How AI Tokens Challenge Broadband Economics
The parallel evolution of two foundational commodities in a new economic layer.
A newsletter about Pop Culture, Software Studies, Business Strategy, Media Platforms, Algorithmic Management, Game Design, and everything in between.
The parallel evolution of two foundational commodities in a new economic layer.
Bankers and prophets seem to be driven by an almost poetic compulsion to push further.
On September 29, 2025, Bharat Chandar, postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, and Ruyu Chen, research scientist at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, presented the findings of their recent paper “Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about… more ›
Corgis, compute, Cold War; Ecclesiastes; ties; Stendhal; humor; Pascal’s Wager; deep infrastructure; Germanic obedience; Texas State Fair https://danwang.co/2025-letter/ more ›
The shows that deserve a spot in listeners’ rotations https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025/12/20-best-podcasts-2025/685010/?gift=j9r7avb6p-KY8zdjhsiSZ5vjvafojabb70_GS2YWFns more ›
Listen: https://ift.tt/JgY2qQK A DJ from South Africa who survived a life-altering accident on the night of Nelson Mandela’s release, Black Coffee has gone on to headline the world’s biggest stages. At BoF VOICES 2025, he reflected on building global credibility… more ›
Listen: https://ift.tt/VElzeAn This week on Sinica, recorded at Yale University, I speak with Michael Brenes and Van Jackson, coauthors of The Rivalry Peril: How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy. Their argument is that framing the U.S.-China relationship as… more ›
Listen: https://ift.tt/a1OHUQ2 We’re looking back at 10 of the episodes that defined 2025 at The Take. This originally aired on November 19. None of the dates or references have been changed. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is operating in an… more ›
This is the third in my annual series reviewing everything that happened in the LLM space over the past 12 months. For previous years see Stuff we figured out about … https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/31/the-year-in-llms/ more ›
As the war grinds on, sophisticated Russian defenses have pushed Ukraine to develop a frightening new weapon: semiautonomous killing machines. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/magazine/ukraine-ai-drones-war-russia.html more ›