Conversations
Find your way into the big questions.
Clear arguments. Useful context. Room to disagree.
Start here.
Six ways into the ideas shaping the year.
Can the AI buildout pay for itself?
Demand is growing. The harder question is whether chips, lenders and customers can all earn a return.
Explore the question Money & MarketsCan growth outrun the debt?
Growth helps the debt arithmetic. Durable repair still requires choices about spending, revenue and refinancing.
Explore the question Power & PolicyCan protection rebuild industrial strength?
Protection can buy time to build capacity. Whether that capacity becomes competitive is the harder test.
Explore the question Science & HealthWhat does affordable energy abundance require?
Affordable power needs generation, delivery and reliability—and a clear answer about who pays for expansion.
Explore the question Media & EducationWho gets to decide what platforms carry?
The difficult cases involve indirect pressure, changing platform rules and laws that cross borders.
Explore the question Power & PolicyWhat would a workable immigration settlement require?
Border control, humane enforcement and workable legal routes are linked—but they are not the same decision.
Explore the questionExplore all conversations.
A mix of themes. Search or filter to narrow your focus.
27 conversations
- AI & Work
Can the AI buildout pay for itself?
Demand is growing. The harder question is whether chips, lenders and customers can all earn a return.
- Money & Markets
Can growth outrun the debt?
Growth helps the debt arithmetic. Durable repair still requires choices about spending, revenue and refinancing.
- Power & Policy
Can protection rebuild industrial strength?
Protection can buy time to build capacity. Whether that capacity becomes competitive is the harder test.
- Science & Health
What does affordable energy abundance require?
Affordable power needs generation, delivery and reliability—and a clear answer about who pays for expansion.
- Media & Education
Who gets to decide what platforms carry?
The difficult cases involve indirect pressure, changing platform rules and laws that cross borders.
- Power & Policy
What would a workable immigration settlement require?
Border control, humane enforcement and workable legal routes are linked—but they are not the same decision.
- AI & Work
Open models and the frontier premium
Open models can win routine work without eliminating the premium for the hardest tasks.
- Money & Markets
What would make housing affordable?
Affordability depends on homes getting built at a cost people can pay—not just on limiting the rent of existing units.
- Science & Health
Why are effective medicines so expensive?
Drug prices reflect the purchasing system as well as the medicine. Lower costs need not come from one lever.
- Media & Education
Who captures the value creators make?
Distribution creates reach. Ownership determines how much of the lasting value a creator keeps.
- Power & Policy
Why doesn't more spending deliver better services?
Better services require changing incentives and delivery—not just raising budgets or promising cuts.
- AI & Work
Does AI replace jobs or expand work?
Tasks can disappear while output and employment grow. The gains and losses need not reach the same people.
- Money & Markets
Who gets access before the IPO?
Broader access matters only if investors can understand the price, the rights and the route back to cash.
- Science & Health
How do we fund scientific breakthroughs?
Funding breakthroughs means choosing who gets support, which risks to take and how to learn from failure.
- Media & Education
Does AI help us learn?
AI can deliver explanations and practice. Learning still requires students to do the thinking.
- Power & Policy
H‑1B visas: talent, fees and fair competition
The $100,000 fee debate exposes competing ways to select talent, protect workers and limit abuse.
- AI & Work
What software survives AI?
AI can replace an interface without replacing the records, permissions and workflows behind it.
- Money & Markets
Can stablecoins change everyday finance?
Faster dollar payments can change finance—but users, issuers and banks want different parts of the value.
- Science & Health
How fast should medical breakthroughs reach patients?
Faster access and better evidence can support each other—but an experiment is not proof of benefit.
- Power & Policy
Why are voters turning against the establishment?
When people see no route to security or ownership, attacks on the system can gain force across party lines.
- AI & Work
From AI demos to dependable work
Useful agents need the right context, bounded authority and a workflow people can supervise.
- Money & Markets
Has venture capital outgrown its returns?
More money can raise valuations faster than it creates companies capable of returning the capital.
- Power & Policy
Can public safety coexist with privacy?
Useful public-safety tools need limits on collection, access and misuse—not just promises of good intentions.
- AI & Work
When do robots become useful workers?
Useful robots solve valuable physical problems reliably—not necessarily by looking or working like people.
- Power & Policy
What counts as success in Iran?
Disarming a threat, ending a war and producing a stable political order are different definitions of success.
- AI & Work
Who should control powerful AI?
AI oversight must address harm without handing a few firms or officials control over the market.
- Power & Policy
Can the U.S. build defense capacity fast enough?
More funding creates capacity only when contracts, factories and repeated orders support delivery.