Weekly Reading List: 4/10/2025

Things I Read This Week That Made Me Think

Every week, I try to collect the pieces that refused to leave me alone. Not the articles I skimmed between meetings, not the tweets that sparked a one-hour distraction, but the things I kept thinking about in the shower, or scribbling notes on long after I’d closed the tab.

I’ve realized that what pulls me in isn’t neat categories like “business,” “tech,” “culture”, but the way all of them collapse into the same question: what does it mean to be human in the systems we’ve built?

This week’s list is a braid of that question. Why do we overspend when what we really lack is conviction? Why do publishing houses gamble like casinos while swearing they’re caretakers of literature? Why is friendship both the simplest thing and the hardest to sustain? Why do radiologists survive the AI apocalypse, while edtech startups get devoured by entertainment? And beneath it all: what does trust mean, when even countries can’t seem to hold onto it?

These pieces are not soothing. But they are clarifying.

The List

1. You’re overspending because you lack values
This one stung. The idea that our financial “bad habits” aren’t about discipline, but about not knowing what we actually value is both obvious and uncomfortable. I kept thinking of all the times I’ve bought something aspirational because it was easier than asking myself whether I even wanted that life.

2. The publishing industry has a gambling problem
Publishing, we like to believe, is a noble industry: nurturing voices, carrying forward culture. But behind the curtain it runs like a casino, betting big on a few blockbusters, burning through advances, and praying for the next whale. Reading this made me think of how many “industries of meaning” are run on structures of chance and extraction.

3. An existential guide to making friends
Philosophy meets loneliness. Friendship isn’t networking, it isn’t convenience, it’s a conscious choice to reveal yourself, to share finitude, to accept rejection. I underlined: we make friends to remind ourselves that existence isn’t meant to be carried alone.

4. Questions to ask your friends
I sent a couple of these straight to people I love. They cut through politeness into marrow. Sometimes the right question changes the entire terrain of a friendship, and this list reminded me to be brave enough to ask.

5. Why AI isn’t replacing radiologists
Radiology was supposed to be “first against the wall” for AI disruption. And yet, here we are. The essay explains why: diagnosis isn’t just image recognition, it’s judgment, pattern-sense, and a human ability to interpret the messy edge cases. It’s a lesson about tech hype, but also about the persistence of human expertise.

6. Anti-aging breakthrough: stem cells reverse signs of aging in monkeys
This one reads like sci-fi: monkeys with reversed markers of aging thanks to stem cell treatment. It’s thrilling and terrifying because you can see both the promise (longer, healthier lives) and the risks (who gets access, what it means for inequality). A reminder that “anti-aging” is moving from creams to labs.

7. A new search engine raises $1.1M to let obsessive fans dive down internet rabbit holes
I love this. In a world of shallow algorithmic feeds, someone is building a search engine for depth: not to answer quickly, but to get lost. It made me nostalgic for old-school forums and also hopeful: maybe the future of the internet isn’t less obsession, but better tools for it.

8. IEEE paper on emergent systems
This one is dense, but worth it: how complex intelligence emerges from simple rules. Reading it alongside startup strategy was oddly clarifying. Swarms or code are fine, but it’s good to remember how fragile order really is, and how much of what we think is “design” is actually emergence.

9. Seekho and the parable of how entertainment consumed edtech
Edtech set out to change how we learn. Instead, it got absorbed by the entertainment machine. Seekho is the parable: when education is re-wired for attention capture, it stops being education. Made me wonder how many other industries are being stealthily rewritten as entertainment first, purpose second.

10. The unbearable cringe of being perceived
Mine. Yes. I am trying to override the cringe here! About what it feels like to be visible, online and off. The truth is: it’s always cringe. And maybe that’s the point.

11. Shutdown lays bare America’s latest crisis: a total breakdown in trust
The U.S. shutdown is about the erosion of trust as the connective tissue of democracy. Policy gridlock, yes, but it’s a reminder of the fact that institutions that don’t trust each other can’t govern. And people who don’t trust institutions can’t follow. It’s, unfortunately, a preview of fragility everywhere.

If last week was about speed, this week is about fragility. Fragile values, fragile industries, fragile bodies, fragile trust. But also the small anchors that hold us steady: friendship, judgment, the willingness to be perceived even when it’s unbearable.

I don’t read these pieces because I agree with all of them. I read them because they remind me that thinking is work, and that clarity doesn’t come from scrolling. It comes from sitting with things that unsettle you.

So: here are the doorways I opened this week. Walk through whichever one feels necessary.