David Epstein

Holy cow, that is crazy praise coming from a thinker I admire 🙏

@scottfaubs To me, it's a big win that you commented;)

@DavidEpstein This tweet isn’t gonna do well, and that’s an absolute shame. Good work, David.

The Cooper Lutkenhaus of lifeguards

@israel_ajoje How many members would need to approve the plan?

This one is really dicey. FIFA is registered as a non-profit association under Swiss law. Its 211 member associations own it. It pays no corporate tax in Switzerland. And right now, while the ink is barely dry on the 2026 World Cup final, it is in advanced discussions to sell a minority stake in its commercial operations to private investors, with JP Morgan acting as financial adviser and Thrive Capital, whose chief executive is Josh Kushner, expected to lead the investor group. UEFA is responding. And I see reason with them. Their statement called it a crossing of a line and said the soul and governance of football are not assets to trade. Let me explain what is actually happening here and why both positions are legally and commercially coherent at the same time. The legal vehicle at the centre of this is called FIFA Forward Enterprise, or FFE. It is a FIFA-owned company that would consolidate all of FIFA's commercial rights, broadcasting, sponsorship, ticketing, licensing, and the operational delivery of FIFA tournaments, into a single entity. Based on how things are proposed, FIFA would retain majority control and exclusive authority over governance, competitions, the match calendar, and all regulatory and sporting decisions. Private investors would then hold a minority, non-controlling stake in the subsidiary, not in FIFA itself. FIFA says the proposal could deliver more than $10 billion in football development funding over the next four years. Now here is the legal position. Under Swiss association law, FIFA has broad autonomy over how it manages and commercialises its assets, provided it pursues its statutory purpose of promoting football and follows its internal decision-making rules. Creating a commercial subsidiary and selling minority stakes in it to private investors is not categorically prohibited under any applicable law. FIFA already commercialises its rights aggressively through sponsorships, media deals, and licensing arrangements worth billions of dollars per cycle. Placing some of that commercial activity into a valued vehicle and inviting outside capital is structurally an extension of what FIFA already does, not a departure from it. The proposal requires approval from the FIFA Council and the 211 member associations. That approval process is where the real legal constraints sit, not in Swiss corporate law. What UEFA is objecting to is not the legality of the structure. They are objecting to the incentive architecture it creates once private capital is inside the tent. And again, that objection deserves to be taken seriously. Even with formal majority control retained, private investors seeking returns will create ongoing pressure. They will request more matches, an expanded calendar. They will make decisions that prioritise revenue over player welfare or competitive balance. Of course that pressure will not arrive through a boardroom vote. It arrives gradually, through the logic of what a return on investment requires. FIFA can retain exclusive authority over sporting decisions and still find that sporting decisions are shaped by the financial expectations of its commercial partners. Those are not mutually exclusive outcomes. The legal permissibility of this structure is high if internal approvals are obtained. The binding constraints are member consent, political capital, and the risk that private capital incentives gradually reshape priorities even under retained formal control. Football has watched that process play out at club level for thirty years. The question being asked right now, with genuine urgency, is whether the same dynamic should be allowed inside the institution that governs the game itself. My name is Ajoje. I am a FIFA Licensed Agent and International Sports Lawyer. I write on the Law and Business of Football, a lot. Repost and Follow if you want to read more posts like this.

@albertgjennings @bykevinclark Reminds me of a former coach under Saban who said Saban told coordinators they only had seven plays to run in practice, so they'd better choose wisely.

@bykevinclark @DavidEpstein inside the box strategy here with previous teams not having much depth!

This Is Football with Curt Cignetti is all time. I asked him how he came up with his practice philosophy of far shorter practices than most teams. "I don't like people wasting my time but I'm also very organized." Every coach should watch this:

@_jeff_irons The genes are not messing around

@DavidEpstein Kid was bred for the 800. x.com/i/grok/share/5…

Yesterday, high schooler Cooper Lutkenhaus won the U.S. championship in the 800 meters. I ran the event in college, never seen anything like this. I recently interviewed cooper and his father about Cooper's upbringing and athletic development. Link below

Why are most good ideas "born as twins"? Bestselling author @DavidEpstein on why simultaneous discovery is so common, and why question-framing is "the great bottleneck of progress"

It seems paradoxical, but constraints can be the best tool you have for unsticking a creative team, focusing a project, or even figuring out where to best apply your effort. (A few tips from a recent keynote.)

@ChrisChavez Thanks for reading Chris!

“None of this is normal. We didn’t anticipate it, we didn’t push for it, but at the same time here we are, just trying to work through all of it…But his attitude toward things, and his mental side of things are just light years ahead of anything I’ve ever seen.” Loved this interview by @DavidEpstein in his Range Widely newsletter with Cooper Lutkenhaus and his father. We’re all still trying to make sense of his ascendancy as one of the best 800m runners in the world at 17 years old. 🤯 ➡️ davidepstein.substack.com/p/the-most-sur…

@chessninja I have been missing out on Borges twitter!

@DavidEpstein There was a great one on Argentine football Twitter a few weeks ago that gave a fake answer from the Argentine coach when asked about his favorite book and pretended that he gave a rambling answer about an infinite library.

I believe Inception is inspired by Borges stories The Circular Ruin and The Secret Miracle. And those aren't even two of his best! Borges is probably my all time favorite writer, and once you've read him, his influence shows up all over art — and regularly in science. One influential paper just took for it's title the title of a Borges story, The Garden of Forking Paths.

@ololprimary_HT Hope you find it thought-provoking!

Happy Summer everyone! Remember we always love see what the children (and adults) are reading throughout the holidays. I've started with 'Inside the Box' by @DavidEpstein #MakeADifference

Picked up ‘Inside the Box’ by @DavidEpstein, who also wrote one of my fav books ‘Range’ (why generalists win in a specialised world) earlier. I love how David takes contrarian positions and then defends them through interviews, anectodes and weaves storylines along them. The central idea of this book is how constraints propel creativity and great work. Constraints force our brain to engage in deeper problem-solving. My key takeaway so far: “the brain is not designed for thinking. It's designed to save you from having to think”

@S0o4ia @AlesyaMacWaters So glad you found it useful, Sophia! (Please thank Dad for me;)

@AlesyaMacWaters Range by @DavidEpstein. My dad got me that book some years ago, and I re-read it every now and again, you'll love it!

Taking a month off of work. Comment your books recs please and thank you. I WILL read.

I just subscribed to @DavidEpstein's YT channel. One of the greatest thinkers alive now makes epic little free TV shows for us. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 @DavidEpsteinAuthor" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">youtube.com/@DavidEpsteinA…

Thank you Neil! Gosh, I'm still early, but so far I would say to temper my inclination to list many things. That may sound granular, but in writing I may list a litany of things, and it seems to deter people on video. Does that make sense? I can give an example if not. Also: that maybe I can do things I I care about on video and be ok at it, because I've been skeptical until the last month;)

@DavidEpstein Congrats, David, just subscribed! Biggest lesson you've learned on YT?

Last year, I decided to see whether I could share ideas and tell stories in video form. (I've been video shy in the past.) In February, I started a YouTube channel. It did nothing. But the feeling of experimenting with something knew felt engaging. Last month, it started doing something. Today, it crossed 50K subscribers. Thanks if you've watched. If not, hello 👋 and I have a YouTube channel. Link below.

@chessninja This...is an amazing tweet

@DavidEpstein ..

@DKThomp Is the trauma plot the uni-plot now??

I talked to famed translator Emily Wilson about Christopher Nolan's Odyssey, in a wide-ranging conversation about shifting norms of translation, the strangeness of Homer's world, and the online discourse about the movie Here's what she said about the film: - "It is a big spectacle, and it is a fun time at the movies. My teenagers really loved it, and it was fun to go with my teenagers. It’s a fun summer action movie." - "I don’t think it’s a complicated movie. And I don’t think it’s even about a complicated man. I think it’s a quite simple action hero movie about an action hero who feels bad about being an action hero." - "When the casting was announced, it was The Talented Mr. Ripley that gave me hope in terms of where this might go with Matt Damon as Odysseus. Homer’s Odysseus is a complicated man, polytropos ... [But] Matt Damon in the film is traumatized Jason Bourne." - "There’s no Cyclops trick. There’s no comedy. Matt Damon isn’t required to be be scheming. We don’t even see him building the Trojan Horse, which I thought was an interesting choice. We have this tech hero, but we don’t see him building his tech. We see him agonizing about the results of the tech." derekthompson.org/p/emily-wilson…

@mrleeward I mean, Piranesi has so much Library of Babel!

@DavidEpstein Susanna Clarke, IIRC, said a night class on Borges inspired her become a writer.