The collection
All essays
100 essays
- 17 October 2026
The Edge-Case Constraint
Progress needs both freedom to question and the depth to turn questions into discoveries. A sanctuary must preserve both.
- 2 August 2026
Can We Coordinate As Fast As We Invent?
Technology grows exponentially. Coordination does not. What happens when the gap gets large enough matters more than most things people are worried about. An argument using the Montreal Protocol as the exception that proves the rule, and asking what it would take for AI, biosecurity, and the other frontier-technology governance problems to look like Montreal rather than Paris.
- 2 August 2026
The Outliers and Their Shoulders
Newton wrote about standing on the shoulders of giants. This piece is about the giants. It argues that the most popular version of civilisational history — the lone exceptional individual who transformed a field — is a systematic misreading of how transformative work actually gets done, and that the mistake matters because it produces institutional designs that damage the very conditions the outliers depend on.
- 2 August 2026
The People Who Apply Are the Wrong People
Every selective opportunity has a front door, and the front door filters for the skill of walking through front doors before it filters for anything the opportunity is actually about. A structural argument that the application step taxes a trait orthogonal to merit, and that no form redesign fixes it — because optimisers optimise for whatever you ask. The uncomfortable conclusion: for the things you most want to find, the open door is exactly the wrong instrument.
- 2 August 2026
Will Insurance Decide When AI Reshapes Legal Work?
There is a popular and clever theory: that AI adoption in law won’t be gated by whether the technology works , but by whether insurers will cover the risk when it doesn’t. This piece takes that theory seriously enough to argue both sides of it, lays out the verifiable evidence as of mid-2026, gives a verdict, and ends with an openly speculative forecast clearly fenced off from the evidence. The short version: the underlying trend is real and well-supported, but the specific claim that insurance is the decisive switch is pitched harder than the evidence justifies.
- 16 July 2026
England 1–2 Argentina: Why England Abandoned a Working Plan
England did not lose because they attacked too much. They lost after removing almost every reason Argentina had to defend. A piece from the notebook about a decision, and about the gap between having the information and acting on it — where data advises, the head coach decides, and the failure is one of interpretation, communication or authority rather than measurement.
- 27 May 2026
The Filter Is Comfort
A speculative essay on the Great Filter. Every conversation about it becomes a conversation about explosions — bombs, bioweapons, runaway AI. Suppose the failure mode is not the one with the mushroom cloud. Suppose it is the one that arrives in the afternoon with a soft blanket and a polite suggestion that perhaps you do not need to get up just yet.
- 27 May 2026
The Machines and the Old Books
Four monologues, in voice. An old Arab in Amman, an old Jew in Brooklyn, an old monk in the Cévennes, an old Hindu grandfather in Pune — each watching a transmission he received slip through his fingers toward children who will receive something else. The grandchildren will remember being read to. The question is whether they will, when their turn comes, read. And if they do not, what happens to the books themselves.
- 27 May 2026
The Seventy-Two Seconds
A reading of the Wow! Signal — the seventy-two-second radio transmission received in Ohio on 15 August 1977 and never received since. Whatever happened in those seventy-two seconds was not the act of a civilisation that had thought it through. It was rogue, or accidental, or panicking — one of the three things that happen when broadcasting outruns deliberation. The uncomfortable parallel is what this essay is about. We have been transmitting for ninety years, without thinking, and we have built every one of the failure modes that not-thinking can produce.
- 27 May 2026
There Was No Essay Here
A personal account of trying to write one essay with AI assistance and producing three drafts I could not sign. The tool is so frictionless that it removes most of the signals writers used to use to know a piece was finished, and what replaces them is the AI’s own assessment — friction on demand, not real friction. This is what that felt like from inside, and why it matters.
- 20 May 2026
Makerfield by-election — campaign plan for each party
Six parties on the ballot, six different objectives. An operational briefing for the 18 June 2026 Makerfield by-election: a campaign plan written from inside each party’s own goal — Labour, Reform, Restore Britain, Conservatives, Greens, Lib Dems. Built bottom-up from the 2024 baseline, the May 2026 local elections, ward-level deprivation, and turnout patterns since 2016. No party is being argued for or against.
- 20 May 2026
The Children in the Woods
A parable. About the difference between moving forward and going somewhere — and what happens, deep in the forest, to the ones who stop.
- 20 May 2026
The English Longbow: A Simple History
For about 120 years — roughly 1330 to 1450 — England had the deadliest weapon in Europe. It was a six-foot piece of yew wood. The reason it worked is the reason it eventually didn’t. A short history of the bow, the men who drew it, and what finally ended it.
- 11 May 2026
Aliens Left Religious Books for Us to Figure Out
A thought experiment. What if the Great Filter is not asteroids or nuclear weapons but the moment a clever species becomes powerful enough for its sacred stories to matter at planetary scale — and has to decide what those stories are for? The test is not which religion is true. The test is whether a species can hold a book in its hand and pick the merciful reading when the cruel one would be more useful.
- 11 May 2026
Safe Is a Place, Until It Isn't
A country can run perfectly smoothly and be hollowing out underneath. Both things can be true at once. An essay on what “safe” actually means — from Venice and the Dutch Republic to the modern state — and on the stranger possibility the age of AI raises: not that the system crashes, but that it stays calm, comfortable, and steady forever, with most people looked after but no longer needed.
- 11 May 2026
The Bear, the Bricklayer, and the “AI Slop” Problem
A short exchange on LinkedIn compressed the entire debate about generative AI and creative work into twenty-odd comments. A man asked whether anyone had read his children's books; people who build AI for a living called them “ai slop”; he answered with an analogy about an architect who cannot lay bricks. The craft objection, the volume objection, the honesty objection — and where the architect analogy strains. The debate does not resolve. It clarifies.
- 11 May 2026
The Moon as Staging Point — A Conditional Argument, Examined
Document 5 of the Moon set. The argument that the Moon is justified because it enables Mars and onward missions. The strongest case (gravity-well physics, infrastructure lessons learned, cislunar economy spillover) and the strongest critique (propellant economics depend on undemonstrated cryogenic storage; architecture trade-offs may favour direct-from-Earth at the scale being discussed; the lunar learning argument is real but smaller than presented because Moon and Mars environments differ in load-bearing ways).
- 11 May 2026
Helium-3 and the Fusion Argument — What Is Strong, What Is Magical Thinking
Document 4 of the Moon set. The single technical claim used to justify the largest investments in lunar return: that lunar helium-3 will fuel fusion reactors on Earth. The strongest case (Kulcinski, Schmitt, the Wisconsin group); the strongest critique (Frank Close's "moonshine" line, the D-D side-reaction problem, the TU Delft 2014 economic study, the timing argument). The near-term quantum-computing market, where money is actually being committed in 2025-2026.
- 11 May 2026
The Moon — A Public Brief
A public brief on the question of lunar return and resource utilisation. What is being proposed (crewed return, in-situ resource use, the Moon as staging point), how the Moon question differs from the Mars question, the strongest case for going at scale and the strongest case for doing less, more slowly. The publication's three concerns — the helium-3 fusion overclaim, the foreseeable South Pole coordination failure, and the conditional logic of the Moon-as-staging-point argument — are named openly.
- 11 May 2026
The South Pole Crater Question — Shackleton, Chang'e 7, and Artemis III
Document 3 of the Moon set. The number of viable landing sites at the lunar south pole is small, perhaps a dozen, with the best concentrated in a few square kilometres. Multiple programmes are targeting the same area in 2026-2028 under different legal frameworks with no working coordination mechanism. Five scenarios for what happens next, the publication's reading of which are likely, and what proactive coordination would look like.
- 11 May 2026
The Moon Treaty Framework — Outer Space Treaty, Artemis Accords, and What Is Actually Settled
Document 2 of the Moon set. What the 1967 Outer Space Treaty actually says and does not say; why no follow-on treaty has emerged since 1975; why the 1979 Moon Agreement failed; what the Artemis Accords commit signatories to (and do not); and the three substantive disagreements that the current framework leaves unresolved: whether extraction constitutes appropriation, whether safety zones are a workaround for territorial claims, and what status heritage sites have.
- 11 May 2026
Why Lovable Becomes Worthless
There is a specific category of AI startup that looks like a rocket ship right now and is, in fact, a sandcastle at low tide. Lovable is the cleanest example, but the argument applies equally to Bolt, v0, Replit Agent, and the dozen other “describe an app, get an app” products that raised at unicorn valuations in 2024 and 2025. A structural argument about where value accrues in the AI stack — and where it does not.
- 10 May 2026
The Bear Inherited
A small picture book companion to the IHT section. Eighteen short pages about a bear and a bakery and a father and the cubs at the till. Not analytical. Not advocacy. The bear is in the kitchen, on the Tuesday mornings, while the dough is rising — and at a wedding, on a Saturday in June, where the music started up.
- 10 May 2026
The Bear Looked Up
A small picture book companion to the Building Mars section. Seven evenings in a small field on a small hill, plus one Wednesday afternoon in a small library while the rain wouldn't stop, and the rockets, sometimes, going past.
- 10 May 2026
The Bear Pitched
A small picture book companion to the venture-capital section. Ten short pages about ten friends, the cubs at the kitchen table, and a half-past-eleven bus station on a Tuesday night where the bear met another bear who was going home.
- 10 May 2026
The Bear Read the News
A small picture book companion to the UK migration section. Fifteen short pages about a fortnight in which the bear took both the bear's paper and the neighbour's paper, the bear had soup with the neighbour, the bear got out at a small town the bear had never been to, and the bear noticed a few things the papers were not, mostly, writing about — a chair at the kitchen table that does not have a bear in it on most evenings, a fridge with postcards from Dubai and Singapore, and a neighbour's son who came home for a week and then went back.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — The AI Labour-Market Frame
One of seven companion framings, the most rapidly evolving evidence base in the document. AI is currently displacing high-paid white-collar work faster than low-paid migrant-dependent sectors. The King's College London October 2025 study found firms with high AI exposure cut total employment 4.5% and junior positions 5.8% (2021-2025). The AI frame complicates restrictionist assumptions about automation replacing migrant labour and supports adaptive sectoral planning. Presented at full strength.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — Why Britons Are Leaving: Three Threads, Three Kinds of Evidence
A focused reference on why British nationals are emigrating from the UK as of May 2026. Three threads with very different evidence quality: young Britons (the largest cohort, with reasonable survey evidence — wages versus cost of living, career opportunity, work-life balance, the new feasibility of cross-border remote work); HNWI/non-dom departures (politically loud, evidentially contested — Henley & Partners 16,500 figure forensically critiqued by the Tax Justice Network); and upper-middle-class professionals (the missing story — neither dataset captures cleanly the £150k–£500k cohort that pays a substantial share of UK income tax). The publication does not adjudicate; it lays out the threads, names the evidence quality, identifies the gaps.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — The Public-Service Capacity Frame
One of seven companion framings, applying the same evidence base from a public-service-capacity perspective. School places, GP registrations, social housing, and local-government finances. The capacity frame is concerned with absorption rate at the level of individual local authorities, not with national totals; it produces different policy weightings from any frame that operates only at national scale.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — The Cohesion Frame
One of seven companion framings to the master document, applying the same evidence base from a community-cohesion perspective. Pace of change matters more than scale; integration outcomes vary by route; residential concentration creates parallel lives; English language is a genuine cohesion variable; the political backlash is itself a cohesion variable. The framing is presented at full strength, with the cases against it acknowledged openly.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — Crime, Trust, and the Debate
A standalone, careful treatment of the topic at the centre of trust collapse in UK migration policy. Confidence labels (high / medium / low) at every claim level. The foundational data gap, what data does exist, the Albanian signal as the strongest finding in the data, the geographic correlation, the grooming gang question, the suppression question, and what the evidence-graded conclusions actually support. Long, deliberate, and uncomfortable in places.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — The Demographic Frame
One of seven companion framings to the master document, applying the same evidence base from a demographic-sustainability perspective. Population structure, dependency ratios, OBR sustainability modelling, and what the demographic frame implies for migration policy at scale. Presented at full strength, including where it cuts against restrictionist intuitions and where it cuts against expansionist intuitions.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — The Emigration Frame
One of seven companion framings, applying the same evidence base from a British-citizen-outflow perspective. Net migration is inflows minus outflows; the emigration frame asks what is happening to the outflow side, who is leaving the UK, what their fiscal contribution profile looks like, and what the implications are for net contribution and skills retention. The frame is under-discussed in the public debate and produces distinctive policy weightings.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — A Reference for Journalists
For journalists and commentators. The combined pack: front matter, the data foundation, the comparative party analysis, and the framing articles most relevant to political coverage of migration policy. Approximately 22,000 words.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — A Reference for Policymakers
For civil servants, policy advisers, ministers, and opposition staff. The combined pack: front matter, the options menu (twenty policy options across the spectrum), the master comparative analysis of party positions, and the framings and stakeholder perspectives most relevant to policy formation. Approximately 21,000 words.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — A Reference for the Engaged Public
For engaged citizens, voters, and community leaders. The combined pack: front matter, the seven framings, and the standalone deep-dives on the topics most contested in public debate (the 2022-2024 ILR cohort, housing, crime and trust). Approximately 17,500 words.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — Housing Supply
A standalone analysis of the relationship between migration and the UK housing crisis. What the data does show about migration's contribution to housing pressure, what it does not, who actually receives social housing, what the public-opinion data shows about the salience-accuracy gap, and what the evidence implies for housing policy.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration in May 2026 — A Reference
A reference on UK migration and benefits policy as of May 2026. Net migration has fallen sharply, lifetime fiscal contribution varies sharply by route, asylum accommodation procurement is the largest documented cost overrun, voluntary returns are eleven times cheaper than enforced. The publication does not advocate a single policy direction; it lays out the evidence, the available policy options, what each major political party would do, and seven parallel framings — cohesion, protection, demographic, AI labour market, capacity, emigration, and sovereignty — that select and weight the same evidence differently.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — A Briefing for the Conservatives
One of nine party briefings, written from inside the Conservatives' worldview to make the strongest version of their case on migration after the 2022-2024 surge. Where the evidence reinforces; where it requires sharpening; the political coalition; three things to do in the next twelve months.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — A Briefing for the DUP
One of nine party briefings, written from inside the DUP's worldview to make the strongest version of their case on migration as it concerns Northern Ireland. Where the evidence reinforces; where it requires sharpening; the political coalition; three things to do in the next twelve months.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — A Briefing for the Green Party
One of nine party briefings, written from inside the Green Party's worldview to make the strongest version of their case on migration. Where the evidence reinforces; where it requires sharpening; the political coalition; three things to do in the next twelve months.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — A Briefing for Labour
One of nine party briefings, written from inside Labour's worldview to make the strongest version of Labour's case on migration. Where the evidence reinforces the direction Labour is travelling; where the evidence requires sharpening; the political coalition the position has to hold; three things to do in the next twelve months.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — A Briefing for the Liberal Democrats
One of nine party briefings, written from inside the Liberal Democrats' worldview to make the strongest version of their case on migration. Where the evidence reinforces; where it requires sharpening; the political coalition; three things to do in the next twelve months.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — A Briefing for Plaid Cymru
One of nine party briefings, written from inside Plaid Cymru's worldview to make the strongest version of their case on migration as it concerns Wales. Where the evidence reinforces; where it requires sharpening; the political coalition; three things to do in the next twelve months.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — Party Proposals: Costed Implications
A comparable, costed cross-party analysis of UK migration proposals as of May 2026. For each of the nine parties: stated proposals, proposal-by-proposal cost ranges, savings/revenue ranges, net fiscal effect (with HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW confidence labels), implications from inside the party's worldview AND from external analytical perspective, deliverability constraints, legal exposure, and likely behavioural responses. A comparative summary table at the end across all nine parties. Approximately 25,000-30,000 words. The companion to the nine party briefings, written from outside each worldview rather than from inside it.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — A Briefing for Reform UK
One of nine party briefings, written from inside Reform UK's worldview to make the strongest version of their case on migration. Where the evidence reinforces the direction; where it requires sharpening; the political coalition; three things to do in the next twelve months.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — A Briefing for Restore Britain
One of nine party briefings, written from inside Restore Britain's worldview to make the strongest version of their case on migration. Where the evidence reinforces the direction; where it requires sharpening; the political coalition; three things to do in the next twelve months.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — A Briefing for the SNP
One of nine party briefings, written from inside the SNP's worldview to make the strongest version of their case on migration as it concerns Scotland. Where the evidence reinforces; where it requires sharpening; the political coalition; three things to do in the next twelve months.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — The Protection Frame
One of seven companion framings to the master document, applying the same evidence base from a refugee-protection perspective. Grant rates from current high-volume small-boat-arrival nationalities are mostly very high (Sudan 96%, Eritrea 88%); the protection frame asks what the evidence implies if international protection obligations are taken as the starting point rather than as a constraint. Presented at full strength.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — The Sovereignty Frame
One of seven companion framings, applying the same evidence base from a post-Brexit sovereignty perspective. The sovereignty frame asks not whether the UK can control its borders but what controlling them is being used for, what international commitments constrain it, and what trade-offs are visible only when sovereignty is the priority lens. Presented at full strength, including the cases for and against ECHR withdrawal.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — A Briefing for Business and Employer Bodies
One of four stakeholder briefings, written from inside the employer perspective on UK migration policy. The position business interests typically hold across the political spectrum: workforce, skills, productivity, operational continuity, sectoral planning. Where the employer position converges with worker representation (training, predictability, opposition to crude caps) and where it diverges sharply (tied visas, sectoral bargaining, wage compression).
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — A Briefing for the Senior Civil Service
One of four stakeholder briefings, written from inside the operational perspective of the senior civil service on UK migration policy. What the data implies for delivery; where the implementation pinch-points are; what ministerial decisions actually require operationally; what is feasible inside Parliament, inside HMG legal exposure, and inside HMRC, Home Office, and DWP capacity constraints. Not a political position; an operational one.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — A Briefing for Metro Mayors and Local Government
One of four stakeholder briefings, written from inside the local-government perspective on UK migration policy. Metro Mayors, Combined Authorities, Council Leaders. Where central-government decisions create local cost-shifting (NRPF, asylum dispersal, school-place pressure); where local capacity is real and where it is overstated; what local government actually needs to absorb migration well; where the political coalition for that need exists.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — A Briefing for Trade Unions and Worker Representation
One of four stakeholder briefings, written from inside the trade-union perspective on UK migration policy. The position worker representation typically holds: wage compression, displacement risk, tied-visa exploitation, sectoral bargaining, training investment. The companion piece to the business briefing — on questions where union and employer positions converge and where they diverge.
- 10 May 2026
UK Migration — The 2022-2024 ILR Cohort
A standalone analysis of the 2022-2024 net-migration peak ("Boriswave" in informal political usage). The cohort that arrived during the 2022-2024 net migration peak (906,000 in 2023) is now reaching the five-year settlement window, which is the source of much of the political pressure on settlement-rule reform. The piece walks the cohort, the route mix, what the evidence says about their fiscal trajectories, and the policy options the master document's options menu attaches to this question.
- 9 May 2026
Mars Industrialisation — The Case Against
Document 4 of the Building Mars set. The strongest version of the case against large-scale Mars industrialisation as currently conceived, written as critique rather than balanced analysis. The case against does not depend on the project failing technically; it is largely the case against the project being undertaken even on the assumption it would succeed. For readers who want the structural critique articulated in its fullest form.
- 9 May 2026
Mars Industrialisation — Ethical and Philosophical Analysis
Document 6 of the Building Mars set. Questions that cannot be resolved by engineering. The moral standing of indigenous Mars life, the ethics of planetary alteration, the longtermist framework and its critics, governance and consent in closed habitats, intergenerational obligations, and the deepest question — whether humans have the appropriate authority to industrialise other worlds at all. Positions presented seriously rather than reduced to slogans.
- 9 May 2026
Mars Industrialisation — Investor Memo
Document 1 of the Building Mars set. A decision memo for capital allocators evaluating whether to deploy investment into the operating entity, the supply chain, or adjacent infrastructure. Assumes the reader is making a deployment decision, not weighing whether the project should happen at all. Readers concerned with the latter question are pointed to Documents 4 and 6.
- 9 May 2026
Mars Industrialisation — Policy White Paper
Document 2 of the Building Mars set. The regulatory and international framework. Written for policymakers, regulators, and international affairs analysts who must take positions on specific questions. Identifies what is decision-forcing and what is not, the positions that exist on each, and the regulatory and international choices implicit in supporting different paths forward.
- 9 May 2026
Should We Build Mars? — A Public Brief
Document 5 of the Building Mars set. A thirty-minute brief for general readers. What is being proposed for Mars, what the strongest arguments for and against the project are, and why people who have thought carefully reach different conclusions. The brief does not tell you what to think; it tries to give you the considerations clearly enough that you can decide for yourself.
- 9 May 2026
Mars Industrialisation — Reference Materials
Document 7 of the Building Mars set. The reference appendix. Full assumptions ledger, target company list with funding status and acquisition rationale, capital sources and investor map, citations with balanced further reading from supporters, critics, and skeptics. The verification anchor for facts cited across Documents 1 through 6.
- 9 May 2026
Mars Industrialisation — Technical Reference
Document 3 of the Building Mars set. Engineering architecture, the eight specific compression moves that take the timeline from a 50-year baseline to roughly 25 years, the phased plan, the hard problems including the semiconductor wall, and the technical risk register. For engineers, technical analysts, and informed technical readers. Hedged where the technical claims are contested.
- 9 May 2026
Position F — A Founder Election with a Decade Cap
A sixth position on the timing-and-mechanism question. The estate elects, at death, between settlement at death under the existing reform (Regime 1) and a deferred-realisation regime with a hard ten-year backstop (Regime 2). The taxable transfer remains the death event; Position F changes the collection mechanism and timing, not the underlying tax principle. Drafted as the bounded version of Position B — the version that survives the case-against-B in the publication's timing piece. Originally circulated as Position E; relabelled F because the publication already uses Position E for the reform-as-written reference case.
- 9 May 2026
Position F — The Five-Minute Version
A short overview of Position F: a per-company estate election at death between settlement under the existing reform and a deferred-realisation regime capped at ten years. The proposal in five minutes, with the case for, the case against, and how it sits alongside the publication's existing design positions. The full long-form treatment is linked at the end.
- 8 May 2026
The train
A piece from the notebook. About the difference between the people who moan about the destination and the people who keep the engine going. About the driver who does not know where the train is going. About the three kinds of shoveller, and the friendship that is the actual work. About knowing your chair, and getting better at sitting in it. May or may not be connected to the rest of the publication.
- 6 May 2026
The Race Against Itself — UK fiscal arithmetic, the productivity question, and a small mobile cohort
Cross-category piece. The UK's fiscal arithmetic, on most institutional projections, cannot be closed by tax rises or spending cuts alone. The remaining lever is productivity growth. On current evidence, productivity at the scale required runs heavily through a small and globally mobile cohort — AI researchers, deep-tech founders, life-sciences scientists, the engineers and operators around them. The country's policy responses to its fiscal pressure are signalling to that cohort that they should leave. The race is between the productivity rescue arriving in time and the cohort departing fast enough to ensure it does not. Diagnosis presented at full strength. Four counter-positions presented at full strength. The publication's residual lean named.
- 6 May 2026
The Team Around the Founder — what the IHT reform does to co-founders, early employees, and vested equity holders
Public coverage of the April 2026 reform has focused on the lead founder. A growing technology company is not one founder. The reform sits across a team — co-founders with material stakes, early employees whose vested options compounded across rounds, senior operators with later-stage grants. This piece walks the population the existing pieces have not directly addressed, evaluates the planning levers as they actually apply to that population, and frames the recruiting and retention question this creates for UK technology companies.
- 5 May 2026
From talent to transaction — twenty years inside an accelerator program
The predecessor synthesis on accelerators, useful for readers interested in how accelerators relate to the broader venture-capital ecosystem. Treats acceptance into an accelerator as a structural moment that reshapes a founder's twenty-year arc — the cap table becomes a moral document, mentorship becomes entangled with deal flow, failure is metabolised as portfolio churn, the grammar of relationships changes. Person-by-person ramifications across founders, employees, capital, infrastructure, and the public.
- 5 May 2026
Common Reactions — VC: substantive critiques and the publication's responses
Six substantive critiques the publication has received on the venture-capital pieces. Where the critique is right, the publication agrees. Where the deep version already treats the point, the publication says so. Where the publication thinks the critique misreads what the pieces are doing, the publication pushes back.
- 5 May 2026
Venture Capital Is Good for Society and Bad for Most Founders
Venture capital is good for society and bad for most founders. Both halves are documented in the empirical literature. Most writing about VC handles one half or the other; this piece handles both.
- 5 May 2026
VC: most fail, most suffer, some win lots — does society win or lose?
An open question on venture capital. Seven analytical frames in parallel, evidence labelled by strength, anchored in US/UK/EU as a natural experiment. A short prologue addresses the reader directly: the entire messaging environment around venture capital is engineered to make you, specifically, believe you will be the winner. The frames evaluate the system. Evaluating yourself is a different exercise the document cannot do for you.
- 5 May 2026
Both Halves of the Headline Are True
Venture capital is good for society and bad for most founders. Readers who hear that sentence often assume one of the two halves must be wrong. Both are documented in the empirical literature. The trick of holding them at the same time is the work the longer pieces do; this piece is the door.
- 5 May 2026
The 33%
Cooper, Woo and Dunkelberg surveyed 2,994 entrepreneurs in 1988. Thirty-three percent rated their probability of success at one hundred percent. They were not failing at probability theory. They were correctly registering the signal of the messaging environment they were immersed in. This piece is what that means.
- 5 May 2026
The Wrong Winners Write the Books
Founder advice is not only survivor-biased. It is filtered toward the survivors most certain that their outcome was repeatable. The classic survivorship filter is well known: failures do not write the books. Two further filters operate on the survivor cohort itself — and they are what give the recruitment narrative its tone before any individual VC, accelerator, or founder-coach does anything. This piece names all three.
- 5 May 2026
What the Natural Experiment Shows
The US, UK, and EU run variants of the same venture model under different conditions. Comparing the three lets us ask which features of the system are intrinsic to running a venture model at all, and which are local-design choices that could be different. The line between the two changes what reform is possible.
- 5 May 2026
Why Fund Economics Need Overconfident Founders
A typical early-stage venture fund makes about twenty-five investments. Its returns to limited partners depend almost entirely on whether one or two turned out to be extreme outliers. What that math forces, in three steps, is the part this piece is about.
- 4 May 2026
For Prospective Founders — What the Recruitment Narrative Does Not Say
For a reader weighing whether to enter the venture system as a founder, an early employee, or an investor of personal savings into venture funds. The strongest single argument the publication has on this topic, made as its own piece because it deserves to. With primary sources you can verify.
- 3 May 2026
The reality of being a founder — what the data actually says
Most of what is published about being a founder is recruitment material — accurate enough on the survivors, silent on the rest. This is the picture you would see if the data were not filtered. Most fail. Mental-health conditions are more common in the population than in the comparison group. Both halves are well-replicated. With primary sources you can verify.
- 2 May 2026
The Power Law and What It Forces
Returns to venture investments follow a power-law distribution: a small number of extreme outliers carry the whole. From that single empirical fact, the moral pattern of the venture system — the deal-flow imperative, the rejection of the merely-good, the founder selection criteria, the recruitment narrative — falls out as a structural consequence, not a choice anyone made. The piece sets out the chain in five steps and then asks what would change the pattern if the math changed.
- 1 May 2026
What an AI tool said when asked to pick — ChatGPT Pro (GPT-5.5 Pro)
The publication does not adjudicate between the four design positions or between the two sides of the principle question. As a methodology disclosure, the publication asked one AI tool — ChatGPT Pro (GPT-5.5 Pro, OpenAI) — to read the publication and answer one question: if you had to set the policy now, what would you do? The tool's response is reproduced verbatim. It is not the publication's view. The third and final piece in the small companion series, alongside the same prompt put to Claude Opus 4.7 and Grok 4.3 Beta.
- 1 May 2026
What an AI tool said when asked to pick — Claude Opus 4.7
The publication does not adjudicate between the four design positions or between the two sides of the principle question. As a methodology disclosure, the publication asked one AI tool — Claude Opus 4.7 (Anthropic) — to read the publication and answer one question: if you had to set the policy now, what would you do? The tool's response is reproduced verbatim. It is not the publication's view. Two more pages in the series will carry the same prompt put to ChatGPT and Grok.
- 1 May 2026
What an AI tool said when asked to pick — Grok 4.3 Beta
The publication does not adjudicate between the four design positions or between the two sides of the principle question. As a methodology disclosure, the publication asked one AI tool — Grok 4.3 Beta (xAI) — to read the publication and answer one question: if you had to set the policy now, what would you do? The tool's response is reproduced verbatim. It is not the publication's view. The companion pages carry the same prompt put to Claude Opus 4.7 and (when obtained) ChatGPT.
- 1 May 2026
VC across the US, UK, and EU — a jurisdictional reference for prospective founders
The operational counterpart to the main analytical piece. Side-by-side comparison of structural features (LP base, founder tax regimes, exit market depth, employee equity treatment, 2025-2026 regulatory changes) across the US, UK, and the major EU venture markets. Practical reference for founders deciding where to incorporate, fundraise, or relocate. May 2026 snapshot.
- 30 April 2026
Common Reactions — Critiques and Responses
Likely critiques of the publication, named openly, with the author's responses. The strongest objections the author thinks land at least partly. The predictable ones he thinks are mostly handled. The supportive reactions he wants to be honest about.
- 30 April 2026
For Journalists — What Is Reliable, What Is Contested, What Should Not Be Repeated
A working source-quality reference for journalists writing about the April 2026 UK inheritance tax reform. Each major claim with the source, what it does and does not establish, and a confidence level.
- 30 April 2026
For Tax Practitioners — The Substantive Issues
A technical reference for solicitors and accountants advising on the post-April 2026 inheritance tax regime as it applies to unlisted trading-company shares. Anchored to legislation and case-law where it exists.
- 30 April 2026
For UK Tech Founders
Addressed to a UK tech founder reading this on the train. You hold significant unlisted shares in a UK trading company. The April 2026 reform changes what happens to those shares if you die. This piece is for you specifically.
- 30 April 2026
How This Was Made — Methodology
How the analysis was produced. The truthful prompt-and-ship workflow, the four AI tools, what each produced, what was retracted, and what remains uncertain.
- 30 April 2026
Inheritance Tax and the UK Tech Cohort
What is being argued, what the disagreement turns on, and what different evidence would mean — for the founders, investors, and operators driving the new economy.
- 30 April 2026
Inheritance Tax and the UK Tech Cohort — full version
The complete paper, with international comparators and a detailed treatment of what different evidence would mean.
- 30 April 2026
On the Principle — Both Cases at Equal Length
The operational analysis takes the principle of taxing very large intergenerational business-wealth transfers as given. This piece sets out the strongest cases on the prior question, on both sides — for and against — at roughly equal length, in the voice of each side's strongest defenders, with no closing verdict from the publication.
- 30 April 2026
UK Tech and the IHT Reform — Plain English Detailed
The full plain English version, with international comparators and four scenarios. About 3,000 words.
- 30 April 2026
UK Tech and the IHT Reform — Plain English Overview
The shortest readable version. About 700 words.
- 30 April 2026
Where to Start — A Reading Guide
The publication has four sections: the April 2026 UK IHT reform analysis, a body of work on venture capital, a seven-document set on whether to industrialise Mars, and a single Notebook piece outside the analytical register. One entry-point recommended for each kind of reader.
- 30 April 2026
The Whole Question, in Five Minutes
Anyone who wants the question and the contested arguments in five minutes. About 600 words. The phone-screen version.
- 30 April 2026
The Short Version
A 1,500-word version of the question for a general reader. Written by an AI tool, not by Doug.
- 30 April 2026
Eight Hours, Four AI Tools, One Founder — After the Original One-Week Corpus
The original seven-site corpus was created during one concentrated week. The Longer Look was developed later as the analytical side door into that existing body of work; its launch publication came together in roughly eight hours of real work.
- 30 April 2026
UK Tech and the IHT Reform — The Funding Stack and the Fiscal Model
Technical depth on each part of the UK tech funding stack — founders, angels, VCs, PE, EIS, LPs, early employees — and a 25-year fiscal model of what each policy option means for the Treasury, including second-order effects.
- 30 April 2026
What the Inheritance Tax Reform Means for UK Tech
A plain English explainer for founders, angels, VCs, and the people who fund and build UK tech companies.
- 30 April 2026
The Amount Question and the Timing Question
The April 2026 inheritance tax reform raises two analytically separate questions: how much intergenerational business wealth should be taxed at, and when the tax should fall. This piece sets out the strongest case for each timing option (death-based, realisation-based) in its own voice, at roughly equal length, without a closing verdict from the publication.