China’s Economy Weaponizes, AI Threats Grow, and a Crypto King Falls

Beijing Rules: How China Weaponized its Economy to Confront The World 

By Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Harper, August 2023 

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, the award-winning China reporter for Axios, shows that by tying profits to political acquiescence the Chinese Communist Party is forcing companies and governments around the world to accept its rules. But Western democracies need not be helpless victims in Beijing’s game. Grounded in deep investigative reporting, it sounds the alarm about what we must do to prevent the loss of freedoms we now take for granted. 

Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon  

By Michel Lewis, W. Norton & Company, September 2023 

When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. In Going Infinite, Lewis takes readers into the mind of Bankman-Fried, whose rise and fall offer an education in high-frequency trading, cryptocurrencies, philanthropy, bankruptcy, and the justice system— tracing the mind-bending trajectory of a character who was allowed to live by his rules—until it all came undone. 

The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the 21st Century’s Greatest Dilemma 

By Mustafa Suleyman, Crown, September 2023 

As co-founder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind (part of Google), Mustafa Suleyman has been at the center of the AI revolution. The coming decade, he argues, will be defined by this wave of powerful, fast-proliferating new technologies. In The Coming Wave, Suleyman shows how these forces will create immense prosperity but also threaten the nation-state, the foundation of global order. For Suleyman, the question is whether we can forge a path ahead that avoids catastrophe and dystopia.