The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Danish Blend coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:
• How Trump Won, What Happens Next, and How Disconnects Drove Democracy: How Trump Won Through The Lens of Data, Trust, Media, and the Vibecession. (Kyla’s Newsletter) see also The reckoning with inflation: Many are tying the Democrat losses in the election to high inflation in recent years. There’s some truth to that, but it’s complicated and it’s crucial to take the right lessons. (Stay-At-Home Macro)
• The Death and Life of Prediction Markets at Google: Over the past two decades, Google has hosted two different internal platforms for predictions. Why did the first one fail — and will the other endure. (Asterisk)
• A Love Letter to the Greatest Pen of All Time: The Pilot G2 is infallibly smooth, vibrant, and ergonomic—and right now it’s on sale, too. (Esquire).
• The Onion Wins Bid to Buy Infowars, Alex Jones’s Site, Out of Bankruptcy: The satirical news site intends to turn Infowars into a parody of itself. But the court overseeing the bankruptcy put a hold on the sale pending a hearing next week. (New York Times)
• How Big Toilet Paper dupes us all: The wild, nonsensical world of toilet paper math, explained. (Vox)
• The inspiring scientists who saved the world’s first seed bank. During the siege of Leningrad, botanists in charge of an irreplaceable seed collection had to protect it from fire, rodents – and hunger. (The Guardian)
• How Does the CIA Recruit Russian Spies? Two years ago, the Agency tried a new approach. Is it working? (Cipher Brief)
• AI Helped a Woman Overcome Health Insurance Company Gridlock for Lifesaving Arthritis Treatment: Jennifer Braunagel, 52, a bus dispatcher and receptionist, is a fighter.(Health Care Uncovered)
• The 2025 Hollywood Issue: Zendaya, Nicole Kidman, and 10 More Modern Icons; It’s the most audacious actors who power Hollywood and thrill audiences. In the 31st annual Hollywood Issue, VF toasts a dozen of the industry’s brightest lights.(Vanity Fair)
• Paul Mescal’s Road to ‘Gladiator II’: Rejecting ‘Big Studio Franchise-y’ Offers, Convincing Ridley Scott to Let Him Do His Own Stunts and More: We’re now year four into the Paul Mescal-ification of the Western world, and we know which way it’s going. But thanks to 86-year-old filmmaking legend Ridley Scott and several legions of Roman soldiers in togas, Mescal is about to see whether he has the legs to be a Hollywood blockbuster leading man in “Gladiator II,” which Paramount Pictures opens in theaters on Nov. 22. (Variety)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Colin Camerer, the pioneering neuroeconomist at California Institute of Technology. His field of study looks at the interface between cognitive psychology and economics. Professor Camerer was became a MacArthur Fellow (Genius grant) in 2013 for his work on risk, self-control, and strategic choice. His book “Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction” is credited with creating a new the field within strategic theory. He is also a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the Wharton Neuroscience.
Democrats join 2024’s graveyard of incumbents as governments across the world struggle in a period of economic and geopolitical turmoil
Source: Financial Times
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