rvb

we look back at the period of zero percent interest rates and be astonished we didn't do more to take advantage of such an amazing opportunity

Are teens too scared of AI? We tried to figure that out.

Nobody is telling you how FUCKED New York City's infrastructure actually is right now. Everyone is watching the flood footage. The cars underwater. The subway stations turned into swimming pools. Nobody is talking about the fact that six inches of rain just paralyzed a global city. Not a hurricane. Not a once-in-a-century storm. Six inches. In a few hours. And the Long Island Expressway shut down in both directions. The F train suspended. Flash flood warnings across every borough. By rain. → Cost of fixing this: deferred for decades → Cost of not fixing it: the entire city grinds to a halt → That is not a weather problem. That is a maintenance problem. NYC's catch-basin cleaning fleet was 63% out of service during prior storms. By end of 2023 it was 77% out of service. The city had 19 functional trucks for five boroughs. Nineteen trucks. For eight million people. 💀 Here's what nobody is explaining to you: This doesn't just change THIS storm. This changes ALL storms. Forever. → NYC has 7,400 miles of combined storm and sewer pipes that back up the moment rainfall exceeds capacity → Many of those pipes are over 100 years old — built before cars existed, let alone SUVs and modern runoff volumes → Fewer than half of the city's 964 priority catch basins were inspected before recent storms hit → This exact same thing happened in 2023. And 2025. Same expressway. Same subway lines. Same excuses. → The city knows which drains are clogged. They have a data-driven priority list. → They just don't have the trucks to clean them. → So every time it rains hard, the same streets flood, the same trains stop, the same headlines run. → And then nothing changes until the next storm proves it again. The source tweet said it directly: "Six inches of rain shouldn't do this to a major city, but clogged drains and years of deferred maintenance will." That's not a weather forecast. That's a confession. New York spent decades deferring the maintenance bill. May 21, 2026 is what the invoice looks like. Bookmark this. You're watching the biggest infrastructure failure since the last time it rained. I'll keep you updated. Turn on notifications. 🚨

I talked to Versant CEO Mark Lazarus about turning a cable TV company into something else - and why he's not buying Vox Media's podcast business. (Btw Versant owns a piece of Vox)

The Ordinary is launching a free NYC bus line between Domino Park in Williamsburg and Prospect Park, cutting out the irritation of having to travel through Manhattan just to get between two parts of Brooklyn. The limited-run shuttle operates May 26 through June 9.

The number of AI companies in one building in Williamsburg is crazy. And we have the best view!

Update here: I hear Sam is joining New York Magazine

The vibes in SF feel pretty frenetic right now. The divide in outcomes is the worst I've ever seen. Over the last 5yrs, a group of ~10k people - employees at Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Nvidia, Meta TBD, founders - have hit retirement wealth of well above $20M (back of the envelope AI estimation). Everyone outside that group feels like they can work their well-paying (but <$500k) job for their whole life and never get there. Worse yet, layoffs are in full swing. Many software engineers feel like their life's skill is no longer useful. The day to day role of most jobs has changed overnight with AI. As a result, 1. The corporate ladder looks like the wrong building to climb. Everyone's trying to align with a new set of career "paths": should I be a founder? Is it too late to join Anthropic / OpenAI? should I get into AI? what company stock will 10x next? People are demanding higher salaries and switching jobs more and more. 2. There’s a deep malaise about work (and its future). Why even work at all for “peanuts”? Will my job even exist in a few years? Many feel helpless. You hear the “permanent underclass” conversation a lot, esp from young people. It's hard to focus on doing good work when you think "man, if I joined Anthropic 2yrs ago, I could retire" 3. The mid to late middle managers feel paralyzed. Many have families and don't feel like they have the energy or network to just "start a company". They don't particularly have any AI skills. They see the writing on the wall: middle management is being hollowed out in many companies. 4. The rich aren’t particularly happy either. No one is shedding tears for them (and rightfully so). But those who have "made it" experience a profound lack of purpose too. Some have gone from <$150k to >$50M in a few years with no ramp. It flips your life plans upside down. For some, comparison is the thief of joy. For some, they escape to NYC to "live life". For others still, they start companies "just cuz", often to win status points. They never imagined that by age 30, they'd be set. I once asked a post-economic founder friend why they didn't just sell the co and they said "and do what? right now, everyone wants to talk to me. if i sell, I will only have money." I understand that many reading this scoff at the champagne problems of the valley. Society is warped in this tech bubble. What is often well-off anywhere else in the world is bang average here. Unlike many other places, tenure, intelligence and hard work can be loosely correlated with outcomes in the Bay. Living through a societally transformative gold rush in that environment can be paralyzing. "Am I in the right place? Should I move? Is there time still left? Am I gonna make it?" It psychologically torments many who have moved here in search of "success". Ironically, a frequent side effect of this torment is to spin up the very products making everyone rich in hopes that you too can vibecode your path to economic enlightenment.

Sea Ranch on film