What we’re reading (6/9)
“A Crypto Bull’s Big Tax Settlement” (DealBook). “The attorney general for the District of Columbia has reached a $40 million settlement with the billionaire Bitcoin investor Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy, the software company he founded, over tax fraud, DealBook’s Lauren Hirsch is first to report. Officials say the agreement is the biggest-ever income tax fraud recovery in the district. It’s also the first lawsuit under the district’s amended False Claims Act, which encourages whistle-blowers to file claims of tax evasion against residents who they say are concealing where they actually live.”
“Colorado’s Weed Market Is Coming Down Hard And It’s Making Other States Nervous” (Politico). “What once was a success story has now left a trail of failed businesses and cash-strapped entrepreneurs in its wake. Regulatory burdens, an oversaturated market and increasing competition from nearby states have all landed major blows, leaving other states with newer marijuana markets scrambling to avoid the same mistakes.”
“A Researcher Fired By OpenAI Published A 165-Page Essay On What To Expect From AI In The Next Decade. We Asked GPT-4 To Summarize It.” (Business Insider). “Leopold Aschenbrenner, a researcher fired from OpenAI in April, published his thoughts on the AI revolution in an epic 165-page treatise…Aschenbrenner's essay doesn't appear to include sensitive details about OpenAI. Instead, as Aschenbrenner writes on the dedication page, it’s based on ‘publicly available information, my own ideas, general field knowledge, or SF gossip.’”
“Why You Shouldn’t Obsess About The National Debt” (Paul Krugman). “First, while $34 trillion is a very large figure, it’s a lot less scary than many imagine if you put it in historical and international context. Second, to the extent debt is a concern, making debt sustainable wouldn’t be at all hard in terms of the straight economics; it’s almost entirely a political problem. Finally, people who claim to be deeply concerned about debt are, all too often, hypocrites — the level of their hypocrisy often reaches the surreal.”
“Gold Is Getting Harder To Find As Miners Struggle To Excavate More, World Gold Council Says” (CNBC). “The gold mining industry is struggling to sustain production growth as deposits of the yellow metal become harder to find, according to the World Gold Council. ‘We’ve seen record first quarter mine production in 2024 up 4% year on year. But the bigger picture, I think about mine production is that, effectively, it plateaued around 2016, 2018 and we’ve seen no growth since then,’ WGC Chief Market Strategist John Reade said.”
