five links for May 2026

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

here are five links worth reading in May…

They Came to Spy on America. They Stayed to Coach Little League. by Zach Dorfman

The KGB sent deep-cover spies to infiltrate suburban America. Some of them got so good at the cover (coaching Little League, running carpool, raising kids in the cul-de-sac) they basically became the Americans they were supposed to be watching.

The Hudson is now so clean that everyone can eat from it by the Economist

GE dumped over a million pounds of PCBs into the Hudson for three decades. Now the river is clean enough to eat fish from. An environmental comeback that happened while nobody was paying attention.

A Theory of Mind in Three Files by Dave Morin

What makes an AI “yours” is not the model. It’s three plaintext files: SOUL.md (identity), MEMORY.md (experience), DREAMS.md (integration). Whichever lab wins this quarter, the soul layer moves with you.

The Narrow Path by Lucas Vaz

OpenAI’s original angels turned $10M into $1.4B -- a 140x return on the biggest winner of the decade. If 140x doesn’t return your fund, the seed model is already broken. The new game is concentrated portfolios underwritten to 10-20x, not diversified bets praying for a 1000x.

Governor Glenn Youngkin on Summation

Glenn Youngkin spent 25 years at Carlyle, ending as co-CEO, before being elected Governor of Virginia. He’s the first governor to use agentic AI to review every state regulation, signed a $35B data-center deal with AWS, and explains which skills from running a giant fund actually transferred to running a state.

Bonus (spies): ‘I exposed China’s espionage tactics in The Times. Now I’m being harassed’ by Elsa Johnson

Stanford student was targeted by a CCP intelligence officer posing as a fellow student, then physically surveilled on campus after she wrote about it. American universities collect $12B a year in tuition from Chinese students -- which explains why none of them want to be the first to do anything about it.

Bonus (useful): how to ask for advice (without wasting everyone’s time)

Most asks for advice are too vague to be answerable. A tactical guide to making the ask specific enough that the person you’re asking can actually help you.

The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind and the Quest for Superintelligence by Sebastian Mallaby

None this month

Nvidia’s market cap is bigger than every public company in France and Italy combined

Auren Hoffman is CEO of NQB8 and GP at Flex Capital. NQB8 starts 3 companies per year. Flex Capital is a seed-stage venture capital firm --- investing in 50+ start-ups a year. Engage on X: @auren

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