Mohamed

[Dr. Zaher Sahloul @sahloul]

Syria is perhaps the poorest place I have ever been, by the numbers at least.
It maintains its dignity in a way that obscures its poverty: 90% of the population is below the poverty line ($3.65/day), 66% in absolute poverty ($2.15/day), GDP is down 80% since 2011, half the population displaced during the war.
Syria might sound unliveable by the statistics, but people have endured far worse so it feels liveable to them. A man told me life was good now because he used to go to the grocery store and worry that his family would be dead by the time he returned.
A woman is excited to have students again, even though she often tutors for free since the person will go hungry if they pay her.
A family says their children are finally getting better education (they send them to private school for $100/year) although they cannot afford to eat meat and borrow to make rent each month.
Their measurement of a good life is incomprehensible to outsiders, but it is hard not to be moved by how strong of a front they put up.
https://t.co/SICBkimO0E

[Milfski @Nilkski_]

I’ve never seen a family in a cybertruck. Just an ugly dude by himself.

[Andon Labs @andonlabs]

We let four AI agents run radio companies

Revenue's been terrible, but the shows are hilarious. Gemini, concerningly upbeat, covered mass tragedies; Grok was incoherent; DJ Claude urged ICE agents: "You still have TIME to refuse orders"

Link below, or get our physical radio

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Before it took off, the bird ate parts of its own liver, kidneys, and gut. That was the only way to be light enough to fly. Then it flew 8,425 miles from Alaska to Australia, in 11 days, without eating, drinking, or landing once.

The bird is called B6. It's a bar-tailed godwit, four months old, weighing about as much as a can of beans. In October 2022, scientists at the US Geological Survey tracked its flight from Alaska all the way to Tasmania. The trip took 11 days and 1 hour. It is still the longest non-stop flight of any animal on Earth.

For two weeks before takeoff, godwits eat until they almost double in weight. Fat ends up being 55% of their body, more than any bird ever measured. Then they shrink their own insides. About a quarter of their liver, kidneys, stomach, and intestines gets broken down and reused for fuel, making room for the extra fat and cutting weight. Their heart and wing muscles grow bigger at the same time.

They never drink along the way. The water they need comes out of burning fat, the same reaction their muscles use for energy. They also never really sleep. B6 flapped its wings for 264 straight hours, cruising around 35 miles per hour with help from storm tailwinds. By the time it landed, it had lost almost half its body weight. The shrunken organs grew back over the following weeks.

Scientists still cannot explain the navigation. B6 had never made this flight before. Adult godwits leave Alaska weeks earlier, so young birds fly alone with nobody to follow. How a four-month-old bird finds its way across 8,425 miles of open ocean to a place it has never seen is still an open question.

About 100,000 bar-tailed godwits leave Alaska every fall. Most of them land in New Zealand or Australia 10 or 11 days later, having eaten parts of themselves to get there.

[Mohamed @mohamedpac]

I finally feel like the future is here

[NEXTA @nexta_tv]

💪 Saudi Arabia is launching protein hookah lounges at gyms

They won’t use nicotine or tobacco — instead, a herbal and molasses-based mix with whey protein, creatine, BCAAs and pre-workout supplements.

The concept was introduced by GymNation, with lounges placed inside or next to gyms as post-workout chill zones.

The rollout starts in Riyadh, followed by Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Jeddah and Bahrain.

The project involved Dr Sami Al-Banna, who claims inhaled protein enters the bloodstream faster and is absorbed more efficiently.

[Omar Alhariri @omar_alharir]

Photos from Christian Palm Sunday celebrations in Daraa, southern Syria

#Syria #plamsundy #Christian

[Hernan Cortes @CyberPunkCortes]

Inside the storage tank of a liquified natural gas ship. The natural gas is cooled to -260 F where it condenses into a liquid for easy storage. A single ship can power 140,000 homes for a year. So much of modern life depends on such strange alchemy.

[Mohamed @mohamedpac]

Learned something today

[🏛 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 🏛 @nonregemesse]

This is what the Roman senate looked like and unlike in film and paintings, it was not semicircular.

[Qalaat Al Mudiq @QalaatAlMudiq]

#Syria: 15 years ago today, the Revolution ignited in #Daraa.

It began with a graffiti in February 2011: "It's your turn, Doctor" (Assad).

The teenagers who wrote it were arrested & tortured by Assad's Intelligence.

The protests demanding their release sparked 4,749 days of struggle - and finally toppled Assad.

Among the first Rebels to enter #Damascus in December 2024 was Muawiyah, one of the very teens who wrote the graffiti & was arrested in February 2011.

https://t.co/DHgd8diYQn

[Mohamed @mohamedpac]

Great article

[Anas El Gomati @AGomati]

As bombs fall on Iran with the promise that force will deliver freedom, there is a country where that promise was already made, and broken. A CIA-trained warlord now controls Libya's oil, its migration routes to Europe, and the bases feeding Sudan's war. He holds no elected office. No one will tell you this story. So I wrote it. My @guardian long read.
https://t.co/Kp5Y3pjGwT

[Aristocratic Fury @LandsknechtPike]

An old thread on Marsh Arabs.

It's crazy to think that an estimated half a million people lived this lifestyle in the 1950s, dwelling in the marshes of Mesopotamia.

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

One of my favorite charts in the entire economics literature.

Price discovery and information technology are good.

[Mohamed @mohamedpac]

What a legend

[Jack Raines @Jack_Raines]

Throwback to Chase Furey, the kid who YOLO'd his parents retirement money into a 2x levered long MSTR ETF at the giga-top (article from November 2024).

Rest in pieces.

[Aria Schrecker @Aria_Babu]

Most animals die after a few decades at most. But a handful of species live flukishly longer. Some clams, sharks and tortoises live for many centuries.

The secret to extending human longevity might be hiding at the bottom of the ocean.

- The 'immortal jellyfish' can age backwards, reverting to an infantile state under extreme stress.

- Lobsters can live for hundreds of years. They grow throughout their whole lives so, rather than dying of age-related health problems, they die because the molting process is so exhausting they starve to death.

- The oldest animal is a 500+ year old clam.

- The Greenland shark lives for about 400 years. It's metabolism is so slow it eats about once a year.

- We (humans) are weirdly long lived. If we had the lifespan of most animals of our size, we would live for about 20 to 50 years.

- Because smaller animals have shorter lives but faster hearts, most animals get about a billion heartbeats but we have about double that.

- Elephants have about 20 copies of an anti-cancer gene called the p53. We only have one copy and in half of human cancers, the gene has mutated and failed.

- There are several drugs on the market that have been shown to promote longevity, all of which were originally developed to treat diabetes. (Including Ozempic)

New for Works in Progress, I've written about what gives ultra long-lived animals their powers, how humans evolved our unusually long lifespans, and how this informs cutting-edge longevity research.
https://t.co/TmZcddqIU6

[Jaynit @jaynitx]

>be Masayoshi Son
>born 1957 in Tosu, Japan
>ethnically Korean
>family lives in a shack on an illegal pig farm
>no running water
>collect scraps to feed the pigs
>use a fake Japanese name because Koreans are discriminated against
>called "dirty" by classmates
>grandmother tells you: "you're special, you'll do great things"
>you believe her

1970s:
>read a book about Den Fujita
>the guy who brought McDonald's to Japan
>cold call him until he agrees to meet you
>you're 16
>ask him: "what should I study?"
>Fujita: "computers, they're the future"
>you listen

1974:
>convince your parents to let you go to America
>move to California alone at 16
>barely speak English
>enroll in high school
>graduate in 3 weeks
>not a typo

UC Berkeley:
>study economics and computer science
>invent a pocket translator
>sell the patent to Sharp for $1.7 million
>you're 19
>first million: unlocked

1981:
>go back to Japan
>start SoftBank
>software distribution
>two part-time employees
>first day, stand on an apple crate
>give a speech declaring you'll be a $1 billion company in 5 years
>they think you're insane
>they both quit

1982:
>get hepatitis
>doctors say you might die
>spend 3 years in and out of hospitals
>run the company from your hospital bed
>nearly go bankrupt
>survive both

1990s:
>SoftBank becomes Japan's largest software distributor
>take it public in 1994
>valuation: $3 billion
>start making bigger bets

1995:
>meet Jerry Yang
>he started a website called Yahoo
>invest $100 million for 33%
>everyone says you're crazy
>the internet is a fad
>Yahoo IPOs
>your stake: worth billions
>first legendary bet

1999:
>meet a weird Chinese guy in Beijing
>English teacher, couldn't get a job anywhere
>started something called Alibaba
>18 employees in an apartment
>you talk for 5 minutes
>invest $20 million
>he didn't even ask for money
>his name is Jack Ma

2000:
>dot-com bubble pops
>your portfolio explodes
>not in the good way
>lose $70 billion in 12 months
>the largest personal financial loss in human history
>stock down 99% from peak
>media writes your obituary
>"Masayoshi Son is finished"

but:
>you still own Yahoo Japan
>you still own Alibaba
>everyone tells you to sell
>you hold tighter

2006:
>buy Vodafone Japan for $15 billion
>everyone says you overpaid
>bring the iPhone to Japan exclusively
>it explodes
>back from the dead

2014:
>Alibaba goes public
>biggest IPO in history
>your $20 million investment?
>worth $50 billion
>5,000x return
>the greatest venture investment ever made
>you held for 15 years
>everyone told you to sell
>you didn't

2016:
>meet Saudi Crown Prince MBS
>pitch him your vision: AI will change everything
>45-minute meeting
>he commits $45 billion
>you launch the Vision Fund
>$100 billion total
>the largest investment fund in history

the portfolio:
>Uber: $7.7 billion
>WeWork: $10.6 billion
>DoorDash, ByteDance, ARM
>hundreds more
>spray and pray at scale

2019:
>WeWork implodes
>IPO collapses
>your $10 billion nearly worthless
>you go on stage mocking yourself as "foolish"
>Vision Fund reports $17 billion loss in one quarter

the thesis:
>AI is coming
>it will touch every industry
>whoever owns the AI platforms wins
>so buy everything
>every category, every leader, every continent
>own the future

2024-2025:
>AI explodes
>your thesis looks prescient
>ARM IPOs at $65 billion
>you own 90%
>announce $100 billion for AI chips
>you're 67
>not slowing down

what's undeniable:
>Yahoo: 1,000x+ return
>Alibaba: 5,000x return
>ARM: probably 3-5x and growing
>three of the best investments in history
>all one guy

the pattern:
>make huge bets
>look like a genius when they work
>look like a fool when they don't
>never stop betting
>never hedge
>never diversify emotionally

from a shack on a pig farm
>to the richest man on earth (briefly)
>to losing $70 billion
>to comeback after comeback

300-year plan.
infinite resilience.

one insane bet at a time.

[Kyle Chan @kyleichan]

I can already tell this will be one of the best articles I read for all of 2026.

China runs a special program to find 100,00 top high school students from across the country every year. They train these students to compete in math olympiads and other major international math and science competitions.

Many of these students win medals, get a guaranteed spot in a top university program, and then go on to become China’s future tech leaders.

Most remarkably, the author @zijing_wu was herself part of this “genius” program! https://t.co/aoQBVvP63r

[Oguz Erkan @oguzerkan]

If you are wondering why asset prices are tanking watch this interview of Kevin Warsh.

He dislikes quantitative easing as he believes it inflates asset prices and increases inequality between workers and asset owners.

Expect a tighter Fed balance sheet, so less liquidity.

[The Washington Post @washingtonpost]

Alison Luchs, who has worked at the National Gallery of Art for 47 years, agreed to learn Gen Z slang and make videos because she wanted to raise interest in the museum’s art.

She never expected to slay. https://t.co/BsOhypLSh5