Coppola didn’t want to direct The Godfather. But George Lucas convinced him it was a worthwhile compromise that would finance the “real” movies they wanted to make.

Japan “will become the easiest place in the world to develop AI apps, thanks to legal changes that mean organizations won’t need to secure consent to use some personal information.”

Th Four Stages of Offices Grief, finally reaching Acceptance. WSJ: “Landlords and their lenders held on to their office towers for years, hoping for a turnaround after Covid. Now, they are accepting enormous losses.“

The most productive technologies affect the output of the fewest people.

Who could have seen this coming…

The bad news: The economy is a lottery The good news: Tickets have never been cheaper

"There is a surge in software job postsing" The surge:

It’s easier to imagine the future than to believe it once it arrives.

AI isn’t replacing anyone yet. It’s revealing who hasn’t been necessary for a while.

Don’t worry about jobs. Worry about income distribution.

Naturally…

During World War 2, the British secret service employed an astrologer to publish horoscopes that would upset Hitler.

Two years ago, my editor wouldn't let me say it. Now, everyone is feeling it. www.drorpoleg.com/welcome-to-t...

It’s becoming impossible to ignore. The “jobless boom” has been visible for more than two years now. But people didn’t want to believe it.

Maduro: Am I finished? Claude: You’re absolutely right!

They told you AI would hit a wall. They didn’t tell you it’ll be your office wall.

Bloomberg: Real estate services companies stocks sink “as investors decided they’re next on the AI hit parade as a new crop of applications and tools threatens to disrupt several industries.”

Meta is spending $135 billion on computing infrastructure. That's roughly the cost of rebuilding every single office tower in Midtown Manhattan. In one year.

Ford CEO: "So far, only 10% of our operations can be roboticized; with humanoid robots, maybe it’s 20%. But it’s not going to be 80%." www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv1k...

"The Trumps have generated about $1.4 billion from crypto projects that are new to his second term, a Bloomberg analysis shows."

Em dashes are a sign of intelligence — artificial or otherwise.

Prediction markets are a conspiracy to make young people read the news.

Technology doesn't replicate human work. It repackages it. Who will get canned in 2026? www.drorpoleg.com/who-will-get...

“There were in total 1.17 million job cuts through 2025, the highest level since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020”

As I said at the time: Open source AI models like DeepSeek are a bigger threat to China than they are to America. Publicly, the Chinese government celebrates them. But privately, it is scrambling to plug a hole that cannot be plugged. Lines of code always find their way out.

We’re all degenerates now.

“Opposition to data centers is accelerating. In Q2 2025 alone, an estimated $98 billion in projects were blocked or delayed, more than the total for all previous quarters since 2023.” www.datacenterwatch.org/q22025

"In the 1980s, almost 75% of thirtysomething New Yorkers earning the equivalent of $100,000 in today’s money owned their own home. Today that figure is less than 50%... it should come as no surprise to see young people holding the strongest zero-sum attitudes..."

Innovation, markets, politics, show business, and some classic literature. Here are the books I enjoyed most in 2025. www.drorpoleg.com/books-i-enjo...

Your chatbot isn’t creative enough? Give it some drugs! A new marketplace sells lines of code that can be added to your preferred AI tool to simulate the influence of popular substances

Money never sleeps, why should you? This will advantage professional traders, and help push amateur ones towards automated trading tools.

The hottest job in America: Storyteller. The percentage of LinkedIn job postings in the U.S. that include the term “storyteller” doubled in 2025. Meanwhile, corporate earnings calls and investor-day mentions of "storyteller" and "storytelling" are up 30% from 2024 and 220% from 2015.

All business is show business.

NYC should learn from the best city on earth: In Tokyo, you can't buy a car unless you own/rent a place to park it. And no one is allowed to park in the street, *even* if they pay.

"Walmart Inc. discovered it could charge 40% more for Walmart+ by offering to put away people’s groceries exactly where they want them." www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Bloomberg NEF expects data-center power demand to reach 106 GW by 2035 — a 36% jump from the previous outlook, published just seven months ago.

NYC is the most expensive city in the world — unless you're a car. "There are roughly 3 million on-street parking spaces in New York... Only about 80,000 are metered. The rest are free." Here's a way to fund free buses: Start charging cars for street parking. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/o...

"the cost of AI will converge to the cost of energy... the abundance of it will be limited by the abundance of energy." — Sam Altman, 2025

Great chart from Blackstone: Vacancy by asset type. Offices are as vacant as ever; data centers are as busy as they've ever been.

WSJ: 30 million square feet of NYC office space has been converted to apartments over the past two decades, “with the pace of transformation picking up”

How most companies “experiment” with AI…

Which one do you use? Gemini app downloads are catching up to ChatGPT.

Companies are betting they can grow without hiring. They are not wrong. The basic relationship between inputs and outputs has changed: you can create much more value without adding much more labor or raw materials. This trend has been unfolding for fifty years. AI is intensifying it.

Bubbler no bubble, AI hype is sparking a long overdue renaissance of atomic energy. “The UK is following the US in seeking to fast-track new atomic development, spurred on by the need to provide enough energy for its AI ambitions plus the increasing electrification of industry and vehicles.“

Software is finally bumping into physical constraints. Google wants to double its AI infrastructure every six months. But our energy capacity cannot grow fast enough to meet demand.

This is on point. The Cambridge Dictionary's Word Of The Year for 2025 is... Parasocial: "involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know, a character in a book, film, TV series, etc., or an artificial intelligence"

Of course, there is a restaurant with AI-made recipes and "3D-printed shawarmas", and of course, it's in Dubai.

AI funding is moving from cash flow to debt. A sign the party is about to end — or a whole new phase is just getting started? WSJ/Jason Zweig: “Between Sept. 1 and Nov. 13… big tech companies issued more bonds than they had in the previous three calendar years combined”

Unemployment is still low, but humans are drifting towards less pleasant jobs. Bloomberg: “Jobseekers are applying for roles that were often shunned in the past, such as directing traffic and working at materials recovery facilities”

WSJ: “Tesla is now requiring its suppliers to exclude China-made components in the manufacturing of its cars in the U.S.”