Conor Watkins

building @theprimary | prev did stuff @blackstone & @angellist
✍️ + 👻

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

Everyone has their favorite culprit and fix for housing affordability: Zoning. Interest rates. Institutional investors. Boomer homeowners. Local Politics.

Each holds part of the answer. None explains why the problem persists.

Breaking down the system that actually connects them and what can be done about it ↓

[Chamath Palihapitiya @chamath]

https://t.co/3yUWEm572T

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

https://t.co/W0JPrknkwe

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

@FareedZakaria Politicians can signal empathy longer than cities can stay solvent

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

https://t.co/t8B7l46gme

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

first principles analysis > surface-level takes

[Chamath Palihapitiya @chamath]

In 2020, I hired McKinsey to teach me about the global energy transition. I learned a lot, but it cost me more than $2M.

After that experience, I decided to build my own internal research project at Social Capital called Learn With Me.

Over the last two years, my @socialcapital team and I systematized our process into a product that allows anyone to learn with me continuously, for a fraction of the cost of a single McKinsey report.

Each Learn With Me Deep Dive represents 300+ hours of first-principles research, expert interviews, and truth-seeking analysis of what's happening in the world today.

We have 3 main goals:
1) Educate: Break down complex topics from first principles
2) Contextualize: Show why it matters now in a shifting world
3) Analysis: Help individuals, founders, investors, and policymakers make informed decisions on their own

Over the last 2 years, we’ve released 30+ Deep Dive reports across five primary themes I believe are essential to understanding the world today: Technology, Energy, Life Sciences, Economic Analysis, and Socio-Political Trends.

Some of our most popular Deep Dives:

- Stablecoins: Early last year, I predicted that the biggest business winner in 2025 will be dollar-denominated stablecoins and shared the research behind this thesis.

- Magnificent 7: They are the undisputed winners of the internet era, with over $21T in combined market cap. We took a deeper look at each company’s products, key competitive edge, and revenue pillars.

- China: We created a 3-part, 450-slide report to explore the history, governance, and both the domestic and foreign policies of one of the world’s most powerful and longest-lasting civilizations.

Historically, we averaged ~1 comprehensive Deep Dive per month, delivered as a slide deck. After expanding our team, we’re looking to scale our output significantly in 2026:

- 4X Deep Dives per month: You'll start to see them drop weekly instead of monthly, and we aim to raise the quality bar with each release.
- Explainer Videos: We’ll be experimenting with cinematic explainer videos for our Deep Dive topics, presented by me with high-quality animations to make the research more accessible and shareable.
- Community: We aim to deepen our community of curious individuals who are invested in the topics we cover with our group chat that I’m involved in, and we plan to do even more next year to cultivate digital and physical connections between our members.

Price: While we’re increasing output by 4-5x, we will be keeping the price at $99/m or $999/y.

Essentially, we aim to curate a community of individuals who are curious and invested in the topics we cover. Those who want to learn alongside other like-minded members and me can self-select.

Deep Dives we have planned for Q1 2026: Humanoid Robotics, Autonomous Investing, Tokenization of Equities, Critical Minerals and Rare Earths, Prediction Markets, American AI Stack, Batteries, Population Collapse, Longevity and Aging, AI in Healthcare, GLP-1s, Affordable Housing, Neuralink, Autonomous Driving, California Fiscal Review, Agentic AI.

We will also look to our subscribers to influence what we research in our private group chat.

I invite you to come and Learn With Me here:

https://t.co/PSBNs9US6o

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

https://t.co/gd2UgE5o9U

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

Most people never think about how food actually gets to their plate. This breaks down the $5 trillion value chain - and why farmers keep only 1 cent of every food dollar.

[Chamath Palihapitiya @chamath]

https://t.co/tVUNlkbBbX

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

One of the biggest bottlenecks holding back modern economies gets surprisingly little attention: an aging, stagnant power grid.

The US grid, rated a dismal D+ by engineers @ASCETweets, has sparked devastating CA wildfires, left millions powerless in Texas during winter storms, and blocked the falling energy prices that decades of tech progress should have delivered. The UK and Europe have hit similar walls, some self-inflicted.

Now grids are becoming the chokepoint for two transitions at once: the data center buildout powering AI, and electrifying real estate with heat pumps, solar, and storage.

A grid that's barely grown in 25 years can't deliver cheaper, more reliable, and cleaner power at scale.

[Fareed Zakaria @FareedZakaria]

AI promises to transform our lives. But it will need a colossal amount of energy to do so. I explored what that could mean for the environment:

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

https://t.co/xXlsC8LV5N

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

https://t.co/OawNAnAQuw

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

@BillAckman It’s odd and simple enough that it’ll catch them off guard without being too creepy

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

@BillAckman @ZohranKMamdani @BillAckman sharing another young New Yorker's perspective you might also appreciate: https://t.co/MV6Yl8ljbq

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

@RyanDanz Truth. Covered this in detail on my substack a few months ago: https://t.co/k5Ej8YuE6g

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

1. Shouldn’t be considered securities, but they need real guardrails: knowledge-based accredited investor test, strict distribution channels with clear disclaimers, and hard rules to prevent rug pulls. Not just collectibles, you’re betting on creators.

2. Push for real utility: revenue shares, rewards, and more, like what web3 rewards programs originally promised. Freedom to issue, but no free pass to exploit.

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

@Jason And inquiry deserves truth

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

@tom_doerr @copilotmoney 🧐

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

@gregisenberg @opalapp is tackling this well, although willpower still required

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

@rabois sheesh. i'll try to keep up if my tread's next to you at the beach

[Conor Watkins @conorwatkins]

@Camp4 Turns out our beloved Pellegrino has 20x the guidelines of Radium, Nitrate, PFAS and Fluoride :/

per @oasiswaterapp