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September 16, 2026 · Medium

The $18 Billion Receipt

Meta has just paid for what social media did to a generation of children. The AI industry wants the same immunity, from the same Congress, before the midterms. This time there will be no thirty years to notice.

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Sep 10, 2026

Dust and Stars

Notes from forty years of dust, and one week that keeps calling me back

Aug 13, 2026

The Report Button Is a Placebo

Content moderation on social media is not failing. It never worked. And the people exploiting that fact are not trolls, they are states.

May 5, 2026

Tokens Are the New Oil

Every era has a commodity that decides who wins. In the twentieth century, it was oil. Whoever pumped it cheapest, shipped it fastest, and…

Apr 20, 2026

The Social Gravity Model: A New Valuation Framework for the Attention Age

On April 1, 2026, SpaceX confidentially filed its S-1 with the SEC. Codenamed Project Apex, the offering targets a valuation of $1.75…

Mar 10, 2026

The Unit of Thought

Walter Ong spent his career proving a single uncomfortable idea: that writing didn’t just record what people thought — it changed how they…

Dec 1, 2025

The Weight of Tinsel: A Letter to Those Who Carry December

The world dons its festive mask again. Lights strung like promises along every street. Carols piped through speaker systems in lobbies where I’ve pitched, where I’ve won, where I’ve lost. The calendar flips toward…

Sep 8, 2025

Burning Man: Beyond the Desert’s False Prophets

A week has passed since I returned from the playa, and I wanted my impressions to settle and marinade before sharing. The desert doesn’t lie. Unlike the critics who mock from their air-conditioned offices, the Black…

Jun 3, 2025

The Virtual Reality We Didn’t Expect: How Social Media Became Our Dystopian Digital Reality

When “Ready Player One” came out in 2018, like many in Silicon Valley, I viewed it as a prescient vision of our technological future. We were on the brink of what seemed like a VR revolution, with Oculus just around…

Apr 15, 2025

The Dual Predators of Startup Ecosystems: Fake Bankers and Exploitative Conferences

After over two decades in Silicon Valley as an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and investment banker, I’ve seen the best and worst of the startup world. I’ve put on startup education events in a dozen countries…

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