History | Foreign Affairs | Geopolitics
Joined July 2023
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King Simeon II of Bulgaria is the last surviving Axis leader of WWII.
I recently visited him in Sofia to discuss his dynasty, his remarkable life, and the rise and fall of empires.
The lesson of a long life, and of ruling a small country, Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha suggests, is that minor states are perennially at the mercy of greater powers, writes @carsonjbecker on.wsj.com/4ve9iKs
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This Veterans Day, we are releasing Ben Braddock’s conversation with SGM (Ret.) Mike Vining.
From defuzing bombs as a teenager in Vietnam to fighting in some of Delta Force’s toughest missions, Vining reflects on his life of service and sacrifice. im1776.com/mike-vining-inter…
This is an incredible piece of journalism.
I visited the Last Ditch lesbian bar
mamathemagazine.com/the-last…
One of the many things I found interesting about my conversation @LarsenJensenUSA: how he compares training for the Olympics to BUD/S, and how both of these trials compare to investing in early stage companies with millions of dollars on the line. Different risk profiles, different challenges, but each very difficult in its own way.
"In the military, we mitigate risk as much as we possibly can. There are go/no-go criteria for every single operation. You have contingencies for every phase of the operation. You train to it. And still, edge cases occur, and the enemy gets a vote.
So I actually think that preparation process is well suited for venture. We mitigate risk as much as we can, but different from the military, we need to take more risk in venture, because the losses don't matter — it's how big the winner is."
In today's installment of Principals, @carsonjbecker interviews Olympian, Navy SEAL, and venture capitalist @LarsenJensenUSA for @arenamag
2/ What is the Antichrist? In Thiel’s telling, it combines a charismatic political leader with the might of the American Empire, the “New Rome.”
Using the existing architecture of a universal, centralized world system (tools like the ICC, SWIFT, and other means to control capital, people, and commerce), this person is likely to use the promise of peace and safety as a tool to consolidate power.
With social pressures mounting across the West, and rampant fears over AI and World War III, Thiel believes that there is little remaining time to stop the Antichrist.
On Monday night’s lecture, Peter Thiel argued that Democrats no longer really care about the Ivy League. His evidence:
-Gavin Newsom (Santa Clara)
-Josh Shapiro (Rochester, Georgetown Law)
-Jon Ossoff (Georgetown, LSE)
-Joe Biden (Delaware)
-Kamala Harris (Howard)
If we add Mamdani (Bowdoin) and AOC (BU), the trend is even clearer.
NYC 10/15. DM if interested!
The @arenamag roadshow is coming to Manhattan on Thursday. There will be magazines, drinks, and propaganda. Subscribers already got the invite but we've got some more room, so if you want to attend, inquire within.
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Peter Thiel’s third Nashville lecture will begin shortly. The Antichrist tour will conclude next week.
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Nokia has one of the more remarkable corporate histories. Having reinvented itself and come back from the brink on more than one occasion, it is an enduring monument to Finnish ingenuity.
I wrote a piece on the rise and fall of Nokia’s dominant mobile phone empire for issue 009 of Arena Magazine.
The name Nokia comes from an ancient manor house sitting at the confluence of two rivers near the city of Tampere in western Finland — a history that, according to legend, stretches back to 1270. A village sprouted there in the 19th century; in 1865, the entrepreneur Fredrik Idestam, returning from a long trip abroad where he had discovered new German methods of producing paper from wood pulp, established a paper factory on the site.
Nokia was reorganized as the shared company Nokia Ab in 1871, when Finland was still a Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire. The paper mills that proliferated across Finland in that era became the basis of the entire national economy for generations. In 1967, after a merger, the Nokia Corporation was formally incorporated and structured as a single entity.
By the end of the 20th century, it was one of the world’s most valuable companies at over $250 billion, trailing just behind Walmart and Intel.
The Rise and Fall of Finland's Techno Empire by @carsonjbecker in Arena Magazine Issue 010
Sigfried Hecker is one of the only outsiders to be granted access to North Korea’s nuclear weapons facilities.
We discussed his time as director of @LosAlamosNatLab and the North Korean nukes in my latest interview for @arenamag.
"We used to say in the United States during the Cold War that the Soviet Union was our adversary, but Lawrence Livermore was our enemy."
For Arena, @carsonjbecker sits down with former Los Alamos director Siegfried Hecker to discuss North Korea, the collapse of the USSR, proliferation, and why more nuclear states would make the world far more dangerous.
Databricks founder @istoica05 is among the most prolific academic-entrepreneurs of the 21st century.
I spoke with the renowned computer scientist and Berkeley professor for Issue 009 of @arenamag.
“The best open-source models are now coming from China, because, ironically, they are more open than the US."
@istoica05 cofounded Databricks, valued at $190 billion, and Anyscale. He’s also a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Berkeley, where his lab produced Apache Spark, one of the most influential pieces of data infrastructure ever created. In Arena 009,
@carsonjbecker talks with Stoica about the closing of American AI research, the accidental origins of Spark, and the future of academic computer science.
I had a fascinating conversation with @derekchollet, who runs JPMorgan’s Center for Geopolitics. We discuss energy, China, and the Iran war, among other topics.
Read it @arenamag.
@derekchollet says that at JPMorganChase, geopolitics is everyone's second or third job: senior people track it on top of the work they were hired to do. So the bank created a Center for Geopolitics and staffed it with former senior policymakers. Chollet — a Pentagon, State Department, and White House veteran — runs it.
Read @carsonjbecker 's latest Principals interview on our site.
I reviewed Treasured Island, Michael Gross’s new book about St. Barth.
An outpost of France in the Antilles, the tiny island is, at certain times of the year, one of the wealthiest places on earth.
@HarperCollins @dcexaminer
MAGAZINE: ‘Treasured Island’ is a definitive look at the elite island of St. Barth trib.al/8QqfWHp
@praddenkeefe is a very talented writer. But in his latest book, London Falling, Keefe chooses the wrong story through which to narrate London’s decline.
My latest book review for the @dcexaminer
MAGAZINE: A glimpse into a city’s sordid decline in ‘London Falling’ trib.al/sRlI8AT
