(to the tune of "too many cooks"): Writin' a book, writin' a book...

The AI ownership rush One of the more interesting side effects of the AI boom is the scramble to own pieces of it.  People crave ownership. Over the last few years, investors have poured money into SPVs that promise exposure to private companies. Secondary markets for startup shares have exploded. More recently, crypto traders have even experimented with pre-IPO perpetual futures tied to companies that don’t yet trade publicly.  The market keeps inventing new instruments and routing around barriers because demand is insatiable. People want in…even when the ownership itself is synthetic or uncertain.  To make sense of this phenomenon, I keep returning to Chris Dixon’s framework for the evolution of the internet. (I edited his book on the subject.) In his model, the first era was “read,” the second was “write,” and the third — now clawing itself into existence, notably through the recent proliferation of equity-approximating workaround attempts — is “own.”  In plainer English: The internet democratized access to information (read), then democratized the ability to create and publish it (write). The next step is to democratize ownership: giving users direct economic rights in the networks and services they use. Crypto networks are one of the clearest and longest-standing expressions of the “own” era. Today, the framework illuminates what’s happening in AI. The “read” era made information accessible. The “write” era made creation accessible. AI supercharges the core capabilities of the read/write web and extends them to machines. Large language models read and write text. Diffusion models read and write images. Agents read the world and write actions back into it.  In this way, AI is not a break from the internet’s trajectory. It is the logical conclusion of the read/write era: thirty years of relentlessly driving down the cost of reading, writing, and manipulating information, consummated at last in software. This view helps explain the current financial frenzy, especially as a wave of AI mega-listings approaches. The rush into SPVs, secondaries, and synthetic derivatives reflects pent-up demand for ownership boiling over.  People don’t just want to use new technologies. They want to own them. Many describe artificial intelligence as the next phase of the internet. Another view is that it represents the height of the previous one, the fullest expression of the read/write era. The scramble to own it is among the clearest signals that the own era is breaking loose and smashing its way through.

we got @smc90 in the studio for this one so you know it's good

imagining this taped on the wall over Michel Foucault’s desk

Sometimes the algo really gets me, you know?

Alan Partridge tries to explain the format of the 1994 World Cup finals with the never-to-be-forgotten Soccermeter.

I'm pretty sure Jan Hammer and Hans Zimmer are the same person.

Go see it on the big screen if only for the "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" scene.

What do regular people think about AI? Andy has the data.

It’s time.

I really enjoyed this thread.

I love this movie so much. I wish it had been more successful so that they made sequels or a TV series or something (although they would have screwed that up).

Note to friends in publishing: It's still the spring. You really shouldn't be taking "summer Fridays" yet.

This is very good. Maybe even ... self-recommending? x.com/noam_dworman/status/20…

I think your neighbors should be required by law to notify you 15 minutes in advance before they put down manure.

Rosebud was his sled.

The lack of interoperability in data storage media is appalling

too cool

Scott's piece is probably the most evenhanded assessment of prediction markets that you'll read.