Inside tech billionaires’ push to reshape San Francisco politics: ‘a hostile takeover’. ..the political-influence machine that tech billionaires and venture capitalists have recently built in San Francisco stands out for its size and ambition (more)

His Billionaire Buddies’ Bribery Bails Out Donald Trump, Again and Again. The problem isn’t that the former president is broke but that he’s for sale. (more)

Business titans privately urged NYC mayor to use police on Columbia protesters, chats show. A group of billionaires and business titans working to shape U.S. public opinion of the war in Gaza privately pressed New York City’s mayor last month to send police to disperse pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. (Israel-Palestine) (more)

Thom Hartmann: Are Our Oligarchs Going to Drag Us Into Civil War? The headline in this week’s Fortune reads: “Billionaire investor Ray Dalio warns U.S. is ‘on the brink’ and estimates a more than 1 in 3 chance of civil war.” (more)

Inside The Remarkable New Book That Details The Koch Bros' Dirtiest Deeds (more)

Martina Lauchengco: Loved: How to Rethink Marketing for Tech Products (more)

Martin Cagan partner

At AEP the team built a nice little lite-CMS to allow staff to create/update chunks of text that would support form tooltips, user-help pages, and an FAQ. (more)

"10,000 hours of practice" rule from Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers book about Talent. http://gladwell.com/outliers/the-10000-hour-rule/ (more)

Gordon Brander: LLMs and information post-scarcity. First the internet reduced the marginal cost of distributing content to zero. Now AI is reducing the marginal cost of producing content to zero. (more)

"every ThinkingTool is 80% used as a Not-Thinking Tool" - cf theater

Some writing practices that are more applicable to an organizational (company, etc) context than an individual/personal.... a subtype of collaborationware (more)

Leveraged Buy Out (more)

The principal–agent problem refers to the conflict in interests and priorities that arises when one person or entity (the "agent") takes actions on behalf of another person or entity (the "principal").[1] The problem worsens when there is a greater discrepancy of interests and information between the principal and agent, as well as when the principal lacks the means to punish the agent.[2] The deviation from the principal's interest by the agent is called "agency costs". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem (cf game theory). A big driver of the LBO was the belief that management, being non-shareholders, has this failure.

In professional wrestling, kayfabe (/ˈkeɪfeɪb/) is the portrayal of staged events within the industry as "real" or "true", specifically the portrayal of competition, rivalries, and relationships between participants as being genuine and not staged. The term kayfabe has evolved to also become a code word of sorts for maintaining this "reality" within the direct or indirect presence of the general public.[1] Kayfabe, in the United States, is often seen as the suspension of disbelief that is used to create the non-wrestling aspects of promotions, such as feuds, angles, and gimmicks in a manner similar to other forms of fictional entertainment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe

Live Performance en-actment (Drama, Comedy, Tragedy, etc.). Also: Empty Gesture, as in Security Theater (signalling, ritual, Cargo Cult, illusion of control). https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Abillseitz%20*theater&src=typed_query&f=live. Also: Bullshit. (more)

term from Semiotics/PostModernism (more)

small-form-factor PC (x86) (more)

scary variation of The Flu, spreading through animals 2020-2024.... (more)

see Avian Flu