A stout, middle-aged man, with enormous owl-eyed spectacles, was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of a great table, staring with unsteady concentration at the shelves of books. As we entered he wheeled excitedly around and examined Jordan from head to foot.

“What do you think?” he demanded impetuously.

“About what?” He waved his hand toward the book-shelves.

“About that. As a matter of fact you needn’t bother to ascertain. I ascertained. They’re real.”

“The books?”

He nodded.

“Absolutely real — have pages and everything. I thought they’d be a nice durable cardboard. Matter of fact, they’re absolutely real. Pages and — Here! Lemme show you.”

Taking our scepticism for granted, he rushed to the bookcases and returned with Volume One of the “Stoddard Lectures.”

“See!” he cried triumphantly. “It’s a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella’s a regular Belasco. It’s a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too — didn’t cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?”

He snatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on its shelf, muttering that if one brick was removed the whole library was liable to collapse.

https://www.psprs.com/uploads/sites/1/AIC_PublicPensionRepor...

Some interesting details:

- "Nearly 50 percent of the private equity investment dollars that make their way into American businesses come from public pension funds", which substantiates OP's thesis.

- "U.S. public pension funds invest 9% of their portfolios in private equity, on a dollar-weighted basis." 46% is in public equity, so obviously the lion's share is in still in public markets.

From last year, this Moonlight Sonata in the 12-15 year old category is awesome: https://polypad.amplify.com/p/3VOW6BLM7AYqhQ

And I'm partial to this creation by an educator: https://polypad.amplify.com/p/hPjJZ4DC2Tpywg

but they're all great

(disclaimer: i am CTO of Amplify)

As a sibling poster notes, the Desmos calculator and math tools spun out to Desmos Studio PBC, which has a bunch of great people – with the goal of ensuring those remain available to all and not tied to a single curriculum provider. The Desmos Classroom tools for social, interactive classroom instruction, and another bunch of great colleagues, are part of Amplify, which together with Polypad and other tooling, make up Amplify Classroom ( https://classroom.amplify.com ), powering terrific IMO math, science and English curricula.

It's been a lot of fun – and a lot of tricky work! – bringing all of these tools and humans together.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that we are hiring, including for Software Engineer, Analytics Engineer, Data Engineer, and AI Engineer positions at various levels :)

https://amplify.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/Amplify_Careers

1. Sell you X seats, expecting that internal network effects will get you to 3X soon enough.

2. Sell you X seats, noting that as soon you reach 2X seats, you need to move to the Enterprise plan, under which largely the same feature set plus a couple of gated SCIM controls will cost twice as much.

3. Sell you X seats for their core product, then announce that features B and C are actually an additional SKU that requires additional per-seat subscriptions that double the cost.

4. Sell you X seats for their core product, then immediately announce that you’re on a “legacy plan”, but they’re happy to move you now to their updated offering, which is the same product but now structured to cost twice as much.

And once you can make a certain threshold of commit, the seats are free and all you pay is usage. They are definitely making a margin on the usage.

In other words, this article is, I wouldn’t say misinformed, but definitely underinformed.

2026 White House proposed budget[2]: $18.8 billion

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/budget...

[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Fiscal...

[2] is represented as deltas, explainer here https://spacenews.com/white-house-budget-proposal-would-phas...

:shrug: as to whether that makes the laptop or the giant instance the better place to do one's work…

[1] https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/on-demand/

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1161445529692...

> THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS! That decision belongs to YOUR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, and the tremendous leaders I appoint to run our Military.

> The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution. Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY.

> Therefore, I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again! There will be a Six Month phase out period for Agencies like the Department of War who are using Anthropic’s products, at various levels. Anthropic better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow.

> WE will decide the fate of our Country — NOT some out-of-control, Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

  PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

Text (it is short):

> President Trump on Friday ordered all federal agencies to stop using artificial intelligence technology made by Anthropic, an order that could vastly complicate intelligence analysis and defense work.

> Writing on Truth Social, Mr. Trump used harsh words for Anthropic calling it a “radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about.”

> Still, Mr. Trump announced a “Six Month phase out” for the Pentagon and some other agencies, a period of time that could allow for more extended negotiations between Anthropic and the Defense Department. Calling the company “Leftwing nut jobs,” he said they had made a mistake trying to strong-arm the Pentagon.

> Mr. Trump’s statement came as the Pentagon and Anthropic were, despite an escalating war of words, continuing to negotiate a compromise. While some current and former American officials had expressed hope of some sort of deal before the Pentagon’s 5:01 p.m. deadline, Mr. Trump’s comments will undoubtedly complicate matters.

The Truth Social post, which is, well, you can decide for yourself: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1161445529692...

e.g. https://status.atlassian.com/