Not Boring's Weekly Dose of Optimism hit issue 200 this week, published on the eve of America's 250th birthday. Packy McCormick and Dan Lavine launched the series in July 2022, at what they called the depth of the despair market. Four years later, the tone has inverted completely.
The scorecard since issue 1 is concrete: GLP-1s have functionally solved obesity, autonomous vehicles are operating commercially, AI has moved from research curiosity to daily utility, a wave of hard-tech and atoms companies has emerged in the US, and multiple advanced nuclear reactors have gone critical. The original piece lists these as off-the-cuff examples, not a curated highlight reel.
The full issue is worth reading not for the recap but for what comes next. The authors are writing from a moment of genuine confluence: World Cup host energy, soaring markets, and a generational shift in what American industry believes it can build. The question embedded in issue 200 is whether the optimism is warranted or whether it is simply peak sentiment. That tension is what makes the original worth your time.
[READ ORIGINAL →]