Subham Agarwal

Let's talk about sports betting via prediction markets, which the Commodity Futures Trading Commission started allowing last year. The CFTC was created to regulate derivatives contracts in commodities that provide price transparency and facilitate risk transfer. These markets include some level of customer hedging and some speculation. The latter is necessary to facilitate the former and (usually) improves price signals. Beyond traditional commodities like oil, wheat, and copper, the CFTC sanctions contracts on stock indices, currencies, and interest rates. More recently, they've expanded to other markets in which businesses face risk they may want to hedge against like weather, freight costs, and emissions. A new innovation comes from prediction markets, where one can buy and sell contracts based on the probability of a specific event happening in the future. This allows someone, at least in theory, to hedge events like election outcomes, geopolitics, and corporate earnings. Before 2025, the CFTC explicitly rejected sports contracts. But last year, the CFTC allowed Kalshi to self-certify contracts on sports betting by not intervening. Soon, the prediction sites were filled with not just questions about Iran but outright sports betting like whether Purdue will cover a 7 point line against Texas on Thursday. This isn't hedging. This isn't price transparency. This is just gambling. Sports betting should not be regulated by the CFTC, but by the states, where all gambling decisions have been made since the founding of this country. States have long made different decisions on gambling based on what is right for them. Nevada and Utah share a long border but have made very different decisions on gambling: Nevada has legalized most forms while Utah has done the opposite. Voters and policymakers in those respective states have made those decisions. The CFTC has explicitly violated states' rights by implicitly legalizing online sports gambling across all 50 states. While most states have chosen a minimum age of 21 for gambling, the CFTC has lowered that to 18. While states have commissions to set guardrails on consumer protections, marketing, and state taxes, the CFTC has none of that. We can have a fulsome debate about what gambling is allowed and for whom. Reasonable people can have different views on the answer. I don't know what is optimal, but I do know that debate is best done in states. There is too much heterogeneity across America to have a one size fits all law. Nevada should be able to make different decisions than Utah. I am pleased that a pair of bipartisan bills have been introduced in the House and Senate return authority to the states. Kudos to Sens. Schiff (D-CA) and Curtis (R-UT) and Reps. Moore (R-UT) and Carbajal (D-CA). Online sports betting is not hedging. It's not an investment. It is gambling and should be regulated as such.

@a_levitator 😂

When I’m in an engagement baiting competition and my opponent is a bar chart comparing two LLMs

When I started at @tryramp, someone joked with me that we should have a “Clippy” type mascot, so I made one named “Rampy” In the last ~2 weeks, I brought him to life

For all the advancements in behavioral science in recent decades, the biggest use case remains getting consumers to spend more money.

on AI budgets and token cost: - no one knows how to estimate/project this spend for the quarter, let alone the year - finance teams are taking screenshots of admin usage dashboards - AI token cost will outpace salaries - OAI/Ant/Google are not incentivized to help you - it's the fastest growing and least understood line item in every company's budget right now

gg

My conversation with John Arnold (@johnarnold). Few people I've spoken with have as wide a view of the global system as John. He was one of the most successful energy traders of all time, and after stepping away from markets he built a foundation devoted to solving America's most critical systemic problems in a principled way. John's recent trip to China was the catalyst for this conversation, and I feel lucky we all get to learn from him. We discuss: - His trip to China and what it taught him about robotics, AI, and EVs - What it takes to be the best (and what it costs) - Building the best seat in the market - The state of energy markets today - NIMBYism as the impediment to progress - What he thinks about the wave of nuclear startups - Fixing America's broken systems: healthcare, criminal justice, education, and journalism Enjoy! Timestamps: 0:00 intro 0:45 China’s Rapid Transformation 3:53 Lessons from the Chinese EV Market 6:12 Robotics 11:22 The Discipline of an Elite Trader 15:42 Leveraging Scale and Proprietary Data 17:36 Lessons from the Baseball Cards 21:15 Trading Natural Gas and Market Dynamics 25:34 Innovation in the Modern Energy Sector 27:02 High-Level Goals of the U.S. Energy System 32:59 Overcoming NIMBYism 36:10 The Challenges of U.S. Transmission Lines 37:55 The Future of Nuclear, Fusion, and SMRs 44:00 The Economics of Solar and Battery Storage 48:28 Data Center Demand 50:28 Housing Reform 53:32 Rethinking the Role of Philanthropic Foundations 57:05 Improving the Criminal Justice System 1:01:58 Privacy and Security 1:05:03 Education and Life Outcomes 1:06:41 The Promise and Pitfalls of EdTech and AI 1:09:12 Identifying Market Failures in Healthcare 1:12:10 The Role of Regulation Across Different Systems 1:14:06 Journalism as the Fourth Estate 1:16:41 The Kindness of Hard Truths

I get that there is a war going on but

@akothari the entire album is a masterpiece

Goosebumps

The last 20 years rewarded walled gardens. There's a credible argument that the next 20 will reward open endpoints

@sternhenri @stripe @tbpn @privy_io ♥️

Big @stripe day: @tbpn & annual letter! 6mo in, it's clear this is a thoughtful bunch. They put ruthless focus and care into ~everything. Most exciting is that the focus isn't just about what's working but about where we're headed! Excited @privy_io plays a small part in that.

@segall_max my inbox is now filled w “but what about micropayments” and “but what about programmability” bros

@subawse Shots FIRED!

"agentic payments will kill interchange" me: sure, or i could put it on a credit card, keep my cash in a 5% money market for 30 days, earn 2% back, and let amex fight the merchant if anything goes wrong. but yeah your way sounds cool too

@rahulgs so good

In your 20s and 30syou will be tempted to prove that you’re doing well, it’s important you resist performing for an audience that isn’t watching.

@jsngr @Square 😭 Agree on both counts

when i was young i chose @Square and got my masters in design by way of experience

it’s so important when you’re out of school deciding to join a company that you pick an immensely talented team that just gets it where you’ll learn insanely fast if i had to decide today, that would be @tryramp

I run the command as Claude gently pulls the covers up, tucks me in, and whispers close to my ear: “aw sweetie, don’t let your pretty little head worry about the why.”

california doesn’t make talented, productive people wealthy. talented, productive people make california wealthy.