WARNING: Emotional post (but worth reading or bookmarking for later). Time is cruel. But that cruelty carries the seeds of beauty. Last weekend, my family and I made our annual pilgrimage to a small community in northwest Connecticut. We started going when I was 18 months old. I met my two best friends there. I caught my first fish there. I had my first crush there. But perhaps most importantly, I played my first game of catch there. As I remember it, I was probably about five years old. My dad had a softball and a couple of old baseball gloves. And there, in the tall, overgrown grass, we threw the ball back and forth. As the years wore on, I got bigger and the ball started moving faster. We played catch damn near every single day when I was a kid. It didn't really matter what time of year or what time of day. We'd play catch in the snow in January. In the early morning light before school. In the dim light of the evenings when he got home from work. In high school, when I started getting college scholarship offers, we played catch. While on the team at Stanford, when my family went on vacation, we played catch. But then, my career ended. And with it, our game of catch. Time is a funny thing. Usually, it goes unnoticed. It exists, but not really. Only in some abstract sense. It flows under the surface. Adjacent to your reality, but not exactly in it. The routines of life make it go faster. You settle into patterns. Paths with gravity. You take a job. You establish a place. You start a family. The days start blending together. They become weeks, months, years, even decades. But then, something breaks. There's some collision. Suddenly, time gets thrust to the surface. Time goes unnoticed, until it's the only thing you notice. I've felt that most painfully with my parents. My dad is 70 now. In some ways, that 70-year-old version feels like a stranger to me. I think the image we have of our parents never really changes from the one we establish as kids. I still see my dad as the young, vibrant, athletic young man. The one who could hit the ball farther than anyone I knew. The one who could toss me up on his shoulders in a flash. The one who could beat me in a race (but usually let me win). I still see that young dad in his eyes, in his energy, in his curiosity for life. In some painful sense, I imagine the 70-year-old version feels like a stranger to him, too. Time is cruel. But that cruelty carries the seeds of beauty. The most beautiful things in life are made beautiful by their impermanence. So, what are we to do about all of this? Perhaps we must simply give in to time. Embrace its unending, relentless flow. Live as we are. Do as we can. But what if, in truth, we have a bit more power than that? What if it's possible, in some imperfect, impermanent way, to control time? To bend time and space. To really be there. To really feel it. To embrace it, without giving in to it. To live as we want. To do as we dream. That theory is what brings me back to last Sunday, when I felt compelled to unlock one of the old cabinets in my parent's cottage. It was a cabinet that, when opened, had the feel of a time capsule. Dust and cobwebs everywhere. A musty smell. Like reaching into it was reaching back in time. I pulled out my old baseball glove. And my dad's old catcher's mitt. I walked outside, where I found my dad playing with his grandsons on the swings. I held up the two gloves, a smile across my face. "Hey, Dad, wanna have a catch?" I smiled. He smiled. We walked side by side out onto the field. And there, in the tall, overgrown grass, we threw the ball back and forth. As we did, something amazing happened. Time melted away. 30 years disappeared. He wasn't 70. I wasn't 35. I was that little boy again. And he was my young dad. Just playing catch for no purpose at all. It was just a game of catch. But it was so much more.

What I've read recently: Snowball - Warren Buffett Biography (9.7/10) Lessons about scaling up of Berkshire Hathaway and deep dive into Warren's childhood and what made him a good investor. Undisputedly the pound for pound GOAT of playing capital markets at the highest level. Beneath the Cards - Garrett Adelstein (7.9/10) Autobiography and story telling of the journey through high stakes poker from one of the most winning cash game players. Was insightful and related to a lot of the childhood stories and motivations behind becoming successful but too much time spent addressing the J4o hand with Robbi and too little poker stories. Would have been great to have detailed history of earnings, insight into frameworks applied to other ventures, etc. @junkbondinvest's newsletter, insightful breakdown of fixed income markets specifically the MSTR STRC offering and current game theory surrounding credit markets in AI.

Enterprise AI is at its best when it’s invisible. With Cortex Code, now officially Snowflake CoCo, Providence Health is playing data scientist for a day and the results are very real. 🏥 They ditched 60-hour work weeks spent manually coding and digging through patient notes for a 2-hour Streamlit app build using natural language. Watch how CoCo transforms the frontline 👉🏻

Most actors leave their famous roles behind on set. Gary Sinise didn't. After playing Lieutenant Dan Taylor in the 1994 film Forrest Gump, he found a connection to the military community that changed the direction of his career. He started visiting service members in the early 2000s, wanting to show gratitude to those who gave up their physical and mental health for their country. Since 2003, he's traveled to more than 170 military bases and 21 hospitals around the world, giving troops and their families someone to count on. 🏠 Supporting the Wounded In 2011, he set up the Gary Sinise Foundation to put his charity work under one roof and give veterans, first responders, and their families real, tangible help. The foundation runs several programs built around problems specific to military life, including: * The R.I.S.E. program, which builds specially adapted smart homes for severely wounded veterans so they can live independently again. * Snowball Express, which supports the families of fallen service members with experiences and community for grieving children. * The Soaring Valor program, which brings World War II veterans to the National WWII Museum to record their stories. * Relief and outreach programs for first responders and active duty personnel dealing with financial or emotional crises. 🎸 Musical Morale Boosters Sinise also understood that morale and entertainment matter in recovery. He co-founded the Lt. Dan Band in 2004, a cover band that plays for troops and their families at bases and charity events. The band connects civilian and military life, using loud, high energy shows to lift spirits and bring attention to veteran causes. By leaning into the name of his most famous character, Sinise turned a fictional story about recovery into an actual source of joy for thousands of soldiers stationed far from home. Recognition and Lasting Impact His years of advocacy have earned him honors from Hollywood and the U.S. government. He's one of the few civilians named an honorary Marine and an honorary Navy Chief Petty Officer, which says something about how much respect he's earned within the ranks. His work isn't a string of one-off appearances. It's a long effort to keep veterans from being forgotten once the headlines move on. Through his foundation, he keeps pushing the point that we can never fully repay what service members gave up, but we can always do more

A few thoughts on the recent meme market This is not a paid promotion. —————————Meme Bull Case part1 1. GameStop was a "one-tap" event. Robinhood triggered the zero-commission war in 2019 and reduced options trading to a few taps. The real engine behind the GameStop squeeze was retail piling into cheap out-of-the-money calls → market makers hedging by buying shares → gamma squeeze. That only worked because options had become one-tap. Simplify access, and the event happens at that doorway. 2. fomo is standing in exactly that doorway for memecoins. In the cofounder's own words: "onboard, fund, and buy a token within 30 seconds." 68,000 people bought crypto for the first time through Apple Pay; 29% of users actually trade. Users went from 120K in November 2025 to 625K by June 2026 — 5x in seven months — with ~3,500 new signups a day. fomo captures 46% of Solana trading-platform spot volume. 3. It's infrastructure with capital and revenue behind it. $75M Series B at a $550M valuation (Index, USV, Benchmark). 140+ angels in the seed round including Solana, Coinbase, LayerZero, Wintermute, Pantera, and Dragonfly. A 17–20 person team hit a record $2.64M in weekly revenue and $16M for the month of August. Index partner: "We think there is a market shift there, and they have what it takes to capture this next wave." 4. It's already at the top of the US retail app charts. On August 21 it hit #3# in the US iPhone Finance category — behind only Capital One and PayPal, ahead of Cash App, Venmo, and Kalshi. It's not competing with crypto apps anymore; it's sitting next to banks and payment apps. Fifteen months after launch. 5. Robinhood is moving in the same direction. Robinhood Social (follow/copy trading) launched in March; Robinhood Chain launched in July. Vlad himself said it was "built for RWA, but it works great for memes too," and within nine days of launch a single token, CashCat, hit a $150M market cap on $500M of volume. The company that made GameStop possible just brought its own memecoin chain. 6. The team is preparing for the game to get bigger. A joint event with Pudgy Penguins during KBW, an official Korean channel, merch on the way — they're actively running community events and communication. Team feedback is fast and engaged. A model proven in the US is expanding into Asia, the densest retail market there is, and they look ready to absorb a surge when it comes. Axiom, Trojan, Photon, Moonshot — none of those teams ever did anything close to this kind of active offline community. fomo being this active is a good thing for those of us in the DEX trenches. Once again, for the record: fomo has not threatened me, and fomo has not paid me. 7. It's already visible in the data. From tracking fomo data: comments on new tokens are landing about 3x faster than before. The inflow isn't a forecast — it's happening now. 8. Life-changing headlines are already here. CashCat (Robinhood Chain): $85 → $2.5M (entered June 18, at a $142M market cap; $580K realized) CashCat + PONS: wallet 0x7e3ba, $220K in → $4.7M (reported September 1) Niu Lai / "cow head" (BNB): $120 → $205K, 822x (mid-August) ANSEM (Solana): +190,000% in 13 days, $260M market cap First $10M account on fomo (Bonk Guy, community-reported) Just as "I changed my life on Robinhood" stories pulled retail into GameStop, these headlines are doing the same job now. 9. The early call was right — and Ansem deserves real respect for it. Ansem has been saying "retail will come in through mobile apps" since the earliest days of the ANSEM token, long before fomo cracked the app-store top 3 or Robinhood shipped a chain. That's exactly what's playing out now. Calling the direction this early, and sticking to it while most people dismissed it as just another mobile app, is rare. I genuinely respect that, and if you're trying to read where this market goes next, he's someone you should be following. 10. All that's left is a trigger. The structure is in place — the doorway, the capital, the app-store rank, the chain, the team, the headlines. One Dogecoin-scale viral moment or one Bitcoin bull run is all it takes, and the snowball is already rolling. @RobinhoodCrypto @vladtenev @blknoiz06 @seyong @fomo

Despite a midseason elbow injury and then going from a starting role to a reserve, @RyanKalkbrenner has continued making strides his rookie season, mostly because he's now playing with an increased level of physicality and confidence. 💪 Read more:

Hannah John-Kamen chats with ET at San Diego Comic-Con 2026, after taking part in Marvel's Hall H panel. The actress, who plays Ghost in the MCU, reflects on originally thinking she'd be one-and-done after playing the villain 'Ant-Man and the Wasp.' Instead, she's now a major player in the franchise, after 'Thunderbolts' and (coming to theaters on Dec. 18) 'Avengers: Doomsday.'

BREAKING: A long-time John Cornyn staffer just defected to James Talarico's campaign — after calling Ken Paxton "THE MOST CORRUPT" politician in Texas. In an almost unheard-of political move, a longtime Republican Senate staffer just crossed party lines to join Democrat James Talarico's campaign, delivering a scathing rebuke of GOP nominee Ken Paxton along the way. Jacob Smith spent five years working for Republican Senator John Cornyn as deputy legislative director and policy adviser. He's now signed on as Talarico's deputy policy director. "I've worked for Republicans like Senator Cornyn my entire career, but this year I'm proud to be joining James Talarico's campaign," Smith said in a statement. "Instead of playing partisan politics, Talarico speaks to the needs of everyday people who day in and day out work too hard for too little." Smith didn't hold back on Paxton either: "Ken Paxton is the most corrupt, self-dealing politician in Texas who would sell their futures to the highest contributor just to hold onto power. I'm encouraging all my fellow Republicans who know Ken Paxton is unfit to serve in the Senate to finally hold him accountable at the ballot box." A Republican operative working on Senate races called this level of cross-party hiring "unheard of." And it's easy to see why Republicans are nervous. This comes after Cornyn himself lost to Paxton in a bitter GOP primary runoff, a defeat that set off real alarm bells within the party, given Paxton's well-documented baggage: an indictment for securities fraud, an impeachment trial, and a publicly reported extramarital affair. Paxton avoided a criminal trial only by agreeing to community service. The race is now polling as a dead heat, with Talarico picking up meaningful support from independents and even some disillusioned Republicans. As one anonymous Texas GOP operative admitted: "They can't stomach voting for Paxton. That's his biggest weakness in the state." And Talarico's campaign has the resources to capitalize on that opening. He's already raised more than $70 million — more than any other non-incumbent Senate candidate this cycle, and millions more than Paxton — with grassroots enthusiasm so strong he's had to return donations exceeding legal contribution limits. When a career Republican staffer walks away from the party to work against your candidacy, and calls you the state's most corrupt politician on the way out, that's not spin. That's a five-alarm warning from inside your own tent. Please like and share to spread the news!