Today's newsletter is the story of how Prabhakar Raghavan, Google's former head of ads - led a coup so that he could run Google Search, and how an email chain from 2019 began a cascade of events that would lead to him running it into the ground.

wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-ki…

One funny thing about working on billion dollar server fleets is knowing that the logic keeping the world running looks like

if hung: reboot()
if disk_full: reboot()
if weirdbehavior: reboot()

if remediations.count > 3: reimage()
if remediations.count > 5: sendtorepair()

This is what software engineers see in their heads when they get into mechanical keyboards

What's your level of experience with writing code?

theres alot written on how ai/deepfaked voices can be used to make somebody look bad/say things that are damaging, but not alot of how people might exploit it for a candidates benefit? ie make them sound more assertive, cool, etc.

Another critical vulnerability in Mastodon. This exact type of security exploit is why I'm not on decentralized social media despite this place being a dumpster fire

theregister.com/2024/02/02/cri…

And the winner is... Palantir!

Funnily enough this poll was inspired by a Palantir VP: joining a mid-stage startup, recreating their command structure by hiring their previous subordinates, consolidating power, and then doing mass layoffs because 'we don't need a Product org'

'Aw shit, our new VP came from ________'

Fun game: go to any post from the Stancil vs. Literally Every Racist saga, and calculate the percentage of racists among the blue checks

The signal:noise ratio for the blue check as a proxy for 'does this person hate brown people' is approaching 1:1

Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin: 'Coincidentally, several of these companies implemented common sense child safety improvements within the last week, days before their CEOs would have to justify their lack of action before this committee.'

X announced a new safety center..

Study of codebases over a 4 year period show Github Copilot lowers the quality of code over time by increasing the likelihood of bugs being introduced and copy & pasted code.

This is a healthy counterpoint to studies that show improved productivity.

Fast. Cheap. Good. Pick Two.

mister science policy All “FinTech” companies do is try to make as much money as possible before they face a nine-figure settlement with regulators

2016. Donald Trump is running for president. Your pretty friend got a job at Boeing. You're going with her to catch a MewTwo at the park. Maybe...

2024. Donald Trump is running for president. 737s keep exploding. You're in a discord server called GOON SQUAD giving Beedrill a gun

BRUH