Hypertext | David Dagan | Substack

Universal Basic Salary: Help employers train workers. Drop failed programs.

A response to Will Raderman and Gabe Menchaca.

Jun 9 • Monica Prasad

Build-your-own workforce, the federal way

AI will require more employers to build their own workforce pipelines. For lessons, they can look to federal agencies including the CIA and CDC.

Jun 8 • Gabe Menchaca

We must diversify our workforce bets

An all-of-the-above approach to retraining is the best way to prepare for the age of AI.

Jun 8 • Will Raderman

The Alice Waters theory of social change

Alice Waters grew up in post-World War II America, the first era of mass market processed foods.

May 18 • Eboo Patel

We know how to prepare for the AI shock

There is a reason why we have never offered truly universal re-training. But there is also an emerging path to doing so: Registered apprenticeships.

Jun 8 • Monica Prasad

Most Popular

It's time for abundance Democrats to embrace cultural moderation

Jul 25, 2025 • Matthew Yglesias

The rise of the abundance faction

Jun 3, 2024 • Steven Teles and Rob Saldin

What left-wing critics don’t get about abundance

May 1, 2025 • David Schleicher

What happens when Chinese resolve meets American rent-seeking?

Oct 14, 2025 • Dan Davies

It's a long road to institutional renewal. Take the first step.

Recent posts

Nonprofits in the age of doubt

Nonprofits face a series of interlocking crises in the second Trump administration.

May 18 • David Dagan

Residual resisters: The nonprofit sector in the age of Trump

by John MacIntosh

May 18

For nonprofits, there's no going back

America’s old system of federally funded nonprofits is gone. What comes next?

May 18 • Daniel Stid

Nonprofits should resist politicization first

Public trust is their most precious commodity, and politics erodes it.

May 18 • Greg Berman

What Silicon Valley can learn from the Eastern Establishment

A new elite is grasping for a vision of leadership. The Gilded Age aristocracy did not provide the right blueprint. Their sons and daughters did.

May 14 • Geoff Kabaservice

For better tech, we must think bigger than content moderation

Content-focused policies risk censoring speech without fixing the underlying business model that pushes noxious material where it will do the most…

Apr 6 • Kristen Collins

Hegseth’s war on Anthropic is the wrong answer to the right question

The government is too reliant on private software vendors for core mission work and AI will make this much worse. Forcing companies to work at gunpoint…

Mar 6 • Gabe Menchaca

We will never grow out of our tech adolescence if we let it become autocratic

If AI is not deliberately designed to advance democracy, it can empower authoritarians. We should not assume they will only be in China.

Feb 27 • Nicole Schneidman