Spero in Dialogue
6/17–6/21
Each week, we like to share links, books, movies, and content that the team found interesting. Hopefully it helps the world get to know us a little better, and maybe some interesting patterns will emerge.
Shripriya Mahesh
Notes on the persistence of the four largest ancient religions (Michael’s Notebook)
Loved this piece on why the four major religions have persisted. It’s an exploration without answers, but through the exploration Michael touches on the art of storytelling, the value and meaning of myth, and why it’s hard to now develop new religions.
Lisa Zieger
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon (Kevin Fedarko)
At the end of May, my husband Matt and I hiked from the South Rim to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in a single day — it was brutal, but we loved it. Since then, we’ve been listening to A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon by Kevin Fedarko. Kevin sets out with some friends to hike not just the Rim to Rim, but the entire canyon. Let’s just say I’m very glad I read this after we completed our adventure!
Stephen Wemple
Robotics, FOMO, Scaling Laws, & Technology Forecasting (Michael Dempsey Blog)
A lot of ways to win in the venture game and few do it in a more impressive, intellectually honest, and contrarian way than the Compound folks + the other real thesis driven investors. Loved this post and good reminder of the caliber of competition our there.
Marc Tarpenning
Introducing Gen-3 Alpha. A new frontier for high-fidelity, controllable video generation. (Runway ML)
Text to video AI generation continues to improve at a rather startling pace. It really could create a whole new kind of storytelling.
Andrew Parker
The Kona Files (The New Yorker)
Nothing new called out to me this week, but this one has permanent residency in my brain. The New Yorker longread on the HP Board’s “pretexting” scandal is a classic. This article walked so that a flock of Netflix tech scandal docu-dramas could run.
