Smartphone 2?
hot take, but I don't think anyone knows what the smartphone replacement looks like. there is so much new technology coming out that any hardware bets that aren't focused on better compute just seem like a poor market read.
is it going to be ar headsets like the vision pro? vr glasses like the meta display? or Chinese contact lenses that give you night vision. saas might be last boom's darling, but it won't be going away anytime soon as the easiest and most effective to scale. the real benefit of ai is that more people are willing to look towards computers to solve a problem, but those problems are often inefficient to use AI for.
Source: https://www.techspot.com/news/110382-openai-confirmed-first-hardware-prototype-built-jony.html
Startups and Power Laws
Most startups are a failure, the reason vc is interested in funding them is that a power law controlled unicorn can make up for the losses of the rest of the failures.
The interesting part is that power laws apply to recessions as well. It seems we are due for a good ol fashioned recession to clear out all the bloat. AI might not be a great investment, but it will be a great tool that will shape the future.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-boom-huge-winners-wipe-out-overhyped-startups-vc-investor-2025-11
Start of Econ Project
Some of my favorite conversations are with other generalists: people who have a bit of knowledge in a lot of areas. Discussions can start out debating the ethics of an area of law, and descend into the economics of a billion dollar plastic fork.
AI is a fantastic generalist. With the right prompting techniques, you can expand ideas into fleshed out papers. Yes, I will need to go back and correct this, but in researching the citations, I will learn more about the topic in a streamlined and cohesive way that was exactly on point with the ideas I wanted to explore.
An instant draft with manual revision is the roadmap of the forseeable future, but people often overlook the learning that is done along the way. Sometimes things are not lazier, they are better.
I have included the first few sections of the 5 minute draft, if you'd like to see the rest, feel free to reach out. I'd love to discuss:)
-Money as priced claims on expected future impact-
This paper develops a regime-aware framework that reframes money as priced claims on expected future impact. It layers production theory, human capital, and cooperation over institutional trust and expectations to create a practical lens for underwriting, investing, and workforce design. The framework embraces probabilistic, hybrid forecasting rather than deterministic explanations for inflation or economic collapses.
Definitions, scope, and motivating examples
Core definition and contrast with standard views
- **Definition:** Money is a present price for a future-impact claim—the discounted, risk-adjusted expectation of how capital, labor, and institutions jointly change states of the world over time.
- **Contrast:** Traditional accounts emphasize money as a medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account supported by trust and legal regimes. This framework reframes money’s price as a function of impact expectations layered on institutional credibility rather than treating trust as sufficient.
### Motivating examples
- **Tourism in high-cost geographies:** High fixed costs (mortgages, scarcity) raise required margins; sectors with high markups and demand elasticity become the equilibrium use, often catalyzed by public co-investment and agglomeration effects. Price reflects expected future impact (footfall, spend) conditioned on regime quality.
- **Diamond rings and symbolic goods:** Prices capitalize expected social impact (commitment signaling, status recognition) rather than manufacturing cost. Money prices the durable social effects recognized by institutions and norms, not mere physical utility.