Tips on Asking for Advice; Foreign Spies All Over Florida; Feeling Like You Don’t Have Enough Money Drives You Nuts; How to Use AI (and when not to) in Your Hiring; +++ [link blog]

Father’s Day! A time for Dad to open and close browser tabs…

People-First Hiring: Implementing AI Without Losing Connection [MCJ Newsletter] – Climate-oriented venture firm MCJ published their readout of how AI has been integrated into their talent workflow, which include everything from sourcing founders to helping portfolio companies with hires. I’m a real fan of folks putting their playbooks out there because we’re in a period of such rapid iteration and learning. The MCJ team also notes that:

Not every part of the hiring process benefits from automation, and in some areas, over-reliance on AI risks undermining efficacy in our work. The candidates we most want to connect with founders are paying close attention. They can tell when outreach is too templated, when a process feels automated, and when a company is performing investment in people rather than actually making it.

Spylandia: How a Stretch of Florida Real Estate Has Become a Covert Corridor for Chinese and Russian Spies [Adam Ciralsky/Vanity Fair] – This is a crazy article about the degree of light espionage going on in Florida around the US space and aviation programs (private and public activities). Fake tourists, honeypot traps, residential homes that turn out to be wired up like data centers!

The activity wasn’t confined to the Chinese. An immaculately groomed Russian family—straight out of The Americans—appeared at SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral complex, presenting themselves as tourists. CFIX later learned the same family had surfaced at a SpaceX facility in California under the guise of sightseeing.

Franchise Thinking: On the Sequel Economics of Ideas [Anu Atluru/Working Theorys] – “Your idea gets franchised or it disappears.” Modeling her thinking on current memetics and the way we’re growing more comfortable (culturally, economically) with derivatives of the familiar than radically new. Franchised ideas already have tribal audiences. The opposite of franchise thinking is not contrarianism Anu notes. In fact, ‘contrarian’ has become another type of franchise. I feel like this is not dissimilar from some of Renée DiResta’s work on ‘universe building’ in the world of conspiracy theories, online sub-communities, etc.

Human Error is OK! Machine Madness is a No-No! Why? [Om Malik/Om.co] – “Why are we able to absorb big technology failures when they are blamed on people, but respond so differently when the failures come from machines?” This always drives me crazy, with autonomous vehicles being one prime example of being held to a standard much stricter than we ask of humans. Om got some pushback on this post but I think at least in my example it’s both (a) true and (b) confusing for well-intentioned people who do want to ‘make something better’ but won’t be able to make something perfect. Hold aside the less well-intentioned who believe they shouldn’t have to ever listen to regulators, the public, etc etc.

how to ask for advice (without wasting everyone’s time) [Auren Hoffman/summation] – no notes. just read it.

I make good money. Why do I still feel like this? [Hanna Horvath/Your Brain on Money] – Hanna writes about how the Middle Class was a post-war policy project, not a status quo of our economy. And that as it splits (K Shaped Recovery!) the resulting contrails of anxiety extend beyond “just” those previously in the MC segment.

When you’re experiencing material precarity, the resentment tends to flow toward immigrants, toward the generation that came before you, toward the upper-middle-class “elites”. When you’re experiencing positional precarity, the resentment may flow toward people who “didn’t optimize hard enough,” toward the general sense that nobody appreciates how hard you’re working.

In both cases, the anger moves sideways or downward. It less often moves upward — toward the 0.1% whose effective tax rate is lower than yours, toward the policy choices that make wealth concentration a feature, not a bug. And it almost never turns into the question that actually matters: What would it take for me to move from the labor side of this economy to the ownership side?

Good questions Hanna!

Enjoy your Father’s Day

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