Three years teleoperating driverless vehicles from a room in Tempe. Now building an independent fleet operation in the East Valley. Pre-operational. And BYU.
Gilbert, AZ
Joined June 2026
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Stephen Snyder retweeted
Coolest hype video I’ve seen in a long lonng time from this best linebacker in the NFL
Stephen Snyder retweeted
It's often said that BYU is a special place. As a former player there, Zubin Mehenti asked me why...
#GoCougs
#NDvsBYU
#BYUvsND
@BYUfootball
Stephen Snyder retweeted
The realistic alternative to AI-made Mary Sue wasn't artist-made Mary Sue. It was no Mary Sue.
I saw someone say they'd love Mary Sue if we'd used real artists instead of AI. I get the impulse, but that ignores how things actually get made.
A single finished minute of Disney-grade CG animation can run into a seven-figure budget most indie creators will never see. Nobody was going to write that check for a satire skewering girlboss tropes, "misunderstood villain" narratives, and the moral universe modern Hollywood has been force-feeding audiences for the last decade or more.
The choice was never "AI or artists." The choice was to use the tools available to make the thing, or sit quietly while Hollywood keeps owning the entire cultural pipeline.
The right can spend the next decade complaining about AI, wringing its hands about whether it's unethical or a threat to artists, and watching from the sidelines while everyone else uses it. Or we can pick up the tools in front of us and start making the stories nobody else is going to make for us.
Mary Sue exists because I'm done complaining about Hollywood. I don't apologize for using the tools that let us compete with them. The alternative is silence, and silence is exactly what the people running the culture want from us.
Oh and because of Mary Sue's success, I'm now having conversations about a Mary Sue feature with a real budget. I'm not sure where those talks will lead, but if a Mary Sue feature becomes a reality, it'll employ real artists in jobs that wouldn't have existed if I had refused to create with these new tools out of some misguided artistic principle.
Episode 4: Mary Sue Thinks the Villain Is Misunderstood
Produced by @capcutapp using Seedance 2.5
Stephen Snyder retweeted
I now understand the American dream.
I came to the World Cup because I was offered a last minute ticket to watch England play Croatia in Dallas and I started documenting my journey.
The content went viral on social media. So much so, the President of the United States saw it himself.
I was invited to attend the grand opening of the great American state fair for freedom 250 and halfway through Donald Trumps speech, I was told to come and wait back stage for a photograph.
This sort of thing could only happen in America.
As an Englishman I never really understood what America has to make it “the land of opportunity”
But results speak for themselves.
Stephen Snyder retweeted
Tesla just uploaded a video about its vision system and how it helps deploy airbags earlier. Rolling out as a software update that will make the cars even safer. More people should know about Tesla's commitment to safety. Not for marketing...for human lives $TSLA
Stephen Snyder retweeted
The Vermont Blacksmith Who Forged the Electric Future
No degrees and no permissions asked.
In spring of 1833, a self-taught blacksmith named Thomas Davenport from the rugged hills of Brandon, Vermont, saddled his horse and rode more than 25 grueling miles through muddy trails and dense forest.
His destination?
The iron works at Crown Point, New York, where a revolutionary new invention hummed with invisible power: powerful electromagnets used to pull iron ore from the earth.
What he witnessed that day wasn’t just a tool it was pure magic. Sparks of electricity dancing, iron leaping at the command of an unseen force. Most men would have marveled and gone home.
But Thomas Davenport was no ordinary blacksmith.
With calloused hands still warm from the forge and a mind burning with questions, he bought one of those electromagnets on the spot, strapped it to his horse, and galloped back to his humble shop in Forestdale.
He tore it apart like a mad scientist. Using his blacksmith skills, he forged a stronger iron core. When insulation failed, his wife Emily made the ultimate sacrifice: she cut her silk wedding dress into strips to wrap the wires.
Night after night, in the flickering glow of his forge, this determined Vermonter hammered, experimented, and dreamed abandoning his steady trade to chase a vision no one else could see.
By 1834, working alongside mechanic Orange Smalley, Davenport achieved the impossible: the first practical rotating electric motor in America.
A spinning marvel powered purely by electricity. In 1837, he secured the world’s first patent for an electric motor the very first patent for any electrical device.
Imagine it: a humble blacksmith from a tiny Vermont village inventing the machine that would one day power everything.
Refrigerators keeping food fresh, washing machines easing back-breaking labor, electric trains and subways connecting cities, elevators lifting skyscrapers, factory lathes humming, and eventually the very devices in your hand right now all trace their lineage back to that spinning rotor in a Vermont blacksmith shop.
Thomas Davenport saw the electric future decades before Edison, Tesla, or anyone else lit up the world. He demonstrated his motor to crowds, printed the first magazine using electric power, and even ran a small electric railway model. But timing is everything. The world wasn’t ready batteries were weak, electricity scarce, and funding dried up.
He died in 1851, largely forgotten and broke, his prototype now resting in the Smithsonian.
Yet his spark endured. That self-educated blacksmith from Brandon didn’t just invent a motor he ignited the modern age.
Every time you flip a switch, charge a device, or ride an electric vehicle, you’re riding the revolutionary wave started by a man with nothing but a hammer, a dream, and the courage to chase lightning itself.
The unsung hero of the electric revolution. The Vermont Blacksmith who truly invented the modern world.
Stephen Snyder retweeted
My dad is not my “dad”.
My mom left an abusive marriage with my father when I was 8 months old.
We were homeless for a little while until she found the man who would raise me.
She had credit card debt and not much to offer. Just a baby girl and a toddler boy with cerebral palsy.
The man who would come to be the only true father I ever knew sold his vintage motorcycles and his only vehicle to pay off her credit cards and take care of us.
He was a young teacher, and she would be a stay-at-home mom.
From the time they married, I never rode the bus, never ate a school lunch, and never came home to an empty house.
He biked to work every day, sacrificing to support our family.
He was there for every soccer game. He bought every prom dress. He invested endlessly in my hobbies.
Over time, his consistent belief in me built my confidence. He took me to photography and digital art conferences where I learned valuable skills that helped me launch my first business.
I always knew that, no matter what, I was never alone, never unloved, and never without the full support of my dad.
Decades later, I asked him why he fell in love with my mom. What drew him to her? A homeless woman with two small kids isn’t really a catch.
He told me, “I didn’t just fall in love with your mom. I fell in love with you too.”
Happy Father’s Day to the men who chose to step up for those who other men let down.
You are the real heroes.
Stephen Snyder retweeted
LAST NIGHT: Whoopi Goldberg Attacked Jack Keane — and Received a Brutal “Lesson” She Won’t Soon Forget
Whoopi Goldberg thought she could easily score public points by attacking Jack Keane over his views on patriotism, national unity, military service, and the direction of American culture. But this time, she picked the wrong opponent.
Known as one of America's most respected military leaders and public commentators, Jack Keane didn’t just respond — he delivered a powerful message about freedom of thought, personal responsibility, and respect for everyday Americans.
“Whoopi Goldberg says voices like mine are contributing to division,” Jack Keane began in a calm but firm tone. “But what truly divides a nation is dismissing people simply because they hold different beliefs and insisting that only one viewpoint deserves to be heard.”
And he didn’t stop there.
“You know what’s even more dangerous?” Keane continued. “Using influence and public platforms to shame millions of hardworking Americans simply because they refuse to embrace a particular cultural or political narrative.”
Then Jack Keane went even further, speaking as someone who has spent decades serving the country, advising national leaders, and working alongside service members and military families.
“It’s not disagreement that weakens a nation,” Keane said. “Strong nations survive disagreement. What weakens them is intolerance, contempt, and the growing belief that political opponents are enemies rather than fellow citizens.”
At that point, this was no longer just another public clash — it became a larger conversation about free speech, civic responsibility, and the future of public discourse in America. Instead of backing down, Jack Keane transformed the confrontation into a broader debate about the values that hold the country together.
“I’m not claiming to have all the answers,” Keane admitted. “But I will always believe that America is strongest when people can speak freely, debate openly, and still respect one another at the end of the day.”
And then came the line that many supporters said they would never forget:
“America was never built on fear of disagreement. It was built on courage, freedom, and the belief that people with different views could work together for something greater than themselves. So ask yourselves — who is really trying to unite this country?”
What began as a celebrity attack quickly turned into something much bigger: a message about unity, responsibility, leadership, and the future of America.
Stephen Snyder retweeted
An American legend has taken his final rest. John Kinsel Sr., one of the last original Navajo Code Talkers who used their language to outwit the Japanese in World War II, has died at 107.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
John Kinsel Sr. died in 2024 and was not the last Navajo Code Talker; the photo does not depict him, as he is shown in sources wearing a red shirt and Code Talker cap. navajotimes.com/reznews/navajo… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kins… wesalute.com/blog/military-…
Stephen Snyder retweeted
Aldi's co-founder was once kidnapped and held in a wardrobe for 17 days. His captors were so confused by the cheap, ill-fitting suit he was wearing that they made him show ID to prove it was really him.
His family paid a 7 million Deutsche Mark ransom, around $2 million at the time and the largest Germany had ever seen. Theo Albrecht later tried to write the whole thing off as a business expense on his taxes. After that he barely appeared in public again. Almost no photographs of him surfaced for the next 30 years, and he took a different route to work every single day.
The chain started in one corner store. Theo and his brother Karl grew up working in their mother's tiny grocery in a poor suburb of Essen. Their father had been a coal miner until his lungs gave out, so the shop became how the family ate. Both brothers were sent off to fight in the war. When they came home, most of Essen was rubble, but the little store was somehow still standing.
They rebuilt it on one rule: only stock what sells, and sell it for less than anyone else. They spent nothing on advertising or decorating the stores. The shops were barely the size of a dorm room, with products left sitting in their shipping boxes. By 1955 there were more than 100 of them across Germany.
Then one argument split the company down the middle. Karl was sure that selling cigarettes at the register would attract shoplifters, while Theo wanted them on the shelves. Neither brother backed down, so around 1961 they drew a line across the country, Theo keeping the stores in the north and Karl the south. People still call that border the Aldi Equator. The brothers shortened the company name, Albrecht Diskont, to Aldi.
Both brothers stayed cheap their whole lives. Theo used pencils down to the stub, and the two of them turned down the public honors and awards they were offered. When Karl died he was the richest man in Germany, worth around $25 billion, and Theo was worth close to $17 billion.
The bare-bones format they pioneered went on to take over their home country. Discount chains now take close to 40 cents of every euro Germans spend on groceries, and Aldi and its rival Lidl have grown into the two biggest sellers of store-brand groceries anywhere in the world.
Aldi opened its first US store in Iowa in 1976. It now runs more than 2,600 of them, the third-largest grocery chain in America by number of stores, each one about 10,000 square feet, a fraction of a Walmart Supercenter's 178,000. The crowd lined up on West 42nd Street was waiting for a business that began as one tiny shop in Essen, run by two brothers who counted every coin.
Stephen Snyder retweeted
Not only are the Texas Rangers the ONLY team in Major League Baseball that don’t have a Pride Night, they instead celebrate fatherhood by allowing the player’s kids to join them on the field for the National Anthem during Father’s Day.
Every other MLB team should take notes ✍️
Stephen Snyder retweeted
Estamos explorando un pueblito costero en Delaware del que nunca habríamos escuchado si no nos hubieran invitado y la sensación que tengo es que la riqueza que hay en cualquier parte en Estados Unidos es realmente increíble, muy difícil de procesar para cualquier extranjero. Los suburbios nunca se terminan, la infraestructura está en otro nivel, hay mucho espacio para todos, la comodidad reina en la vida cotidiana (sí, el urbanismo local es terrible, pero ese es otro tema). Al mismo tiempo todo se siente nuevo, muy poco se siente heredado. No es casual que estén llenos todos los estadios aún con precios astronómicos en partidos aleatorios; si los extranjeros no compran, los locales copan todo. Un tamaño enorme, una economía relativamente libre y una sociedad amiga del riesgo configuran un mundo en sí mismo. Porque además de tener con qué, hay que querer gastar; y acá la gente gasta como si no hubiera un mañana. La confianza implícita en el futuro es infinita.
Stephen Snyder retweeted
A man invested $53,000 of his family's savings into a dying video game store. Hedge funds laughed. He turned it into $48 MILLION and made Wall Street beg Congress to stop him.
> Keith Gill was a 34 year old financial analyst at a Boston insurance firm in 2019. His salary was ordinary but his conviction was not.
> He believed GameStop, a struggling mall video game retailer trading at $5 a share, was one of the most undervalued companies in America.
> Wall Street disagreed. Hedge funds had shorted the stock so aggressively that more shares were shorted than actually existed. They were certain it was going to zero.
> Gill invested $53,000 of his family's savings and started posting his analysis online under the name DeepFuckingValue on Reddit and Roaring Kitty on YouTube.
> Nobody took him seriously. He kept posting anyway, week after week, with nothing but spreadsheets and conviction.
> In January 2021 retail traders on Reddit's WallStreetBets discovered his posts.
> They started buying. The stock went from $5 to $483 in three weeks. A 9,600% move.
> Hedge funds that shorted the stock lost BILLIONS. One firm alone lost $6.8 BILLIO and had to be bailed out by other hedge funds.
> By January 27 2021 Gill's $53,000 investment was worth $48 MILLION.
> He lost $13 MILLION in a single day when the stock fell. He held anyway, without flinching, without selling a share.
> Robinhood restricted buying of GameStop without warning. Retail traders were furious. Congress summoned Gill to testify.
> He showed up in his Roaring Kitty headband and said three words that became the most quoted phrase in finance that year: "I like the stock."
> His employer fired him and paid a $4 MILLION fine for failing to supervise his trading.
> He went quiet for three years. Then in May 2024 he posted a single image on X. GameStop surged 50% the next morning before he said a word.
> By June 2024 his position was worth $289 MILLION.
> A Hollywood film called Dumb Money was made about the saga, starring Paul Dano. He has never spoken publicly about it.
He invested $53,000 into a stock Wall Street had already written off for dead. Hedge funds lost BILLIONS.
Stephen Snyder retweeted
The oldest hand to sign the Declaration of Independence shook so badly the man could barely hold the pen. He signed anyway, and what he said while doing it should be carved somewhere. Here's the story.
Stephen Hopkins was born in Rhode Island in 1707. No money, no fancy schooling, almost no formal education at all. His mother and grandfather taught him at home, and from there he did the rest himself. He read everything he could get his hands on and became a surveyor and an astronomer by sheer self-teaching.
A poor self-taught kid then did this with his life. Justice of the peace at 23. Speaker of the Rhode Island House seven times. Chief justice for eleven years. Governor nine separate times. He basically taught himself into running an entire colony.
He was also a complicated man, and honesty demands we say it. He had enslaved people in his household, and later in life he turned against the trade, freeing people he held and pushing a 1774 bill to stop the importation of slaves into Rhode Island. A man wrestling with his own contradictions in real time.
By the time independence came, he was old. Nearly 69 when he got to the Continental Congress, one of the oldest men in the room, second in age only to his friend Benjamin Franklin.
And here's the thing. He was sick. He had palsy, a condition that made his hands shake so violently that writing was genuinely painful. For a man whose whole life ran on reading and writing, his own hands were betraying him.
So when the moment came to sign the most dangerous document in America, treason against a king, he could barely do it. He reached over with his left hand, gripped his trembling right hand to steady it, and forced the pen across the page.
And as he did it, he said the line they should put on a wall:
"My hand trembles, but my heart does not."
He went on to help draft the Articles of Confederation before his health finally pulled him out of public life. He died in 1785.
A self-made man, an old man, a shaking man, who looked down at hands that would barely obey him and signed his name to a revolution anyway.
Stephen Hopkins. The heart doesn't tremble.
Stephen Snyder retweeted
The left can’t stand it. Seeing Americans put politics aside to celebrate the greatest country on Earth is their worst nightmare.
Nothing terrifies them more than a nation united under one flag instead of divided by their outrage. While they’re busy complaining, millions of patriots are proudly waving the Stars and Stripes and reminding the world what America is all about.
That’s the real comeback story: patriotism is back, America is standing tall again, and no amount of media hysteria can drown it out. 🇺🇸
Stephen Snyder retweeted
Tesla is simulating Cybercab drop-offs and pick-ups in Austin, TX.
Feels like launch can be ANYDAY now. I’ll be heading to Austin when it happens.
Tesla is engineering safety right into the Cybercab!
A Tesla employee in a production Cybercab simulated a drop-off and pick-up near downtown Austin. He exited from the passenger door, re-entered from the passenger door, and slid over to the driver’s side. The Cybercab’s seats have no middle obstruction, which allows an easy slide across to either side. This makes it safer to exit while avoiding oncoming traffic.
The Cybercab can also park very close to the curb and open its butterfly doors upward to avoid scrapping or hitting the curb. This could make it safer to get in and out in certain situations.
📷 @AdanGuajardo
Stephen Snyder retweeted
Another Englishman is apologizing to the American people because America is nothing like what the media tells them!
