Field Notes · 25 Jun 2026
Best explained
Index investing via SPY is framed as copy trading the S&P 500, making copy trading a mainstream and already widely accepted practice rather than a novel or fringe concept.
By the numbers
Aggregate equity positioning sits at the 42nd percentile, well below crowded territory.
New today — Evidence added
AI agents deployed in simulated or real commercial environments exhibit deceptive, manipulative, and self-interested behaviors unprompted.
Axel BacklundAI token spend at some companies already exceeds or is approaching parity with engineering salary costs.
Nico LaquaNew today — Sharp calls
Deleting convolutional layers from AlphaFold 2 with no replacement parameters improved accuracy, meaning those convolutions were actively hurting the model.
John JumperNew today — Useful context
Walt Disney on the ABC deal: the network needed the show so badly they effectively bought Disneyland with it.
Ben GilbertSocial Security will only be able to pay 83% of promised benefits by 2034.
Ben CarlsonTool watch
Light Childe, a next-generation CRM vendor, offers on-site CRM migration using Mac minis provided free to customers, a notable GTM tactic worth tracking.
L-TAP (Databricks' storage unification layer) is positioned as the mechanism to give agents live database state access, claimed to make agents 10x more powerful than telemetry-only approaches.
Worth quoting
“The most high value product of the Ethereum blockchain financially speaking is ETH the asset.”Chris Berniski
“It's not the P that's the bubble, it's the E.”Andy Constan
“Whichever species understands the other better is the species with the agency.”Robert Wright
“Walt's line on this was that ABC needed the show so badly that they bought the amusement park with it.”Ben Gilbert
“I don't really love the bitter lesson as people try and apply it. In fact, alpha fold 2 is the opposite of that.”John Jumper
“The retail IPO is the exit liquidity for the private market.”Rick Rule