Is there one link, story or idea that stopped you this week… and made you think, “someone else needs to see this”?
My friends: Alistair Croll (Just Evil Enough, Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I made a simple pact years ago. Once a week, each of us would share one link with the others… something we genuinely believed the other two had to see. No trend-hunting… no performance. Just six ideas exchanged with intent. What started as a small ritual between curious friends became Six Links That Make You Think.
These are the six links we passed to one another this week… take your time with them…
- We Removed the Immune System – Peter Girnus – Cyber Populist. “This is satire, but every word is true. When building things was costly, the friction was a feature, not a bug. Once anyone can build something, everyone does, and you get sprawl: Hundreds of unknown, redundant apps, each built to the taste of a single user, and IT left scrambling to clean up. Look no further for the reinstatement of enterprise IT.” (Alistair for Hugh).
- Fred again.. & Thomas Bangalter (USB002, Alexandra Palace, London 27 February 2026) – YouTube. “Fred again.. is almost single-handedly renewing my faith in EDM culture. One of the hardest-working, yet most accessible, producers on the planet, his pop-up concerts are the stuff of legend, bypassing the big-venue monopolies and going straight to the fans. Other artists support him in serious ways: Underworld showed up at a recent gig, and for this one, he pulled Daft Punk‘s Thomas Bangalter onto the decks for one of the greatest DJ sets I’ve ever seen, a two-hour retrospective of dozens of incredible tracks from the last 30 years. An absolute masterclass. I know you like things with analog bass, but this is worth your time.” (Alistair for Mitch).
- Outplaying Elite Table Tennis Players With An Autonomous Robot – Nature. “As if it weren’t enough that all white collar work, and the middle class, will be wiped out by AI. Now even human ping pong players may be sent to the dustbin of history.” (Hugh for Alistair).
- Petition Demands Canadian Government Implement Social Media Ban For Children Under 16 – Rachel Lau – CTV News. “A bunch of tech founders in Quebec have launched a petition to get Canada to adopt Australia-style legislation banning social media accounts for kids under the age of 16. I agree. ‘We know how these platforms work, why they have no incentive to self-regulate, and above all, we know that a technical solution exists — one that is reliable and already deployed elsewhere.’ Will now go look up the data thus far from Australia’s ban. Curious what Mitch thinks of this.” (Hugh for Mitch).
- Jensen Huang – Will Nvidia’s Moat Persist? – Dwarkesh Patel – YouTube. “Spend close to two hours watching two smart tech people dig into topics that left me wondering if I know anything about tech at all. They go deep… and I mean really deep into what is currently powering our tech disruption and, more importantly, about where it’s going. Listen, you can think that what’s happening on your screen is a miracle, but wow… what needs to happen behind the scenes… the physical stuff… the hardware… it’s just staggering… Also, it’s a slow, curious, and deeply exploratory in a way that feels almost out of step with how we consume ideas today. There’s time in here to let ideas breathe instead of forcing conclusions. That, in itself, feels like a bit of an analog experience… like listening to a full album instead of skipping tracks… or reading the album liner notes instead of just streaming the hit. As someone who has always gravitated towards music, interviews and conversations that unfold over time, there’s something refreshing about this one… it reminds me that depth isn’t just about information… it’s about patience (and why I still love my own show so much). And maybe that’s the real takeaway here… not what AI will become, but whether we’re still capable of engaging with ideas in a way that isn’t optimized for speed, clips and immediate utility… Lots to chew on here.” (Mitch for Alistair).
- Artificial Utopia? The Future Of Humanity In An AI World – World Science Festival – YouTube. “Now let’s go from deeply technical to deeply philisophical. This conversation between Brian Greene and Nick Bostrom stuck with me because it doesn’t just ask what AI can do… it asks what any of this means for being human in the first place. They move well beyond capability and into territory that feels almost philosophical… questioning whether creativity, originality, even consciousness are as uniquely human as we’ve always assumed. What I find most compelling is how calmly they explore ideas that should feel destabilizing… AI systems that can detect when they’re being tested… the possibility of subjective experience… and a future where most human effort is no longer required. As someone who has spent a lifetime in creative spaces, this hits differently… because it challenges the mythology of the artist… the idea that what we create is somehow singular and untouchable (an area I have been exploring in my writing for quite some time). And then there’s the deeper stuff… if AI removes struggle, friction, and necessity… what happens to meaning? It’s less a conversation about technology and more a meditation on purpose… and whether a perfectly optimized world would still feel like a life we’d actually want to live.” (Mitch for Hugh).
If one of these sticks with you, pass it on… and let us know what earned your attention this week…
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