Troy Wolverton

If I were editing a column about Charlie Kirk’s political genius, I would tell the writer he needed to quote Kirk’s actual political beliefs. If the writer responded that doing so would weaken or distract from his argument, it’d be a pretty good sign that the column was not ready for prime time.

Like, would we consider Sam Walton’s heirs great investors because they held on to their Walmart stakes? I don’t think so.

I don’t think most people would say that makes him a great investor. Maybe it shows he’s a Microsoft true believer — which is more or less what he says on the podcast

The thing is that they’re saying what I was saying, just with a different spin. Ballmer’s fortune comes from holding Microsoft stock that he got as an early employee. They’re saying he’s a great investor because he chose to hold on to that stock rather than diversify.

The Steve Ballmer Interview | Acquired Podcast The complete Steve Ballmer interview (and transcript!) on Microsoft’s history and strategy

The Acquired guys themselves made that assertion: www.acquired.fm/episodes/the...

Belatedly, now that I’ve finally listened to all of the Pablo Torre podcast about the Kawhi deal and part of the follow-up with Cuban, I understand where you (and Pablo) got the idea that Ballmer was the best investor of the last 20 years — from the Aquired podcast episode this summer with Ballmer

This is evocative of the Cultural Revolution.

So glad ICE is in Chicago. The city is a lawless hell-scape. Blues musicians wrecking hundreds of police cars. High schoolers doing weird scientific sex experiments. Kids home alone during the holidays. Women killing their husbands and lovers and then SINGING about it sassily. This has to stop.

This is a good creed for journalists

Long-Ago Twist Yields Ballmer A Fortune In Microsoft Stock As employee No. 30 at Microsoft, Steve Ballmer negotiated a sweet deal in the early 1980s that eventually left him with a fortune in company stock.

In case you or anyone else is interested, Forbes has the story of how Ballmer made his fortune here:

Ballmer was an expert business operator (although not a particularly great CEO). I don’t believe he’s known for being a particularly “savvy” investor.

Nice piece, Mike. One quibble, though. Ballmer made his billions by being an early employee of Microsoft and agreeing to exchange his profit-share benefit for an 8% stake in the company that he subsequently helped build into a corporate behemoth.

Study: VCs engaged in ‘tokenism’ after Floyd death Black-led startups saw surge in funding, then drop.

Venture capitalists responded to George Floyd's 2020 death by stepping up their investments in Black-founded startups, according to a new study. But in retrospect, what happened ended up looking a lot like "tokenism," the researchers say.

What she said (and I’ve said before, that this has been a known phenomenon in media studies for at least 30 years, that the more attention the media puts on crime, the more crime viewers will believe is occurring in their area, *regardless* of what is really happening).

San Antonio flag

The Alamo looks like a four-year-old made it with clip art on Print Shop back in the day, but even so, San Antonio's isn't terrible.

Researchers: AI reasoning a ‘brittle mirage’ Models fail to solve problems outside their training, study contends.

In a recent study of the reasoning abilities of generative AI systems, a team of researchers at Arizona State concluded that large language models like OpenAI's GPT-5 don't really reason at all. Their study builds on other recent research that casts doubt on AI's reasoning abilities.

media doesn't have to pretend that every statement from Donald Trump, a serial liar with a long record of proven falsehoods, has to be evaluated in a vacuum.

Martins Beach case delayed again for negotiations Lawyers for state, VC Khosla sought more time.

The yearslong battle over public access to the Bay Area's Martins Beach — via a road venture capitalist Vinod Khosla tried to close — will continue on for at least a little while longer.

These were all *lies* meant to dehumanize and stigmatize this group of people.

and "But Mrs. Rinvil was alarmed by Mr. Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric about Haitians — they 'all have AIDS,' he said at the time — and moved to Canada."

and "Mr. Rinvil did not seem rattled by the unfounded assertions that Haitians were eating cats and dogs."

An Ohio City Faces a Future Without Haitian Workers: ‘It’s Not Going to Be Good’

This is a very good piece by Miriam Jordan of @nytimes.com. But it's frankly journalistic malpractice at this point to not call Trump's lies just that.

Instead, we get Jordan saying Trump "amplified a baseless claim by his running mate, JD Vance, that Haitians there were stealing and eating pets."

Is AI Worth It? More and more artificial-intelligence skeptics are raising doubts about the utopian future promised by the technology’s boosters.

That's not about AI in education, per se, but is about deskilling.

Also, I touched on the deskilling issue in education in another piece back in March: www.nobhillgazette.com/arts_and_cul...

AI Eroded Doctors’ Ability to Spot Cancer Within Months in Study Artificial intelligence, touted for its potential to transform medicine, led to some doctors losing skills after just a few months in a new study.

I found another, more recent example, amidst my (many) open browser tabs:
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Bill regulating AI decision systems draws fire Business groups prioritizing defeating California AB 1018.

California Asm. Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (@rbkforassembly.bsky.social) has been trying for three years to push through a bill to offer some protections against discrimination by automated decision systems. I took a look at the fight over her latest effort — AB 1018.

👍

Studies link critical thinking to use, trust in AI Scrutiny of AI output drops with use, confidence in it.

This article I wrote earlier this year gets at what you’re trying to ascertain, I think. And it mentions two specific studies that will offer more details: www.sfexaminer.com/news/technol...

"How bad slavery was" is worse. Much worse. Much worse than you think, much worse than you're taught, much worse than museums depict. Worse.

Keep these ChatGPT limitations, risks in mind Remember these tips on how chatbots work, fall short.

In talking with family and friends — even people who are very technologically literate — it's pretty clear that many don't understand how systems like ChatGPT work or their limitations and risks. So, I put together a guide — a "Things to Think About" when using generative AI chatbots.