T-Minus 90 is a builder program for Dusk that @tminus_dusk and I are running together. Over 90 days, we help 3 builders take a dApp from idea to mainnet. We've both shipped on Dusk. Tminus built @sozu_dusk, I built Dusk Domains. So the mentoring comes from people who've been through it, from the first contract to the mainnet deploy. The deal You get a Claude Team seat for 3 months, a weekly call with both of us, product reviews along the way and a security review before you go live. You also get shoutouts from my X account, help with the mainnet deployment costs and a private Discord with the other builders. In return, you build in public, with an open-source repo and a short weekly update. Your proof of concept needs to work on testnet by December 1st. If it doesn't, your seat goes to the next person on the waitlist. The dApp needs to be live on mainnet by February 1st. You fully own what you build. We don't take equity. Who we're looking for What matters most to us is distribution. Who is going to use your dApp and why will they use it? ZK and privacy, AI or agentic use cases are a plus, but the proof of concept on testnet needs to work first. The ZK or AI parts can come later. Applying takes about 5 minutes. If you're not picked, you're on the waitlist. Timeline Oct 23, 2026 applications open Oct 30, 2026 applications close Nov 1, 2026 3 builders picked, kickoff, Discord opens Dec 1, 2026 testnet PoC check Feb 1, 2027 mainnet launch, then a retro Apply below 👇

Olijfolietest Keuringsdienst van Waarde. Let op, lampante is dus niet geschikt voor consumptie. Unfuckingbelievable, Dirk en huismerk @albertheijn. Ik had al dood kunnen zijn

Dusk Domains is live on Dusk mainnet. One readable .dusk name for your Dusk address, from 10 DUSK a year. dusk.domains

Afgelopen zomer heb ik mijn baan opgezegd. De reden: ik maak mij intens veel zorgen over Nederland. We worden in rap tempo armer en afhankelijker. Tijd voor actie. Een draadje.

Poppi's founders just learned the most expensive lesson in M&A! When they sold to PepsiCo, the deal was for $1.9B plus a $300M earnout (a future contingent payment based on the performance of the brand for some period after closing). And PepsiCo just announced that it is valuing that $300M at a “paltry” $12M. That stings! I've negotiated a lot of earnouts in my career. Here's what most sellers don't understand until it's too late: 1. An earnout is a future bet on a business you no longer control. After closing, the buyer sets budget, pricing, hiring, marketing, etc. Every lever behind whether or not you get your earnout belongs to someone else. 2. The incentives can flip the day you close if you’re not careful. As a seller, you want to do everything to hit the targets. But as the buyer, you pay less if they're missed. Ideally, the earnout is structured so that both parties win or lose together. If performance tanks, the buyer earns less overall so it pays less to the seller. If performance improves, the buyer earns more so it pays more to the seller. Incentives are aligned. What you absolutely cannot allow to happen is an earnout structured so that performance can improve allowing the buyer to earn more, but still pay less to the seller. How on earth could that happen? I'm so glad you asked... 3. The accounting decides the outcome. How you define "revenue", "EBITDA" or any other measurement metric used to determine the earnout is what ultimately drives the payout. So things like how corporate overhead gets allocated or what happens when the Seller’s product is folded into a larger brand with competing products becomes unbelievably important. Again, remember the incentives. With a poorly structured earnout, a company like PepsiCo could be incentivized to buy a brand like Poppi and purposely underinvest in the brand in order to eliminate a key competitor to its other products. So PepsiCo could earn more by driving more revenue to products other than Poppi, while simultaneously reducing the earnout payable to Poppi because Poppi's direct performance declines. PepsiCo wins -> Poppi loses. Sellers have to be very careful about how the accounting for the earnout is defined and whether it causes misaligned incentives. 4. The reasons above are why earnouts are among the most litigated terms in M&A. Sellers often sue buyers claiming the buyer sandbagged performance. And Buyers defend by saying “The contract gave us full discretion." Courts will generally enforce whatever terms the parties agreed to in writing, so an argument that Buyer acted in “bad faith" rarely saves a seller who didn't negotiate adequate protections. 5. If you agree to an earnout, protect it at all costs! > Tie it to metrics like revenue, which are subject to less manipulation than metrics like Adjusted EBITDA. > Include strict operating covenants around things like required budget, sales support, and no diverting customers to other products or business lines. > Push for audit rights and a dispute mechanism. > Demand acceleration of the earnout if the buyer or product line is sold, merged, shut down, or deprioritized. > Keep the measurement period short! The longer the period, the more opportunity it gives a Buyer to game the system. To be transparent, I don’t have any background into what happened here. I have no idea if the earnout was poorly structured or if PepsiCo acted in a way to purposely reduce the earnout. That's not the point of this post. What I do know is that a $300M earnout that is written down to $12M is a tale as old as time and almost certainly to end up in litigation. And even if not the case in this particular instance, in most cases where this happens, there's often things that could have been done in the transaction documents to avoid it. My advice to every seller I represent who is considering agreeing to an earnout is simple: Value the deal based on cash at close and treat the earnout as a bonus. If you get it, great. But don’t count on it!