Destabilized Saturday Edition #10
Worst case scenario antifragility, a great American, horses or zebras?, Instacart and the apocalypse
Two quick corrections to my post this past week:
I identified Samantha Powers as a former Ambassador to the UN, which she is. She is also the current administrator of USAID, which I’d completely forgotten.
I said the chart of New York Times subscribers was of “quarterly net subscriber adds.” What I meant to say was the chart itself is total subscribers by quarter, and the incremental change in total subscribers – the slope, the first derivative – is quarterly net subscriber adds.
I try hard to be accurate so if you see a mistake I’ve made, please let me know.
In response to my New York Times Company analysis post this week, a smart Destabilized reader shared this thought:
One NYT risk? If our trajectory is Orban or worse, I wonder if a president Cruz or Hawley (after a cycle or two of stolen elections and hence no accountability) wouldn't just shut down NYT?
Here’s what I wrote in reply:
On the political risks to the Times, I’ve thought about this a bit. My view is the government could forcibly shut down its presses, but I think its digital business is close to untouchable. In an extreme case, what would stop the company from operating with all of its staff and its bank accounts and such in Canada and Latin America? (Or Europe or wherever, though time zones come into play.) Reporters already do most of their jobs online and on the phone. Is there a factor or dynamic I’m not thinking of? Unless the feds can block the NYTimes website, which I suspect is close to impossible in terms of the technological architecture, I don’t see how they could shut the company down. And if they tried to, a TON of people would subscribe in solidarity. That’s the antifragility in action. But please let me know me if you see something I’m overlooking.
That solidarity part is key. As the leading journalism institution in the country, the New York Times is the embodiment of our first amendment press freedoms. If the leader of an authoritarian movement, Trump or whoever else, wins the White House and tries to harm the Times, scores of people will subscribe as a way to rally around the organization, recognizing the attacks on it as precisely the threat to liberty and democracy they would represent. This is exactly what we’ve seen over the years, just look at the quarters in which the biggest increases happen:
I would worry for the safety of individual Times reporters if an authoritarian leader were to take power in the U.S. and try, aggressively, to harm the press and the New York Times Company specifically. The company itself, however, would gain strength from the disorder, fear, and resistance.
My Work
Antifragility and civil violence
When the world is chaotic, people are anxious and want good information so they can understand what’s happening. This spikes subscriptions to the New York Times (as well as increasing the number of readers seeing its ads). Chaos —> subscribers —> zero-marginal-cost revenue.
This is the kind of antifragile behavior we want the companies we invest in to have going into a period of upheaval.
When buy and hold investing meets democratic backsliding
The most important thing to understand is this: the risks of political turbulence and democratic backsliding are not yet priced in. It’s not priced in on the downside for financial markets broadly, and it’s not priced on the upside for companies that would gain from upheaval and disorder.
Interesting Reads
Where Does American Democracy Go From Here?
Why Is the World Ignoring the Latest U.N. Climate Report?
Tweets of the Week
[Ted Cruz, still in the hearing room, searching his name on Twitter immediately after being performatively disrespectful to Judge Brown Jackson is one of the clearer illustrations of the attention war you’ll see.]
Extreme Weather Watch
Creeping Authoritarianism Watch
