Harvard, and Decolonization

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another week in review .... ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏

More (not Less)
OpenAI Social & Figma IPO — Lessins were on vacation … Morins talk about openAI social and Figma… I haven’t listened yet, but I am curious how this went without the wet blankets to throw on…

Hot Takes:

Digital Decolonization — I traveled a bunch over the last 2 weeks ... and consumed a lot of media on my list — RRR (excellent / super fun movie), Fitzcarraldo, Africa Addio, and Fish That Ate The Whale — I didn’t intend it all to be about the colonial era and collapse, but that is how it played out — and it got me thinking a lot about the moment we are in of what feels like digital decolonialization… some half baked thoughts on the moment / analogy

Africa Addio and Elon — this movie is one of the most insane things I have ever seen (and if you google it quite controversial) — I kind of RX it … but it is brutal to watch / is just one big trigger warning… one interesting thing that has stuck with me re: today is how this era in Africa 1967 (much more recent than people think) jibes with the worldview and interests Elon grew up with in South Africa… the mentality from that.

Rudy’s America— what happens when hard work doesn’t translate into success?? With AI this seems the course we are on - there is no way to work your way to success vs. being born with genetic blessing… this isn’t ideal for managing the narrative of America….

Harvard — what a wild moment … it is particularly crazy because in my mind the SUBSTANCE of many of the demands coming from the administration is correct / good, but the FORM is bad / needs to be aggressively pushed back on (as the university is) — I worry about this mix — because executing the necessary changes from within when they align with the administration’s list — while at the same time aggressively pushing back on the form of the requests is a very nuanced thing to pull off. My biggest concerns is that the complexity of this balance already seems to be playing out a bit on campus (I have heard word of student demonstrations about foreign student deportations turning into anti-israel chants / not an association that anyone wants) —

Larry Summers Conversation — if you got an hour for this topic, Larry sat down with me two weeks ago to discuss exactly this situation (before the most recent tit-for-tat escalation between the administration and the university) — … you can also see our discussion of related substance (vs. form of administration demands) from last November

Last turns of ski season for me at the Swedish border… pretty epic trip…. And a great ski season overall — now we move on to surf … it was also fun to show up hilariously this week as ‘the fan’ (along with 7 other friends) who randomly showed up in the middle of the AK backcountry for Travice Rice’s Natural Selection Tour — I really enjoy opportunities to hang out as an n-of-few on the edges of history & greatness :)

Sam

P.S. The Fish that Ate The Whale — someone recommended this to me after I loved The Last Kings of Shanghai — it is worth reading — an amazing window into United Fruit through the story of Sam the Banana Man.