five links for August 2026

also -- the Summation Podcast has almost 100k subscribers. subscribe on Youtube or your favorite podcast app. we are now in the top 50 most popular tech podcasts – and goal is to get into the top 20.

we dive in with the most interesting people discussing the non-obvious ideas.

here are five links worth reading in August…

Why Am I Left-Handed? by Natalie Wolchover

10% of humans are left-handed and nobody knows why. The best guess: handedness was locked in during a phase of human evolution when swinging a weapon with your right hand let you aim for the heart on your opponent’s left side while protecting your own. The 90/10 split is a fossil from when we were still learning how to stab.

This Simple White Line Is America’s Greatest Unsung Innovation by Ben Cohen

John Dorr spent his 80s crusading for a single white line on the right side of the road. The federal agency in charge of road safety spent years warning against edge lines because they might confuse drivers. The best innovations are cheap and get rejected for years by the exact people paid to notice them.

Writing by Hand is Good for your Brain by Neal Stephenson

People think handwriting is a slower version of typing but it’s a different cognitive tool entirely. The friction of pen and paper forces you to think before you write and produce clearer ideas instead of faster words.

Anthropic’s Felix Rieseberg on Summation

Felix leads engineering for Claude Cowork and Claude Code Desktop at Anthropic. He gets into how Cowork was built in a couple of weeks and now mostly writes itself, the leap from telling AI to “fix this bug” to handing it a standing job and why “here’s what your team can learn from the Navy SEALs” is the worst advice in tech.

A Real but Selective Crackdown on Cambodia’s Scam Industry from The Economist

Cambodia extradited one of Asia’s most powerful criminal bosses to China in January. Within weeks tens of thousands of trafficked workers walked out of the scam compounds, gates left open by bosses who fled. The global scam industry is resting on a handful of protected men.

Bonus (useful): you are introspecting too much

Self-focused attention is one of the strongest correlates of depression and anxiety in the entire literature. The goal of introspection is a weekend job -- your strengths, your weaknesses, what you want. Everything past that is rumination the wellness industry keeps selling you more of.

The Art of Spending Money: Simple Choices for a Richer Life by Morgan Housel

Rooster (HBO)

Auren Hoffman is CEO of NQB8 and GP at Flex Capital. NQB8 starts 4 companies per year. Flex Capital is a seed-stage venture capital firm --- investing in 50+ start-ups a year. Engage on X: @auren

and please share Five Links with your friends and allies.

Share