The Realignment: Meet the Foundation for American Innovation, AMA Listener Pushback, and Upcoming May Schedule
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Welcome Back to The Realignment
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Hey everyone, welcome back to the Substack!
We’re recording another Supercast AMA this week, so if you’d like to participate/listen, be sure to check subscribe.
As you can tell below, I spent last week getting ahead of show planning/guest booking. Lots of exciting guests and books this month.
I wrapped last week moderating an event at Miami Tech Week. We focused on the USA’s “hard tech” industry and how to ensure it remains competitive. While the event was off-the-record, my next editorial in the newsletter will focus on the broader themes.
Announcing the Foundation for American Innovation
On a personal level, I’m excited to follow up on last week’s announcement that The Realignment’s sponsor, Lincoln Network, renamed itself the Foundation for American Innovation. Hopefully, gone are the days where angry listeners deluge us with angry emails over something the *Lincoln Project*, a very different organization, says.
Here’s some brief information about the Foundation for American Innovation.
Our work is rooted in an optimistic vision for the future, in which technology is aligned to serve human ends: promoting individual freedom, supporting strong institutions, advancing national security, and unleashing economic prosperity.
We believe that better collaboration between innovators and policymakers is vital for making this future happen sooner. We work to help policymakers play a more productive role in fostering innovation, and help technologists and founders take a more active role in shaping governance.
While technological progress has been an overwhelming net positive for humanity, we also recognize that new technologies sometimes bring novel harms and disruptions, undermining our security, our livelihoods, and our social and community life. Rather than only focusing on the upsides of innovation, we believe dynamism is best advanced by working in good faith to anticipate and mitigate these challenges, while at the same time opposing the reactionary forces of social panic and incumbent protectionism.
In an era of increasing geopolitical strife, uncertainty, and malaise, we also reaffirm the need for American values and institutions—including free speech, economic liberty, and the rule of law—to lay the foundation for the dynamic future we want to create.
The Foundation for American Innovation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, established in Silicon Valley in 2014 as Lincoln Labs. Today, we are a national organization with three primary teams: one for building technology (Labs); one for public policy (Research); and one for events, media, and fellowships (Network).
FAI runs multiple event and programs that may be of interest to listeners, so definitely check out https://www.thefai.org/ to learn more.
Listener Feedback: Calling Out Saagar & Marshall’s Greco-Roman History Slight
On our previous Realignment Q&A episode, Saagar and I were unnecessarily dismissive of the importance of studying Classical history in contrast to the more modern, post Enlightenment history we typically cover. I’m sure that plenty of our listeners cringed at our commentary, but one response from our friend and subscriber Sid Jha was so good, that I wanted to share with everyone:
Disagree with the comments on the AMA on Roman history and it felt uncharacteristically reductive. There is definitely a cringe-Ryan-Holiday type of person that is weirdly only into Roman history at the expense of a broader syllabus. However, the reason why we have to look past that cringiness is that every influential person involved in the creation of the systems of democratic government since the fall of the Roman republic has used the events involving Caesar/Cato/Cicero/Mark Anthony/Augustus/Cleopatra as a framework to think about restraints on the executive and legislative branches of government (not limited to the US). Saagar mentioned reading about the birth of the French and American nation states instead — The Federalist Papers are written under various pseudonyms that are from the cast of characters of the fall of the Roman Republic. That's not just a historical nod through the centuries; the Rome story was very much top of mind for the founding fathers as it relates to the rise of well-meaning tyrants and the arming of other parts of the government with the tools necessary to contain them.
Two books I love on the period (if you guys/broader readership are interested) are: Tom Holland's Rubicon (a bit more pop history-esque but very readable for anyone with no context) and Adrian Goldsworthy's Augustus about the creation of the Roman Empire in its early days.
Sid writes an excellent newsletter, Snapshots, that you all should check out.
Upcoming May Episodes
Tomorrow, May 2 | Michael Lind on Hell to Pay: How the Suppression of Wages Is Destroying America
May 4 | Ben Smith on Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral
May 9 | Ashlee Vance on When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach
May 11 | Andrew Hoehn & Thom Shanker on Age of Danger: Keeping America Safe in an Era of New Superpowers, New Weapons, and New Threats
TBD May 2023 | Timothy B. Lee on Why I’m Not Worried About AI Causing Mass Unemployment
TBD May 2023 | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra
Note: A few months back, one of our Supercast subscribers asked for the show to add more American history focused episodes. One of my favorite Realignment episodes was my conversation with Harvard’s Fred Logevall about JFK’s coming-of-age before and during WWII. So with so many great books coming out, I’m gonna start producing bonus episodes covering history.
TBD May 2023 | Steve Drummond on The Watchdog: How the Truman Committee Battled Corruption and Helped Win World War II
TBD May 2023 | Evan Thomas on Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II
TBD May 2023 | Joshua Zeitz on Lincoln’s God: How Faith Transformed a President and a Nation
TBD May 2023 | Craig Nelson on V Is For Victory: Franklin Roosevelt’s American Revolution and the Triumph of World War II
If you’d like to support the show, the books listed above are available for order/pre-order at The Realignment’s Bookshop.
Last Week’s Free Episodes
364 | Rebecca Grant: Why Birth, Motherhood, and Pregnancy Are at the Center of American Politics
363 | Peter Frankopan: How a Transforming Earth & a Rising Asia Will Define the 21st Century
The Realignment Bookshop
We’ve created a Realignment Bookshop affiliate store showcasing books by guests, what we’re actively reading this year, and deeper dives into the featured topic of an episode.
If you purchase a book using our link, the show gets a 10% commission, a local, independent bookseller gets support, and you get an awesome book!
What We’re Reading: 2023 Edition
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