Carl Coe retweeted
Scott Kupor (@skupor) was the first hire at Andreessen Horowitz. Marc and Ben still joke that if he had said yes sooner, the firm would be called Andreessen, Kupor, Horowitz.
His job description: "We're going to invest, and you need to figure out everything else."
Scott spent 16 years helping grow a16z from 3 people to about 700. Now he runs the Office of Personnel Management, the HR department for 2 million federal employees.
Scott explains how a16z borrowed Michael Ovitz's playbook from CAA, why only 7% of the federal workforce is under 30, and why 400 million pages of retirement records sit in an underground limestone mine in Pennsylvania.
This is a fascinating conversation about incentives, talent, and what it takes to turn a 2.3-million-person oil tanker.
0:00 Quitting HP mid-financial crisis to join a16z
1:37 His first day
4:00 How a16z copied Michael Ovitz's CAA playbook
10:18 After-hours bourbon in Marc Andreessen's office
13:31 The Skype deal that returned half the first fund
18:37 Why VCs thought marketing was beneath them
21:48 Swallowing his ego as a16z grew
27:12 Why he left a16z to run the government's HR
30:37 Why government is afraid to take any risk
33:24 Why 99.7% of federal employees get a passing grade
36:13 Recruiting 1,000 engineers into government
38:37 Only 7% of the federal workforce is under 30
40:31 Why "a job for life" is the wrong pitch
43:09 Why the government would never have hired Big Balls
46:39 Why DOGE had to be a big bang
48:56 The underground mine with 400 million pages of paper
55:28 Why government has to accept some failure
57:14 How young people can join
Includes paid partnerships.
Carl Coe retweeted
President Trump promised a nuclear renaissance, and we’re delivering.
@DOE_EDF’s conditional loan will upgrade and extend the life of plants across Vistra’s nuclear fleet in Pennsylvania and Ohio—adding 400MW of power to the grid.
Carl Coe retweeted
ISM US Manufacturing Activity: 54.5
9 straight months of expansion…
2026 looking very different than 2022-2025.
Carl Coe retweeted
Here's (ridiculous) Washington math for you - @POTUS reduces government headcount by 270,000 (~10%) to save $40 billion each year year in perpetuity for the American taxpayer, for which we paid about $9.5 billion in one-time severance. That's about a 400% return to taxpayers, but in Washington, people are too lazy to actually do the math. Much better headline is to tell the click-bait, sensationalist story only - the American people are smarter than that. usopm.substack.com/p/failing…
Carl Coe retweeted
This should be pushed far and wide. Watched in every college class in the U.S. Thank you @billmaher The moral confusion is gross. "It is not a genocide, it is a counterattack in a war...Gaza equals genocide is a lie, an easily provable lie (as I have argued from first hand observations in Gaza). The fact that so many democrats go along with it is to me the party's worse moment since they undid reconstruction after the civil war...words have meaning...genocide, kill or try to kill an entire people, you can't just change the definition of genocide to mean counterattack in a war where people including civilians die, that's every war..."
Carl Coe retweeted
I’ve said for 15 years and I’ll say it again, @AmirAdnani is my generations @robert_ivanhoe — fantastic for shareholders and for The Rise of America!
Honored to be invited to join President Donald J. Trump and industry leaders at today’s roundtable on American mining.
Under his leadership, American mining is back. @UraniumEnergy is proud to serve as America’s national champion on the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle. $UEC
Well done @LLBiggers. So glad you were able to get time with Secretary Wright.
Here in the U.S. we have become so comfortable with abundant energy, we've fooled ourselves into thinking it's not important.
That's why the last administration decided to shut down functioning coal plants and spend millions of "low carbon mac and cheese."
These are energy luxury beliefs through and through.
Carl Coe retweeted
🇺🇸🇻🇪 U.S. Energy Sec. Wright arrives to finalize oil deal with Venezuela's Acting President, Delcy Rodríguez.
The agreement gives the U.S. access to ~65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves, roughly 1/5th of the country’s total, across 17 large oilfields.
Washington sees it as a way to secure discounted crude and boost global supply, while critics call it "gunpoint diplomacy" to take control of foreign resources.
Writer: Samuel
Carl Coe retweeted
🚨 BOOM! GOV. RON DESANTIS just MIC DROPPED New York:
"We have 4 million more residents than New York State does, yet our budget's $117 billion, their budget's $268 BILLION dollars!"
"We have the lowest per capita tax in the country, we've paid off just since I've been governor, 52% of our state's debt, and we have a smaller government today than the day I took office. See, it can be done!" 👏🏻
Carl Coe retweeted
This is my pardon. Signed January 20, 2025. Certificate issued February 4.
I want to show you exactly what it fixed and what it did not, because people assume a document like this closes the book.
What it fixed: the conviction. Legally I am clear. That is real and I am grateful for it. President Trump did that, and I will say thank you for the rest of my life.
Here is what it did not fix.
It did not give back four years. Three in a federal cell and one on an ankle monitor where I was not allowed past my own front door. Fifteen months of that was solitary confinement. Eighteen hours in the cell and one hour out. Then thirty six hours in and one hour out.
It did not fix a family that had to learn how to live without me, and then had to learn how to live with me again.
It did not fix what fifteen months alone in a box does to a man's head.
And it did not touch the record. In December 2021 a federal judge said on the record that my due process rights were violated. Nobody has answered for that. Not one person lost a job. Not one person lost a pension.
A pardon is mercy. Mercy and justice are not the same thing. Both are good. Only one of them makes a system change how it behaves next time.
So I am building the other one.
I am putting the entire record online where it cannot be buried. Documents, transcripts, dates, names, the parts that make people uncomfortable. Not rumor. Not a podcast take. The paper itself.
That is the work. It costs money and hours I do not really have, and I am doing it anyway, because the next family this happens to should not have to start from zero the way I did.
If any of this matters to you, follow along and stay with me. Send it to somebody who still believes this only happens to other people.
I am not asking anyone to take my word for anything.
I am asking you to read the record.
Carl Coe retweeted
This is what it looks like when the federal government shows up.
@CMCoe Chief of Staff of the U.S. Department of Energy, at Rainey Center's Energize America 2030 NC State Policy Lab on AI, data centers, and why America has to stop getting in its own way.
#Energize2030 #EnergyDominance #AIPolicy #RaineyCenter
I am wrapping up my tour of duty as Chief of Staff at the Department of Energy. It has been the greatest experience of my life. It is hard to put into words everything I have learned, the extraordinary people I have met, the monumental policies I have worked on, and the profound gratitude I feel for having been given this opportunity.
First, I want to thank Secretary Chris Wright—without question the most qualified Secretary of Energy in our nation’s history. That description still falls short of capturing how special he is. He is a great leader, brilliant, and deeply committed to the future of our country and humankind.
He has assembled a team of some of the most talented people on the planet—men and women who put their lives on hold, moved to Washington, and dedicated themselves to help the country. . People like Greg Beard, Audrey Barrios Andy Rapp,Kyle Haustveit, P.E.
Darío Gil, Audrey Robertson, James Danly and so many others who are giving everything to this mission.
I wish every American had the chance to spend a portion of their career in public service. I have never worked harder or felt more dedicated. It feels like a higher calling—something larger than any individual, something capable of impacting millions of lives for generations.
I am looking forward to spending time back home in North Carolina with Karen Coe and explore the next opportunity. As I depart, trust that the country is in good hands, remain optimistic, and know the greatest nation ever will continue to shine.
@ENERGY @SecretaryWright
Carl Coe retweeted
July 23, 2026, was the busiest day for commercial air travel ever, according to data from @flightradar24.
A whopping 153,359 commercial flights were tracked worldwide.
“Americans filed 5.7 million applications last year to start new businesses, according to the Census Bureau, the most in the two decades the government has kept track. New business applications through the first half of this year continued to climb.”
nytimes.com/2026/07/17/busin…
Carl Coe retweeted
One of the greatest achievements in human history:
In 1990, 44% of the world lived in extreme poverty.
Today, it’s down to 10%.
The world is far from perfect, but this is what extraordinary progress looks like.
Carl Coe retweeted
Most data centers use the same amount of water—or less—than an average large office building. Meanwhile, they're helping lower electricity costs by financing new power generation. The hysteria over AI data centers is going to age very, very poorly.
NY Gov. Kathy Hochul is enacting the nation’s first state-level moratorium on large-scale data center construction amid concerns over the impact of the facilities meant to support AI.
politico.com/news/2026/07/14…
Carl Coe retweeted
As we approach peak electricity demand in the 13-state Mid-Atlantic region, at 7am this morning less than six percent of electricity generation was coming from renewables.
Over 91 percent of generation is coming from gas, nuclear and coal—keeping our air conditioners blasting.
