Maybe the "A" in AI Sometimes Stands For Asshole
Earlier today, I had an appointment with my favorite doctor. As is our habit, we spent my entire visit discussing something totally unrelated to my health. I lay face down on a procedure table while he stuck extremely large needles into my back to—as he once described it—give
Guy With a Vomit Hose Walks Into an Advertising Agency
Of all the great television shows ever created, Mad Men is the greatest. This is not an invitation to argue or discuss but a simple declaration of fact. Should you like to declare your own facts, you too can start a newsletter. Or a podcast! Subscribe to Meets Most I
No Thanks
This week I have been felled by whatever extremely nasty flu is making the rounds. Yes, I got my flu shot, and yes, the flu was still that bad. I'm on the mend but my brain is sort of oatmeal-like, so I'm in absolutely no shape
Community Fetishism
A couple of months ago, I cancelled my New Yorker subscription. I was in the throes of feeling overwhelmed by what felt like a metastasizing list of subscriptions to streaming channels and publications and apps and services and newsletters. In order to see what I'd actually miss and
The Global Fraud Economy
Last week, a news story caught my eye, even though it seemed to fly under the radar of general discourse. It was one of those blink and you miss it headlines on the Apple News app, which helpfully refreshes at random intervals and in random ways, giving me headlines I
The Big Moonshot
The year before I got hired at Instagram, I interviewed at Facebook. My interview was in the spring of 2019, two and a half years before Facebook became Meta. I didn't particularly want to work for Facebook—in fact, I didn't want to work for Facebook
Feeds and Fodder
If you are not chronically online (congratulations, please take me with you), you probably missed yesterday's big news in the newsletter world: Anne Helen Petersen, one of Substack's biggest success stories, has decided to leave Substack for Patreon. I don't follow or read her,
Maybe Stop Being a Dick
About 15 years ago, I worked for a tiny little startup in the connected car space. The startup manufactured a little device that you could plug into your car's OBD2 port and use to connect to your phone. What, you may be asking, is an OBD2 port? Great
You Are Inventory
Yesterday I read a newsletter from another writer named Dave Karpf, in which he offered a framework for understanding the current AI bubble. His framework is comprised of the three stories he says we can tell about the dot-com bubble and subsequent crash: 1. overvalued startups and out-of-control speculation, 2.
This Medium isn't the Message
It's 7:00 pm on the 41st Wednesday of 2025, and I do not have a newsletter written. I don't even know where to begin. The content of this newsletter is meant to be tech-related, or at least to gesture at tech in some way. But
