It is fascinating that technologists thought they'd use demagogues as a vehicle for change that they would like to see, but demagogues used technologists as a vehicle for their desired change. In the end, the more government-savvy operators triumphed and the rest sort of flamed out. I'm actually quite surprised Elon Musk got whacked. With his companies's success ultimately relying on varying degrees of how well he used US Government policy I expected him to be quite skilled at navigating it behind the scenes. After all, Tesla made it through tough times using green credits, and SpaceX can fly because he got Starlink protected under the DoD umbrella. So there's some degree of savvy there.

I suppose you have to know when you're Lee Iacocca and when you're Henry Ford II. No matter what you do, one's in the family, and the other isn't, so if you're not in the family you'd better know that.

I was quite eager to see if the chaos of this admin would cause accidental positive change. Submitted a petition via deregulation.gov to reduce the fund requirements for nuclear power plants. Who knows, might have worked. Didn't, but might've! Ah well, 3 more years and then we're clear.