Welcome to the weekend.
Prime Numbers
7,100,000 - Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” logged 7.1 million U.S. streams in the October 30-November 5 tracking week, up 295% as it returned to the Hot 100.
350,000 - The fully operational Revolution Wind project can generate 704 megawatts, enough electricity for about 350,000 homes, adding 65 offshore turbines to New England’s power supply.
548 - Gavin Newsom announced plans to commute California’s 548 death sentences to life without parole, with 382 of those proposed commutations requiring a recommendation from four state Supreme Court justices.
The Will to Build
I was excited to see Robert Caro sit down with Dwarkesh Patel. The Power Broker, his account of how Robert Moses built and wielded power in New York, is one of my favorite books ever, and I’m a huge Caro fan. This conversation gets at what makes his work so compelling: the determination that enables someone to accomplish extraordinary things can also make them ruthless. Moses built roads and parks when others insisted it was impossible, then increasingly treated the people in his way as obstacles to remove. Lyndon Johnson’s powers of persuasion rested on something equally concrete: senators knew he could deliver a committee assignment or bury a bill. Caro follows those details because they explain what charisma alone cannot. Who controls the money? Who can grant the favor? Who pays the price when a leader insists on getting things done? His subjects force us to hold two thoughts together: power can produce enormous public benefits, and the people who exercise it can inflict enormous harm. Dwarkesh Podcast (56 minutes)
Anthropic’s Governance
Anthropic is preparing to sell shares to the public while keeping control largely out of public shareholders’ hands. Its proposed governance gives an independent trust the power to appoint and remove a majority of directors, while a founders’ entity retains 50.1% of shareholder voting power. Employees also get a limited voice in certain governance decisions. These arrangements are intended to protect the company’s public-benefit mission from pressure to maximize shareholder returns. But protecting a mission and making its stewards accountable are different things. The Pro-Human AI Coalition points out that the public does not elect the trustees who are meant to represent humanity’s interests. Anthropic also sets its own criteria for judging whether it has delivered its public benefit. The structure could give leaders room to prioritize safety over short-term profit. It leaves an unresolved question: when a small group makes consequential decisions on everyone’s behalf, what lets everyone else hold them to account? Pro-Human AI Coalition (7 minutes)
2016: The Last Normal Year
We worry about the coming A.I. revolution, but recommendation algorithms have already reshaped how we see the world. Hank Green traces the turning point to around 2016, when social platforms increasingly handed control of our feeds to systems built to hold attention. The distinction matters: what keeps us watching isn’t always what we enjoy. Fear and moral outrage work too. Green argues that this creates two problems that reinforce each other. We experience the world as more frightening because alarming content travels easily, and the resulting distrust can make our decisions and institutions worse. His claim isn’t that algorithms caused every crisis of the past decade. It’s that they changed the conditions under which we encounter those crises and one another. Predictions that this is the last normal year participate in the same economy: the unsettling premise earns the click. We like to think our viewing choices shape a feed that reflects us. Over time, the feed is also shaping the person doing the watching. Hank Green (9 minutes)
The Case of the Missing Sperm
Headlines about disappearing sperm make a complicated measurement problem sound like a countdown to extinction. Howtown investigates whether sperm counts are falling, and finds that the answer depends heavily on which evidence you trust. Large analyses combining decades of studies report substantial declines. But those studies sampled different populations and used methods that are difficult to compare. Even labs counting the same standardized sample can produce wildly different results. In the video’s review, the few prospective studies that followed consistent methods found declines in some places and no change in others. Nor does sperm count alone tell you whether someone can conceive: shape, movement and other factors matter too. Environmental chemicals deserve investigation, but the evidence does not yet neatly connect a particular exposure to a worldwide fertility crisis. The tension is how to take possible harm seriously without presenting uncertainty as impending catastrophe. Better measurements would help answer the question. Waiting for perfect evidence before investigating potential dangers carries its own risk. Howtown (20 minutes)
An Ocean of Plastic
Plastic pollution may be changing the ocean’s color enough to see from space. Researchers examining satellite observations from 2002 to 2022 found that water near the Great Pacific Garbage Patch had brightened in blue and green wavelengths compared with surrounding areas. Tiny plastic fragments scatter light differently from organic material, and laboratory experiments support the proposed explanation. But the satellite pattern does not yet establish that plastic caused the change. Direct sampling is needed to rule out other explanations. If the connection holds, color could become a way to locate accumulations of microplastics that are otherwise difficult to track across vast stretches of water. The striking possibility is that the pollution itself may be leaving a visible signature, giving researchers a new tool for finding it. Scientific American (2 minutes)
How Your Savings Compare
How much money do people your age have saved? The answer depends partly on what you count as savings. This breakdown includes checking and savings accounts, certificates of deposit and savings bonds, rather than total wealth. It reports median transaction-account balances of $4,620 for people under 35, $6,600 for those ages 35 to 44 and $14,000 for those 75 and older. CDs account for much of the larger balances reported among older groups, but that money is less accessible: withdrawing early often carries a penalty. The broad pattern is that older households have more saved, though some age groups saw balances fall between surveys. These figures offer a point of comparison, with an important distinction: money available for an unexpected bill, money committed to a CD and money invested for retirement are different measures of financial security. The Independent (3 minutes)
What Dolly Left Behind
A legacy can survive in a place without reproducing the person who made it. Visiting Dollywood after Dolly Parton’s death, Marisa Meltzer finds grieving employees, elaborate costumes and families enjoying vacations planned long before the loss. She arrives looking for collective mourning and discovers something less scripted: people finding their own pleasures in the world Parton built. The more useful tribute may be to carry her warmth and lack of judgment into ordinary life, beyond the park gates. Vanity Fair (10 minutes)
Most Read Last Week
Schedule Room for Wonder - C.S. Lewis’s daily routine makes room for both focused work and unexpected wonder.
Off the Grid, On Instagram - A forager tries to escape consumer culture while keeping the audience watching him do it.
Mothers, Daughters & GLP-1s - Weight-loss drugs bring longstanding family tensions about appearance into sharper focus.
Should We Work Together?
Hi! I’m Kyle. This newsletter is my passion project. When I’m not writing, I run a law firm that helps startups move fast without breaking things. Most founders want a trusted legal partner, but they hate surprise legal bills. At Westaway, we take care of your startup’s legal needs for a flat, monthly fee so you can control your costs and focus on scaling your business. If you’re interested, let’s jump on a call to see if you’re a good fit for the firm. Click here to schedule a one-on-one call with me.
Weekend Wisdom
Finding them is a small thing compared to reading them. - Robert Caro
Founders keeping majority voting control while asking public investors to fund the mission is a bold pitch. Curious whether IPO demand even blinks at the governance or just chases the ticker.