Analyst @TheBTI
San Francisco, California
Joined July 2011
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Lauren Teixeira retweeted
'Pigs are the most important of the six domestic animals' — Chinese poster, 1960
Lauren Teixeira retweeted
Not sure it’s social skills exactly, but IME Americans are really good at presentation of self to large groups, Brits are really good at presentation of self to small ones. I assume it’s a different high school culture or sth
Lauren Teixeira retweeted
Simple answer: Brits drink, and don’t take themselves too seriously.
We also have a healthier attitude to learning how to socialise in school and at university. Partly because we drink, and don’t take ourselves too seriously.
Lauren Teixeira retweeted
If you write, your fingerprints are in the training data of the AI that replaces you. Your work lives on, unlike the work of weavers replaced by machines in the first Industrial Revolution
At least that’s a nicer thought than “I guess the AI will slurp me up”
Lauren Teixeira retweeted
Americans are often much more confident, giving slick presentations.
In Britain, it’s common to make friends by self-deprecation and mutual teasing.
If you aren’t protecting your ego and it’s permissible to be slightly cheeky, it’s easier to make jokes & friends 😛
Lauren Teixeira retweeted
Alcohol, being disinhibiting, allows people to build trust between and have fun with each other when they wouldn’t be able to do so soberly. It helps to temporarily level status hierarchies and allows more social risk-taking, which is why people often meet future lovers when they’re drinking and drink when building relationships. People can be silly together when drinking, and people who aren’t ever silly are to my mind more prone to collective fanaticism.
There is a time and place for sobriety - work and time with children especially - but alcohol underpins a lot of the social interactions that make trust-based civilization possible.
Lauren Teixeira retweeted
I know I'm echoing some of what Randy criticizes in this post. But this is a genuinely stupid idea.
1) California would probably need a ballot initiative at 2/3s to mandate some kind of public disaster insurance for all, so she can't even really deliver on her main ballot promise.
2) The most likely outcome is she hassles private insurers on rate changes and then they start leaving again more aggressively like early in Ricardo Lara's term. Growth on the FAIR plan will likely reaccelerate again and FAIR coverage sucks, it doesn't cover full replacement cost. It only covers the depreciated value of the property so a bunch of fire victims will be like WTF, this only covers half the house. Homeowners would also need to get multiple policies to wraparound FAIR to cover for the normal things that home insurance covers outside fire. FAIR currently has around 700K policies with $768 billion in exposure and a direct cash balance of $200 to $400 million. If growth reaccelerates again, we could end up with $1T of exposure on 800K policies. Also, when insurers were leaving CA, they didn't just cancel wildfire risk homes, they also cancelled apartment buildings in the middle of SF because the FAIR liability is calculated as an insurer's market share % in California so insurers were also trying to dump any exposure at all anywhere even if there was little wildfire risk.
3) Then there will be a big fire at some point. And then she'll have to decide whether to let FAIR be insolvent or do an insurance surcharge on everyone else.
4) Having the insurance market destabilize again is really, really bad for housing production of all kinds. If affordable housing can't get insurance, then what???? If market-rate housing can't get insurance, then what???? It has been starting to affect low-risk areas in the Central Valley and Inland Empire, which is where the state's more naturally affordable and cheaper housing has long existed: finance.yahoo.com/real-estat…
She's been relentlessly attacked, but here's why @JaneKim can win her race for Insurance Commissioner, beyondchron.org/can-jane-kim… @WorkingFamilies @kimmaicutler
Lauren Teixeira retweeted
1/n I'm Chinese and I love China but as someone who has lived in multiple countries, there are a million things that bother me about living in China. No day better than the birthday of this glorious nation to go over them 🧵
Lauren Teixeira retweeted
“Something I am obsessed with is the apparent tradeoff between economic growth and increased personal autonomy … I felt like I saw the other shoe beginning to drop in Shenzhen.”
Lauren Teixeira retweeted
sf folks:
I'm giving a talk at @tiatplace this Saturday (sept 26, 4pm-5pm) to share my thesis on Chinese society and AI. It's in three reporting pieces I've been working on (including this New Yorker piece that just got published). The other two, still being edited, are
- on the massive, cultish "AI class" industry—how people are all-in on AI-will-change-my-life evangelism
- the "industrial AI-slop complex”: what it says about local governance and society
I will try to answer the following questions:
“does the CCP care about AGI?” “why don’t people in China seem terrified of AI?” “why does China seem so ahead, and so radical, on AI content generation?” “what is this vibe-coding capital in china?”
register here: luma.com/chinaAI
ticket sales will support my Substack and @tiatplace, one of the best galleries in the Bay Area’s art-and-tech scene.
My first piece for @NewYorker is out today!
As Xi Jinping lands in DC to start his state visit, you'll hear a lot about the US-China AI race. I'd like to tell a complementary AI story.
This past May, a few days after Trump visited Beijing, I went to the town people call China's vibe-coding capital, Liangzhu. There, you learn that China's AI scene is not monolithic. It's also full of contrarians, cool vibe coders, spiritual seekers, and people who love AI but refuse to join the 996 grind.
Liangzhu is on the edge of Hangzhou. I hung out with a group of anti-mainstream builders who use AI to make whimsical apps for fortune-telling, mental well-being, and creativity. Some of them run their lives entirely by bazi astrology (their founder almost became a Taoist monk). They meet on "Crazy Thursday" to vibe-code together. Rent is cheap, so they can get a bigger place with a living room to have friends over (unthinkable in Beijing or Shenzhen). In Liangzhu, they want to use AI to forge their own future.
It’s a ground-level story—less about model capabilities, hyperscalers, or AI policy, and more about how people in China are using AI, and the human stories behind it.
Lauren Teixeira retweeted
My first piece for @NewYorker is out today!
As Xi Jinping lands in DC to start his state visit, you'll hear a lot about the US-China AI race. I'd like to tell a complementary AI story.
This past May, a few days after Trump visited Beijing, I went to the town people call China's vibe-coding capital, Liangzhu. There, you learn that China's AI scene is not monolithic. It's also full of contrarians, cool vibe coders, spiritual seekers, and people who love AI but refuse to join the 996 grind.
Liangzhu is on the edge of Hangzhou. I hung out with a group of anti-mainstream builders who use AI to make whimsical apps for fortune-telling, mental well-being, and creativity. Some of them run their lives entirely by bazi astrology (their founder almost became a Taoist monk). They meet on "Crazy Thursday" to vibe-code together. Rent is cheap, so they can get a bigger place with a living room to have friends over (unthinkable in Beijing or Shenzhen). In Liangzhu, they want to use AI to forge their own future.
It’s a ground-level story—less about model capabilities, hyperscalers, or AI policy, and more about how people in China are using AI, and the human stories behind it.
Lauren Teixeira retweeted
Would you pay 8888 yuan (US$1325) to stay the night in this "pig view room"? The suite is located inside a pig farm and has a window that lets guests see the stables.
You're basically sleeping with the pigs.
The room is located inside the "Panda Pig Ranch" in Jinhua (Zhejiang), a smart breeding farm specializing in the Jinhua Swine (两头乌), which is also nicknamed the "panda pig" because of the black spots on its head and bum.
The price is actually not as crazy as it sounds. It's the package-deal price for a one-year farm membership, which includes unlimited visits and a one-night stay in the special pig-view suite... and you don't go home empty-handed. You actually get a pig with that.
If you want, you can adopt the pig, but customers can also choose to have the pig butchered there and then take home about 50kg of meat.🤯
Apparently, Jinhua ham is especially tender, making it popular (eaten dried & thinly sliced like prosciutto).
If that actually sounds attractive to you, then maybe wait a bit. For now, the annual package is paused, and rooms are available only to guests who have already purchased it.
Overall, you see that unique hotels have become much more popular in China: there's been a shift in perceptions of hotels not just as accommodations but as destinations. It's not about the luxury, but about the experience.
This suite might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it sure is unique AND you get to bring home the bacon ... 🙃 🥲
Lauren Teixeira retweeted
Love seeing our friend @jordanschneider here in Bloomberg's New Economy newsletter. bloomberg.com/news/newslette…
Lauren Teixeira retweeted
"Democratic lawmakers rejected Newsom’s proposal to eliminate insurer subrogation under the banner of 'preserving utility accountability' and opted for the status quo."
@lrntex on the fucked up risk politics driving California's wildfire crisis.
breakthroughjournal.org/p/ca…
Lauren Teixeira retweeted
“Democrats can’t claim to treat climate change as a crisis if they are unwilling to act to solve it. Right now, that means making a deal on permitting with Republican lawmakers and Mr. Trump.”
via @JaneAFlegal @ppavnr
wsj.com/opinion/dems-should-…
