Reading

Reading

Essays we return to.

The reading behind the books and the research: pieces the editors keep coming back to, on intelligence, money, and building institutions. Start at the top, then go deeper.

Start Here20

1. SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: The Decade Ahead mellosouls · situational-awareness.ai AI strategy / timelines
2. Deep Dive: The Transaction Foundation Models Sam Boboev · Fintech Wrap Up financial AI / data moat
3. The lethal trifecta for AI agents Simon Willison agent security / operating risk
4. Thoughts on the AI buildout Dwarkesh Patel · The Lunar Society AI infrastructure / capex
5. Stripe and Solid-State Economics Byrne Hobart · The Diff fintech infrastructure / platform economics
6. Fast Patrick Collison execution speed / founder doctrine
7. How to Do Great Work Paul Graham ambition / work quality
8. Judgment Is the Decisive Skill nav.al decision-making
9. The Munger Operating System Farnam Street multidisciplinary thinking
10. Aggregation Theory Ben Thompson · Stratechery platform power / internet economics
11. As We May Think Vannevar Bush · The Atlantic Memex / knowledge systems
12. The Scaling Hypothesis Gwern Branwen · gwern.net AI capability / exponential curves
13. Our Dollar, Your Problem Kenneth Rogoff · www.hks.harvard.edu monetary system / geopolitics
14. The Defense Reformation atlasunshrugged · 18theses.com state capacity / hard-tech execution
15. Palantir Ontology Best Practices palantir.com ontology / institutional data systems
16. Operating well - what I learned at Stripe Sam Gerstenzang · Every company operating culture
17. Politics and the English Language George Orwell · www.orwellfoundation.com writing clarity / public voice
18. The Tim Ferriss Show: David Deutsch and Naval Ravikant Tim Ferriss · The Tim Ferriss Show epistemology / optimism / wealth
19. The Price Jensen Huang Chose to Pay To Build NVIDIA Ruben Dominguez · The VC Corner operator biography / sacrifice
20. The Tail End Tim Urban · Wait But Why time, family, mortality, priorities

AI, Agents, and Financial Infrastructure21

1. Agentic Reckoning: Enterprise AI has a runtime problem VB Staff · Venture Beat enterprise agent architecture
2. Your Spending Needs Attention: Modeling Financial Habits with Transformers Nubank daniel.braithwaite · Arxiv financial behavior modeling
3. Anthropic Economic Index gmays · www.anthropic.com AI labor/workflow evidence
4. Long-running cloud infrastructure for AI agents OpenComputer · opencomputer.dev durable agent infrastructure
5. Harness engineering: leveraging Codex in an agent-first world Ryan Lopopolo · ChatGPT for Education agent operating systems
6. Why We Need Continual Learning Malika Aubakirova · a16z adaptive AI systems
7. Token problems: the workbook Tom Yeh · AI by Hand ✍️ token economics / AI cost discipline
8. Could AI's leading men become as powerful as Ford or Rockefeller? The Economist AI power / infrastructure control
9. Alex Karp: We Need a New Manhattan Project Alexander C. Karp · The Free Press state capacity / AI execution
10. A week inside China's AI labs Nathan Lambert · Interconnects China execution tempo
11. How To Scale Your Model Jacob Austin†. · jax-ml.github.io compute mechanics
12. Import AI 455: AI systems are about to start building themselves Jack Clark · Import AI recursive AI progress
13. Machines of Loving Grace Dario Amodei · darioamodei.com frontier AI worldview, read critically
14. World Models: Computing the Uncomputable Packy McCormick · Not Boring by Packy McCormick AI frontier / simulation / agency
15. Understanding Jane Street Byrne Hobart · The Diff institutional edge / talent machine
16. The Neobank Landscape Carlos Gonzalez Campo · app.blockworksresearch.com banking market structure
17. Big Banks Explore Joint Stablecoin CoinDesk monetary rails / incumbent response
18. Underwriting Pirates Sahraoui · Angèle Sahraoui from Angèle Sahraoui credit risk / underwriting edge
19. Nu Holdings (NU) Patient Capital · Timo Buss from Patient Capital Newsletter emerging-market digital bank case study
20. Six lessons from history's greatest financial crises Robin Wigglesworth · Financial Times crisis pattern recognition
21. The AI Firm Dwarkesh Patel · The Lunar Society What a company becomes when you can run millions of AI agents

Capital, Judgment, and Founder Agency19

1. Take Asymmetric Bets Erik Torenberg · Ideas & Musings venture judgment / upside discipline
2. A Brief History of the World of Venture Capital Nicolas Colin · Medium capital formation / power-law history
3. Charlie Munger Archive worldlypartners.com mental models / capital allocation
4. Poor Charlie's Almanack forewords Charlie Munger · Stripe Press multidisciplinary wisdom
5. How to Get Rich Naval Ravikant · nav.al Naval's leverage framework
6. Almanack of Naval Ravikant Tucker Max · www.navalmanack.com wealth, judgment, happiness
7. The #1 AI Agent for financial services Fin / Ideas practical AI-in-finance product surface
8. Number Go Down allen farrington · x.com crypto/monetary skepticism
9. The Salomon Brothers Treasury Auction Scandal DOUGLAS LUCAS · www.stories.finance financial institution failure mode
10. 532 Years Eric Glyman · x.com long-duration financial/institutional framing
11. Avoiding Death on the Yellow Brick Road Joe Schmidt IV · a16z venture survival / strategic risk
12. You and Your Research Richard Hamming · Paul Graham Hamming on important work — why aren't you working on the most important problem in your field?
13. High Agency George Mack · highagency.com founder/operator trait
14. How To Be Successful Sam Altman · blog.samaltman.com Sam Altman's operating advice
15. What I Wish Someone Had Told Me Sam Altman · blog.samaltman.com condensed founder lessons
16. Relentlessly Resourceful Paul Graham Paul Graham's best founder trait frame
17. Schlep Blindness Paul Graham where hidden opportunity lives
18. Startup = Growth Paul Graham cleanest startup definition
19. Crazy New Ideas Paul Graham · www.paulgraham.com why non-consensus ideas matter

Curated by the Colendi Press team. Drawn from tekmen.ai/reading, last synced 2026-09-06.