anything else in the history of investor communications.
Every founder makes the same mistake. They think inside out. My company, my product, my story, out into the world. It feels natural. It is also why most founder content is indistinguishable from every other founder's content.
Karp does the opposite.
He talks about the future of the US military. He talks about superintelligence. He talks about whatever is genuinely interesting to him about the world right now. And because he is the CEO of Palantir, the company just sits there attached to all of it.
Then Marc dropped the number.
What percentage of Palantir investors have read the S1? Practically zero. What percentage have seen Karp on YouTube? Close to 100.
A Edelman B2B study found that thought leadership content drives purchasing consideration more than product marketing does β by a factor of nearly three to one among enterprise buyers. Karp did not read that report. He just built the playbook it describes.
Palantir's lawyers spent thousands of hours on the S1. It explains everything the company does with full precision. Nobody read it.
Karp spent those hours talking about things that interested him. Everybody watched.
The most effective investor communication Palantir ever produced was never filed with the SEC.
Watch the full video on @a16z YouTube channel
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Christopher Lochhead π΄ββ οΈ βπΌπ reposted
Jun 30
Narrative violation: A new study of 21,559 firms in the U.S. finds that βcompanies that adopt AI tend to grow faster following adoptionβ.
βFirms making the largest AI investments grow employment by roughly 10% following adoption, while low-intensity adopters see no statistically significant change.β
βEntry-level headcount rises 12% for high-intensity adopters.β
βGains emerge gradually and are broad across roles, including engineering, sales, administration, and customer service.β
βThe results counter predictions that AI adoption will lead to broad job loss.β
The study is based on observed AI spending from Ramp card and bill pay data linked to Revelio Labs workforce records.
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The Wall Street Journal covers companies.
Category Pirates, we cover categories.
categorypirates.news/p/who-aβ¦
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Hey, @WSJ Why is this not your cover story?
$251 billion raised.
11 billion-dollar IPOs.
The biggest six months for companies going public in U.S. history.
The old record, set in 2021, just got smashed.
By the companies building the future.
Rockets. AI. Satellites.
Should be front page news.
It is not.
Why? The business press covers companies, not categories.
They miss the entire category going public in America at once.
This is a legendary American achievement.
And the business press is addicted to bad news.
Convinced good news is bad news.
We disagree.
Days before America turns 250, the companies building the next century of tech are raising money here.
Not Shanghai.
Not London.
Not Dubai.
Here.
That's the headline.
Nobody's running it.
So we are.
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The Wall Street Journal covers companies. We cover categories. categorypirates.com/pages/weβ¦
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Christopher Lochhead π΄ββ οΈ βπΌπ reposted
Jun 28
Florida is a very well run state. NY is the anti-Florida.
Jun 28
π¨ JUST IN: Gov. Ron DeSantis confirmed that after he finalizes the new budget, the red state of Florida will have SLASHED SPENDING for 4 YEARS STRAIGHTβ¦
β¦Florida will have a budget less than HALF the size of New York, despite being similar in population
β¦and the state rainy day fund WILL BE 100% FULL and more than 3X THE SIZE from 7 years ago
FLORIDA CRUSHES IT AGAIN! πΊπΈ βοΈ
All with NO INCOME TAX and impending slashing of property taxes. Imagine that.
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Worldwide GDP in 1926 was $3 trillion. Today it's $126 trillion. 50x in 100 years.
Stocks don't just go up.
It was humans designing new categories that created value from nothing.
βRefrigeration.
βElectrification.
βThe semiconductor.
βThe internet.
Each one looked like a bubble in the middle innings.
Each one was actually a re-rating of the entire economy onto a new S-curve.
That's wha't happening with AI now.
And it all comes down to one question. π€
Is your category (or your career) on the good or bad side of the S-curve? Answer that. And you will see what many "smart" people cannot.
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Christopher Lochhead π΄ββ οΈ βπΌπ reposted
Jun 29
My latest POV on the state of the US consumer.
1. Consumers are stretched, but do see a light at the end of the tunnel
- U Michigan consumer sentiment was 49.5% slightly higher than May
- 60% of inflation is energy, and crude oil has fallen below $75/barrel
- Market may believe cooler heads will prevail re: oil
2. Consumers willingness to spend is a function of their job prospects
3. 'Blue collar' jobs like electricians/construction will boom due to data centers
4. Obvious, 'monkey-see, monkey do' knowledge workers will struggle
- Gartner lost 2/3 its market cap this year
- Goldman says AI can replicate large parts of Gartner
- Monkey see, monkey do is also called benchmarking/best practices
- Most knowledge work, even at prestigious firms, are monkey see, monkey do
The most obvious example is looking at how many firms including BCG, McKinsey, PwC and more have ripped off the OG Strategy guru @RogerLMartin's where to play, how to win framework...without attribution.
Jun 26
.@EddieWouldGrow and Jan Rogers Kniffen discuss the latest consumer sentiment data.
They examine gas prices, inflation, spending levels and the broader economic picture.
For more: schwabnetwork.com/?CID=SM:Twβ¦
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