10 Tuesday AM Reads

My Tuesday morning train reads:

• Three Reasons the Stock Market Can Endure the War: Stocks haven’t fallen as much as you might expect given the Iran war. There are good reasons for that. (Wall Street Journal)

• Anthropic’s Claude popularity with paying consumers is skyrocketing: Whatever the final outcome for Anthropic from its feud with the Department of Defense, the attention it has generated — coupled with the company’s funny Super Bowl ads taking aim at OpenAI and the surging popularity of Claude Code — has made Anthropic more popular with consumers than ever. (TechCrunch) see also AI adoption, productivity and employment: Evidence from European firms: “The study finds that AI increases worker output rather than replacing labour in the short run, though longer-term effects remain uncertain.” (European Investment Bank)

• Wall Street Bonus Comp Drives NYC High-end Housing: The 2025 numbers are in and they are big, and so are my charts. (Housing Notes)

• Should Mom Have Private Equity in Her 401K?  There has been a significant push by the private equity industry and traditional asset management firms to now include PE investments in retail client retirement accounts. Should mom include private investments in her 401K? Should my son? Should I? Do we understand these investments? (SSRN)

• Asset Manager Consolidation Continues as Structural Shifts Reshape Industry: Fee compression, declines in fundraising, and shifting limited partner priorities are driving the spree of mergers and acquisitions. (Chief Investment Officer)

• Craigslist Made Me Rich. Giving the Money Away Is Easy.: Craig Newmark on why giving away a fortune is simpler than people think. A refreshing take on philanthropy from someone who actually does it without the ego. (New York Times)

• America Downs Cheap Drones With Million-Dollar Missiles. A Fix Is In the Works. Defense companies are racing to develop cheaper missiles, still the most effective way to down drones (Wall Street Journal) see also Cheap drones are reshaping modern warfare — and catching the U.S. off guard: Over the Gulf region right now, relatively cheap Iranian drones are being taken out by costly and difficult-to-manufacture U.S. interceptor missiles. A typical Shahed-136 costs Tehran roughly $20,000 to $50,000, while interceptors, such as the Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), cost millions. (NPR)

• Why ICE Is Allowed to Impersonate Law Enforcement: “There’s no accountability,” one expert tells WIRED of ICE’s ability to lie to the public. “The consequence of this is that it’s going to be a systemic harm across all law enforcement.” (Wired)

• AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is far more worrying: LLMs-gone-rogue dominated coverage, but had nothing to do with the targeting. Instead, it was choices made by human beings, over many years, that gave us this atrocity. Blaming AI was convenient cover for what was actually a human decision-making failure. The real story is about accountability, not algorithms. (The Guardian)

• After more than a decade, Lisa Kudrow and ‘The Comeback’ make a timely, final return. Like the mythical city of Brigadoon, Lisa Kudrow’s “The Comeback” has returned to television after many years away, with the difference that time has not stood still for its inhabitants, older in a changing world that values them less and which they navigate with less assurance. (Los Angeles Times)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Judd Kessler, the Howard Marks Endowed Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The winner of the Vernon L. Smith Ascending Scholar Prize,he is the author of is Lucky by Design The Hidden Economics You Need to Get More of What You Want.