You've probably heard. "Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, said the company was paying $6.5 billion to buy IO, a one-year-old start-up created by Jony Ive, a former top Apple executive who designed the iPhone. The all-stock deal, which effectively unites Silicon Valley royalty, is intended to usher in what the two men call “a new family of products” for the age of artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I., which is shorthand for a future technology that achieves human-level intelligence."

There’s a moment—fragile, luminous—when the world as it is trembles just enough to glimpse the world as it might be. That’s what this week at Edge Esmeralda felt like. Not just a gathering. Not a hackathon. Not a think tank retreat. But a living invocation. A prototype of a future we’ve nearly forgotten how to imagine. Out of that soil, something ancient-yet-new took root: the first seeds of the Second Foundation.For those of us following the arc of California’s civic imagination, there was a...

My original plan for a reconstructed lost story from the Epic Cycle was to self-publish it in the next six to nine months. But why wait? My revised plan is still to self-publish the book, but in the meantime, to drop a web serial edition that starts on Monday, June 2nd.

Chains need a thesis.A clear thesis unlocks clear product use cases.Use cases unlock direction. Direction drives momentum. @akshaybd’s talk on Internet Capital Markets really shifted my thinking around what’s possible to build on Solana. His idea of “universal basic ownership”—where anyone with internet access can own a stake in the economy—is powerful. That’s the promise. But we need to make it real and relatabl...

I got a notice in the mail this week for a public meeting related to Toronto's multiplex zoning by-law. Multiplexes are house-like buildings with two, three or four dwelling units. This housing type became newly permissible across the city in May 2023, but as part of the approval, the city was asked to keep an eye on things and report back on items that might need to be changed. What is now being proposed are amendments to this original by-law. One change is the introduction of the term "hous...

It's a jam packed release day for Coop Recs. With new tracks from legends like Disco Lines, Felly, San Holo, Swimming Paul and Devault alongside the debut of the anonymous artist Zoey808 - this is easily one of our most jam-packed Friday's in months. We're reaching a critical juncture at Coop Recs - we have no shortage of great music coming onto the platform. Our backlog of artists and song in the queue is growing by the day, and we're being extremely intention to keep the vibe super curated ...

Setting the StageThere’s a phrase we all love to repeat in crypto: “It’s still Day 1.” And sure, when it comes to the grand arc of this industry — the tech, the innovation, the vision — that statement is true. But for some of us? It’s not Day 1 anymore. It’s the 7th inning, and time is running out.What Went DownLately I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between the funded and the freelancers in Web3.Yes, we’re still early. Yes, the future of crypto looks bright. But some of us are t...

Some quick points from what we're curious about this week: Farcaster choosing 10k pro subs...

We just launched a new feature on BP.fun called Streaks. This is a loyalty system created to reward consistency, track support behavior, and directly influence leaderboard rankings and jackpot rewards.Why Streaks MatterStreaks are one of the clearest signals of loyalty. They reflect how often you show up and support creators. Each day that you mint from a creator on BP.fun counts toward your streak. The longer your streak, the stronger your presence on the platform. Your streak now plays a ro...

e're reshaping the Base brand. Not from the top down, but from the ground up. With artists. With builders. With you. Now, we’re sharing the first step. We started with building blocks. Blank canvases. Pixels to push. We took the shape that holds all of those things—a square—and asked 10 artists to reimagine Base from their point of view. In the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing the progress, inspiration, and ideas behind what’s next. The first case study: Discovery, is now live...