I want to talk about Patrick Collison. Let’s start with a simple acknowledgment: he is one of the most impressive philanthropists right now: - When Covid hit, he and Tyler Cowen launched Fast Grants and got money to scientists within days. - He helped launch the Arc Institute, so biologists could do science instead of drowning in paperwork for grants. - And Stripe, under Collison’s leadership, built Frontier: a super ambitious pledge to guarantee a market for carbon removal tech. This is all really awesome! Few billionaires have thought harder about how to do a lot of good with their money. But now we have to talk about what the hell Patrick Collison is doing in California. He has given $15 million to ‘Building a Better California’, one of the most cynical political campaigns I’ve seen in a long time. It's the main vehicle fighting Prop 40: a one-time 5% tax on the state's ~200 billionaires (to make up for federal cuts to healthcare for low-income Californians). And look at how this group does it: - It’s funding an extremely aggressive "No" campaign (opponents are outspending supporters roughly six to one). - It also put two decoy measures on the same ballot. Prop 41 *seems* to be about good governance. Prop 42 is sold as ‘protecting your retirement savings’. But both contain a clause: if either gets more votes than the billionaire tax, the tax is cancelled. - Meanwhile, the retirement story is total nonsense. Prop 40 already exempts pensions. CalMatters calls the deluge of ads misleading and the SF Chronicle calls Prop 41 a ‘cynical poison pill’. - The sad reality is that all this misinformation is working though. Polls show small majorities backing the billionaire tax and the measures designed to kill it. You can vote yes on all three and cancel out your own vote. Most people don’t realize this. Through all of it, Collison HASN'T SAID A WORD about why he's funding this slimy campaign. This is a public intellectual who writes thoughtfully about progress. If he believes Prop 40 is bad policy, he should do the honorable thing and make the case! And tell us what he'd rather do about extreme concentrations of wealth and power, or explain why he thinks they aren't a problem for our democracy and civilization. Instead we get silence + $15 million for a campaign built on misinformation and shady political tactics. @patrickc, what are you doing?