Patrick McKenzie — Money laundering, big tech censorship, SBF & Japan

Patrick McKenzie (patio11) explains how a Discord group saved thousands of lives during COVID vaccine rollout while big tech companies deliberately stood aside to avoid political backlash.

• California was injecting only 25% of its vaccine allocation while bickering over prioritization tiers, a fact McKenzie calls outrageous and under-discussed.
• Big tech companies had public health teams ready to build vaccine-finder tools but were told to stand down post-January 6 to avoid appearing more competent than the government.
• The Copenhagen principle: whoever builds the solution inherits responsibility for all downstream failures, creating strong incentives to do nothing.
• California’s vaccine tier system placed 25-year-old teachers above high-risk elderly patients due to union lobbying, with the California Veterinary Association bragging in writing about securing tier 1A status.
• SBF’s operation was sophisticated: Alameda moved tens of billions for Tether under color of law, and McKenzie argues SPF was caught for fraud, not for money laundering at scale.
• Mount Gox’s insolvency was discoverable by faxing Mizuho Bank a simple question; financial press failed basic verification of the CEO’s public Bitcoin Talk statements.
• McKenzie’s salary negotiation essay has generated a tracked eight-figure total in additional compensation for readers over 12 years, with 500,000 readers per year.

2024-07-24 · Watch on YouTube