Weekend Reading: 4th / 5th April 2026
Writing worth reading
Project Mario — The inside story of how DeepMind’s experiments in AI safety governance transformed Demis Hassabis from an idealist into a realist by Sebastian Mallaby
“One day I asked about the story of this trading project. I was told that Hassabis wanted to beat Jim Simons, the mathematician who founded the wildly successful algorithmic hedge fund Renaissance Technologies. “Rentec operated in secret, which Demis loved,” my acquaintance explained to me”.
What 1,000-year-old companies know about resilience by Eric Markowitz
“But if we look closely at Howard, we see that “grit” is a remarkably poor explanation for his survival. No amount of inner toughness would have convinced a customer to bring in a dusty rug in May 2020. Howard’s survival had very little to do with his performance during the crisis, and everything to do with the system he had been building for 20 years before the crisis arrived”.
The Return of Travis Kalanick: Fact & Fluff! by Om Malik
“Gone are the issues and problems at Uber. Instead what remains is the Horatio Alger-like story of a man who built something transformational, was betrayed at his most vulnerable, and is now back”
Upcoming meals with 9others
Manchester — Tuesday 21st April 2026— details and signup here.
London — Wednesday 29th April 2026 — details and signup here.
Cotswolds — Thursday 21st May 2026 — details and signup here.
