Field Notes · 10 Jul 2026
Best explained
Why social media algorithms are less semantically sophisticated than users assume: they rely on illegible embedding vectors, not detailed models of user interests.
By the numbers
Booking Holdings repurchased approximately 40% of its outstanding shares over roughly 12 years.
New today — Evidence added
Retail investors bought nearly 3.5 times the average daily amount on S&P 500 down days in H1 2026, the strongest buy-the-dip behavior on record per Citadel Securities data.
Ben CarlsonAfter hitting the lower bound on reserves in late fall 2025, the Fed had to reverse course and grow reserve balances again at roughly $40 billion per month.
Darrell DuffieInstagram has created a new role called 'product staff' that is an evolution of the PM, capable of doing tasks traditionally done by designers, data scientists, and researchers using internal AI tools.
Adam MosseriNew today — Sharp calls
Hanover Park operates with no product managers and no designers, only engineers shipping code directly alongside fund accountants.
Chris HladczukMonday.com, a rule-of-40 company, is trading at only two times revenue.
Jason CalacanisNew today — Useful context
Energy's share of the S&P 500 is ~3% today, but the commodity super-cycle thesis requires it to rise to 10-15%, implying a massive reallocation out of AI/tech.
Jeff CurrieTool watch
Instagram's new 'product staff' role (an evolution of the traditional PM) can perform design, data science, and research tasks using internal AI tools, signaling a structural collapse of specialist roles inside large tech teams.
Worth quoting
“You cannot sell Bitcoin. If you are selling Bitcoin, the whole system breaks.”Michael Saylor
“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
“It's not the stress that burns us down, it's the response to stress.”Martin Picard
“We believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause frontier AI development.”Jason Calacanis
“You're spending a trillion dollars a year and the revenue on AI talk about maybe 70 80 billion.”Rajiv Jain