July 15, 2014

The Billionaire Who Wants to Split California Into 6 States Has the Most Embarrassing YouTube Feed Ever

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This is a post about Tim Draper. Tim Draper is a billionaire tech investor of no particular importance who has decided that he wants to disrupt geography. 

Draper is the man behind the “Six Californias” initiative, which today announced that it had secured enough signatures to put a measure on the 2016 California ballot that would split the Golden State in to six golden states. Should California be turned into six states? Maybe! I don’t know. Probably not. It probably doesn’t make any sense. But maybe it does? Who knows! It isn’t going to be turned into six states, that is certain, but should it in a perfect world of perfection where Tim Draper rides around on a golden steed shooting piercing laser beams of logic out of his eyes? Maybe! Leave that question to the poets, because we’re here to talk about Tim Draper, “the riskmaster.”

Tim Draper is a partner in the VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which has invested in Hotmail, Skype, SpaceX, and a bunch of other tech companies. Silicon Valley has a well-known women problem. Tim Draper does not have a women problem, though! He loves ladies in tech! Can’t get enough of them! He loves them so much that he uploaded a video to YouTube aptly titled “Tim Draper Shows His Appreciation for Women Entrepreneurs” in which he removes one piece of clothing for every female-led company he has invested in. Because if you’re Tim Draper, the way you relate to women is through the language of erotic dance. (Spoiler: He hasn’t funded enough female-led companies to get naked.)

Moving swiftly on, here is a video of Tim Draper wrapping up a keynote speech with a song about, well, how he, Tim Draper, is the “riskmaster.” What is the riskmaster? The riskmaster is the name Tim Draper calls himself. Over and over. This song is one of the worst things I have ever heard in my entire life. I cannot stop listening to it.

The chorus appears to be:

He’s the riskmaster.
Lives fast, and drives faster.
Skates on the edge of disaster.
He is the riskmaster.

How many Grammys will Tim Draper win? One? Three? Six? Zero? Probably zero.

But, Tim Draper, you do you! You have a better chance of winning six Grammys than you do of splitting California into six states.

(h/t Tim Carmody)

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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