The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:
• The year that Twitter died. Twitter was so many things. Elon Musk killed Twitter. First, he did it figuratively: firing most employees, destabilizing it as a technology and a business, leaving the platform virtually unusable for those who remained. Then, he killed it literally: renaming it X, giving Twitter a final ending after 15 years of chaotic existence. But in death, there is understanding — now that it’s over, we can reckon with what Twitter really was… (The Verge) see also
• In 2024, the Tension Between Macroculture and Microculture Will Turn into War: And I can already tell you who will win… (The Honest Broker)
• If Scientists Were Angels: Francis Bacon has been charged with robbing science of its innocence. But what if we’ve all been reading him wrong? (The New Atlantis)
• Ghosts on the Glacier: Fifty years ago, eight Americans set off for South America to climb Aconcagua, one of the world’s mightiest mountains. Things quickly went wrong. Two climbers died. Their bodies were left behind. Now, a camera belonging to one of the deceased climbers has emerged from a receding glacier near the summit … … and one of mountaineering’s most enduring mysteries has been given air and light. (New York Times)
• The Spy Who Dumped the CIA, Went to Therapy, and Now Makes Incredible Television: Joe Weisberg—the geopolitically entangled, heavily therapized creator of The Americans and The Patient—is the trickiest character he’s written (so far). (Wired)
• Top 25 News Photos of 2023 A look back at some of the major news events and moments of 2023. (The Atlantic)
• How NASA Learned to Love 4 Squirmy Letters: Decades after sending it to design purgatory, the space agency celebrates a logo it still calls the worm. (New York Times)
• How to build a bike lane in America Advocates are working across the country to make their communities safer and more accessible for cyclists, but not every effort is successful. (The Verge)
• The Virus Inside Your TV: In the 1990s, a group of radical artists smuggled political messages into Melrose Place. Not everyone found it funny. (Slate)
• Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos Get Honest With Each Other: The duo behind the fantastical film Poor Things talk sex, trust, and self-discovery. (The Atlantic)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business with Michael Rockefeller, Co-Chief Investment Officer and co-founder of Woodline Partners, managing $7 billion in assets. Launched in 2019 with around $2 billion in initial assets, it was one of the fastest-growing emerging funds over the past few years. The hedge fund implements a market neutral equity strategy, focused on generating “idiosyncratic alpha” and “avoiding systemic risk factors.” Previously, he worked as a Portfolio Manager at Citadel Global Equities and as an Analyst at Millennium Management.
Real wages are rising
Source: @JustinWolfers
Off to vacation this week! Very light posting for the rest of the year!
