It's Been a Minute

Generative AI's race problem

I don't think that we have a lot of opportunities or enough opportunities to feel meaningfully seen. I can't really blame anybody for saying, 'Oh, this song moves me. This song makes me feel seen.' when we're in a media climate where we don't really have as many opportunities as I would like for us to feel meaningfully seen.

Book of the Day

R.F. Kuang says there’s 'quite a lot' of herself in 'Katabasis' protagonist Alice

Alice feels betrayed by her own mind for a lot of the book. Um when I started the novel, I did it, too. And the reason why the prose is kind of jarred and chaotic and it's crammed with references that feel like they're about to spill over and just explode, that's because that's what living in her mind is like and what living in my mind was like.

The Prof G Pod

The Future of Media Is Audio — ft. Axios’ Sara Fischer | Office Hours

Their approach of trying to disrupt it from a position of strength doesn't make any sense. They're basically trying to perform open heart surgery on the healthiest person, you know, in the franchise. For 50 consecutive seasons, 60 has been the number one rated news program and garnering about 9 million viewers.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Alex Sacerdote - How to Invest Through Technology Cycles - [Invest Like the Best, EP.477]

The thing that's really interesting about the AI moment is that, unlike prior technology cycles, the hyperscalers themselves are the ones funding the build-out. So you don't have the same risk of a capital cycle bust that you had in, say, the fiber buildout of the late '90s, where it was funded by debt and then the whole thing collapsed.

China Decode

China Gets LOCKED OUT of SpaceX and America’s Biggest IPOs (ft. Ed Elson) | China Decode

China has demonstrated a willingness to forego money in the name of the common good. In the name of protecting workers and protecting labor. And so even if China is more structurally exposed to AI, even if that is the case, my assumption is that the Chinese government will bend the economy to its will in order to protect Chinese workers. What I know about America is that the total opposite is true.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Dara Khosrowshahi - Uber's Bet on AVs, AI, and Building a Super-App - [Invest Like the Best, EP.476]

The biggest risk for Uber is actually AV technology working perfectly and Uber not being a part of it. Because if AV technology works perfectly and Uber's not a part of it, then you essentially have players who have a lower cost structure than us who can come in and compete with us and essentially make our service irrelevant.

Hidden Brain

A Secret Source of Connection

We all have moments in our lives when we see someone who could use a helping hand. We tell ourselves we should help, but then something stops us.

TED

The Rising Cost of Dissent in America | Miles Taylor | TED

There was no deep state inside the Trump administration. There were people willing to speak truth to power and prevent the President from doing illegal things, not to prevent him from implementing a lawful agenda.

TED

How to Build a Career You Actually Love | Bill Gurley | TED

Obsessive and continuous learning is not an input -- it's an output. It's not the cause, it's the effect.

Book of the Day

Theo Baker delves into power and corruption at Stanford in 'How to Rule the World'

There is a sort of Stanford inside Stanford where the most elite students who are going to found the trillion-dollar companies are dragged into this alternate reality and and foisted with excess and access and learn how to cut corners.

It's Been a Minute

Why Gen Z is movie-maxxing

It's like there's so many horror movies you see now that just feel like they're kind of grinding their gears in the first 10-20 minutes until you start getting to the kills and the premises established. And I think this is a movie that like actually cares about the

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Alex Sacerdote - How to Invest Through Technology Cycles - [Invest Like the Best, EP.477]

The companies that tend to win in technology are the ones that are able to identify the inflection point on the S-curve early enough to make a big bet, but not so early that they run out of capital before the market develops. The penalty for being too early is often indistinguishable from being wrong.

TED

Can Play Change the World? | Play@TED Full Event | TED, the LEGO Group and the LEGO Foundation

We've reduced play to be this cherry on top of an already good life. But from a scientific perspective, it is much more fundamental than that. Play is what happens anytime we choose to do something without knowing exactly where it's going to end up.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Alex Sacerdote - How to Invest Through Technology Cycles - [Invest Like the Best, EP.477]

The way I think about it is that the most dangerous time to own a technology business is when it's currently executing well but the next curve is about to start. Because what happens is all your best people, all your resources, all your management attention is focused on scaling and perfecting the current curve, and the new curve looks tiny and unimportant by comparison.

Daily Stoic

Ways To Looksmaxx Like A Stoic

If your muscles are a result of steroids or neglecting your other responsibilities in life. If your physique is a result of starving yourself or actively harming yourself. If you are selfish and fragile and superficial, then you are ugly even if it manifests itself in some kind of temporary physical attractiveness.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Alex Sacerdote - How to Invest Through Technology Cycles - [Invest Like the Best, EP.477]

The other thing I'd say about AI is it has this strange property where the more you use it, the more you realize how transformative it's going to be. Most technologies, the more you use them, the more you understand their limitations. AI is almost the opposite — the more deeply you engage with it, the more you realize the ceiling is higher than you thought.

The New York Times

How the World Cup’s Most Famous Voice Gets Ready for “GOOOAL!”

It was a very emotional and very authentic broadcast because it was just myself on air, and very happy for my home country. It was something that I had been waiting for as much as all the Argentinian soccer fans for 36 years.

The Daily

Steven Spielberg on the Real Life Evidence That Inspired 'Disclosure Day'

The thing that we need to preserve in our society more than anything else, which is something which I believe is as fragile as democracy, is empathy.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Dara Khosrowshahi - Uber's Bet on AVs, AI, and Building a Super-App - [Invest Like the Best, EP.476]

The biggest risk to Uber is that we get disrupted by autonomy. Because autonomy is going to lower prices. Lower prices will mean more trips. And if we're not part of that autonomous future, we'll essentially be stuck with an ever-more-expensive human-driven transportation service while our competitors will have cheaper and cheaper autonomous transportation.

Daily Stoic

A Stoic's Guide To Looksmaxxing

If your choices are beautiful, then you will be beautiful. [...] If you are selfish and fragile and superficial, then you are ugly even if it manifests itself in some kind of temporary physical attractiveness.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Dara Khosrowshahi - Uber's Bet on AVs, AI, and Building a Super-App - [Invest Like the Best, EP.476]

The formula that I used was when the company is doing well, double down. When the company is doing not so well, double down. I think that's actually the right formula because the greatest risk for Uber was irrelevance. If you slow down, you get lapped.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Alex Sacerdote - How to Invest Through Technology Cycles - [Invest Like the Best, EP.477]

The great irony of technology investing is that the stocks that look the most expensive at the beginning of an S-curve are often the cheapest, and the stocks that look the cheapest at the end of an S-curve are often the most expensive.

Hidden Brain

Who Are You, Really?

You're not the same person with your friends as you are with your co-workers or your kids. So who are you, really?

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Alex Sacerdote - How to Invest Through Technology Cycles - [Invest Like the Best, EP.477]

The S-curve is a very well-known concept in technology investing, but what's less appreciated is that the most dangerous moment is often at the top of the S-curve, when a technology looks the most dominant and the most entrenched. That's precisely when the next S-curve is being born underneath it, and the incumbents are most blind to the threat.

The Week

Iran, IPO Mania, and the New American Dream | The Week

You know what binds all of them is rather their dislike of and fear of the language of the liberal world. In other words, the language of rights, the language of rule of law, the language of separation of powers. You know, all of these are states that are seeking to create a kind of total environment where the regime or the leader or the ruling party controls all media, all conversation.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Alex Sacerdote - How to Invest Through Technology Cycles - [Invest Like the Best, EP.477]

The best tech investors understand that the S-curve is not just a description of what happened — it's a prediction tool. When you're early on the S-curve, the technology is improving faster than the market appreciates, and when you're late, the technology is maturing faster than the market appreciates.

The Business of Tech

AI vs public sector jobs

we're framing this moment the wrong way as a blunt job cuts exercise, rather than a once in a generation chance to improve citizen services, grow new export businesses out of public sector expertise, and build a proper New Zealand digital service to set standards and avoid another decade of technical debt.

TED

The Invisible Infrastructure in the Sky | Adam Bry | TED

Drones enable us to have a complete digital picture of the grid to prevent this kind of thing from happening. And if it does happen, we can know about it sooner and faster and mitigate the response.

SpaceX IPO Gigastream

SpaceX IPO Gigastream

Bill Gurley doesn't want a crazy pop on day one, doesn't want it to go up 100%. If we're in 10, 20, 30% range for something this big, that just feels like... Everything came together properly.

Pivot

Scott Galloway on SpaceX IPO: "The Game Is Rigged" | Pivot

You have what is in my opinion the greatest degree of manufactured scarcity ever in an IPO and this is about to be the greatest transfer of wealth from retail investors since crypto

It's Been a Minute

Who needs to know where you are?

You don't have to trust that they're telling you the truth. You just get to see it. So it's also a different type of information.

Code Switch

Why being Black and outdoorsy is a whole thing

I wanted to create a space where we could reconnect with our childlike wonder, which I think especially for black people and minorities can get stripped away over life and you don't even realize when it's happening, how it's happening. It it's getting stripped from you day by day through our experience.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Dara Khosrowshahi - Uber's Bet on AVs, AI, and Building a Super-App - [Invest Like the Best, EP.476]

The insight is that if AV technology works, then every player in the space needs Uber more than Uber needs them, because we bring the demand. We bring the customers. We bring the transaction. And I think we are going to be the storefront for autonomous mobility for the world.

The a16z Show

Samo Burja on Growth, Energy, and AI

AI is not just a software story but a demand shock that will ripple through energy, manufacturing, construction, and global supply chains.

Radiolab

On the Media: American Emergency

As natural disasters are getting more extreme and less predictable, this series makes sense of that tangle, and provides a prescient peek into FEMA's future.

Freakonomics Radio

677. Can Backgammon Save Us from Ourselves?

It brings strangers together. It teaches probability, strategy, and emotional control. It has even helped N.F.L. teams win the Super Bowl.

The New York Times

How the World Cup’s Most Famous Voice Gets Ready for “GOOOAL!”

It is incredible how many times I've been stopped and recognized as the man that made people cry, which is really moving.

Semafor

Semafor Tech Summit | Semafor Events

It takes forever to really build incredible trust. It only takes a moment to break it. And that's something that we are very aware of. And AI, it just it makes it that much bigger because the use of that information can be so much more destructive if used improperly.

Semafor

Trump’s Prediction-Market Regulator To The Supreme Court: Bring It On

A Supreme Court ruling on this really will settle the matter, but Congress did so when it when it drafted our statute. So I don't think this is so much a area of law where there's a lack of clarity. I think the statute's very clear. It's in the black letter statutory text.

TED

Why the Best Ideas Come from Play | Maxwell Pearce | TED

Play is the most important ingredient in every person and every industry's evolution.

Diet TBPN

Bezos' Prometheus Raises $12B, America Inc. Moves to Texas, Trucking Rebounds | Diet TBPN

Bezos argued that if AI makes it cheaper, faster, and easier to invent things, employment will ultimately rise because even though you're shrinking the number of people needed by 10x, the technology will create more than 10x as many opportunities.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Alex Sacerdote - How to Invest Through Technology Cycles - [Invest Like the Best, EP.477]

The biggest mistake investors make is that they think about technology adoption as linear, when in reality it follows an S-curve. The early part of the S-curve looks like nothing is happening, and then suddenly everything happens at once, and then it plateaus. Most investors are either too early and give up, or they extrapolate the steep part of the curve forever.

All Songs Considered

What makes a song a ‘millennial song’ | It's Been a Minute

I think a lot of millennial music is united by this sense of deep sincerity. Um this feeling of carefree freedom and this kind of almost careless attitude in a sense. This kind of like live fast, die young ethos.

Book of the Day

Ann Patchett’s 'Whistler' and 'Tom Lake' are novels written with love in mind

Yes, there there are bad people in the world, but they are so outnumbered by the good people. The people who will want to help you are are so hugely present out there once you leave this car.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Alex Sacerdote - How to Invest Through Technology Cycles - [Invest Like the Best, EP.477]

The exciting part of being in technology investing is that you have these waves of innovation that create extraordinary opportunities for value creation and also value destruction. And the companies that are able to ride multiple waves are extraordinary compounders over time, but it's actually quite rare.

Fresh Air

'Daily Show' comic Josh Johnson

One of the most connected attributes of the human condition ... is just being flawed. We really connect with people on their faults.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Alex Sacerdote - How to Invest Through Technology Cycles - [Invest Like the Best, EP.477]

The failure mode that I've seen in technology investing over my career is people who are trained on a particular way that technology markets work, and they can't break free of it. They have a very successful decade, typically, where they nail one cycle, and then the next cycle they try to map the old framework onto the new one, and that's where the mistakes get made.

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch on AI, the Met Gala & his secret succession plan

You'll hear Sundar say he realized he needed to rethink how Google worked a few years ago in response to ChatGPT, and he made a lot of executive changes and big decisions to get the company in a more aggressive posture.