17
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
17 points (94.7% liked)
TechTakes
2621 readers
51 users here now
Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.
For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Was it really the sensible position that the poorest country in Europe would go on to embarrass an ostensible superpower? Predicting a Russian victory in the short term in the early days doesn't seem too daring a hot take.
It was mostly the analysts who were predicting a three day walk in the park with the ukrainians cheering them on as liberators that turned out problematic all the way.
He runs an analytics company and was specifically touting how his models showed a quick Russian victory, even weeks into the invasion, which was more than just the usual Besserwisserism among western europeans towards eastern Europe. If the whole shtick is that the mainstream is lame but my patented crystal ball actually tells the future from first principles and you then tank even harder than the mainstream, you not only embarrass yourself but reveal your own preferences as well.
And the mainstream predictions in the West of Ukrainian resistance weren't as negative as what he advanced, which is precisely why many refused to believe the Kremlin would actually step on this rake of a war. That he wholeheartedly defended a quick Russian victory made him seem steeped more in the Kremlin's narratives than the West's, even as all imperial powers tend to be hubristic.
Sounds like he went for the low hanging fruit to showcase his business and ate shit, good to know.
His great founder theory certainly seems amenable to going all in on dictators.
westerners and their clever takes about eastern europe, eh.
The Leverage article kept referring to him as "the slovenian" and that's at least honorary eastern europe, but I've no idea if he actually grew up there.