Tacoma, WA
Joined April 2009
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- Following2.4K
- Followers584
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Jonathan Paul retweeted
If you abolish the Senate, Presidency, and Supreme Court, you eliminate all checks and balances and concentrate power totally in the hands of one ruling party. But sure, I’m the authoritarian
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Jonathan Paul retweeted
For almost all of our existence, in almost every place, almost all humans have lived in the shadows of tyrants of one type or another.
But, on this day, 250 years ago, on the Eastern seaboard of North America, a small group of (mostly) men, steeped in a specific set of Enlightenment ideas, kindled a spark of liberty.
Through the sacrifices, and notwithstanding the mistakes, of that generation and of the generations that followed, the spark grew into a fire blazing across the continent, throwing off more sparks, which eventually lit up other lands.
Let us never forget that the original fire, still burning, is neither historically nor geographically "normal".
It is, instead, exceptional, precious, and worth protecting from those, both foreign and domestic, who might prefer that it go out.
Jonathan Paul retweeted
I'm not conservative. I'm a moderate who has lived in and loved this city for decades. Nobody is saying Seattle has no assets. Of course it does. That's exactly what makes this so frustrating.
We have Amazon, Microsoft, and incredible natural beauty. And yet our office vacancy is 36.5%. State spending has more than tripled in a decade while population grew 17%. 44% of business leaders are considering leaving. Luxury listings spiked 65% the day after the income tax passed.
Pointing out that the house is on fire doesn't mean you hate the house. It means you want to save it.
Jonathan Paul retweeted
"We build our American cities around fire trucks…
…We should design our cities, then make the fire trucks fit."
In America, we have the largest fire trucks in the world—
and they’re quietly shaping how our cities look, feel, and function.
In this clip with @AustinTunnell , we break down how one overlooked policy is leading to worse urban design.
Jonathan Paul retweeted
Dog, this is so sad.
Imagine all the lives that were never had in San Francisco because it refused to build housing. Multiple lost generations of artists, writers and creatives.
Not to mention the literal lives that were never conceived because couples couldn’t afford a home.
Jonathan Paul retweeted
Well shared and said @stevemgordon67 I can add that almost every established tech founder I know has left or is planning to leave washington state. While some “big business” leaders might be willing to trade an income tax for a few tax breaks, most innovators are exhausted by WA state’s high costs, poor services and anti-business rhetoric
Go Ahead WA Dems, Keep Pretending Capital Flight is Make Believe:
I know, Pie Crust Pedersen and his friends tell you no one really leaves because of taxes while arguing in favor of the income tax. (And of course use the exact opposite argument in rolling back the estate tax.)
So, I've been collecting some real time data. Above and beyond the emails and texts of people telling me and others about the latest person who packed up and left, here's some other evidence.
Last Thursday, I had dinner with Gov. Brad Little of Idaho. We own an outlet and a good piece of property there we'd like to develop. Upon introducing myself and my home of WA, he laughed and stated, "You know, I used to offer tax incentives to get WA businesses to move to ID. We quit doing that the last few years. Honestly, I wish you guys would quit doing so many dumb things. We're running out of room!" He was very happy to hear we're looking develop our property and going to expand our location.
This morning, I had a call with Gov Gianforte of MT. When I mentioned how much we love visiting MT, he offered to put his head of econ development in touch to look at informing me on all they're working on there. He mentioned a larger, unnamed WA based company with significant employee base they think will be moving there soon. "Steve, there's a lot of people and businesses from WA coming here."
For the last 40 years our family has spent time down in Arizona as a getaway during the long winters in WA. We know a significant home developer here and were visiting with one of his associates that sells higher end homes. He volunteered that they have been flooded with calls from WA residents of late, and of their last 10 large deals, 8 were WA refugees moving to AZ for good.
Also connected with a family that owned and operated a biz in the south sound for over 100 years. Most of them moved out of state soon after selling the biz a few years ago. They are actively in the process of pulling any of the family resources (which are substantial) to any state but WA. Instead of building and investing in their long time home, they are reluctantly leaving to put those resources to work elsewhere for the next 100 years.
You'd have to be drunk to not realize what's going on. Yes, other states have income taxes, corporate income taxes, etc. But they're all LOWERING taxes, not raising or adding massive new categories on top of the current tax regime.
And in the last week, I've had more conversations with Governors of states where I don't live, than the sum total of conversations I've ever had with every WA governor. To them, I've been a checkbook and "villain" not paying my fair share. I'd be fine being left alone, but your malice for the economic builders of our state is ultimately going to destroy it. I'm going to keep fighting, but given all the failure, you have to ask what the hell we're paying for anyway.
Jonathan Paul retweeted
Seattle could immediately become one of the world's greatest cities if we embraced our tech industry 🛰️
@SpaceX just acquired xAI and to build the world's biggest industry ever ... Datacenters in Space
Where are they hiring? Seattle. Where is @Starcloud_ (launched the first datacenter in space) based? Seattle. Why? Because we have the best satellite engineers in the world (@Starlink has had an office here for a while) Oh and @blueorigin HQ? Seattle.
I grew up in Seattle and it's always been a place for the world's brightest tech talent. Sadly, this is changing ...
Seattle's citizens seem to embrace an anti-tech, 'everyone who is successful is bad' culture (we drove away Bezos). This is so lame and killing our golden goose that has built the amazing PNW 🌲
It is my mission for Seattle to do a 180. Talk about how we have the most cutting edge satellite tech in the world. How this will enable a new era for humanity.
Seattle needs to embrace its identity. We are building the future and should be proud of it 🌧️🗻🦾
Jonathan Paul retweeted
If we’re going to solve our challenges we have to be honest about them. First, Silicon Valley has been one of the most expensive places to buy a home since before I was born. That’s why my family settled 50 miles away in a small farming town. And it hasn’t gotten better. Second, the Valley is partly a victim of its own success in the sense that this region has created so many high-paying jobs that people from all over the country and the world come here for opportunity. In fact, SV has been one of the very best regions in the country for economic mobility despite our high cost of living. Third, our brutally high housing costs are also—and I would argue primarily—a public policy failure. The incredible economy we have nurtured here has added roughly 8 jobs for every 1 new home we have built over the last couple of decades. That’s why as mayor I have worked so hard to simplify approval processes, expand zoning in urban villages and along transit corridors, reduce one-time fees and other requirements that, together, make it extremely slow and expensive to build housing here. I’m proud that last year we broke ground on thousands of new homes that had been approved years ago and stuck in the pipeline because they simply didn’t pencil. For California to improve affordability, we will need to make it much easier and less expensive to build housing, we will need to better connect our job centers and housing markets with great transit and transportation infrastructure, and bring down utility rates through smarter regulations and better technology.
Congrats to PermitFlow on the $54M raise. I’m glad to see investment in the space, but I’m still skeptical of the value proposition.
I’ve talked with multiple VCs about the problem PermitFlow is trying to solve and I always come back to one simple point: The true bottleneck isn't the applicant's internal workflow. It's the Authorities Having Jurisdiction (AHJ)—cities, counties, utilities—whose subjective interpretations, missed timelines, multiple review cycles and poor service levels kill speed.
The real win would be deploying AI for objective, code-based reviews to finally bypass departmental gridlock and variable human judgment. #ConstructionTech #Permitting #GovTech
Jonathan Paul retweeted
This new law enforcement sobering center marks a fundamental change in San Francisco: If you do drugs on our streets, we will arrest you. And with this new resource, we will give you a real chance to enter recovery.
Mayor Daniel Lurie is hoping a new, coercive approach can help officers tackle open-air drug use in San Francisco while getting more people off the streets and connected to addiction treatment. sfchronicle.com/sf/article/d…
Why move to Texas when you can just move to the Eastside? Long this trend if Seattle stays its current course. wsj.com/real-estate/commerci…
There is nothing worse than working with USPS to get mailbox locks ordered and installed. Complete brain damage. A terribly run organization.
Jonathan Paul retweeted
The Navy recently gave a presentation on improving outcomes and ROI
This slide applies to any business operation and can be used achieve larger outcomes and lower friction
Just asked ChatGPT to review a title report and recording docs. Mind blown. Unprompted, it offered a critical path checklist and a title objection letter at the end.
Josh gets it.
We took a hard look at our permitting, licensing, and certification processes — and we slashed red tape, cleared unnecessary backlogs, and fixed systems that hadn’t been looked at in years.
Now it takes just 3 days to get a business license instead of 8 weeks.
You can get a new barber license in the same day, instead of waiting 12.
And we're processing permits faster than ever before.
Time is money — and Pennsylvania is moving at the speed of business.
Jonathan Paul retweeted
We took a hard look at our permitting, licensing, and certification processes — and we slashed red tape, cleared unnecessary backlogs, and fixed systems that hadn’t been looked at in years.
Now it takes just 3 days to get a business license instead of 8 weeks.
You can get a new barber license in the same day, instead of waiting 12.
And we're processing permits faster than ever before.
Time is money — and Pennsylvania is moving at the speed of business.
Jonathan Paul retweeted
Kyra, I’m hoping you missed the fact that 1/3 of people refused to come indoors when offered a brand new apartment with en-suite bathroom, kitchenettes, three meals per day, and other services. Otherwise, it sounds like you are proposing that we let hundreds if not thousands more die on our streets and do nothing until we have a home for everyone.
This proposal focuses on those who refuse AVAILABLE housing or shelter three times. They are truly the most vulnerable and will benefit from a brief interaction with law enforcement that can get them into treatment. Homelessness can’t be a choice.
