Contents
15 essays, newest first
A Hundred and Fifteen Percent
Britain’s railways changed the country, and the people who paid for them were disappointed. In 2026, who is paying for the AI build?
The Referee Wears the Home Team’s Jersey
On regulatory capture: how the regulated come to own the regulator, and why artificial intelligence is the next test.
The Machine Only One Company Can Build
A leaky shed, a tin droplet and twenty years of being told it would never work. The hard part is that patience and stubbornness look the same from inside.
The Intention Economy
The app economy competed for your attention. The next economy will compete for something more valuable: permission to act in your name.
We Built Machines to Save Time, and Taught Them to Occupy It
Every generation of communication technology has made messages faster. None has made us less busy. AI is about to test that pattern at scale.
The Last Interface
Every era of computing has shortened the distance between what we want and what the machine does. We are now closing it entirely. Whatever stands in the last gap will decide what gets done in our name.
Twenty Slots
Buffett’s imaginary punch card allows twenty decisions in a lifetime. Most of modern life is built to make you spend them faster.
The Herd Has No Head
Four centuries separate the tulip taverns of Haarlem from the meme-stock subreddits, and the crowds in both behaved the same way. On what happens when prices stop measuring value and start measuring each other.
The Fresno Drop
A bank mails 60,000 unrequested credit cards to Fresno and pays for the network that became Visa. The man who thought of it takes the blame.
Rent Is the Punchline
Harry Sonneborn saved McDonald’s without flipping a burger. Every company has a true business under its obvious one, and the fortune goes to whoever names it first.
The Two-Thirds Door
In 1990 a magazine columnist got a game-show puzzle right. About 10,000 readers wrote in, nearly 1,000 of them with PhDs, and most told her she was wrong. On what it costs to change your mind in public.
The Ten-Minute Turn
In 1972 a broke airline sold a quarter of its fleet and refused to cut a single flight. The fix was a ten-minute turn, and it started forty-seven straight years of profit.
A Sip Is Not a Can
Coca-Cola tested nearly 200,000 people, got a clear answer, and surrendered to its own customers seventy-nine days later. The tests measured a sip. People drink a can.
The Planes That Came Home
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 Laugh in the Boardroom
In 2000, Netflix offered itself to Blockbuster for $50 million. The people across the table were smart and well informed, and they said no.