The JumpStart Payroll Tax was passed in Seattle on July 6, 2020 to “fund affordable housing and combat homelessness” by taxing corporations with payrolls over $8.5 million. It targeted companies like Amazon. So five years later, what happened? The tax brought in new money at first. It raised $231 million in 2021, $293 million in 2022, and $310 million in 2023. That was new additional tax money. Everything looked good at first. But with the new revenue, Seattle spent heavily on affordable housing...
Jul 15, 2025•3 min
Note: At the bottom of this article you’ll get several FREE tutorial videos that will show you practical uses for AI that you can start using today. This is just a taste of what you’ll learn in the full course. * How to use AI to create a poem for your grandson * How to use AI to review a lease for you or your family member * How to use AI to create a logo for your business or side project * How to use AI to plan a vacation customized to your interests * How to use AI to code your own version of...
Mar 25, 2025•6 min
Capitalism gets a bad rap as a ruthless, dog-eat-dog system, but in reality, it’s the most effective way to create shared prosperity . Unlike socialism, which focuses on redistributing wealth, capitalism multiplies it. Take Peter Thiel’s $500,000 investment in Mark Zuckerberg in 2004. At the time, Thiel was the wealthier of the two. But as Facebook scaled, Zuckerberg became exponentially richer than Thiel—while Thiel still walked away vastly wealthier than before . That’s the power of investment...
Feb 10, 2025•4 min
Personal Note: I’m very sorry for the delay in publishing. We took a vacation to Florida to see the first launch of Blue Origins New Glenn rocket. Our 6 year old loves rockets and space —it was awesome! Although a bummer that all of the launches were at 1am. Quite a difficulty for a 6 year old and a wife that is 6 months pregnant. But they were troopers and really impressed me. If you can make it down to the space coast, I highly recommend it. My research project this week was about the micropla...
Jan 24, 2025•5 min
*This is my personal account of Bill Hamilton from my own personal memory. I’m sure that I have some of the details and facts wrong. I apologize for any errors On December 15th, 2024, Bill Hamilton, the Founder of TechSmith died from a heart attack at the age of 77. Bill Hamilton was the greatest entrepreneur of the Lansing area in this century. Arguably more. He was a husband, a father, a veteran, a computer programmer, a Spartan, an amateur ham radio enthusiast, a competitive shooter, an avid ...
Dec 18, 2024•13 min
I wanted to follow up on my post from last week, Return to Real Science , that talked about “Relativism”. Two things happened since then that I thought perfectly illustrated the problem with “Moral Relativism” or “Moral Inversion”. I posted the following writing on Facebook: “I am appalled that many people, including journalists like Taylor Lorenz (Washington Post & New York Times), are celebrating the murder of an insurance company CEO. Taylor posted a screenshot of another health insurance...
Dec 10, 2024•7 min
Over the past few decades, a troubling shift has occurred in how we perceive and utilize science, particularly within educational contexts. Traditional science, grounded in facts, evidence, and experimentation, is increasingly being overshadowed by modern social science frameworks that emphasize subjective interpretations over empirical data. This shift has significant implications for the reliability and credibility of scientific knowledge. To receive my weekly posts for FREE in your email acco...
Dec 03, 2024•7 min
I’m sick of the crap story that we’re taught about the founding and “discovery” of America. The narrative is skewed, overemphasizing accidental “discovery”, guilt, and grievances while ignoring the truth: history, like nature, is savage and brutal. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 🙏 Migration, conflict, and innovation have always defined humanity. No one has a monopoly on virtue or violence. To pretend otherwise is dishonest. The real story ...
Nov 28, 2024•3 min
The world is drowning in words that mean nothing because they can’t be tested, proven, or falsified. Words like “racist” or “bias” often serve as weapons, not tools of understanding. They rely on feelings, assumptions, and shifting definitions, making them impossible to disprove. If a person tells an offensive joke but is married to someone of that same race, are they a racist? Instead of using an unprovable label like “racist,” use precise language: “The comedian told this joke. I personally di...
Nov 18, 2024•5 min
Two years ago, I got the call I’d always feared. A close friend had suffered a heart attack after years of alcohol abuse. Within 48 hours, he was gone. He died alone in a hospital bed, separated from loved ones by pandemic restrictions. But that isolation wasn’t new to him. His alcoholism had been isolating him for years. I often wonder—what came first? Did his alcoholism drive his isolation, or did his isolation drive his alcoholism? 15% of men say they have no close friends. That’s about 25 mi...
Oct 28, 2024•5 min
Thomas Jefferson said: "I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” The idea of choosing your friends or distancing yourself from family based solely on who they choose to support in a political election seems deeply unamerican to me. But sadly it seems to be very fashionable again as we grind through the last days of this painful election cycle. I understand this isn’t a new phenomenon, and I am sympathetic to the ...
Oct 21, 2024•8 min
Back when I co-owned the restaurant chain Slice by Saddleback , I was looking for ways to increase the net income of the business. One of the things I became fascinated by was how sports stadiums would sell the naming rights to their stadiums as an advertisement to large businesses. Consider how many stadiums are named after companies, like the Staples Center or the DTE Energy Music Theatre. I thought, What if we could do that for a pizza? Opening restaurants requires a lot of cash. So when we w...
Oct 07, 2024•7 min
I Dreamed I Had an Interview with God by James J. Lachard (Jim Brown) "So, you would like to interview me?" God asked. "If you have the time," I replied, and God smiled. "My time is eternity. What questions do you have in mind for me?" "What surprises you most about humankind?" I asked. God answered, " They get bored with childhood, rush to grow up, and then long to be children again. They sacrifice their health to make money and then spend that money to restore their health. By worrying about t...
Sep 28, 2024•2 min
Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. I used to say no—a lot. No to new experiences, no to challenges, no to anything that pushed me outside my comfort zone. But with The Year of the Opposite challenge, I started saying yes. It’s been about two years since I made that shift, and it has been a game-changer. Take Ragnar Michigan 2024, for example. When Kenny asked m...
Sep 23, 2024•4 min
A quick update: The post that I get the most questions about is “ How to get a CT Calcium Score .” The most frequent question is: “Where can I get one?” and “How much does it cost?” The cost question was a surprisingly hard question to answer. Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. The costs generally range between $100 and $250. I but I didn’t know much precise co...
Sep 03, 2024•4 min
Yesterday I shared a statistic: 54% of American adults can’t read above a 6th-grade level . I thought it was pretty shocking so I wanted to note it so I could start investigating it. That’s why I shared it. But it’s the responses (some had to be hidden/deleted) that I want to talk about. The comment replies quickly turned into assigning blame to either teachers or parents . It had to be one of them! Please Subscribe to get my weekly newsletter sent to you for free! And of course, some assumed th...
Aug 26, 2024•3 min
I want to be very clear: I am NOT endorsing or opposing any politician or candidate. But this is an incredibly important topic and I am hoping that I can break it down fairly and dispassionately. I am also going to try my best to keep my personal views out of it. I look forward to hearing your thoughts, comments, corrections and questions. Here goes… Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a ...
Aug 22, 2024•20 min
This is a hard post to write. It’s uncomfortable talking about sadness. Many of us have been conditioned to think that it’s unproductive or even wrong to discuss. While I do think there is some truth to the idea that we shouldn’t overly focus on our negative emotions, I also think that ignoring these feelings can give others the incorrect impression that everyone else has their life figured out and that when you are personally struggling with the feelings of sadness, it can make you feel like th...
Aug 16, 2024•6 min
Note: Sorry for the poor audio on the podcast. I’m on vacation and don’t have access to my usual studio setup. Lansing is a fine city. I love my family here, I love my in-laws here, and I love my friends here dearly. But it is unquestionable to say that I hindered my career and my intelligence by staying in Lansing, Michigan. One of the truest things ever said about relationships is that you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with. From my perspective, that is unquesti...
Aug 04, 2024•12 min
The biggest misconception of my life was assuming that other people would want to know when something they said was incorrect. I always thought I was doing them a favor. But, in my experience, most people would rather go on being wrong than face the personal trauma of being confronted with new information that doesn’t align with their opinion—even when their opinion is incorrect. It was easy for me to recognize this silliness when I was the one dispensing the correction because the receiver woul...
Jul 18, 2024•3 min
The National Association of Realtors agreed to pay $418 million to settle an antitrust suit that showed that they colluded to inflate commissions, block competition, inflate US housing prices, and harm consumers. The $418 million might seem like a lot, but it’s less that a half percent (.5%) of the $100 billion of real estate commissions that consumers pay every single year! So why did they settle? Because if they didn’t settle they could have faced a fine close to $6 Billion! They settled, gave...
May 28, 2024•11 min
Today I am going to complain and I feel gross about it because my life is amazing and no one wants to hear someone complain. But I want to share this story because I think it shows a side of humanity that people don’t talk about. TLDR: Here’s the short version… * I believe in active citizenship, so I joined the School Board. * I had a silly idea to donate $3,000 to any staff or teacher at the school district. * To make it a democratic process, I allowed anyone to nominate a staff member and vote...
May 21, 2024•8 min
My friend posted a short video from the amazing Jon Stewart. I love Stewart and I think he’s a national treasure. But on this particular issue, I think he has it exactly backwards. Here is the video: Thanks for reading Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. I would suggest, this isn’t a problem of corporations. Definitely not ALL corporations. Let me explain, last week I closed a business that I founded called Open Install ...
May 14, 2024•5 min
First a confession… I’ve been predicting Full Self-Driving cars would be a reality “this year” for about a decade, so you might want to take my predictions with a grain of salt. 😂😂 However, I recently got my hands on Tesla’s Full Self Driving version 12, marking the first iteration that leverages machine learning and neural networks, akin to AI systems like ChatGPT. This new approach eschews traditional programming for a model where the system learns by observing the world’s best drivers (with...
Apr 25, 2024•5 min
I bet my friends $500 that I could make them happier in 7 days and 100% either got happier or stayed very happy. It was a huge success! In my opinion… However, one of my readers significantly disagreed with me. I shared the readers previous comment in my last post titled “ Challenge Results: All Participants Got Happy In 7 Days! ” That reader replied to the last post so I wanted to share it to see what you all think. I want to get outside opinions to see if maybe I’m off the mark on this one. I ...
Mar 24, 2024•4 min
I wanted to give a short personal update: I've joined Scribe Media as VP of Marketing. I've been a fan of Scribe for a long time because they have published some of my favorite books including those from David Goggins & my good buddy Eric Jorgenson . If you read business books, I've probably given you a copy of The Almanack Of Naval Ravikant . Scribe has been around for almost a decade and has produced 2,000 plus books. Hundreds of them have been Amazon best sellers and 23+ were New York Tim...
Mar 18, 2024•4 min
Welcome to Year Of The Opposite : Travis Stoliker's Newsletter for People That Don't Subscribe to Newsletters. Ex: Saddleback, Liquid Web, & Techsmith. Read Time: 6 minutes. 3 months ago I proposed a crazy challenge: “ You'll be happier in 7 days or I'll pay you $500! ” I proposed this challenge because I was worried about how many of my friends were telling me that they were depressed. I had an idea that perhaps the strategies that worked to resolve my own depression from grief might help o...
Mar 13, 2024•12 min
I’m very sorry for my absence. My son and I fell very sick with a stomach bug and we are finally back rejoining the world. That was rough. Thanks for your patience. Whenever I’m sick I am reminded of the quote: “A healthy person wants a million things. A sick person wants just one.” This made me want to tell the story of the medical therapy ATA188. A month ago I shared the story of an incredible invention that will cure the terrible pain from Sickle Cell Disease . Miraculously, there are now two...
Mar 06, 2024•15 min
Joe, I apologize for posting this letter publicly. I know you’re a private guy. But I don’t have your new address . Today marks two years since you left us and I have a lot of updates to share. But dude, I gotta confess, I was pretty angry at you for leaving the way you did. It kinda fucked me up. Losing you sent me into a depression that was difficult to overcome. Hell, I still can’t listen to Jimmy Eat World songs without getting overwhelmed with emotion. You’ve kinda ruined that band for me. ...
Feb 23, 2024•6 min
Sickle Cell Disease impacts about 100,000 people in the US every year. It’s an incredibly painful disease where the cells become misshapen like a crescent moon or a sickle. This shape causes the cells to get trapped and restrict the blood flood which causes chronic pain, organ damage, strokes, and shortened life expectancy. Bone marrow transplant has been the best treatment for patients, but it was very challenging to find a potential donor. Only 15% of siblings are a suitable match to be a dono...
Feb 05, 2024•4 min
