Tim Wu

Probably the most important but slightly under the radar thing going on right now is agentic AI's challenge to the attention-driven business models favored by the platforms. (The fact that some of the major agentic AIs happen to be owned by the advertising platforms hasn't escaped my notice)

New York’s passage of a child protective Chatbot law is a major achievement — the States are unquestionably the only political entities that actually doing what 90% of the population wants. Credit to Senator Gonzales and others for getting this done engadget.com/2299823/new-yor…

At a workshop today fascism was described as a type of response to market failure. A collapsing market makes workers sense of their own value decrease in a market system. The fascist regime offers both an emotional antidote by proclaiming the affected classes’s racial superiority (and also blaming a scapegoat class) and then also an economic antidote in the form of aggressive full employment programs, such as preparing for warfare.

The age of jokes about grand juries and ham sandwiches is over - turns out the Fifth Amendment was precient wapo.st/4yPWbRx

The Nov 2025 Award Agreement for Musk at Tesla: “in the event of a Change in Control, the Operational Milestones shall be disregarded.” The Space X acquition, in other words, unlocks the Tesla award (or parts of it) without actually needing to hit any targets 247wallst.com/investing/2026…

Friend pointed out that if Telsa and SpaceX do merge, it would likely satisfy the "change in control" clause in Musk's comp agreement with TSLA, meaning he gets the payoff without meeting the operational targets.

There are these occasional moments where America feels completely normal washingtonpost.com/climate-e…

Taking the Amtrak train from Philly to New York right now and the price is for some reason a very reasonable $15. It feels like the 90s

In 2006 Wikipedia had more traffic than Facebook. In an alternative history, in whihc Facebook might have decided to make itself a non-profit foundation, how are things different?

This is based on data from the Federal Reserve -- the tiny sliver represents 50% of the population.

US Tech industry's coziness & alignment with Trump WH has the side effect of making countries not want to adopt American technology if they can avoid it. In other words, it surrenders soft power. Elon Musk is making the risks very clear wsj.com/world/ukraine-starli…

Billionaire seeking Trump pardon nytimes.com/2026/10/20/us/po…

The newish anti-Canada tariffs likely to be struck down cnbc.com/2026/10/20/trump-ta…

Somewhat revised "American Schools of Antitrust" for those who wish to print on a tea towel. Didn't include contemporary figures

Here is my review of Michael Lewis' new book about DOGE, the executive branch, and ultimately, the topic of ignorance nytimes.com/2026/10/05/books…