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AI, economics, travel, robotics, human behavior, and enterprise systems, explored through simulations, experiments, calculators, and essays.

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live data · refreshed daily · Oct 14, 2026

Layoff Tracker · Live

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Job Market Blueprint

updated Oct 14, 2026

Company # Laid Off Reason Announced

Daktronics Inc. Restructuring Oct 14 Builders FirstSource −82 Not stated (WARN notice) Oct 13 Mesa Laboratories Inc. −40 Restructuring Oct 13 Premier Air Charter Holdings Inc. −37 Restructuring Oct 13

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Shiller PE / VIX · Daily

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PE / VIX ratio

2.48 −0.26

HIGH +99% vs avg

CAPE 41.84 · VIX 16.87 · updated Oct 14, 2026

Heat 65/100 Sahm 0.00 pp Curve +0.47% (open the Market Heat dashboard)

90 days agoToday

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What AI really costs, token by token

A two minute guide to how AI models are priced, why output costs more than input, and what a team really spends.

Open the AI Price Tracker → Prices from public list rates, as of Oct 10, 2026

Latest videos

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Music: "Wholesome" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 4.0.

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Music: "Wholesome" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 4.0.

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Open the Severance Pay Calculator

LABS

Personal Finance

F.I.R.E

Every financially independent person has a number.

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Career & Work

Severance Pay

Estimate what a fair severance package looks like and where you have leverage to negotiate.

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Market Indicators

ShillerPE - VIX

This ratio provides insight into market valuation relative to expected volatility.

Open →+.18%Education

College Savings

Instantly compare five different savings vehicles side by side.

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Personal Finance

Debt Payoff

Run all three scenarios side by side — Avalanche, Snowball, and your own custom order — against a minimums-only baseline.

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Environmental

Backyard Bird Habitat Score

Take a picture of your yard and see how you can improve the environment for birds.

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Why AI Will Grow Some White Collar Jobs and Delete Others

7 min

The Comp Lag

7 min

The Proof Premium

7 min

Analytics

The Proxy Collapse: When Web Traffic Stops Being Human

8 min

Tesla's China Exit Sets Up a Tariff Play With a Privacy Cost

6 min

What Survives When AI Becomes a Commodity

7 min

Enterprise AI Is an Organizational Design Problem in Disguise

8 min

AI Is Ending A 150-Year Old Experiment

8 min

Vibe Coding Without a CS Degree

8 min

Career

Laid Off: How to Cut Expenses and Find Your Purpose

5 min

Enterprise Software Sales

AI Build Trap: Why Bespoke Software Is the Wrong Bet Right Now

7 min Audio

Work

Severance Packages: 6 Terms Most People Never Negotiate

7 min Audio

Economics

Why Things Cost More (Inflation for beginners)

21 min

Economics

The Three Dials of Inflation (advanced)

14 min

When the Model Learns from a Storm That Never Happened

20 min Audio

The Velocity Gap: Why AI Will Collapse Housing Before Washington Notices

8 min Audio

How AI Is Shifting from Building to Growth

4 min Audio

The Next Scarcity Is Already Inside Your Head

8 min Audio

One thoughtful post a week. No hot takes, no AI hype cycles. Just clear writing on the technologies actually reshaping how we work and live.

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3 tools — carbon footprint, habitat & more

Named ideas

My Idea Frameworks

Short definitions of the frameworks I keep coming back to, each linked to the article where it comes from.

See all My Idea Frameworks

Careers & Work

Organizations redesign their go-to-market in months and their compensation plans in years, because comp is where an organization's real beliefs live. You have a Comp Lag when your pricing and your sales...

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Markets & Economy

The Velocity Gap

A two-to-five-year window where AI eliminates income faster than housing prices can adjust and far faster than governments can respond. It is three problems moving at different speeds: AI displacement (fast), housing...

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Trust & Security

The Proof Premium

The amount of proof a decision deserves scales with the loss you take if the proof turns out to be wrong. Proof should be priced to the value at risk, the way...

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See all My Idea Frameworks (44)

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