Sublime

This introduces two important concepts: first, the idea of scaling, which refers to how measurable properties of a system change with its size; second, the concept of economies of scale. The latter means that, as cities grow, they need less of something per person: roads, sewers, or gas stations, for example. What’s more, such economies of scale in

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Silicon Valley is the canonical example of economic agglomeration. The knowledge of how to build, program, and operate computer components was a shared, scarce resource in the early 1960’s. Programmers and technicians often moved between companies, transferring best practices. This collaboration caused companies to release products with complementa... See more

These two factors together make it possible, for the first time, to agglomerate economic activity virtually. Could the next big tech region be built on the internet? All it needs is one big push.

In summary, dense cities agglomerate critical, often scarce resources that can be shared collectively. Utilizing these shared resources, firms are free to specialize and innovate on their small slice of the pie. This combination of shared resources and specialization is the magic that makes cities so productive.

Taxpayers in the top 5 percent of income already pay for more than 43 percent of the U.S. government, and taxpayers in the top 1 percent pay for more than 27 percent; at some point, taking more resources from the wealthy yields diminishing returns. Many of the Obama reforms, including much of the stimulus bill, and the health care bill, redistribut

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In 2020, Avital Balwit had won a Rhodes Scholarship and turned it down, first to run Carrick Flynn’s congressional campaign and then to give away FTX’s money. Leopold Aschenbrenner, who had entered Columbia University at the age of fifteen and graduated four years later as class valedictorian, had just declined a spot at Yale Law School to work for

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