Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein

Five years ago, worries about sparse digital competition were well founded. A handful of giants — Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft — dominated the tech economy. Most major product categories had only two or three serious competitors, such as search (Google and Microsoft’s Bing) and mobile operating systems (Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android). When new markets like cloud computing emerged, incumbents quickly took control.

There are no lazy monopolists in the A.I. space coasting on past advantages. Over the past year, the top spot on the Arena leaderboard has moved among those three companies, with strong performances from newer arrivals such as the Chinese company DeepSeek and the French firm Mistral — many of which require far less capital than earlier generations of A.I. companies.

Shorter Jason Furman: it used to be that the tech industry was dominated by only five companies. But AI has changed all that: now there's open competition from five whole companies!

This is AI-as-management

Part of the problem here is a long-standing issue of mine: The public gets a huge benefit from beat journalism—but the journalism industry does not, by and large, recognize beat journalism for its value or when it comes to awards and prizes. Those go to investigations and "one big thing" features.

I’m not going to get into this again but the defund the police critique remains complete bullshit

yes we can was nonspecific

lock her up doesn’t lay out why or for what

make america great again couldn’t be less specific

this critique is pure reactionary nonsense filtered through pundits

Ryszard Kapuscinski's recollections of being a 7 y/o in Poland 1939 as the Red Army was taking over and deporting people to prison camps (from his book "Imperium"). Scary flash backs to today:

"In school, during breaks, or when we are returning home in a group, the talk is of deportations."

I don't really like the arguments that Zohran should be careful about opposing the NYPD because of what the NYPD did to BDB's daughter. This is all stuff that any mayoral candidate had to be aware of before taking the job. Anyone to the left of Bloomberg was going to have to take this fight

Aliya Rahman, woman who was dragged out of car by ICE in Minneapolis: "I've spent the last month learning the names of the tendons in my shoulder, because both of my shoulders are torn -- cartilage and tendons. But what I haven't learned is the names of the people who did this to me."

Donald Trump killed two of my constituents. He is a liar and should be ashamed of himself.

Researcher finds that middle managers, fearful of losing their jobs to automation, pretend to use AI in order to keep their jobs. HA HA HA
www.techpolicy.press/in-weak-job-...

excellent

The ICE Contractor Down the Hall A tour through the Midtown intelligence firms and courier services that help keep the agency running.

new from me at @curbed.com: everyone ICE did business with in New York City last year www.curbed.com/article/ice-...

AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says Imported chips and hardware mean the AI investemtns are translating into US GDP growth.

AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says https://gizmodo.com/ai-added-basically-zero-to-us-economic-growth-last-year-goldman-sachs-says-2000725380

Gavin Newsom’s Struggle For Everyman Cred “Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery” tries to recast a life of privilege in often baffling ways.

I read Gavin Newsom‘s memoir so that you don’t have to. Suffice it to say the book does not achieve what it sets out to do and I’m looking forward to everyone on bluesky being extremely normal on this subject.

A lot of people were probably hoping for the Trump administration v 1.0 in which they spent three years just trying to fill basic appointment and only passed a tax cut. I think people prefer a president who does nothing.

Households With 2 Kids Need to Earn Average of $402,708 to Comfortably Afford Child Care Families don’t make enough on average to afford child care for two children, according to government benchmarks.

I would love to see the pro-natalist Silicon Valley types respond to the fact that a family with two kids needs to make over $400k to comfortably afford childcare (under 7% of income).

www.lendingtree.com/debt-consoli...

The Army will soon have senior warrant officers bid against each other in an eBay-style auction for retention bonuses and six-year service commitments. Soldiers who agree to take a “minimum” bonus can cash in, while those who ask for larger ones will lose out, Army officials announced in a recent press release. Dubbed the “Warrant Officer Retention Bonus Auction,” the system will debut in March, an Army official said Friday. In the news release, Army officials said the new system represents a “shift from traditional, fixed‑rate bonuses to a more flexible, market-driven system and that the auction encourages warrant officers to bid their “true value.”

This is seriously fucked up taskandpurpose.com/news/army-wa...

Why does it have a gun range?

The "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!" drum just needs to ring a *little* louder

"amazon prime for human beings"

Concerned about ICE's $45 billion plan to convert warehouses into immigration detention centers? This is what they'll look like inside. From ICE's plan for the Social Circle, GA facility. Each little dot: a person. www.socialcirclega.gov/home/showpub...

I'm a veteran criminal justice reporter. I've never seen anything like ICE-occupied Memphis. “It’s about as sad as you can possibly imagine."

"The Trump administration has used crime as a pretext to conduct its immigration operations, even in cities where crime is lower than it’s been in decades. In Memphis, it was at a 25-year low before the task force began."

fantastic report
@motherjones.com www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

After the Rent Freeze | JW Mason The cost of affordable housing in New York City

"Today, New York City’s rental market is defined by two colliding forces: tenants’ need for affordable rents, and landlords’ need to repay their creditors. Only public ownership offers an escape from the mounting pressure."

Fantastic! @jwmason.bsky.social

www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/aft...

Crime is at an all time low in many cities, why are we sending the National Guard into Memphis for the Memphis Safe Task Force? We don't need police accountability, body cameras, and prohibitions on masks. We need fewer cops!

Police funding is out of control in America, and that's the problem with ICE and the insane number of cops in American cities. We need to stop trying to reform police and just slash their budgets so there are not like 3,000 cops in Minneapolis for no reason. "Defund the police" is common sense

'Guilty until proven innocent?' Video from Nashville THP/ICE stops revives questions of racial profiling More than 50 hours of newly obtained footage has revived questions about whether drivers were racially profiled as officers made more than 100 immigration arrests.

287g agreements with highway patrols are, I think, particularly egregious because of their ability to make a lot of traffic stops for no real reason (does highway patrol do anything other than traffic stops?)
www.newschannel5.com/news/newscha...

Opinion | One Man Stole $660 Million. He’ll Never Pay It Back.

Great piece: @brendanballou.bsky.social describes revolting rampant impunity for pardoned Trump donors who've stolen from workers & investors. But as he notes, Trump can only pardon federal crimes. State & local prosecutors are critical for accountability & justice. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/o...

I'm not going to die on a hill defending the Fed but as a journalist covering economics for many years, I have never ever heard a government official say this about Fed research before.

I believe they are all state and local police, not ICE

Wisconsin accuses Burger King franchise operator of thousands of child labor violations The state's Department of Workforce Development is ordering the operator of more than 100 Wisconsin-based Burger King restaurants to pay back $237,437 in wages owed to teen employees.

When you have a Burger King franchisee violating child labor laws 1,600 times in regards to 600 kids, there's definitely a larger systemic problem.

www.wpr.org/news/wiscons...