atlasunshrugged

Just ordered, thanks for sharing!

This is really amazing, thank you for taking the time and spending the resources to share these stories!

+1 to this, Firefox has been pushing this for a while but my understanding is really the legal side

Add government here too (along with all the firms that service government customers)

Thanks! As of right now, no, but I'm sure if the book sells well enough the publisher will invest in an audiobook (given the state of AI I'm guessing the cost to develop one is going down extremely rapidly so hopefully the bar is lower than it used to be)

I'm not sure the story! Would love to hear about it

My impression is the solutions are still somewhat lacking/necessary -- I know Frankenburg, Eric Schmidt's stealth startup, and surely the primes are all working on it but given how many shaheds are still getting through (plus all the drone action at the frontline) I imagine there's still a market for low-cost; especially if they're largely autonomous

Hadn't seen this before, this is awesome! I lived in Cameroon and Kenya briefly doing some consulting work and mosquitos still wreak havoc across the continent (and now living in DC I wouldn't mind having one of these in the summer for my place). I'm curious if you're also thinking about defense applications -- I would imagine that a super low cost drone that could help take out a shahed or other Russian drone that are wreaking havoc on Ukraine would be quite valuable

I'm finishing up a "book tour" (mostly podcasts) for my recently released book on how the country of Estonia modernized so quickly post re-independence from the Soviet Union and became a leader in e-government services and a top EU startup hub (Skype, Bolt, Wise, etc.). I'd love if people checked it out and gave feedback as it's my first big published work and the culmination of quite a few years of research and writing. https://www.rebootinganation.com/ or https://global.oup.com/academic/product/rebooting-a-nation-9...

Shameless plug for Tallinn but as I used to live there I have to also mention that despite the Soviets efforts the old town is well-preserved, lovely, and definitely worth a visit! I put together a visitors guide after a monthlong visit this May in case its useful: https://www.rebootinganation.com/exploring-tallinn

As an American in a relatively large city this sounds pretty normal but instead of Uber and Bolt it's Uber and Lyft. I think the only real difference is that Lyft (at least in my case) doesn't seem prone to charging if I cancel when they're clearly not coming

Is this an ad for BMW?

From your and other comments in the thread, it sounds like the main deterrence then is 1) that it's likely you'll be caught and 2) that if caught, the punishment will be quite harsh.

I wonder if the UK and other cities are struggling more with the first or second

Wow, I have to say it's a bit crazy that you have to go through all this effort in what I think of as quite a safe city. I was recently in London for a week of meetings and someone said be careful about having your phone out in case someone snatches it but I thought they were being hyperbolic.

Why isn't there a bigger crackdown on such petty crime? I guess people think they can get away with it, but it feels like one of those creeping issues that might seem small at first but deters important activity (tourism, business relocation, etc.) longterm if not addressed.

You know, I didn't actually try after it flagged it wouldn't work. Will give it a shot the next time it comes up

Baker left the board in early 2025 https://www.theverge.com/business/615977/m

Riverside.fm only works on Edge/Chrome (or at least as of June 2025) which is really annoying

It does seem likely that the deal was at least partially structured to avoid antitrust scrutiny but my impression is that under the DMA/DSA (I can never keep track of which is which) in Europe Meta is technically a gatekeeper and has different obligations so I'll be curious to see what happens there

As a man I thankfully haven't ever really felt unsafe (in this way anyways, definitely some bad/distracted Uber drivers) but I could see women or kids finding Waymos to be a safer overall experience worth a premium

Thanks! I think one of the main differences is timing -- Estonia started 20+yrs before Ukraine so in a way they're quite far ahead in terms of systems/process maturity. However, because Ukraine started later they were able to skip over desktop and build just for mobile which is where the vast majority of folks interact with e-services these days, so in a way Diia (at least from a user interface perspective) if probably further ahead than Estonia which had to invest in both desktop and mobile platforms and was a bit slower to move on the latter. Overall, I find Diia and the pace of innovation from the team building it incredibly impressive.

+1 to help99 (I used to live in Estonia and know the folks behind it and can confirm everything donated makes its way directly to the units)

Do you have any general advice for countries considering pursuing nuclear energy programs? Ex. Estonia is actively working on legislation to enable nuclear energy production (likely through a small modular reactor) and it'd be great to hear an experts advice on how to best pursue developing a domestic nuclear energy industry.

Also curious if there are any parts of the industry you think are particularly exciting and/or neglected (ex. there was just a startup that raised gobs of money to enrich HALEU since most of it used to come from Russia)

Glad you shared, I was wondering about the same. Many of my donations are going to support various drone campaigns from Estonia in support of Ukraine https://www.help99.co/patches

Really rad idea, are you doing any active pilots? I'm currently in Tallinn, Estonia and there is quite a lot of crossover with the Ukrainian military (both to support them and to help prove out product viability). Happy to chat if I can be helpful. Email is jb2956@georgetown.edu

I'm just finishing up a book called Rebooting a Nation on how the country of Estonia modernized so quickly after independence from the Soviet Union and became a leader in tech and e-government. It should start shipping on Amazon in the U.S. later this week! Happy to chat with folks who have questions about the publishing industry from an authors perspective (I ended up signing with Hurst in the UK which distributes through Oxford University Press).

https://shorturl.at/LKMxS (Amazon link)

Not OP but something similar to me has happened in Berlin, but in my understanding this is more due to local regulation which effectively makes "true" Airbnb's illegal and the places that remain on the platform are basically apartment letting businesses

At least in the US now all companies have to as the FTC put out a rule that went into effect.

https://skift.com/2025/05/09/no-more-hidden-hotel-fees-new-f...

Interesting initiative, one I think has a chance to get decent uptake in Europe given the focus on digital sovereignty -- this may give countries an opportunity to find a middle ground between trying to go fully domestic which is quite tough, and having some level of sovereignty while also maintaining geopolitical alignment with the U.S. Of course, for OpenAI its a great way to deeply entrench themselves in government markets and create a solid moat against competitors (and probably raise a good chunk of money).

I think this is one of the most interesting lines as it basically directly implies that leadership thinks this won't be a winner take all market:

> Instead of our current complex capped-profit structure—which made sense when it looked like there might be one dominant AGI effort but doesn’t in a world of many great AGI companies—we are moving to a normal capital structure where everyone has stock. This is not a sale, but a change of structure to something simpler.

I appreciate that! Honestly, I'm not sure. Part of the reason I felt competent enough to write about Estonia is because I had lived there and worked for the government, so I thought I had a pretty decent insider look into how things worked and could tell the story well and I'm not sure I could replicate that in Poland. Although I do think a comparative study across some digital leaders (ex. Estonia, Poland, Ukraine) or even just comparing the Baltic states on topics like digitalization would be super interesting.