Last year, disappointed in how little I had read, I decided that in 2026, I would make a concerted effort to seek out and read more interesting long-form content.
Some would say that spending a whole year learning about the mechanics of LMS software would definitely count as reading respectable, if tedious, long form content… but I digress.
As part of that resolution, I took action on two fronts. I decided to read atleast 5 very good long-form articles every month, and to help me in doing so, I subscribed to 4 physical magazines that would arrive with pleasant regularity, and ensure a steady supply of reading material. I am pleased to report that the plan has paid off so far, and I have read and enjoyed the following pieces of content. What’s nice about these pieces of reading is that I was also able to read and spend a few days after, thinking about their central idea, and its ramifications for my personal life.
On AI, Business and Worldly Matters
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Built to Own - Inside 3G Capital: Every once in a while you need to read something spectacularly large and outlandish, but true. This is that essay for January.
The 3G that unplugged mini-fridges and counted paper clips is not exactly the 3G of today, however. Behring and Schwartz’s last two deals were family businesses whose founders could have sold to anyone and chose the firm that once terrified corporate America for a reason.
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A letter to self (?) on AI: Part story, part travelogue, part heady rush.
By now, anyone who can be convinced that AI will be a big deal by being shown a graph has already been shown that graph and is on board. So let me try a different approach. I will tell you the story of how I came to believe in the compute theory of everything.
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Advice for a young investigator in the first and last days of the Anthropocene Deck and Tweets:
These are plausibly our last moments to intellectually shine. First, we should make sure our projects will still be relevant when they are completed. There is some improving curve of the science that can be done with minimal human effort, just by prompting the best current foundation model. One outcome that you want to avoid is that you work hard for 2 years, and make significant progress, but by the time you’re done someone can achieve something better just by asking a foundation model.
This suggests working on targeted projects, with others, so that you can go fast, and stay ahead of the exponential. It discourages slow open-ended exploration.
On Life
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Maps Compass and Pivot Points: 2 incisive and thoughtful essays about knowing yourself. Pithy and very to the point. Also, in some ways, ancient. Indeed, for every piece of advice P, there are many successes and failures of startups who did P, and also many successes and failures of startups that did the opposite of P. The 2x2 diagram is full. So what does that tell us about P?
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What does it mean to have a room of one’s own?: A slightly painful read about how it takes cognitive space, as well as physical space, to give yourself the best shot at making your dreams come true.
To write from this place of bitterness—the rust that is eating away and destroying the tree—is to write from a clouded headspace that conceals and distorts the work within it.
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Love? Maybe Icarus loved the sun: An articulate, if frenzied discourse on love and tragedy.
maybe icarus loved the sun because it taught him what it meant to feel alive. he wanted that last taste of the sun, the feeling of it pressed against his skin, even as it tore him apart. maybe that’s the part we don’t want to admit—maybe he loved the fall.
the fall is not the tragedy. the tragedy would have been never flying at all.
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[Reality has a surprising amount of detail] (http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-amount-of-detail): An older essay that suddenly is everywhere around me badering and meinhoffing…
At every step and every level there’s an abundance of detail with material consequences.
It’s tempting to think ‘So what?’ and dismiss these details as incidental or specific to stair carpentry. And they are specific to stair carpentry; that’s what makes them details. But the existence of a surprising number of meaningful details is not specific to stairs. Surprising detail is a near universal property of getting up close and personal with reality.
Closer Home
- Why the Congress Party keeps losing elections?: The NDA landslide in Bihar points to a central opposition party that is crumbling and looks disorganised and confused. I worry for our future. Unfortunately, this is paywalled, but well worth the purchase, and the read.