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John Arnold

@johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social
3.3K followers 159 following 175 posts

Co-Chair, Arnold Ventures

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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
We at Arnold Ventures have been highly critical when a college cedes control of tuition, standards of admission, and oversight of content to a for-profit company. Revenue sharing with an outside entity inevitably changes the incentives from student success to profit maximization. 4/4
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
Following a class-action suit, Caltech rightly ended its relationship with the OPM and began rethinking its certificate programs. This should serve as a wake-up call for all colleges. Diluting the brand and misleading students to make a few dollars isn't helpful to anyone. 3/4
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
The quality and standards fell far short of the Caltech brand. Instructors were not Caltech faculty; some were recent graduates of the same program. The university’s only real involvement was collecting a share of the revenue. Students were deceived. 2/4
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
For all the headlines, nothing changed with overall spending trends.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
Good illustration of how much the Texas grid has changed in just 6 years. yellow = solar; purple = batteries; dark green = wind; blue = gas; brown = coal; light green = nuke via @gridstatus.io
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
Interesting dynamic in power sector is that cost of building solar gen keeps declining, but the value of an electron during sunny hours in sunny regions is also falling. The cost of gas-fired gen is rising quickly, but so is value of dispatchable power. Batteries will determine how this plays out.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
43 million Americans have left college with no credential. That’s the higher-ed crisis. Just as important as getting students to college is connecting them with institutions that have a track record of success, offer credentials of value, and provide adequate student support.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
The session showed the rift in the GOP between the suburban populist members and their related think tanks that are fighting a culture war vs consumers, manufacturers, land owners, rural communities (property taxes), developers, and even oil & gas community who want/need energy abundance.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Kudos to Texas Legislature for passing an energy abundance agenda while sidelining populist anti-electron bills that had momentum. Passed: large load screening and management, nuclear fund, energy waste reduction Failed: firming requirements, 50% gas gen mandate, wind/solar permitting hurdles
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Senators Cassidy and Kennedy have both introduced site neutral bills. Getting rid of the waste fraud and abuse in Medicare is the right way to reduce healthcare costs and doesn't touch coverage. Focus on those. 8/8
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Addressing these abuses could save huge money without affecting anyone's coverage. Both ideas have bipartisan support. Dr. Oz has vowed to scrutinize upcoding, saying it "is a scandal, and overall, we know that Medicare Advantage overpayments cost at least $83 billion in a single year." 7/8
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
More importantly, better ideas exist to save money in healthcare that don't cause people to lose coverage. There are abuses of Medicare both in upcoding (insurers making patients appear less healthy) and site-neutral (charging more for the same service after a hospital buys a doc office). 6/8
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
We can debate the number of people who will lose coverage solely because of failure to report and whether that makes this policy unworkable. The existing evidence from Arkansas, which briefly implemented work requirements, is thin. 5/8
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
The policy of work requirements is really a policy of work reporting requirement. This is nuanced distinction but very important. Inevitably, people who are engaged in work will lose healthcare coverage because they failed to properly document or report that activity. This, obviously, is bad. 4/8
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Medicaid eligibility would require individuals to report their work, caregiving, education, or service activities every month. This becomes an administrative burden on individuals who often have the least ability to navigate the system. 3/8
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
A recent KFF poll showed 62% surveyed, including 47% of Democrats, support Medicaid work requirements in theory. But the challenge of policymaking is that what’s intended on paper often plays out very differently in practice. 2/8
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
There’s an ongoing debate about whether able-bodied adults should be required to engage in productive work to qualify for the social safety net. Most Americans support some level of personal responsibility for at least some programs. Reasonable people disagree where that line should be drawn. 1/8
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
The Shoe Bomber caused every shoe thereafter to be searched by TSA causing significant delays and friction. I fear Operation Spiderweb is going to cause the same with shipping containers.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
India’s fertility rate has fallen from 6 to 4 to 2 in successive generations. The world isn’t just undergoing its greatest tech transformation, it’s also living through its most dramatic demographic shift, two trends that are of course deeply related.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
Cities like Tampa used to be affordable.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
Third-party payors are a necessary part of the healthcare system—that’s the core function of insurance. However, this same system also plays a major role in driving up the cost of drugs. 4/4
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
When insurers balked at launch prices of $1,000–$1,300 per month, many patients were forced to pay entirely out of pocket. This limited uptake. In response, Lilly and Novo Nordisk lowered prices by as much as 62 percent for cash-paying customers instead of raising them over time. 3/4
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
Once doctors and patients adopt the drug, manufacturers often hike prices annually (often 9.9%) knowing that payors lose leverage once the drug is entrenched in clinical practice. GLP-1s broke this pattern. 2/4
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
The recent price cuts for GLP-1s are a great case study in how the third-party payor system contributes to high drug costs. Drugmakers typically launch new products at a “modestly high” price, desiring to avoid insurer resistance and encourage broad patient uptake. 1/4
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
I’ve seen a lot of dumb stuff in my investing career but the “arb” that exists in publicly tradeds buying BTC when ETFs already exist is as dumb as anything. That it’s levered vs unlevered doesn’t justify the premium. The leverage is low. You can lever an ETF yourself. There's no barrier to entry.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 25/05/2025
There's an A/B test on the future of the Democratic Party with Brandon Johnson in Chicago and Daniel Lurie in SF.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 25/05/2025
That’s the fire the Us is playing with.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 25/05/2025
Remember the PIGS? They got their deficits under control. 10 year bond yield: Portugal: 3.10% Italy: 3.61% Greece: 3.34% Spain: 3.21% US: 4.51%
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
This is a positive step, but the nuclear industry’s biggest hurdles are technical and economic, not regulatory. Government policy must address those if we're to have a nuclear rebirth.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
"Instead, we have the worst of both worlds. Congress is afraid to go against the President’s wish list, and can be held hostage by a handful of House members representing special interests. The budget becomes the GOP version of an everything bagel." --Scott Sumner
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
One way to think about the US funding pharma R&D for the whole world through the enormous premium we pay for pills is that it is foreign aid for high- and middle-income countries paid for by American patients.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
How many times have I heard a GOP member of Congress say something along the lines of "the US doesn't have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem" or "the current level of spending is unsustainable" or "out-of-control deficit spending is the greatest threat to the country."
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
Imagining the counterfactual had DOGE done the job like a turnaround CEO would have: spend the first 100 days on a listening tour and rapid assessment and then come out with a comprehensive plan of reforms, cuts, and vision for the future.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Kudos to Rice University for using its resources to boost undergraduate enrollment by 30% this decade. Sadly, it's the only top 25 school currently pursuing a significant expansion in access.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 13/04/2025
I have zero ties to the city but the rebound of SF seems an underreported story, especially given the amount of attention the decline got.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 13/04/2025
This is the fuel mix in ERCOT (Texas) for the past week (top) vs same week 4 years ago (bottom). Solar generation is in yellow. Solar barely registered in 2021; today it accounts for roughly 50% of generation during the day in the shoulder months. data via @gridstatus.io
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
If the purpose of tariffs is to reshore industry, companies need very high confidence in the permanence of the policy. If the purpose is to raise revenue, they must stay enacted. If the purpose is to negotiate policy, there must be a specific ask.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
Minimizing methane leaks is perhaps the most cost effective way to reduce the industy's environmental footprint. Knowing this, many producers are investing to improve their practices today. Repealing the methane regs just rewards those who aren't and weakens the industry over the long term. 4/4
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
As such, minimizing GHG emissions should be part of the industry's societal license to operate. And given the commodity nature of the product, there must be regs to mandate responsibility at the corporate level. 3/4
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
Nat gas is and will continue to be a vital fuel for the energy system for a long time. We don't have the technologies or scaling capability to stop using fossil fuels in the foreseeable future. 2/4
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
Today the Senate passed a resolution against the methane emission fee. This is a mistake. Many large NG producers quietly support methane regs because they know the industry is stronger in the long term if viewed as responsible stewards of the environment. 1/4
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
This is A+ philanthropy: Find a field neglected by other funders (nursing ed) that has broad benefits (economic mobility & health outcomes), identify the constraint (shortage of faculty and space), do strong due diligence, fund it at scale, and give while living. www.philanthropy.com/article/bill...
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Regulatory oversight in small business consolidation remains minimal—even though market power in localized industries can hurt consumers just as much as national ones. 7/7
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Many states have antitrust statutes but state regulators are seldom equipped to enforce them. Some states are starting to require premerger notifications on health providers, for instance, but the issue is much bigger. 6/n
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
But consolidation can also lead to abuse of market power. For example, much of the "value creation” in physician consolidation was more aggressive billing practices and stronger leverage on reimbursement negotiation. Prices went up as the market share increased. 5/n
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Examples include physician practices, vet clinics, car washes, HVAC, home and auto repair, optometrists, preschools, etc. Scale can have benefits through more sophisticated business practices, lower costs, and customized tech into family-owned small businesses. 4/n
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Historically, PE focused on combining already scaled companies. With fewer national targets and stricter FTC scrutiny on big deals, PE is now eyeing small, owner-operated businesses with a local customer base. 3/n
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
The FTC focuses on large mergers that affect national markets. Mergers >$126 mil must notify federal regulators. With most local consolidation below that, PE can aggregate market power in localized industries without regulators even knowing it's happening. 2/n
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
The hot trend in private equity is rolling up companies that provide local services. With limited safeguards to curb market power, this will likely result in higher prices for consumers across various industries. 1/n
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