Bricked Waymos, Insider Trading

Hi friends,

I spent most of the holiday break at my mom’s house in upstate NY watching soapy historical dramas and listening to podcasts about Napoleon. Historymaxxing etc. I’m not exactly sure why, as I’m usually obsessively (compulsively?) thinking about the future, but I’m sure it’s dissociative in some way or another. :)

Anyway I’m glad to be back in the saddle here writing to you all. Reply to this email and let me know what you’re thinking about lately, I’m curious and I want to hear from you.

Love,

Deana

Editors: Miranda and Natasha

ICYMI. I’m still quite smoothbrain from the holiday, so I’m dropping a few wacko stories that hit over the last few weeks that you hopefully missed (since you were offline enjoying family and friends, of course!)

First, the Uber Eats false flag. A “whistleblower” post, which originated on r/confessions and ended up going mega viral on X, alleged an unnamed food delivery app was using a “desperation score” to cut driver pay, among other algorithmic dark arts. It turned out to be AI generated, as all things are these days. However, many of us (me) believed it for a moment because it mapped perfectly to the big tech extraction that we’ve all become accustomed to.

Next, Polymarket launched prediction markets on future home prices.

Polymarket has been having a time of it lately, fielding a slew of allegations of insider trading across news categories, from Google to Maduro. Insider trading is now so prominent on these platforms that tracking these trades is becoming a whole spectator sport, with dashboards and products.

As for crypto, we experienced a Christmas week stress test. A few holiday hacks were reported, including Trust Wallet and Polymarket, with ‘third parties’ being the blame for both. Bitcoin finished 2025 in the red and spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs saw notable net outflows as folks de-risked going into year end, as you do. Not sure what to call this market cycle tbh. Anyone have a name for it?

Finally, all the Waymos in San Francisco got bricked during a power outage. I’m passionately pro-Waymo however this feels like a big one to be addressed guys!!!

Quick Hits.

• TikTok crazy gals (their words) are using NYC street cams to lurk on their boyfriends.

• NYC’s new mayor fixed a bridge bump that a meme account had flagged.

• Trish Paytas for Congress?????????????

• Men will mirror polish their cast iron skillets instead of going to therapy.

• My kids are going to go nuts for the LEGO smart brick.

• Have you been following the Clavicular/looksmaxxing news cycle? No worries if not, @default_friend is coming on the livestream in a few weeks to unpack it all. Related, “Chinese Peptides” are going mainstream.

  

  the Heated Rivalry crossover episode no one asked for.