Ezra Klein

You know, they're not that powerful when they start, but over a long period of time, they become really powerful and they start to pass laws and make themselves more powerful and so on.

There's a lot you can say about this insight, but my favorite part of Olson's book and one that I don't think people emphasize enough is this insight he has, which is that over time, countries will begin, every country has a kind of form of natural selection within it.

There's a lot you can say about this insight, but my favorite part of Olson's book and one that I don't think people emphasize enough is this insight he has, which is that over time, countries will begin, every country has a kind of form of natural selection within it.

There's a lot you can say about this insight, but my favorite part of Olson's book and one that I don't think people emphasize enough is this insight he has, which is that over time, countries will begin, every country has a kind of form of natural selection within it.

And that form of natural selection will select for people with the skills to navigate, best navigate the kind of economy that country has. So if you're in China right now, and China's in its developmentalism phase, you really want to be in civil infrastructure, right?

And that form of natural selection will select for people with the skills to navigate, best navigate the kind of economy that country has. So if you're in China right now, and China's in its developmentalism phase, you really want to be in civil infrastructure, right?

And that form of natural selection will select for people with the skills to navigate, best navigate the kind of economy that country has. So if you're in China right now, and China's in its developmentalism phase, you really want to be in civil infrastructure, right?

It is great to be a civil engineer in China, great to be working on semiconductors in China, great to be doing all this stuff in the physical world. But America, you know, as a kind of price of our affluence and our success, right? We've become a country, and this happens for a lot of countries, where negotiation is really important.

It is great to be a civil engineer in China, great to be working on semiconductors in China, great to be doing all this stuff in the physical world. But America, you know, as a kind of price of our affluence and our success, right? We've become a country, and this happens for a lot of countries, where negotiation is really important.

It is great to be a civil engineer in China, great to be working on semiconductors in China, great to be doing all this stuff in the physical world. But America, you know, as a kind of price of our affluence and our success, right? We've become a country, and this happens for a lot of countries, where negotiation is really important.

And a country in which negotiation is really important is going to, over time, start developing a preference for lots of lawyers, people in finance, management consultants, because it is a society that requires continuous what he calls complex bargaining. And I think this actually explains a lot. Patrick Collison, we quote him, who's the CEO of Stripe, brilliant tech guy.

And a country in which negotiation is really important is going to, over time, start developing a preference for lots of lawyers, people in finance, management consultants, because it is a society that requires continuous what he calls complex bargaining. And I think this actually explains a lot. Patrick Collison, we quote him, who's the CEO of Stripe, brilliant tech guy.

And a country in which negotiation is really important is going to, over time, start developing a preference for lots of lawyers, people in finance, management consultants, because it is a society that requires continuous what he calls complex bargaining. And I think this actually explains a lot. Patrick Collison, we quote him, who's the CEO of Stripe, brilliant tech guy.

Here's his point that he made in an interview with Noah Smith, who's a blogger and economist. Where they were talking about high-speed rail, and sort of Patrick makes this point, he's like, it's just tough to be a high-speed rail engineer in America. You're going to have a much easier time working in the digital space. And so the digital space becomes a kind of frontier of last resort.

Here's his point that he made in an interview with Noah Smith, who's a blogger and economist. Where they were talking about high-speed rail, and sort of Patrick makes this point, he's like, it's just tough to be a high-speed rail engineer in America. You're going to have a much easier time working in the digital space. And so the digital space becomes a kind of frontier of last resort.

Here's his point that he made in an interview with Noah Smith, who's a blogger and economist. Where they were talking about high-speed rail, and sort of Patrick makes this point, he's like, it's just tough to be a high-speed rail engineer in America. You're going to have a much easier time working in the digital space. And so the digital space becomes a kind of frontier of last resort.

And so people want to build things, go into bits and bytes, not into atoms, right, to use the old kind of Peter Thiel cut. And I think there's something to that. It's not that lawyers are bad. Some of the people I love most in this world are lawyers, and many lawyers do amazing, amazing work.

And so people want to build things, go into bits and bytes, not into atoms, right, to use the old kind of Peter Thiel cut. And I think there's something to that. It's not that lawyers are bad. Some of the people I love most in this world are lawyers, and many lawyers do amazing, amazing work.

And so people want to build things, go into bits and bytes, not into atoms, right, to use the old kind of Peter Thiel cut. And I think there's something to that. It's not that lawyers are bad. Some of the people I love most in this world are lawyers, and many lawyers do amazing, amazing work.

But one reason we've selected for so many lawyers, and America has a lot of lawyers, is we became a society that needs a lot of lawyers because we are a society that is stable, affluent, and we've become very into bargaining. You know, Donald Trump is a real estate developer. That's a relational business.