Lloyd Armbrust
@larmbrust
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Started as a tech founder @ycombinator in 2010; built a $34mm medical manufacturing biz in 2020 @armbrust_usa 🇺🇸 🏭; raising 6 kids & some 🐮 near Austin, TX
Austin, Texas
Joined May 2009
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Get ready to be triggered because I’m offending everyone with this post.
I built a 🇺🇸 mask factory in six months capable of producing millions of N95s and Surgical masks every day.
Here’s why I don’t think America cares about COVID or masking anymore.
🧵 1/17
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I visited a mask factory today that’s shutting down (they want me to take their materials and parts)
They have 2 million N95s in stock and made millions more during the pandemic but can’t find any buyers anymore so they have to close down.
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I believe that masks work and was one of the first people to say if we mask up we do not have to shut down our economy.
But masks have become some stupid symbol of anti-freedom. If you believe this, I think you’ve been brainwashed by the ultra right.
🧵 2/17
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“Grandpa was going to die anyway”
This is pretty fucking piss poor excuse for 🇺🇸 to have.
I know from thousands of personal hours in a lab (and scientific fact) that all we need to do to prevent most death is to wear a mask that can be produced for $0.25
🧵 9/17
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Trust me, I own a mask factory and I hate wearing masks.
But I’ll still be the one weird guy in Texas that everyone looks down on because I’m masking up.
It’s the right thing to do.
🧵 16/17
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I built a 🇺🇸 factory in 6 months that can make millions of masks every day.
I love America but I’m not a republican--it’s possible I promise.
I'm not a dem either, but I do know masks.
With XBB.1.5 Kraken surging I thought I'd write another 🧵 guaranteed to offend everyone.
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Worried you’re not getting enough o2?
Surgeons 🧑⚕️ and miners ⛏ have been wearing masks for most of their professional lives with no issue.
If you have trouble breathing you are probably wearing a cheap mask with poor breathability or cloth which is both hot & useless.
🧵 6/17
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All we need is an extremely inexpensive mask on our face when we are indoors with a group of people.
It’s actually just that simple.
🧵 5/17
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Masks are a way to protect you from COVID; not for liberals to control you.
FWIW I think social distancing is total BS; we don’t need to sterilize doorknobs; you don’t need 😷 outside; kids should be in the classroom (with ventilation); we should never have shut down.
🧵 4/17
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But it doesn’t matter.
America is tired of talking about COVID & unfortunately for most people who still need to be concerned, 🇺🇸 is going to leave you behind and pretend like your problems don’t exist.
🧵 7/17
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This pandemic is different from the 1919 Flu in one important way: it doesn’t kill kids.
If kids were dropping like elderly, poor or immunocompromised, I think even
@TuckerCarlson
would be putting on a 😷.
Since the elderly are bad
@twitter
, you don’t hear about it.
🧵 8/17
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Trust me, I’m probably more American than you.
I live in Texas, own a ranch🐮, own guns, have six kids, tried for years to get into the AirForce (bad heart 😭), I built a 🇺🇸 mask factory here because I wanted jobs here & not just in 🇨🇳
I’ve voted Libertarian I was 18.
🧵 3/17
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I do think the BA.2 variant will come to the US and kill more people.
I think there might be another million unnecessary COVID deaths in the US, but I can’t get enough people to care.
Not my Republican Texas governor who told me to scale up; not Biden and his team.
🧵 15/17
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Now to the parts that will offend.
Masks work. If you don't think so, you just haven't put in the time.
I've personally tested over 1,000 in my $500k mask lab and posted everything to YouTube.
If you want to find a good mask, check out our database:
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I actually started a mask factory to solve this problem.
At scale we can make masks cheaper and cheaper but instead we shutting down our
@armbrustusa
masks lines and pivoting to air filters because we’ve all but accepted COVID death in the US.
🧵 11/17
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In addition to the mask factory, I started
@AMMAunited
organizing US mask manufactures, working with media, and top officials at the Whitehouse to make sure our PPE supply chains were future proof.
Most of US Masks Manufacturers went out of biz last year .
🧵 12/17
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During the Omicron surge, many rehired their laid off teams, and were hopeful that Americans wanted to buy Made-in-America again when
@amazon
ran out of masks in Feb.
🧵 13/17
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Today while America’s mask manufacturers are asking themselves if they should shut down (again), they are somewhat hopeful that the BA2 Variant will mean that people need us again.
“Maybe we won’t have to go out of business,” they reason.
🧵 14/17
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This doesn't mean that masks are perfect, but when COVID is spiking I wear a mask in public.
It's not that hard and I haven't gotten COVID yet.
Ironically, I personally hate wearing masks, but I do it because I don't want to miss 10 days of work being sick.
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I just realized how sane and level-headed Mark Zuckerberg actually is. All that power and I can’t recall him using it once to throw a tantrum against people who aren’t doing exactly what he wants.
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If you want understand more on why you should considering masking, check out this really excellent piece by
@AbraarKaran
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If you made it this far, thank you! Also, wow, have you heard of ROBLOX? My kids love it.
If you already use masks, and this offended you, that's because it wasn't written for you.
Help me win hearts and influence people by liking the original tweet ❤️
I built a 🇺🇸 factory in 6 months that can make millions of masks every day.
I love America but I’m not a republican--it’s possible I promise.
I'm not a dem either, but I do know masks.
With XBB.1.5 Kraken surging I thought I'd write another 🧵 guaranteed to offend everyone.
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To recap:
- 🦠 Covid outbreak in 🇨🇳
- 😷 masks protect against 🦠
- 🇨🇳 China couldn't make 😷
- 🇺🇸 US needed 😷
- 🏭 US starts making 😷
- 🚨 most 🇺🇸 😷 🏭 shut down (no demand)
- 👩💻 Amazon about to run out of 🇨🇳 😷
- 💁♀️ people need 😷 again to protect from 🦠
Not a good combo.
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If you want to find a great mask, check out our database where I recommend hundreds of masks that are not mine.
If you want to see my masks, check out this piece that the
@nypost
just did on our products:
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Here's how masks work:
Mechanically, they have really small holes that stop bigger things from getting through.
Then, static electricity grabs the really stuff that the holes miss.
If it's a good mask, air still through and the COVID doesn't.
Ever wonder how a meltblown can capture particles? I think giving a size comparison helps to make it clear how it's a tangled web, and tough for particles to not get sucked up by an electrostatic charged fiber.
You can actually see that fibers can collect nano particles(in green)
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To the anti-maskers: wearing a mask doesn't stop Trump from entering your body.
Happy to play maximum-American bingo & see who wins... here's what's on mine:
🔫 Gun Owner
🐮 Cattle Rancher
👶 6 kids
🏭 Manufacturer
Ironically, it will be the dems that hate this part of my 🧵
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Important to note that not all 🇺🇸 manufacturing is going away. We
@armbrust_usa
just opened a new facility in Utah—but we used to be able to make 1mm masks & respirators daily, and now we are 1/10th of that.
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This is a problem, because as
@AbraarKaran
writes, masks and air filtration are the best ways to stop or reduce transmission of COVID or RSV or the Cold--all peaking right now:
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America, your birthday party is over: it's time to build our giant, gleaming, state-of-the-art factories that will change the world, change our economy, and make us truly independent from other countries
@armbrust_usa
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Most people buy their stuff on Amazon (I know I do).
Amazon is great at keeping 2-3 months of supply in their US warehouses, but since most masks are from China, and China is shut down, I think we are going to see a shortage again.
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To be clear, I know of 6 mask factories in the US that are still producing.
@armbrust_usa
is one of them but our production volume is 10% of what it was, with most of our machines on pallets behind our warehouse.
Important to note that not all 🇺🇸 manufacturing is going away. We
@armbrust_usa
just opened a new facility in Utah—but we used to be able to make 1mm masks & respirators daily, and now we are 1/10th of that.
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Our longhorns have arrived!
(I thought that one was going to get me for a second.)
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Texas is the world’s 10th largest economy and Spectrum casually announcing an outage for the “Texas area” as if it’s a few houses on my street 🤣
#EverythingIsBiggerInTexas
We are aware of an outage affecting customers in the Texas area. We apologize for inconvenience and are working to resolve as quickly as possible. Thank you.
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Happy to announce that we are making the first 🇺🇸made & FDA-cleared version of the
@armbrust_usa
KN95
KN95 is a great form factor for some faces but has no 🇺🇸 oversight. We put ours through the FDA's clearance process making a KN95 you can trust
1/3 🧵
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Curious what people are seeing for 40ft HQ container costs right now from China to US?
cc
@Molson_Hart
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Is this real?
@coinbase
charges 28% to send bitcoin now?
What kind of Merchant-of-Venice BS is this?
I used to mine crypto but haven't used it for years. Can someone help me understand what's happening?
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If power = parameters than China has a serious leg up on the US in reaching AGI
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One of the only fully-automated machines in the world built to make
#N95
masks without being touched by human hands
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Bad timing because China has shut down again, with their own 🦠 outbreak of epic proportions.
Talking to one of our 🇨🇳 contacts today (our machines are made in China) he said, "I haven't gotten a response from anyone at any factory in DAYS"
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Amazon should 100% build an automated container terminal in Texas.
If America cannot end this port strike and automate our ports, we are not a serious country.
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I run 4 businesses doing $30mm / year at age 41 🫠 that I grew in just 14 years 😆
Here’s my calendar:
I run a $7.5M/Year business at age 24 that I grew in just 8 months.
Here's my calendar:
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Nothing but the hits.
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+1 can confirm
as someone married to a persian
yes
we need to end the ayatollah to free persian ladies
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This seems like a good idea.
This is rich. The guy scheming w/ EcoHealth Alliance to build a new $13M tax-funded bat lab at
@ColoradoStateU
, import 100s of Asian bats & infect them w/ Ebola, Nipah & COVID is worried about “unnecessary regulatory burdens” getting in the way of his dangerous virus experiments
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I could seriously almost cry... this took so long and was so hard to get right. I think I’ll be able to actually sleep tonight.
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New KN95 machine is the only one in the US that produces FDA 510k cleared surgical masks making it the only FDA regulated KN95 style mask I know of.
Also super efficient at 100k units per shift!
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Flight teams work hard to get us where we are going. I always wear a suit out of respect to their craft and the magic of flight.
I’ll never get the sweatpants at the airport.
Not saying wear a suit when you fly, but at least look respectable.
And yes, you can look respectable and be comfortable. I just don’t buy that excuse.
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Currently accepting investing investors: $3B to build a fully automated port in Texas in under 2 years 🚀💸
In case you are wondering (you know, for your online arguments), it takes an estimated 4-8 years to convert a port to full automation, and between $500 million to $2B.
For reference, Shanghai’s Yangshan port took about 4-6 years from conception to full operations.
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@thelukass71
US doctors and nurses purchased 3-4 billion masks annually before the pandemic to use in surgeries, procedures and labs.
All made from China. Any reason we shouldn’t make those here?
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Mask manufacturers 🤣
If your opponents are opportunists, one way to beat them is to outlast them. Opportunists almost by definition lack staying power.
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This will be unpopular, but the dumbest thing we’ve done in this country is to make it hard for smart immigrants to come to the 🇺🇸
We were a country of immigrants and we’re losing our spirit.
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👏 👏
@Molson_Hart
fighting the good fight 💪 🇺🇸
This is the greatest thing that has happened to US e-commerce companies since pandemic lockdowns and stimulus checks.
The US government changes to SHEIN, TEMU, and other Chinese imports explained:
1. Items that have a Trump tariff on them cannot be imported duty free anymore
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Are LLMs are trick that make us think AGI is closer than it is?
Checkout started in 2019 that asks these AI models to do a simple puzzle, you can try it yourself. Easy for humans; impossible for AI.
Not much progress in the past 5 years.
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I don’t care what your politics are. This has got to stop.
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Pretty funny. No joke I bet there’s a whole track of AI research that could be devoted to how to improve models by just doing things good parents do.
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End of an era.
3 years ago “summer camp” for my kids was helping
@armbrust_usa
pack boxes for orders that we couldn’t fill fast enough. Now they are helping breaking down our machines for parts and scrap.
“Baby Ace” was our first machine that made over 1 million masks.
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91 mask machines capable of producing 1.2 Billion masks annually are now shut down and being scrapped in Arizona
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Americans don’t like to be told what to do.
@drseanmullen
Thanks for the info. So something I've always wondered, if masks work, why didn't the government force everyone to mask every flu season and save those 60000+ deaths every year?
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Turns out the human brain is a pretty efficient use of energy.
It's possible that when AGI is first achieved it will be extremely expensive to operate, maybe $10,000/hour or more, meaning that it will not be worth replacing low-wage jobs with AGI. Only very high-leverage positions such as CEO or hedge fund manager will justify the expense.
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Logistics is the unseen evil/hero of NGO work. It was ridiculously hard to get the
@FixTheMask
X
@armbrust_usa
kits into India during their surge last year.
This picture makes it all worthwhile! Somehow it’s the first time I’m seeing it!! 🙏
@RanuDhillon
@AbraarKaran
many others
@DrAliSKhan
@larmbrust
@KatherinePasem1
@DocJeffD
@masknerd
@FixTheMask
@OptimizeHealth_
@AdrishBhadra
@JVSinghINC
@CDCgov
This is how we protected health workers in rural Madhya Pradesh
@OptimizeHealth_
@AdrishBhadra
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I own two marketing tech startups doing $10mm+ annually.
After using chatGPT I think 90% of the info/marketing/adtech SaSS companies today will be dead in 5 years.
Great time to pivot your career to manufacturing, because we'll still need people to run the robots for decades.
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**World’s biggest banks and small-time tech CEO turned 🇺🇸 manufacturer with six kids pledge support for nuclear
BREAKING IN NYC: WORLD'S BIGGEST BANKS PLEDGE SUPPORT FOR NUCLEAR
Banks and funds totaling $14 TRILLION in assets have just signed an unprecedented statement in support of nuclear power.
They'll be presenting the pledge to support the goal of tripling nuclear THIS MORNING at
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We are the only
#mask
factory in
#Amercia
that makes our own filter material. Called “meltblown” this
@armbrust_usa
machine is designed to run for 4 days straight.
After that it takes 8 hours to clean residual plastic from the die head before we can start again.
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China officially reporting that they are not supporting repopulation.
#BREAKING
: At the end of 2022, China’s population was 1.4175 billion, down 850,000 from the end of 2021.
Number of annual birth: 9.56 million, a birth rate of 6.77‰
Number of deaths: 10.41 million, a mortality rate of 7.37‰
Natural population growth: -0.60‰.
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It took us 6 months but
@armbrust_usa
built a factory where we could make 900,000 units per day just outside of Austin, TX.
@HowIBuiltThis
did a great recap on our journey:
Just heard the
@armbrust_usa
story on
@HowIBuiltThis
live on
@NPR
today!
I’m definitely old school… something about hearing
@guyraz
live just hits better.
Head on over to
@WonderyMedia
and give it a listen!
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About 50 🇺🇸 mask factories were started during the pandemic, but now most of them have shut down, meaning there is way less capacity for production now.
I visited a mask factory today that’s shutting down (they want me to take their materials and parts)
They have 2 million N95s in stock and made millions more during the pandemic but can’t find any buyers anymore so they have to close down.
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AI made the "enhance" feature in CSI a reality 🤣
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I get why people hate wearing masks... I HATE WEARING MASKS AND I MAKE THEM! 🤣
Serious question for mask haters: don't you want to wear some kind of protection in crowed bathrooms?
I mean, y'all are nasty!
I will never not wear a mask in a public bathroom ever again.
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Visited another casualty of American-pandemic manufacturing today.
Massive 225,000 square foot glove facility, $34mm invested, 0 gloves sold.
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Serial killers. Serial killers only have two names. You ever notice that? But lone gunmen assassins, they always have three names. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mark David Chapman...
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Pivoting some data this morning from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
If you look at manufacturing jobs in the US it looks like we are relatively flat with 9mm jobs in 1939 and 12.9mm in 2022, but this doesn't tell the real story.
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Probably the most instantly and effortlessly useful
implementation of OpenAI’s tech that I’ve seen so far.
Introducing Rewind for iPhone - a truly personalized AI in your pocket!
🔍 Browse & search for anything you’ve seen (including screenshots)
🤖 Summarize and ask any question using AI
🔒 Private by design
Learn more:
(1/6)
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I only listen to 5 podcasts… last month, one of them asked me to be on their show!
Talking to
@guyraz
for
@HowIBuiltThis
definitely marked the most surreal moment of my
@armbrust_usa
manufacturing journey so far.
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Ty is straight killin' it with consistency.
I do wonder what happened in 2021....
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Just heard the
@armbrust_usa
story on
@HowIBuiltThis
live on
@NPR
today!
I’m definitely old school… something about hearing
@guyraz
live just hits better.
Head on over to
@WonderyMedia
and give it a listen!
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Now hearing from brokers that there are no OTG (on the ground) stores of masks in the US from China (meaning containers or large quantities at bulk pricing)
More inbound on boats but what I outlined here seems to be starting.
Amazon is still stocked.
I built a 🇺🇸 factory in 6 months that can make millions of masks every day.
I love America but I’m not a republican--it’s possible I promise.
I'm not a dem either, but I do know masks.
With XBB.1.5 Kraken surging I thought I'd write another 🧵 guaranteed to offend everyone.
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The
@armbrust_usa
shipping team is killing it. Last night they packed ~500,000 masks waiting on
@UPS
and
@USPS
to ship out today
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Well reasoned.
"That's the deal. That's open source. I give you a gift of code, you accept the terms of the license. There cannot be a second set of shadow obligations that might suddenly apply, if you strike it rich using the software. Then the license is meaningless."
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