The Referee Wears the Home Team’s Jersey
Aug 202615 min
On regulatory capture: the oldest trick in the political economy playbook, and why the next fifty years of technology depend on whether we finally learn to see it.
the one bankers forward to lawyersThe Intention Economy
Jul 202610 min
The app economy competed for your attention. The next economy will compete for something more valuable: permission to act in your name.
where the next decade gets pricedWe Built Machines to Save Time, and Taught Them to Occupy It
Jun 202611 min
Every generation of communication technology has made messages faster. None of them has made us feel less busy. That is not a coincidence; it is a law, and AI is about to test it at scale.
read this on a “busy” dayThe Last Interface
May 202612 min
Every era of computing has shortened the distance between what we want and what the machine does. We are now closing that distance entirely, and we should think hard about what stands in the remaining gap.
written before the agents arrivedTwenty Slots
Apr 202610 min
Buffett’s imaginary punch card gives you twenty decisions for a lifetime. It sounds like investing advice. It is actually an indictment of almost everything about how modern life is arranged.
the card at the bottom of the labThe Herd Has No Head
Mar 202611 min
Four centuries separate the tulip taverns of Haarlem from the meme-stock subreddits, and the distance between them is close to zero. On what happens when prices stop measuring value and start measuring each other.
read before your next consensusRent Is the Punchline
Feb 202610 min
The man who saved McDonald’s never flipped a burger. Every company has a true business hiding underneath its obvious one, and the fortune goes to whoever names it first.
ask what business you’re inThe Two-Thirds Door
Jan 202611 min
Ten thousand letters, a thousand PhDs, one magazine columnist, and the most instructive public argument in the history of probability. A story about game shows that is really about the price of changing your mind.
play it in the lab firstThe Ten-Minute Turn
Dec 202510 min
In 1972 a broke airline sold a quarter of its fleet and refused to shrink the schedule. The arithmetic of that refusal built the most profitable airline in history, and the lesson is about constraints, not aviation.
for anyone with less than they needA Sip Is Not a Can
Nov 202510 min
Coca-Cola ran two hundred thousand taste tests, got a clear answer, and surrendered to its own customers seventy-nine days later. Every organization that runs on metrics is one assumption away from the same year.
for the dashboard-obsessedThe Planes That Came Home
Oct 202510 min
In 1943 the military asked a refugee mathematician where to armor its bombers, and showed him the bullet holes to prove it. He asked about the planes nobody could show him.
the graveyard has the dataThe Laugh in the Boardroom
Sep 202511 min
In 2000, Netflix offered itself to Blockbuster for fifty million dollars. Everyone in the room was smart, informed, and acting reasonably. That is exactly what makes it the most instructive meeting in modern business.
the most expensive smile ever