Long-form writing on history, capital, technology, and the good life.https://caseyjr.org/en-ushttps://caseyjr.org/writing/MAFIA-method-as-entertainment/https://caseyjr.org/writing/MAFIA-method-as-entertainment/Founders Fund's new game show is one of the most honest portrayals of venture-backed tech I've seen—though not in the way the producers intended.Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/another-world-was-possible/https://caseyjr.org/writing/another-world-was-possible/Twenty years ago, engagement with Iran seemed plausible; American policy has grown only more punishing and self-defeating since.Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/two-worthwhile-reads-on-ai/https://caseyjr.org/writing/two-worthwhile-reads-on-ai/Some Simple Economics of AGI is the most important paper that has been released in years. It's quite long, but the implications are tectonic for individuals' lives and livelihoods.Mon, 16 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/stop-living-within-a-lie/https://caseyjr.org/writing/stop-living-within-a-lie/Carney's Davos address names the rupture in world order; also, Americans should stop pretending this administration is legitimate.Tue, 20 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/candide-and-the-modernity-machine/https://caseyjr.org/writing/candide-and-the-modernity-machine/Does Voltaire plant the seeds of divergence, or merely articulate work as the first substance of all worth?Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/lawlessness/https://caseyjr.org/writing/lawlessness/The Trump Administration’s actions in Venezuela overnight are a clear violation of international law, and a distillation of the era we now live in: the age of lawlessness.Sat, 03 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/ai-the-extractive-era/https://caseyjr.org/writing/ai-the-extractive-era/I recently finished Anil Ananthaswamy’s Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI .Mon, 29 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/where-my-head-is/https://caseyjr.org/writing/where-my-head-is/A photograph.Sun, 28 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2025/https://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2025/Without intending to, I went deep on four writers this year: Roberto Bolaño, Michel Houellebecq, Philip Roth, and Eric Hobsbawm.Fri, 26 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/will-open-source-pop-the-ai-bubble/https://caseyjr.org/writing/will-open-source-pop-the-ai-bubble/Open source won't pop the bubble alone, but capital absorption limits and GPU commoditization suggest we're closer to peak than beginning.Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/computer-to-casino/https://caseyjr.org/writing/computer-to-casino/Farcaster promised decentralized social graphs; three years later it's a token launchpad chasing a billion-dollar valuation.Sun, 07 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/larry-fink-on-tokenization/https://caseyjr.org/writing/larry-fink-on-tokenization/When Larry Fink is talking about the tokenisation of real-world assets in The Economist , the game has changed.Tue, 02 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/the-hidden-center-of-2666/https://caseyjr.org/writing/the-hidden-center-of-2666/Last night I finished Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 .Sat, 01 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/the-cognition-reformation/https://caseyjr.org/writing/the-cognition-reformation/Gellner's account of the Reformation prompts a question: are universities facing their own crisis of legitimacy?Fri, 27 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2024/https://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2024/Streeck's account of capitalism, democracy, and globalization was the most thought-provoking book I read this year.Sat, 21 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2023/https://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2023/Labatut on scientists and madness, Conway on atoms over bits, Kara on cobalt's human cost.Fri, 08 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/the-ai-is-you/https://caseyjr.org/writing/the-ai-is-you/Rao's essay on chatbots and personhood hints at a metaphysical truth: the AI is analogous to humanity.Mon, 20 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/can-crypto-solve-the-4-trillion-sme-financing-gap/https://caseyjr.org/writing/can-crypto-solve-the-4-trillion-sme-financing-gap/The big question that I’ve been pondering of late is whether crypto can be a better technology for capital formation than existing options (e.g., banks, capital markets, non-bank financial intermediaries).Mon, 23 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2022/https://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2022/An odd year: dozens of books left by the wayside, but French's Born in Blackness among the most important I've read.Tue, 13 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/on-music-nfts/https://caseyjr.org/writing/on-music-nfts/I had recently minted my first music NFT on Sound (Daniel Allan’s “ Too Close ”), and the potential for crypto to disintermediate industry incumbents and empower artists was top of mind.Wed, 26 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/thinking-on-a-tokenized-investment-vehicle/https://caseyjr.org/writing/thinking-on-a-tokenized-investment-vehicle/A blockchain-based vehicle to channel global capital into small businesses shut out of traditional finance in developing economies.Fri, 16 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/is-the-dollar-standard-ending/https://caseyjr.org/writing/is-the-dollar-standard-ending/In effect, the leaders of the world’s largest economy — with a gross domestic product surpassing $20 trillion in 2020 — seized the assets of a country with a gross national income per capita of $500.Sun, 27 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2021/https://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2021/From the Abraaj collapse to zero-day exploits, the year's most thought-provoking reads on power, code, and collapse.Thu, 23 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/the-dao-of-risk-capital/https://caseyjr.org/writing/the-dao-of-risk-capital/I was one of them.Mon, 22 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/nfts-and-the-future-of-african-startup-funding/https://caseyjr.org/writing/nfts-and-the-future-of-african-startup-funding/After Jumia’s IPO a couple years ago, I wrote a brief argument for why I thought African startups would surprise to the upside (see “African Startups” below).Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/end-the-value-extraction-economy/https://caseyjr.org/writing/end-the-value-extraction-economy/U.S. businesses weren't vibrant before Covid—they were fragile, hollowed out by decades of financial engineering over building.Fri, 19 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/the-coming-of-the-french-revolution/https://caseyjr.org/writing/the-coming-of-the-french-revolution/For the French of 1789, liberty and equality were inseparable—but forced to choose, they would have chosen equality.Thu, 18 Feb 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2020/https://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2020/From the Cultural Revolution to kleptocracy, this year's essential reading on power, corruption, and survival.Tue, 15 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/galts-gulch-higher-education-and-blockchain/https://caseyjr.org/writing/galts-gulch-higher-education-and-blockchain/In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (cue snark), the builders and independent thinkers escape to Galt’s Gulch whilst a constellation of communists and conformists grind society to a halt.Sun, 06 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/what-is-happening/https://caseyjr.org/writing/what-is-happening/Too much debt, not enough growth, and rates that can't normalize: six thoughts on the world after the pandemic.Wed, 01 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/persistence/https://caseyjr.org/writing/persistence/Sitting in my car outside the gym, exhausted, I wondered: where's the line between stamina and stupidity?Fri, 31 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/globalization-in-the-age-of-american-primacy/https://caseyjr.org/writing/globalization-in-the-age-of-american-primacy/A syllabus for the class I wanted to teach: how U.S. power shaped the international order—and why its primacy is ending.Wed, 22 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2019/https://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2019/A year away from writing, compressed news cycles, exhaustion—and the books that sustained me through it all.Mon, 09 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2018/https://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2018/On failed reading targets, library bargains, and the moment Western Civilization hinged on a $2 hardcover.Wed, 05 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/some-reflections-on-entrepreneurship-and-life/https://caseyjr.org/writing/some-reflections-on-entrepreneurship-and-life/Founding doubts persist, but the business succeeded—by conventional measures and otherwise.Thu, 27 Sep 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/the-wealth-of-nations/https://caseyjr.org/writing/the-wealth-of-nations/Walking through Maasai villages with cattle and goats, pondering who counts as wealthy in this world.Tue, 19 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/a-reason-for-optimism/https://caseyjr.org/writing/a-reason-for-optimism/Four years ago I predicted populist reckoning; youth activism suggests the response may yet come.Sun, 25 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/intangible-assets/https://caseyjr.org/writing/intangible-assets/Investment income holds flat, but royalties are surging—clues to how value creation has changed.Thu, 25 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2017/https://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2017/Building a company and raising a child left less time for books—here are the six that mattered.Mon, 04 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/the-death-of-graduate-school/https://caseyjr.org/writing/the-death-of-graduate-school/Anyway, two of the House Bill’s provisions are raising concerns about the future of postgraduate education:Mon, 27 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/the-discontinuities-between-the-generations-in-history/https://caseyjr.org/writing/the-discontinuities-between-the-generations-in-history/At 32 (small) pages, Sir Herbert Butterfield's The Discontinuities between the Generations in History: Their Effect on the Transmission of Political Experience —delivered in 1971 as part of the Rede Lecture series—is a superb way to spend half an hour.Fri, 24 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/the-lies-of-vietnam/https://caseyjr.org/writing/the-lies-of-vietnam/You should watch it.Fri, 06 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2016/https://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2016/In any event, given the slimmer pickings, I am limiting this year’s list to the top five.Wed, 07 Dec 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/gethsemane/https://caseyjr.org/writing/gethsemane/The most beautiful painting I’ve seen hangs in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. The piece is easy to miss if you’ve seen the highlights and are in a hurry to move on; it’s in one of the last rooms and faces the exit.Wed, 09 Nov 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/how-will-you-spend-your-energy/https://caseyjr.org/writing/how-will-you-spend-your-energy/Burnout, terminal illness, and a toddler forced the question: what deserves the little energy I have left?Sun, 04 Sep 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/father-josephs-folly/https://caseyjr.org/writing/father-josephs-folly/Father Joseph, a barefooted Capuchin monk, served as an advisor to Cardinal Richelieu. This pious man—who spent hours a day in orison contemplating Calvary, and who wrote poems about the Crusades betraying a deep sense of bloodlust—pushed for policies that led to the Thirty…Wed, 06 Apr 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/confessions/https://caseyjr.org/writing/confessions/Augustine, drunk beggars, and the futility of chasing happiness through ambition and lies.Tue, 26 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2015/https://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2015/Kissinger on world order, and other books that shaped a year of reading and introspection.Sat, 05 Dec 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/verisimilitude/https://caseyjr.org/writing/verisimilitude/But that opening scene encapsulates a feature that seems to be appearing with more frequency—at least in the handful of shows and movies I’ve watched recently: verisimilitude.Sun, 22 Nov 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/the-ancien-regime-and-the-revolution/https://caseyjr.org/writing/the-ancien-regime-and-the-revolution/Tocqueville explains why revolutions happen where least expected—and why liberty so often ends in tyranny.Mon, 07 Sep 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/a-quick-take-on-farhad-manjoos-piece-about-the-public-private-market-conundrum/https://caseyjr.org/writing/a-quick-take-on-farhad-manjoos-piece-about-the-public-private-market-conundrum/Why are tech companies spurning IPOs, and what does it mean for capital formation?Thu, 02 Jul 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/light-blogging/https://caseyjr.org/writing/light-blogging/Blowouts, vomit, and two hours' sleep: a status update from the parenting trenches.Fri, 01 May 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/reflections-on-a-winding-road-to-em-private-equity/https://caseyjr.org/writing/reflections-on-a-winding-road-to-em-private-equity/From Iraqi death squads to emerging markets: the path from counterinsurgency to private equity.Thu, 23 Apr 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/opinions/https://caseyjr.org/writing/opinions/The Mahābhārata on intellectual vanity: each man lauds his own mind, bewildered in his own way.Sun, 05 Apr 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/technological-acceleration-and-the-wet-noodle-of-monetary-policy/https://caseyjr.org/writing/technological-acceleration-and-the-wet-noodle-of-monetary-policy/If technology drives deflation faster than central banks can inflate, monetary policy becomes a wet noodle.Tue, 10 Mar 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/life-to-come/https://caseyjr.org/writing/life-to-come/Sometime within the next three months I shall become a father. So begins the last big adventure, a maelstrom of unequal parts agency and cupidity.Mon, 26 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/henry-kissingers-world-order-and-the-question-of-universal-values/https://caseyjr.org/writing/henry-kissingers-world-order-and-the-question-of-universal-values/Kissinger's meditation on world order raises a question: have America's universal values themselves undermined international stability?Sat, 17 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/thoughts-on-james-fallowss-chickenhawk-nation/https://caseyjr.org/writing/thoughts-on-james-fallowss-chickenhawk-nation/In the article, Fallows discusses the crisis in civil-military relations that has been building over the last 15+ years, and argues that this state of affairs has negatively impacted the country’s ability to fight and win wars.Wed, 31 Dec 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2014/https://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2014/Following the smashing success of last year’s post on my favorite books from 2013 , I thought I’d aim for a repeat and perhaps inspire some gift ideas for the holidays. Here are 11 standouts that I remember from this year.Mon, 01 Dec 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/qe-inequality/https://caseyjr.org/writing/qe-inequality/Six years of unconventional monetary policy, and central bankers still pretend not to know who benefited most.Fri, 31 Oct 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/politics-and-culture-in-international-history/https://caseyjr.org/writing/politics-and-culture-in-international-history/Kissinger's essay suggests the crisis isn't tactical but civilizational: the West imposing norms on cultures with incompatible histories.Tue, 09 Sep 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/the-enduring-relevance-of-thucydides/https://caseyjr.org/writing/the-enduring-relevance-of-thucydides/Somehow you can earn a degree in international relations without reading the one book that explains everything.Sat, 23 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/practice-heroes/https://caseyjr.org/writing/practice-heroes/Some people show up to look good; others show up to become capable when decisions actually count.Wed, 20 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/david-bromwich-and-the-vanishing-art-of-independent-thinking/https://caseyjr.org/writing/david-bromwich-and-the-vanishing-art-of-independent-thinking/That a Yale English professor wrote the sharpest Obama critique—in a UK publication—says everything about American discourse.Sun, 10 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/entropy-the-defining-characteristic-of-global-affairs/https://caseyjr.org/writing/entropy-the-defining-characteristic-of-global-affairs/Capital markets signal the best of all possible worlds; the real world whispers that order is giving way to chaos.Fri, 27 Jun 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/life-satisfaction/https://caseyjr.org/writing/life-satisfaction/A chart on regional life satisfaction—and no, it's not measuring the country you assumed.Wed, 18 Jun 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/meditations-at-3000-feet/https://caseyjr.org/writing/meditations-at-3000-feet/Marcus Aurelius on the sameness of human striving across ages, and proportioning effort to what actually matters.Tue, 20 May 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/lagos-reflections-on-the-epicenter-of-the-frontier-market-phenomenon/https://caseyjr.org/writing/lagos-reflections-on-the-epicenter-of-the-frontier-market-phenomenon/Expectations for Lagos were subterranean; the reality proved appalling, fascinating, and stranger than imagined.Sun, 20 Apr 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/rome/https://caseyjr.org/writing/rome/Henry Adams on Rome as the monument to civilization's failure, and the city that dwarfs teachers.Wed, 16 Apr 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/munich-nights/https://caseyjr.org/writing/munich-nights/The New Yorker piece brought to mind a relatively recent weekend layover in Munich that ended with a pretty sweet, impromptu techno music experience.Sat, 22 Mar 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/on-hammocks-and-critias/https://caseyjr.org/writing/on-hammocks-and-critias/On the tradeoff between freedom and happiness, and Plato's account of how prosperity destroys character.Wed, 19 Feb 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/h-mc-humanities-equals-more-cash/https://caseyjr.org/writing/h-mc-humanities-equals-more-cash/David Rubenstein's hypothesis that humanities yield more cash than STEM—and why I have my doubts.Sat, 25 Jan 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/the-reckoning/https://caseyjr.org/writing/the-reckoning/Driving through gutted America, where technological unemployment meets the growing pains of over-rapid change.Sun, 19 Jan 2014 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2013/https://caseyjr.org/writing/favorite-books-of-2013/Eight books that stood out in 2013, from Packer's unwinding America to McMaster in Tal Afar.Sat, 14 Dec 2013 00:00:00 GMThttps://caseyjr.org/writing/pope-franciss-critique-of-capitalism-and-the-quest-for-the-good-life/https://caseyjr.org/writing/pope-franciss-critique-of-capitalism-and-the-quest-for-the-good-life/Pope Francis attacks the invisible hand: growth in justice requires more than economic growth alone.Mon, 09 Dec 2013 00:00:00 GMT