No Mercy No Malice

We’re in the midst of a great leap forward in AI — Lately tech has been about failures. How technology has failed us. The more sober assessment is that humans are failing tech. Social media may be ruining childhood, and crypto has immolated billions of dollars. But it’s grown-up children that are ruining social media and pumping crypto. The problem? Tech has…

The rich get richer. — Data supports it. In the past three decades, the share of U.S. wealth held by the top 1% has gone from 24% to 32%. Like most cliches, “the rich get richer” became a cliche because it’s true… of money, and power. The powerful tend to aggregate more power, incumbents get…

Ads have become Big Tech’s Achilles’ heel — In 2017 I wrote a book about Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google called The Four. After working my ass off for 25 years, I became an overnight success: speaking gigs, appearances on cable news and talk shows, book and podcast deals. I spent a bunch of time with elected officials…

Neutrality in the face of evil is not neutrality — There was controversy this month involving Kanye West. You can catch up here; I won’t reiterate it. I believe Kanye is ill, and I’ll return to ignoring him soon after this post. This post is about Adidas, Gap, CAA, and his other corporate partners. It is about the moral obligation…

Our leaders are too old — Youth leans toward the novel, and age toward the safe. Entrenchment is the preferred strategy of incumbents. “Change is good” … unless you’re already killing it. In Google’s first decade, the company seized the search engine market, launched Maps, Mail, and Chrome. The company’s track record of abandoned projects ever…

The ways we are failing young men are legion, so let’s focus on one problem: We put too many in prison — Regardless of skin color, sexuality, or politics, young men are falling. They are falling behind academically, failing to attach to mates, and trading potential for addiction. Their less-evolved prefrontal cortex is especially susceptible to opportunities for quick dopa hits that have been engineered by firms whose profit incentives are in…

We thought billionaires were playing 3D chess while we played checkers. It turns out they’re playing the same game, but on a more expensive board. — Every medium has its own behavioral norms and nuances. Few are more casual, and authentic, than texting. There’s a feeling of intimacy and immediacy, as a smaller circle has access. Most people read all their texts, while few read all their email, and almost nobody opens all their physical mail…

In sum, identity can be weaponized. — In 1791 an obscure baroness and her daughters left Paris in a carriage headed west. Along the way, at Sainte-Menehould, their male servant went to change horses, and the town’s postmaster, Jean-Baptiste Drouet, thought he looked familiar. Drouet took out a banknote and confirmed, from the face printed on the…

My new book, Adrift: America in 100 Charts, is now out. It’s the story of America told through … charts. You can buy it here. The previous excerpt I shared was (cautiously) optimistic. In a world where bad news sells, it’s easy to feel nihilistic — apocalyptic, even — about…