SWL Week in Review - AI Gutting the Consumer Economy?

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5/29/2026, 11:23 PM

Jess replaced me on the pod this week with another stunningly good looking Jew. I have no idea what they talked about… I am sure it was fine.

HOT TAKES

What if AI doesn’t destroy that many jobs… but does destroy the US consumer economy? — the new vibe from the top is ‘JK AI isn’t going to take all the jobs’ -…. But here is the thing… it doesn’t need to to totally disrupt the US economy. Very rich people don’t spend any money (relative to their income)… half the country has no disposable income… our ‘consumer economy’ is mostly driven by the top 1-15% of middle managers who make good money AND spend what they make… And if AI takes those ‘managerial’ jobs — it might crush the US economy not from the labor side, but by gutting the slice of ACTUAL American consumers!

People Want to Work For People, Not Robots and Also Not Companies — I have noticed a trend from talking to several folks around hiring… people show up to interview and the talk track isn’t that they want to work for the company / or in the vertical, but that the want to work for The PERSON specifically / that the role reports to… they care about the individual, want to be like them, learn from them, etc. This feels more and more common to me — and it makes me wonder, people not only don’t want to report to machines… they also probably don’t want to report to companies as much any more. It isn’t ‘get on the rocket ship don’t worry about the seat’… it is more ‘who knows the future but I want to learn from this person’

Will SpaceX Be An Economic Make or Break Moment? — I know people are annoyed I obsess about this one… but it is just SOO interesting. The meme of the moment is ‘SpaceX clearly isn’t worth 2T financially’ ‘Elon bump’ or ‘Actually this is all a question of S&P 500 and if Elon can pull a rabbit of exit liquidity out of his hat AGAIN… in the school of ‘true north, never lose investors money’ — I do wonder if this summer and the SpaceX wild IPO is going to be some sort of moment… it either works and narratives win, and investors get confidence because S&P exit liquidity will carry the day — OR it feels like a moment where classic economics reasserts itself??

Have You Been ‘Red Pearled’? — or should I say ‘black pearled’ … if you know you know, but what a week….

The Virtues of Selfishness (Shell-Fish-Ness) — this was my other favorite sub-tweet of the week from a friend I haven’t seen in a long time… Good reminder that relationships are long, do right by people, and in-person is always great.

Hope you enjoy the tail end of your may token-maxxing…
Sam

P.S. The no arm woman wins the internet this week. Courtesy of trainer mike of course.

P.P.S. Remember the NYC bar “PDT” / please don’t tell… I do.

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