Kyle Harrison
concept

Governance

Governance

Governance, in the pages that reference it, is the question of who decides, by what rules, and with what capacity to make those rules work. It appears at three scales: the boardroom of a startup, the institutions that draft and administer law, and the invented societies of speculative and historical books.

How it shows up

  • Boards. A saved thread by fintechjunkie argues (Board Meetings) that board meetings follow recognizable patterns, so they can be prepared for as patterns. It sorts them into archetypes by the company’s state: “Slow Me Down” (growing, balancing growth with burn), “Trying My Best” (a test of trust), “Man In The Mirror” (board and founder at odds), “Jiggle Jiggle” (the first meeting after a raise) and “Dear Agony” (a failing company facing “pass the hat” or “turn off the lights” decisions).
  • The machinery of law. AI Slop Is Swamping a House Office That Drafts US Laws reports on the House Office of Legislative Counsel, which reviews bills before introduction, and on AI-generated drafts that add errors to its workload. It treats the office as institutional capacity that lets lawmaking work, so strain on it is a governance integrity issue. See also Tech Regulation.
  • Law and public health. The anti-library card for Public Health Law (Lawrence O. Gostin) is filed here as the place where its argument sits.
  • Power and its limits in books. Several books on the reading list are tagged for their governance questions: Voltaire’s Bastards (John Ralston Saul), Pirate Utopias (self-organizing port societies, Peter Lamborn Wilson), and four science-fiction novels: Cibola Burn (two legitimate claims and no arbiter), Babylon’s Ashes (a coalition of rivals administering scarce relief), Persepolis Rising (capability hardening into rule) and The Children of the Sky (who governs a mixed society nobody designed).

Where this appears

Long reads

Books to read

Saved tweets

  • Most Investors Quickly Realize That… (tweet)

Referenced in