Every Friday

you must assume the responsibility for what you believe

Happy Independence Day crew.

We hope your boss has been out all week & you’re logged off and parked on a patio somewhere.

One of us is commemorating our escape from the UK by watching hours of British content (Wimbledon). After yet another year of failed attempts at scoring tickets, I (James) will be observing from home with a Miller Lite in one hand and a Pimm’s Cup in the other. American exceptionalism meets lightly spiced gin liqueur.

Do us one favor this weekend: please don’t be one of the 45,000 ER visits this weekend. We like our subscribers in one piece.

Happy birthday America. We love ya.

Let’s get into it.

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” I say the same to you—you must assume the responsibility for what you believe.

— Richard Hamming

Is a man a coward if he realizes that bravery is just a myth the old tell the young so they line up for the meatgrinder?

— Pierce Brown

Top of Mind

Suzy Weiss: Admit It, Being an Adult Is Hard (The Free Press)

I realized, as technology progresses, the human hand moves further and further away from everyday life.

The stark slap in the face that real life gives you as you move from early twenties, to late twenties, to early thirties is familiar for most of us here. I (Jack) just concluded navigating my first 401k transfer from employer to employer and it was rough. Woes like these have sprouted a whole new cottage industry all focused around how adulting gets done.

10 Year AI Moratorium is Officially Out (TBPN)

“If the largest states mandate something, suddenly you comply nationally, not because you want to, but because they bend the entire industry.”

Big tech has been pouring money into lobbying and spending a lot of political capital on the AI moratorium. We see both sides of the argument. As we’ve said before, 10 years is a long damn time. Zak Kukoff had a great take on how the industry would head state legislation on TBPN this week.

Sleeper Engineer Draining YC Startup Equity (Soham Parekh)

“Earlier today, I signed an exclusive founding deal to be founding engineer at one company and one company only. They were the only ones willing to bet on me at this time. The team is cracked, they back misfits, and they’re building something absolutely insane in the video AI space.”

If you follow tech media at all you know all about Soham and his multi-engineering quest turned multi-former engineering quest. We know most of you probably don’t keep up with the latest tpot twitter so including this story felt necessary. In short, this guy was silently working for ~20 startups until it broke yesterday, that founders started firing him and sharing their story on X. Either this guy is cracked or these founders are cursed.

Traditions and rituals are all around us. My mom’s hors d’oeuvres on a Christmas Eve night, choosing to only smoke cigs at that one specific dive bar, or starting new traditions like a yearly pilgrimage to my wife and I’s favorite little village in Guatemala. They’re embedded in our life, yet the word tradition seems to have left the day-to-day vocabulary. It’s getting less cool to do the same things over and over again. We’ve already done that. Let’s do something else. Individuality is a tradition killer. — Go read our first guest essay from Dave

ICYMI: Happy Hour Edition

• Figma IPO - Fast Company

• America at 250 - The Free Press

• Dune's Denis Villeneuve to direct the next James Bond - NPR

Best of Substack this Week

• Building a Life You Don’t Need to Escape From -

  Smart is Sexy

• The World Is Flat -

  Dylan Hattem

• On Tradition -

  David Weflen

It’s Not That Deep, Randy

on X

on X

on X

on X

Thanks for reading — or for mega scrolling all the way down here.

The internet is an overwhelming mess of headlines, ads, and mid takes from the worst people you know. Big Tech owns our attention spans. Everything is content. Nothing makes sense.

We’re not here to “fix discourse” or “build a better internet.” Relay is just our attempt to riff on what we’re already talking about at happy hour without feeling like we’ve been hit by a content truck. Some analysis, some memes, call it a day.

You might like it. Tag along.

We also have Quick Reflections you can check out:

• Why our favorite places are rarely fancy

• Who you choose to move forward with

• Souls aren’t boring, Greg

• Existential dread in elementary school

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