Dave Karpf

Jan 17, 2025 | techpolicy.press | Dave Karpf

Perhaps the most famous piece of lore from the early days of the “PayPal mafia” is the time that Elon Musk took Peter Thiel for a joyride in his McLaren F1. Thiel asked Musk what the car could do. Musk said, “Watch this,” gunned the engine, lost control of the car, hit an embankment, and the car went airborne. The two men survived without injury, but the car itself was ruined. Musk, in his own words, “didn’t really know how to drive.” He also hadn’t bothered to insure the million-dollar vehicle.

Jan 6, 2025 | davekarpf.substack.com | Dave Karpf

I live on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Four years ago, my kid had the day off from school. Usually I would have taken her to the playground, but I was worried the teargas might waft in our direction. We stayed indoors instead. We watched Sesame Street instead. Don Moynihan published an excellent piece this morning, “Jan. 6 and the path not taken.” He expressed much of what I wanted to say about this day.

Dec 10, 2024 | davekarpf.substack.com | Dave Karpf

There’s been a bit of an internet-fight over the past few days in my digital neighborhood. -Casey Newton wrote a piece last Thursday titled “The phony comforts of AI skepticism” that defined two camps: “AI is fake and sucks” vs “AI is real and dangerous.” He then made the case for why the first camp is immune to evidence, and the second camp is basically right. -Gary Marcus had some things to say about that characterization. -Edward Ongweso had quite a few more things to say.

Dec 3, 2024 | davekarpf.substack.com | Dave Karpf

I do not care about Hunter Biden. President Biden’s adult failson has been in prison because he broke the law. But he was also in prison because of his last name. His crime was filling out a gun permit while a drug addict, and checking a box that said "I am not a drug addict.” He also failed to pay taxes, and then paid them back with interest. These are not crimes that people usually go to prison for.

Nov 6, 2024 | davekarpf.substack.com | Dave Karpf

(NOTE: I’m still processing things. Writing is how I process.)This is a disaster. I knew it was possible. We all knew it was possible. But I didn’t believe it would happen again. I thought, in the final tally, that Dobbs would matter and January 6th would matter and corruption would matter and Trump’s own rambling incompetence would matter. I did not think American Democracy was in any way perfect, but I did believe we were at least better than this.