Twin Cities IndieWeb - BlogFlock

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-06-17T03:29:47.000Z

This is my report:

Chateau Ste. Michelle, 2018 Indian Wells Cabernet Sauvignon is a stunningly good wine.

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-06-16T16:05:37.000Z

How to make a lifetime customer:

Pressure warning went off on car I just bought in January, took it to Discount Tire, they diagnosed (nail), repaired the leak, and rotated the still good tires… FOR FREE. Did not get these tires there. Just pure good customer service.

What we believe in.

Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2026-06-16T02:25:08.000Z

With some trepidation I’m taking my third try with Obsidian. This time with the promise of using it in collaboration with various agents. We’ll see how this works. Obsidian being primarily used by Agents may actually be a worthwhile path.

20 Years - Patrick Rhone

2026-06-15T13:49:28.000Z

Before our daughter Beatrix was born, when we found out we were having a girl, Bethany asked mmm what I hoped she’d be like.

I said, “I hope she’s just like you.”

I feel like I’ve written enough about Beatrix here and elsewhere over the years that most of my longterm readers can probably imagine what she’s like.

I really meant it (and I’m glad I got what I wished for).

Bethany is, by far, the smartest person I know. The hardest working too. She knows a whole lot about a lot of things and uses every bit of it in service to the world.

She is sweet and thoughtful and generous with her resources.

She has opinions that are held firmly and fiercely defended. She holds those she considers friends in the same way. She is incredibly loyal.

Her wit is rapid fire. It cracks like a whip and can cut like a knife. Mostly, it makes me laugh. If someone could invent a weapon designed to make me fall in love that is hard coded to my DNA, it would work just like her humor and wit.

She rarely says no to anything that seems like an opportunity; to make our lives better, to provide for those she cares about, to make meaningful connections, to make a life — any life — a little bit better.

She is compassionate, loving, and beautiful inside and out.

But what has made our marriage as strong as it remains after two decades together it is that she’s an incredible partner. The way we are able to divide and conquer every daily duty and challenge that comes our way with grace and humor and love. But, most importantly, we remember to let each other know how much we appreciate that regularly and take time to acknowledge and celebrate how special that partnership is.

So, here’s a small public thank you to Bethany Gladhill in celebration of 20 years of marriage. She is the love of my life and I wake each day knowing the seemingly impossible will occur — I will be even more in love with her by the time my head returns to the pillow. Every. Single. Day.

Bethany, I love you most.

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-06-15T00:00:33.000Z

Your moment of new study zen.

Now this is my kind of home office.

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-06-14T22:16:25.000Z

I’ve had this café style bag from The Walking Company for over 35 years. It’s been all over the world ever since. Recently, it developed a couple of rips so I took it to Repair Lair and boy howdy did they do a, um, seamless patch up job. Fast service too! Ready for another few decades of service.

Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2026-06-14T14:00:52.000Z

Morning stop at <a href="https://fikacoffee.com">Fika Coffee</a>. Best coffee on the North Shore. <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/890/2026/da793265e8.jpg" alt="">

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-06-13T19:38:21.000Z

My sister got me a Saint Paul Colored Gophers cap and I’m now obsessed:

Gotta find where I can get one of these sweaters:

Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2026-06-13T14:23:22.000Z

Worlds Best Donuts in Grand Marais! <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/890/2026/bfb911301c.jpg" alt="">

Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2026-06-13T03:04:24.000Z

Congrats Team USA on the 4-1 WIN over Paraguay and a great performance in game 1 of the 2026 FIFA World Cup! ⚽️🇺🇸 Including a goal in the 98th minute! 🔥

Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2026-06-12T15:44:32.000Z

Beautiful day to bike along the waterfront! <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/890/2026/4bb1dba289.jpg" width="600" height="450" alt="">

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-06-11T14:09:51.000Z

Holding On, Letting Go

This. So much this.

Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2026-06-10T11:46:19.000Z

I’m asking Fable 5 to look at some of the projects I’ve been working on and so far I’m very impressed with the level of analysis and recommendations it can make. Opus (via Claude Code) and GPT 5.5 (via Codex) were not able to see the structural issues in the code that Fable can.

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-06-09T20:29:33.000Z

Just a reminder that my “Notes on leaders…” post is a living document that may have been updated since you last checked it out.

Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2026-06-07T18:10:52.000Z

The watermelon matches the table! <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/890/2026/8df4ee5d17.jpg" width="600" height="450" alt="">

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-06-07T13:32:36.000Z

Today seemed like a good day to finally update my Now page.

Thingy Evolved - Jamie Thingelstad

2026-06-07T12:36:27.000Z

I rebuilt <a href="https://thingy.thingelstad.com">Thingy</a> into the archive agent I always wanted. Thingy started a month ago as an agent that acted as a librarian in front of the Weekly Thing archive. It did a great job at that and even if nobody else used it I found it super helpful to explore the archive. However, I quickly found that I also wanted Thingy to know about the 12,000+ posts on my blog in addition to the Weekly Thing. Oh, and my one episode Another Thing podcast should be available too. I wanted Thingy to know all of the information I have published. Core to making this happen was to create semantic archives for not just the Weekly Thing, but also my blog and Another Thing. Once I had that foundation, I gave Thingy super powers! The changes… <ul> <li>A New Home: Thingy is now its own dedicated website at <a href="https://thingy.thingelstad.com">thingy.thingelstad.com</a>. That gave it room to become a full chat experience, with a cleaner interface, mobile-first interaction, conversation history, and a user experience that feels like Thingy rather than a search box.</li> <li>Search Box to Agent: The biggest conceptual shift is that Thingy no longer feels like you are querying a database. It welcomes you, remembers prior conversations, understands which archives are available, and can help connect threads across the <a href="https://weekly.thingelstad.com">Weekly Thing</a>, <a href="https://www.thingelstad.com">thingelstad.com</a>, and <a href="https://another.thingelstad.com">Another Thing</a>.</li> <li>Three Archives, One Conversation: Thingy now works across all three semantic archives: the newsletter, the blog, and the podcast. The source selector lets you focus or broaden the conversation, and the backend has been improved so each archive has similar and robust capabilities.</li> <li>Persistent Conversations: Conversations moved from browser local storage to the server. That means Thingy can remember conversations across devices, show recent chats, reload prior threads, and provide robust evals as well as user-friendly naming.</li> <li>Curiosity Maps!: This is probably the “show, don’t tell” feature. Instead of only answering questions, Thingy can draw a map of adjacent ideas from the archive. You can start with Thingy’s suggested map or seed it with your own topic.</li> <li>Richer Responses: Responses can now render tables, trails, maps, citations, action buttons, copy/share/play controls, and better markdown. This makes Thingy feel less like a chatbot bolted onto an archive and more like an interface for wandering through ideas. Thingy also shares its thinking process with you as it works!</li> <li>Voice Input: You can talk to Thingy now. It is not a full voice conversation mode, but speech-to-prompt makes the experience feel more natural, especially on mobile.</li> <li>Mobile Experience: The mobile interface got a major rethink: chat-style header, conversation drawer, floating composer, cleaner controls, and a more app-like feel. This matters because Thingy now feels usable on a phone, not merely responsive.</li> <li>Memory and Personalization: Thingy can remember user preferences like name and use prior conversation context. It can welcome returning users differently from new ones, and the experience can become more personal.</li> <li>Thingy Identity: The UI moved away from a publication aesthetic and toward a dedicated chat client with Thingy’s own visual presence. The larger rail image, cleaner composer, and simplified interaction model make it feel like its own thing.</li> </ul> <a href="https://thingy.thingelstad.com">Thingy</a> requires you to be subscribed to the <a href="https://weekly.thingelstad.com">Weekly Thing</a>, and it will do the subscribing for you as you sign in. Give it a try! 🤩 <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/890/2026/thingy-screenshot.png" width="600" height="431" alt="">

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2026-06-06T14:29:45.000Z

This young lady graduates from High School tomorrow.

Do We Need Billionaires? - Barry Hess

2026-06-05T04:24:59.000Z

A significant portion of the population in the USA still thinks of Reaganomics as certified fact rather than a largely discredited theory. By this mindset the engine of our economy requires people to strive for a ton of money. A rising tide lifts all boats and all that.

First, I got to wondering, were US billionaires even a thing at the end of Reagan’s term? As a tween at the time, I couldn’t really remember. Turns out, yes:

Sam Walton • $6.7 billion • Wal-Mart Stores
John Kluge • $3.2 billion • Metromedia
Ross Perot • $3.0 billion • Electronic Data Systems
Donald Newhouse • $2.6 billion • Publishing
Samuel Newhouse Jr. • $2.6 billion • Publishing
Henry Hillman • $2.5 billion • Industrialist
Lester Crown • $2.3 billion • Inheritance / investments
Anne Cox Chambers • $2.25 billion • Inheritance / Cox Enterprises
Barbara Cox Anthony • $2.25 billion • Inheritance / Cox Enterprises
Warren Buffett • $2.2 billion • Stock market

Then, I needed some context for the difference between a million and a billion dollars. It kind of sounds like a similar thing, yes? Well, a clever internet person said, “The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is approximately a billion dollars.” In reality there’s a big difference between a million and a billion dollars, and I think it’s hard to understand it. Here are some comparisons between a million and a billion of something. Maybe one of these comparisons will help to register the vastness of the difference for you:

A million seconds is 11.57 days. A billion seconds is 31.71 years.
A million marbles fills a bedroom closet. A billion marbles fills over one hundred 12 × 12 × 8 foot bedrooms.
Flying a million miles will have you circling the earth 40 times. Flying a billion miles circles the earth 40,000 times.
A million miles gets you two round trips to the moon. A billion miles gets you 2,000 round trips.
A million dollars in a stack of $100 bills is 3.6 feet tall. A billion dollars in $100 bills is almost ¾ of a mile tall.
A million dollar bills laid end-to-end would stretch 97 miles. A billion dollar bills laid end-to-end would circle the earth nearly four times.
If you spend $1,000 a day, a million dollars would last 2.7 years. A billion dollars would last 2,740 years.
If you spend $1,000,000 a day, a million dollars would last one day. A billion dollars would last 2.7 years.

Wow!

Still, I could definitely see the everyday person saying, “Hey, Walmart is a net benefit to the economy. I can buy much more stuff with my paycheck than I could if we just had mom-and-pop grocery stores, hardware stores, pharmacies, and corner stores.” That’s probably true. Economies of scale did its scaling. I personally wonder if it was all worth it, though. Maybe we’d be paying more if we weren’t taken over by big box stores (and eventually the internet), but maybe it’d be nice to have those mom-and-pop stores around? And maybe we’d still have a bunch of US factories producing our goods? And maybe that would make us more able to react quickly to things like wars and global pandemics? That’s a bit beyond the scope of what I’m thinking about here, though.

Let’s pretend in 1988 the rising tide was tuned just right. Certainly when we’re talking complicated macroeconomics, a simple inflation calculation on the dollar isn’t quite the tool that should be reached for, but I’m still curious.

$1 in 1988 is worth $2.82 in 2026. That’s 2.76% annual inflation.
$1,000,000,000 in 1988 is worth $2,815,046 in 2026.
$6,700,000,000 in 1988 (e.g. Sam Walton) is worth 18,860,811,496 in 2026.

It appears that billionaires inflate differently than the rest of us, eh? Here’s the top ten as of April, 2026:

Elon Musk • $817 billion • SpaceX, Tesla
Larry Page • $257 billion • Alphabet / Google
Sergey Brin • $237 billion • Alphabet / Google
Jeff Bezos • $225 billion • Amazon, Blue Origin
Mark Zuckerberg • $222 billion • Meta Platforms
Larry Ellison • $190 billion • Oracle
Jensen Huang • $155 billion • Nvidia
Warren Buffett • $150 billion • Berkshire Hathaway
Rob Walton • $149 billion • Walmart
Michael Dell • $141 billion • Dell Technologies

WOW!!

For the top spot, that’s a 13.5% inflation rate per year. Second place inflation is a mere 12.25% per year. Warren Buffet inflated 10.7% each year.

Interestingly both lists are filled with people trying to have an extreme influence on the direction of our country. At least that hasn’t changed! I mean, certainly all billionaires have lobbyists working on their behalf (again, that’s another topic), but the 1988 list had numerous publishers, communications folks, and even an eventual presidential candidate. Today we have a list filled with folks who own publishing companies, control information streams, build massive companies directly funded by government contracts, and directly throwing their sticks into the very spokes of the government bicycle.

The sound is different, but there are certainly similar echoes.

But…do we really need billionaires?

Spoiler alert: I don’t know! But it seems to me the answer is no at some level, right?

For the sake of argument, let’s say the economists have decided that billionaires, and even ten-billionaires, are good oil for our economic wheels. What’s the limit? Surely there has to be some number that pushes individual wealth from a net benefit for the country to a net detriment? Surely we are seeing lots of data and examples right now where we can start to come up with that line as a society? Surely it’s very reasonable that we might want to develop policy to make it hard for an individual to end up with more than, say, ten billion dollars¹. That doesn’t seem very controversial to me.

I don’t think it is controversial. However, a big way that our political leaders get their millions is the existence of the many billionaires. At some point we’re gonna have to demand leaders that have some semblance of moral fiber, both on the corporate and political level. I’m not saying our leaders were ever perfect, nor will they ever be perfect, but I’d take rewarding someone who at least pretended to care about the average American and the general good over what ever we currently have.

In my opinion, that’s the only way we shift away from the direction we’ve been going. Via elections that put people in power who say they are not in the pockets of billionaires, talk a good game about improving things for the average person, act on their talk, and get sent home if they don’t walk their talk.

Oh, two more things. You may notice a big part of the message that drove the current people into power was “drain the swamp.” It can be argued that at one point they did the part about talking a good game. (I mean, I didn’t find the talk very good or convincing, but it worked for a lot of people.) So if you want to win power, you better talk to the average person about how you’re actually going to do better. Now I hope we as a society move toward pushing out these dangerous people who are only acting on the bad parts of their talk, and are doing very few good things for our collective benefit.

And I hope it isn’t too late to attract some people to politics who are at least half decent human beings.

What are other people saying?

It so happened as the question of whether or not we need billionaires popped into my head, it was being discussed elsewhere. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (I’m not speaking to her overall platform, which I don’t know, but just this pull quote):

There’s a certain level of wealth and accumulation that is unearned. You can’t earn a billion dollars. You just can’t earn that. You can get market power. You can break rules. You can do all sorts of things. You can abuse labor laws. You can pay people less than what they’re worth. But you can’t earn that.

I…don’t find what Ocasio-Cortez said to be in any way controversial. Isn’t it a grift we’re all sort of in on and have been beaten into accepting?

Ah, but here it is…Evan Ramstad says (archive):

At first, I thought the New York Democratic congresswoman had stumbled into another one of those moments that, if she ever decides to run for president, will haunt her.

…

Too many of our elected leaders are ripping on the risk-takers who are badly needed by America’s and Minnesota’s economies.

I’m an entrepreneur myself. I’ve been risk-taking to some degree most of my career. Yet I don’t understand how anyone can honestly say that we badly need risk takers of the hundred-billionaire type to keep our economy going. I think it’s a fundamental misunderstanding, or a disingenuous re-staging, of the numbers I presented at the beginning of this post. A billionaire is so incredibly rich that it defies comprehension, and thus makes our discussions around all of this unhinged.

Ah, but you say we need the industry that those hundred-billionaires create. But…do we? Is AI software worth it? Self-driving cars? Or is that the wrong question? Would making a mere ten billion dollars put off a mega-entrepreneur from seeking their place in the history books? Do we really need to give a select few individuals this society-warping level of power in order to get these advancements? I really can’t imagine that’s the case.

Finally, Noah Hawley (archive) speaks to the transition of a human being to a hundred-billionaire:

The closer I’ve gotten to the world of wealth, the more I understand that being truly rich doesn’t mean amassing enough money to afford superyachts, private jets, or a million acres of land. It means that everything becomes effectively free. Any asset can be acquired but nothing can ever be lost, because for soon-to-be trillionaires, no level of loss could significantly change their global standing or personal power. For them, the word failure has ceased to mean anything.

This sense of invulnerability has deep psychological ramifications. If everything is free and nothing matters, then the world and other people exist only to be acted upon, if they are acknowledged at all. This is different from classic narcissism, in which a grandiose but fragile self-image can mask deep insecurity. What I’m talking about is a self-definition in which the individual grows to the size of the universe, and the universe vanishes.

Decades of research in developmental psychology have shown that moral reasoning develops through consequences—not punishment, necessarily, but experiencing the effects of your actions on others, receiving honest feedback, having to accommodate reality as it actually is rather than as you wish it to be. It’s not that the wealthy become evil; it’s that their environment stops teaching them the things that nonwealthy people are forced to learn simply by living in a world that pushes back. When you can buy your way out of any mistake, when you can fire anyone who disagrees with you, when your social circle consists entirely of people who need something from you, the basic mechanism by which humans learn that other people are real goes dark.

What would we do with the increased tax dollars from whatever “no more ten-billionaires” scheme? I don’t know. I don’t think we’re great at spending tax dollars, but again, that’s a separate issue.

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Two Businesses in a Trench Coat - Garrick van Buren

2026-06-05T02:42:38.000Z

A head of biz dev at B2B finance marketplace startup called me today, and started off with:

“I’ve read your profile. We don’t have a pricing problem. Our pricing is good. We have a customer problem.”

First off, helluva way to jump in. Props.

Second, there’s a list of startup business models I’m inherently skeptical of. Two-sided marketplaces are right close to the top of that list.

My skepticism isn’t that they don’t exist or can’t work. Just that, out of the gate, it’s massively resource intensive to build sufficient volume on both sides of with enough people ready to transact to demonstrate it works.

I worked on a couple of these in the venture studio. One found lots of volume on the supply side but none on the demand side. The other never found enough volume on either side, but was able to execute one single transaction.

Lynn Breedlove founded Homobiles in 2011. A nonprofit providing safe rides to San Francisco’s LGBT community – drag queens, transgender riders, and the people taxis refused pick up. Donation-based. Breedlove drove. Then more people volunteered to drive. Not a marketplace. Neighbors serving neighbors.

Both the co-founder of Sidecar and a former Uber exec credit Homobiles as their inspiration for enabling regular drivers to provide rides in their regular cars. In 2013, after 4 different organizations had proven demand for the model, Travis Kalanick CEO of Uber, who had publicly stated that regular drivers in regular cars wouldn’t work, adopted it.

Homobiles wasn’t trying to build a two-sided marketplace. They were trying to get each other home safely.

The two-sided marketplace model came later. Much later.

Which leads me to my two-sided marketplace litmus test: Can any transacting party be on both sides of the transaction?

An Uber driver could be a Uber passenger. An eBay buyer could be an eBay seller.

If it doesn’t pass this test, it’s not a marketplace, it’s something else entirely. Thankfully that something probably simpler and easier to execute at founder-scale.

Back when two-sided marketplaces were super hot, I attended a Business Model Canvas workshop. Alex Osterwalder was demonstrating how to diagram a two-sided marketplace. His recommendation: one canvas, two highlighters, a different color for each side of the marketplace.

Double the customer segments, double the value props, more double the complexity. Same single page. Iterating on either side meant navigating around the other. Like two people in a trenchcoat. Even the example at the front of the room was difficult to follow.

It’s like the BMC itself was whispering “just pick a one side”.

Yesterday, I talked with two founders envisioning a two-sided marketplace for handyman work in apartment complexes.

Already, you can tell from that description, it’s not a two-sided marketplace. It’s a facilities maintenance service for multi-family housing more focused on getting the work done than it is with who does the work. Even better! Amazing.

The founders are general contractors, selling directly to property managers. No platform. No marketplace. Just learning who the best buyers are, quoting the work, booking the contract, assigning parts of the job to themselves and parts to their crew, and capturing the full margin on every job in the process.

This. Not because it’s elegant. Not because it’s scalable. Because it produces real demand information, real revenue, today. We don’t need to worry about volume or matching algorithms. Just customer sales.

Admittedly, this is what the head of biz dev at the top of the article meant by “a customer problem.” To their credit, they are shifting to a direct sales model.

I don’t know how many finance people they have access to. What I know is this biz dev person needs to sell 3,000 hours to pay for themselves fully-loaded. That’s two finance people fully-booked for a year. That’s not really a marketplace, that’s more like a small agency. And that might be even better.

My Easy 7-Step process for starting a two-sided marketplace business

You’re not a marketplace.
Pick the demand side, go acquire customers.
Fulfill the demand yourself until you’re consistently overwhelmed.
Use the overwhelm as the signal to bring on a friend to help fulfill the demand
Repeat until you run out of friends.
Now, build a system to scale beyond your friends.
Then launch publicly.

The post Two Businesses in a Trench Coat appeared first on Garrick van Buren.