My extended long weekend reads:
• The World Cup Shows What’s Great About America: Even if the so-called “Pro-America” crowd hates it. Kinzinger finds a burst of unforced patriotism in the tournament crowds. An earnest note for the holiday weekend. (Adam Kinzinger)
• This Simple White Line Is America’s Greatest Unsung Innovation: The painted road line as overlooked genius, part of the WSJ’s America-at-250 series. A perfect Fourth-of-July ode to the unglamorous stuff that works. You know about the lightbulb and the iPhone. This is the unknown story of another ingenious creation that changed a nation (Wall Street Journal)
• The Case for Buying Individual Muni Bonds. There are advantages for those with muni holdings of $250,000 or more to opting for an individualized, actively managed portfolio. There are unique aspects of the muni market supporting this preference. (Barron’s)
• Meet the Bodyguards Signing Up to Protect America’s Frightened Billionaires: After a season of high-profile assassinations, political violence, and kidnappings, wealthy Americans are racing to hire personal security services. GQ on the private-security boom catering to anxious tech and finance moguls. Genuine threat or vanity expense — the budget moves either way. (GQ)
• Seven observations from playing with AI: I thought it was important to try this technology for myself and see how good it is. Here are seven hype-free observations I have taken from the experiment: Hands-on field notes from actually using the tools, not theorizing about them. (Gavin Jackson) see also Claude: What Are You Good At? I had a little chat about how to best use AI with Claude, see what AI itself had to say on the topic of using AI. Practical, from the user’s chair. My own notes on where these AI assistants actually earn their keep — and where they don’t. (The Big Picture)
• The Internet I Grew Up With Doesn’t Exist Anymore: A thorough retrospective of my time on the internet. A wistful elegy for the open, weird, pre-platform web. Familiar territory, but this one’s heartfelt. (Christian Cleberg)
• $22,000 Per Hour: Assistants Use a Legislative Loophole to Outearn Surgeons: The Upshot finds a billing loophole turning surgical assistants into improbable high earners. American health-care economics, distilled. A law meant to end surprise medical billing has led to large paydays for some surgical assistants, who can earn far more than the doctors they help. (New York Times)
• ‘All I Have Is the Power to Talk and Be Heard’ The Interview: Tucker Carlson on pitying Donald Trump, never listening to podcasts, and planning a new political party—while selling you nicotine pouches. (Columbia Journalism Review)
• Inside the Food Truck Mafia Wreaking Havoc Around the National Mall: Turf wars. Food and fire hazards. $15 ice-cream cones. How an organized network of unlicensed food trucks took over America’s Front Lawn (Washingtonian) see also The Capital Is a Mess: Chain-link fences, construction cranes, armed guards, and portable toilets everywhere. Construction chaos remakes the National Mall. Washington as perpetual job site — and a fitting backdrop to the food-truck turf wars above. Chain-link fences, construction cranes, armed guards, and portable toilets everywhere (The Atlantic)
• The Tick That Hunts Down Its Hosts—Including Us: The unsettling biology of a tick that actively pursues its prey. Excellent, mildly horrifying nature writing. Lone-star ticks don’t just pursue and bite people. The affliction they’re spreading, an allergy to red meat known as alpha-gal syndrome, attacks a way of life. (New Yorker)
• Phil Mickelson’s Long History of Misconduct: A detailed accounting of behavior the golf world has long whispered about. The reporting Lefty’s carefully managed image was built to outrun. Interviews with 19 sources reveal two incidents of lewd language and unwanted advances, and the behavior that led to his departure from two additional golf clubs. (Skratch)
Video of the day: Google Maps is unreasonably fast. Let me explain
Be sure to check out our Master’s in Business with Mamoon Hamid, partner at Kleiner Perkins. He is a leading investor in enterprise-software and AI. He was an early investor in Slack, Figma, Rippling, Glean, Netskope, and Box. Hamid co-founded Social Capital with Chamath Palihapitiyal. In 2017, joined Kleiner Perkins
America at 50, 100, 150, 200 & 250
Source: Bruce Melhman
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