Weekend Reading
Writing worth reading 19th/20th July 2025
Here’s How to Share AI’s Future Wealth by Saffron Huang and Sam Manning
“But proposed solutions like UBI or the Windfall Clause — which rely entirely on the assumption that redistribution can not only address AI-driven inequality but also be implemented effectively — misread the nature of political and economic power. By the time such reactive approaches are necessary, those controlling the AI economy may be powerful enough to evade meaningful taxation — and citizens too weak to demand their share. History tells this story repeatedly: Once power concentrates, the powerful reshape the rules, especially around taxation and wealth redistribution. The Medici did it. The robber barons did it. Big Pharma does it. But no Gilded Age titan ever wielded the kind of power that transformative AI may create…”
How Barry Diller Stayed on Top by Adam Gopnik
“Why do we read the memoirs of aging entertainment tycoons, long after the entertainments that made the tycoon a tycoon have largely been shelved and forgotten? The easy answer is that they offer brushes with celebrities. Yet in books like Barry Diller’s new memoir, “Who Knew” (Simon & Schuster), the actors are treated in a by-the-way manner, like addled accessories to the tycoon’s ambition, or, at best, like coddled children who squabble and sleep in the back seat while the tycoon, dad-like, drives and navigates.…”
The One and the Many by Stephen Fry
“I remember being very struck by this despite not having the faintest idea who Winwood Reade might be. A Scottish explorer and secular thinker of independent means, Wikipedia now tells me, who died aged 37, but was admired by figures as varied as Winston Churchill, George Orwell, H. G. Wells, A. A. Milne, Christopher Robin Milne (and, it is to be hoped, Tigger, Piglet and Pooh). But not by William Gladstone, who considered him ‘irreligious …”
Founders (need) Focus
This week we shared that we’re starting Founders Focus, a new membership program from 9others; a space for you to carve out time to work on the hard things that really matter. Check out the announcement here.
What does it do?
Founders Focus keeps you focused, accountable and connected.
Who it’s for?
Founders Focus will suit Solo Founders, Remote (Co) Founders, and Freelancers, CxOs and Side Hustlers.
Qs?
Read more and check out the FAQs on the 9others Notion, here.
We hope you’ll join us.