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:
• David Zaslav Gets the Last Laugh. The Warner Bros. mogul’s $111 billion deal with David Ellison reveals the next stage of the business: The rich get richer, the big get bigger and everybody else is left in the dust. A look inside the Ellison empire and how Warner Bros. Discovery’s much-mocked CEO wound up in a stronger position than anyone expected. (Hollywood Reporter)
• Coding After Coders: The End of Computer Programming as We Know It. Yes, In the era of A.I. agents, many Silicon Valley programmers are now barely programming. Instead, what they’re doing is deeply, deeply weird. (New York Times) see also After the AI Revolution. What does the economy — and society — actually look like on the other side of the AI transformation? Like a prism, AI will reveal the civilizational differences between China and the U.S., making visible the invisible within each society. (NOEMA)
• They Came to Spy on America. They Stayed to Coach Little League. Soviet spies who settled into American suburban life and couldn’t quite bring themselves to leave. In the wake of the Cold War, some Soviet bloc spies decided their fake American lives weren’t so bad. (Politico)
• Sucker: My year as a degenerate gambler: When I set out to report on the sports-betting industry—its explosive growth, its sudden cultural ubiquity, and what it’s doing to America—my editors thought I should experience the phenomenon firsthand. Mindful of my religious constraints, they proposed a work-around: The Atlantic would stake me $10,000 to gamble with over the course of the upcoming NFL season. The magazine would cover any losses, and—to ensure my ongoing emotional investment—split any winnings with me, 50–50. Surely God would approve of such an arrangement, my editors reasoned, because I wouldn’t be risking my own hard-earned money. (The Atlantic)
• Inside the Space-Age Bid to Build Millions of Homes in Factories. Operation Breakthrough, a 1970s federal moonshot to build 26 million homes using advanced manufacturing, has lessons for today’s abundance movement. Operation Breakthrough, a 1970s federal moonshot to build 26 million homes using advanced manufacturing methods, has lessons for today’s abundance movement. (CityLab)
• The Status Economy: How the signaling game has shifted from logos and luxury goods to taste, access, and knowledge. “Every purchase is now a status signal. Discover The Status Economy — three reports exploring the categories defining cultural credibility and taste in 2026. “For the last decade, fashion has been the most direct way to communicate status, knowledge, and cultural credibility. Today, that concentration has broken apart. For Cultural Pioneers, everything is now a signal. Every purchase, product, and experience functions as a marker of taste, knowledge, and cultural credibility, regardless of category. We’re calling this shift The Status Economy. Across three reports, we take a deep dive into the categories defining status in 2026. (Highsnobiety)
• Building Brasília: A twentieth-century experiment in urban planning promised progress—but carried immense financial and human costs. (JSTOR Daily)
• Tech legend Stewart Brand on Musk, Bezos and his extraordinary life: ‘We don’t need to passively accept our fate’ The Whole Earth Catalog creator reflects on Silicon Valley’s evolution and our collective agency. He was at the heart of 1960s counterculture, then paved the way for the libertarian mindset of Silicon Valley. At 87, Brand is still keen to ensure the world is maintained properly – not just today, but for the next 10,000 years. “We don’t need to passively accept our fate.” (The Guardian)
• How the ‘Neo-Vintage’ Era Became the Hottest Thing in Watches From ornate perpetual calendars to classic divers, watches from the 1980s and 1990s hit the sweet spot between value, reliability, and soul. (GQ)
• Hollywood’s Most Invisible Job Gets Its Own Oscar: After nearly a century, the Oscars are finally honoring the art of casting. But those who built the category say the toughest questions are just beginning. (Wall Street Journal)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Matt Cherwin, co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Marek Capital. The alternative asset management firm launched in 2024. Previously, he spent 16-years at JPMorgan Chase & Co where he held titles of Chief Investment Officer, Group Treasurer, Co-Head of Global Spread Markets, Global Head of Securitized Products, and Global Head of Asset-Backed Trading.
YouTube Lays Claim to Another Crown: The World’s Largest Media Company
Source: Hollywood Reporter
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