Agentic Spending, Weekend Whats
You can pay me now or you can pay me later. You can pay layaway, you can pay on credit, you can pay out of pocket, you can pay through the nose, you can pay an arm and a leg, you can pay dues, respects, dearly, heed, homage, lip service, compliments, cash on the barrelhead, the piper, peanuts, under the table, over the table, the ultimate price, or you can gladly pay me Tuesday. In the shadow of an election that was all about affordability, it seems like the last thing you need is a new way to pay. But agentic AI is here, and one of its supposedly excellent features is that it creates a new way to separate you from your money, and you don’t even have to be part of the process. You give the agent your credit card or banking info, and it will go out and manage transactions for you. That might sound like a big leap for consumers, but it’s a bigger leap for those on the receiving end of those payments (United Airlines is the latest company to ban AI agents), and an even bigger leap (and concern) for the industry that has been built over decades to manage those transactions. “Meta’s Muse, Instinct and other personal AI assistants have been empowered in recent weeks to make purchases on behalf of cardholders, marking new steps toward a potential future where consumers no longer need to initiate a purchase or press ‘buy’ at checkout. That is generating buzz and excitement about AI bots’ ability to create a new world order in payments. But inside banks and other payments companies and merchants, worries abound about the implications and whether bots will lead to elevated cases of fraud and returns, and open new legal risks. Early camps are already being formed.” WSJ (Gift Article): AI bots are using credit cards. Banks are racing to keep up. (alt link). “The systems that power payments today are built on byzantine rules, fraud protections, federal laws and network and bank fees that aren’t intended for robots. This ecosystem has long been in a state of constant tension between merchants, networks that set fees and rules, and card issuers that extend credit to consumers. Move one piece or change one fee even by a cent and the impact can quickly ripple into billions of dollars won and lost.” (I’d hold off on sharing your financial information with agents until things shake out and we know the systems are safe. There’s no need to turn your piggy bank into a guinea pig. You can pay me no mind, but excellent advice like this is why they pay me the big bucks.)
You Just Grab Em By the Portfolio
The fallout from the Nvidia story continues to take a toll on our psyches (and our portfolios). From Bloomberg (Gift Article): ‘I’m a Piece of Sh-t’: Jensen Huang’s Last Hours as Nvidia CEO. (With that kind of self-contempt, he should really consider writing a daily newsletter). From Stephen Witt in the NYT (Gift Article): I Wrote Jensen Huang’s Biography. Here’s What Led to His Downfall. “When I wrote my biography of Mr. Huang, I titled it ‘The Thinking Machine.’ The name referred to the microchips that powered A.I., but also to Mr. Huang’s marauding, relentless intellect, which never slowed down or turned off. In the wake of his stunning departure, spurred by revelations that he carried on at least two affairs, one with a woman whom U.S. intelligence determined is a Chinese spy, and another with one of his direct reports, I should write a sequel: ‘The What-Were-You-Thinking?! Machine.'”
+ As much as this is a business story and a corporate leadership lesson, the more we learn, the more we’ll realize that this is first and foremost a political scandal of Trumpian proportions. It goes right to the top, so someone on the way up has gotta take the fall. And anyone following the leaks can see the knives are out for the commerce secretary. Howard Lutnick under pressure over alleged lack of action. (The one good thing about this administration is that no matter who gets punished for something, they deserve it.)
+ “In May 2025, Trump’s administration rescinded a Biden-era rule designed to prevent the most advanced US-made AI chips from being exported to China.” But not until Trump loaded up on Nvidia stock. (You just grab them by the portfolio. When you’re president, they just let you do it.)
+ “One lesson of the Jensen Huang scandal is that policy makers gave extraordinary influence to technology executives whose commercial interests did not always align with American interests. His departure offers a rare opportunity to rethink the assumptions that have underpinned AI strategy for the past two years, address mounting concerns about the technology, and establish a new approach that protects both American AI leadership and public safety.” Thomas Wright in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Jensen Huang Scandal Should Change Everything. Don’t get your hopes up. Should is doing a lot of work in that headline.
+ And if you missed it yesterday, I covered everything from the data center-sized portfolio losses, to the megawatt-powered affairs, to the unfair hit to the leather-wearing community: The Honey Trapdoor.
Pick and Troll
“Fox News’ fixation on the league dawned on me slowly, especially since I don’t consume Fox News myself. The first clue came at a family gathering. A conservative relative started name-dropping WNBA players, praising superstar Caitlin Clark while parroting right-wing conspiracy theories about Black players. This person has never seen a WNBA game in their life. But they do mainline Fox News on cable TV.” A very interesting analysis about how the pathetic jerks at Fox News can spoil anything, even something as awesome and uplifting as the WNBA. Melanie Walsh with Jan Diehm in The Pudding: Why is Fox News obsessed with the WNBA? This is about one sport, but it’s really about the way Fox News covers everything, and it will help explain where your crazy uncle got the ideas he’ll be sharing over Thanksgiving dinner.
Weekend Whats
What to Watch: Black Doves on Netflix, starring Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw, is like The Diplomat, meets Slow Horses, meets John Wick. It’s fun and fast-paced, and season two is better than season one (especially the addition of Ambika Mod).
+ What to Book: In a follow-up to his excellent novel The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach returns to the fictional campus of Westish College in his new and excellent novel, The Brightness. As Tom Perrotta says, “The Brightness is a monumental campus novel, full of smart and mercurial characters who feel as real as your own roommates.” (I swear, my freshman year college roommate was the president of the Berkeley Young Republicans. I once accidentally walked in on him and his girlfriend having sex. And I’ve been a Democrat ever since…)
Extra, Extra
River Boat Collision: “A river boat with over 100 passengers was struck on Friday by a much larger tanker ship, capsizing the cruise vessel and prompting a major rescue effort in the Mississippi River near the French Quarter.” The video and images from the scene are crazy. Rescue operations are underway. Here’s the latest.
+ A One Point Five Alarm Fire: “Scientists for years have warned that allowing global average temperatures to rise 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels would result in a profoundly more dangerous world. Extreme heat will become more common and more intense. Storms will become more powerful and destructive. Sea levels will rise. And poor countries will bear the brunt of the damage.” At this point, 1.5 is a pipe dream (and the temperature inside that pipe just set a record). A Key Paris Agreement Goal Is Dead. What Now?
+ Appetite for Self Destruction: Republicans acknowledge voters rejected them (Yay, smart!) but show little appetite for breaking with Trump (Yay, good for the Dems in 2028).
+ The Killer App: After the warnings about AI destroying humanity, it was good old email that overpowered the system. A negative Outlook: Microsoft scrambles to fix email outage. “Very little is known so far about what is behind the outage, but Microsoft has attributed it to an ‘elevated load,’ or servers becoming overstretched. The tech giant assured users it was doing everything it could to fix the problem.” (I’d write an inappropriate pun about elevated loads, but I’m spent after a week of Nvidia jokes.)
+ Times Up Chuck? “Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland announced on Thursday that he would challenge Senator Chuck Schumer of New York for majority leader, setting up a clash among Democrats just as they were celebrating their new majority.” (Infighting is how Dems celebrate!)
+ Muting the Executioner’s Song: The excellent Bryan Stevenson in the NYT (Gift Article): “The death penalty in America is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit; it is about whether our imperfect governments deserve to kill. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s commutation last week of all of California’s 548 death sentences to life imprisonment without parole is a remarkable act of moral leadership.”
+ The Brink: “Matt Lambert, a former emergency room physician and health care technology executive, shot five people and then himself on Thursday in D.C., apparently motivated by a bitter, ongoing and all-consuming legal dispute with the Metropole Condominium Association and the building’s property manager.” Michael Brice-Saddler in The Washington Sun: What the Logan Circle Shooter Told Me.
Feel Good Friday
From my neck of the woods: Teen surfers help save person after jump from Golden Gate Bridge.
+ After 40 years apart, a Chilean mother reunites with two children stolen during dictatorship.
+ Boy found alive after 6 days lost in Australian wilderness: “He’s grounded for life.”
+ Her dog sensed something was wrong with her baby. It may have saved his life.
+ These Male Dolphins Do Something Rare: Day Care.
+ A New York Construction Worker Fell for a Tiny Car—and Started a Rebellion.
+ Raccoon Who Passed Out After Liquor Store Break-In Has Now Raised $290,000 for Animal Shelter. (There’s almost certainly a lesson in here somewhere…)
