TouchStone Reads - May 29th, 2026

Phil Richmond & Doug Goodman - May 29, 2026

We often set aside articles that are longer, deserve a re-read, are broader in scope…or just for fun - for weekend reading. Below are some from this week - pour yourself a hot cup of coffee & enjoy... 

  • AI eats the world. Benedict Evans on Tech platforms shifts: Benedict Evans’s annual deck - clear charts, no breathlessness, and the most useful single document for thinking about where AI economics actually sit right now. Required reading. (Benedict Evans or YouTube TED)

  • The Legend of Chief Shannon Kent: Coffee or Die on the late Navy cryptologist and Senior Chief - a profile of a remarkable career and the quiet community that knew her. Memorial-weekend reading. (Coffee or Die)

  • How investigators tracked down a former child soldier whose thefts drove a global art conspiracy. (Businessweek)

  • Experience: we found a baby on the subway - now he’s our 26-year-old son: A short first-person Guardian piece that has no business being as moving as it is. Read it in two minutes and feel slightly better about people. (The Guardian)

  • We need better stories about the future: Mayer argues the doom-loop dominating tech discourse is itself a self-fulfilling prophecy. Imagination is a strategic resource we keep underinvesting in. (Ashley Mayer)

  • Video of the day: World War II told in 20 Episodes with Tom Hanks (YouTube)

  • Write on, and on. If your similes are obvious and shallow ("as dry as a...desert"), it's time to spice them up (The Pudding)

  • How one school is rebuilding education for an AI world (The Free Press)

  • Narrative gets its own museum. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens on September 22 in Los Angeles. Fabulous.

  • Why AI is a Train, Not a Bicycle. That's what Tim Requarth thinks AI is, and that's not a good thing. (Persuasion)

  • Photographer of the Year. (Capture The Atlas) Plus 19 cities (including Toronto) where locals and tourists take photos very differently. (Flickr)

  • Your Mattress Got Worse on Purpose: You will recognize every move from other industries. (Worse On Purpose)

  • Unmaking the grade. This week, Harvard's faculty voted 70% to 30% to limit the number of "A's" it awards its students. (The Harvard Crimson)

  • John Oliver & Cookie Monster Out-Takes (YouTube)

  • The great digital media valuation collapse (Source: Axios)

What are you reading or listening to?