iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I don't know who needs to hear this, but it's "shoo-in."

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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I think about this interview with the distinguished philosopher Conan O'Brien a lot. I actually think this is a healthy way to live your life! www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/a...

Is this how you want to go out, with a show that gets smaller and smaller until it’s gone?

Maybe that’s O.K. I think you have more of a problem with that than I do. [Laughs.] At this point in my career, I could go out with a grand, 21-gun salute, and climb into a rocket and the entire Supreme Court walks out and they jointly press a button, I’m shot up into the air and there’s an explosion and it’s orange and it spells, “Good night and God love.” In this culture? Two years later, it’s going to be, who’s Conan? This is going to sound grim, but eventually, all our graves go unattended.

You’re right, that does sound grim.

Sorry. Calvin Coolidge was a pretty popular president. I’ve been to his grave in Vermont. It has the presidential seal on it. Nobody was there. And by the way, I’m the only late-night host that has been to Calvin Coolidge’s grave. I think that’s what separates me from the other hosts.

I had a great conversation with Albert Brooks once. When I met him for the first time, I was kind of stammering. I said, you make movies, they live on forever. I just do these late-night shows, they get lost, they’re never seen again and who cares? And he looked at me and he said, [Albert Brooks voice] “What are you talking about? None of it matters.” None of it matters? “No, that’s the secret. In 1940, people said Clark Gable is the face of the 20th Century. Who [expletive] thinks about Clark Gable? It doesn’t matter. You’ll be forgotten. I’ll be forgotten. We’ll all be forgotten.” It’s so funny because you’d think that would depress me. I was walking on air after that.

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Leor Galil @imleor.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This claims TVOTR hadnt been on TV prior to playing “wolf like me” on Letterman in 2006, but in 2004 I attended a Last Call with Carson Daly taping specifically to see TVOTR

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Meredith Rose @mrose.ink · 29/09/2026

So, fun fact: ever since 1994, and Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" campaign stunt, Congress has had a SERIOUS problem with subject-matter expertise and institutional memory. It's why Congress has such a deep and complicated relationship with lobbyists. 1/

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The ex–chief investment officer of the Kentucky retirement system—recently fired too in Iowa—can't keep his whistleblower suit in the Bluegrass State alive, an appeals court ruled. My latest for The Allocator newsletter (With Intelligence/S&P Global.) pardot.withintelligence.com/e/284832/reg...

‘Rude, Condescending, and Abrupt’
The ex-CIO of the $35B Kentucky Public Pensions Authority has lost a bid to revive a nearly four-year-old whistleblower lawsuit against his former employer.

A state appeals court last month upheld a trial court’s 2024 summary judgment ruling against Steven Herbert, who joined the retirement system in January 2021 and was fired about 18 months later.

Herbert failed to challenge the trial court’s central finding that the information he was supposedly blowing the whistle about was already public, a three-judge Kentucky Court of Appeals panel held in an August 14 ruling.

Indeed, Herbert’s appeal “presents no identifiable argument that the circuit court erred in its conclusion that he had disclosed no information that was concealed or not already publicly known,” Appeals Judge Jacqueline Caldwell wrote in the 31-page opinion.

Herbert sued KPPA in December 2022, contending that he was wrongfully terminated in retaliation for purportedly exposing alleged waste, fraud, and abuse involving a real estate firm and cash flows for county retirement plan contributions.

Franklin Circuit Court trimmed some of Herbert’s claims in June 2023. Almost a year later, KPPA asked the court for summary judgment on Herbert’s remaining whistleblower claims. Among other arguments, the retirement system contended that undisputed evidence showed that both the real estate and the cash flows issues were known throughout the agency long before Herbert joined.

The circuit court agreed, handing KPPA a pre-trial victory in December 2024. Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd wrote at the time that KPPA had demonstrated legitimate reasons for firing Herbert, “including that he was rude, condescending, and abrupt with KPPA staff, did not cooperate with other departments, did not follow instructions and avoided accountability, and was deficient in performing the CIO’s duties.”

As the appeals process unfolded, Herbert joined the $51.1B Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System in March 2025 as chief benefits officer.

IPERS fired Herbert earlier this year after an investigation found violations of policies on sexual harassment, workplace violence, discrimination, ethics, and personal conduct, according to multiple reports and a May 7 termination letter viewed by the Allocator.

(Greg Samorajski’s resignation as CEO of IPERS was announced on the same day. Samorajski has since been replaced by Martin Noven, previously executive director of the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System.)

A lawyer for Herbert and a spokesperson for KPPA did not respond to the Allocator’s requests for comment prior to deadline.

—Marc Hogan

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vijay iyer @vijayiyer.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

i accidentally deleted that "a thought on coltrane" post, so here it is again --

Coltrane was known for relentlessly practicing for hours and hours every day, even during gigs while his bandmates were soloing. What was he trying to do?

Iyer: We have to understand him as a composer.

He was working on ideas. He wasn’t just trying to sound cleaner and faster than the next guy. He was just like any composer who lives into their 100s and keeps creating. There’s always this “What’s the next idea?” And then also, “How do I put that idea into practice as a player?” It was processing ideas and trying to develop them.

We use the word practicing, but what do we mean?

It’s the word we use in classical music to say I’m trying to polish this rendition of this piece. But that’s not what most of us in creative music are doing. We’re trying to refine the process of creating. He knows that there’s more than what he knows, and he knows there’s a way to access it. That is already here.

So, it’s about trying to open that door. It’s not about refining anything. It’s about those doors that you’re trying to open. That’s why any of us play. That’s why any of us are artists. Because we’re interested in channeling something from beyond ourselves and being that conduit so that we can bring that healing property and that magic to others.

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Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

At the point where I’m genuinely confused by otherwise reasonable or smart people still on Twitter, like watching a friend calmly cheese gratering the side of their face and when you express alarm and suggest they stop they just sort of shrug and keep going. Also the cheese grater is a Nazi.

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Micah @rincewind.run · 10/09/2026

that’s right the internet started going irreversibly downhill the day Reader died

Technology you’re most nostalgic for: Google Reader
Especially when I was a writer and business journalist, but even afterwards, I loved Google Reader as a way to organize news articles and feel like I got through them. It was just a great interface. I use Feedly now, which is pretty good to read news, but doesn't quite hit like Google Reader used to hit.

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Talked to the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Timothy Riddiough about his research on pension plans' investor networks, for The Allocator newsletter (With Intelligence/S&P Global). I don't always post my work here because it's mostly paywalled, but I appreciate being able to share these!

Network Effects

LPs looking to gain an edge from the strength of their GP networks have another reminder that they may always have more work to do.
The diversity of a pension plan’s relationships with GPs and consultants is a better measure of network quality than the sheer number of relationships, Timothy Riddiough, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told The Allocator in an interview.

Riddiough, who studied the matter with co-author Da Li across thousands of pension-plan commitments to private equity real estate funds going back to the early 2000s, said plans with more relationships overall tend to select funds with lower net-of-fee internal rates of return. By contrast, plans with relationships that bridge otherwise-disconnected parts of the market tend to select funds with higher net IRRs.

“Most people think that more networking is good,” Riddiough said. “I think our headline finding says, well, not necessarily. More is not better. Better is better.”

However, maintaining an edge from a better GP network may depend on continual, deliberate effort to seek out new GPs. The bridging premium is steepest for less experienced managers and fades as they build a track record, according to Riddiough.

He pointed to the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, which he said scores highly on bridging, as an example of an institution that built that position deliberately, over years, through “a very competent staff, a very dedicated staff” willing to reach into unfamiliar parts of the market.

For other pension plans, the research may underscore that, like it or not, investment consultants provide value. “One of our results is that it looks like it pays to hire consultants,” Riddiough said. “So at some level, our paper is a bit of an advertisement for the consulting industry.” However, consultants are especially worth it for LPs that have not invested in the staff or don’t have the experience to have a great network, he noted.

A staff with expertise in private equity is not enough by itself to develop a strong network, according to Riddiough. “What explains the results is recognizing and building networks with intent,” he said. Another factor, he added, is “a willingness to take risks and go out on a limb.” All of this, he noted, takes time and money. As the example of SWIB shows, though, the effort can be worth it. No rest, then, for the networking-weary LPs.

—Marc Hogan

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Niko Stratis @nikostratis.com · 04/09/2026

This is all so good, and loved this line towards the end. "Criticism is ultimately a product of sustained curiosity and care; music criticism persists because it offers the type of context and friction that fandom alone cannot."

hearingthings.co

What Does It Even Mean to Be a Music Critic Now?

A veteran culture writer surveys the radically transforming journalistic ecosystem.

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Helen Kennedy @helenkennedy.com · 02/09/2026

Going to repeat yet again but just because some rando puts the words NEW or BREAKING or SOURCES in front of something doesn't mean you should believe it.

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Wailin Wong @wailinwong.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I've never hit Like on a post faster

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Sufjan Stevens’ lesser-known 12 Reserve Banks project

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Thinking a lot lately about my work for the good folks at Meatingplace during the year or two when they had budget for me. How silly I was to ask questions about whether regulators could keep food safe.

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Only took a couple of pics because I was absorbed in the show but really special @bigthiefmusic.bsky.social gig in my suburb tonight

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Michaelangelo Matos @matoswk.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

I never got to tell him this, or even talk to him at all, but the DNA of Can't Slow Down was reading The Heart of Rock & Soul and especially The First Rock & Roll Confidential Report in high school. R.I.P. Dave Marsh.

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Love this correction of John Roberts's misattribution of the group that recorded a 1959 song. (Don't love how the New Yorker website has for decades now seemed surprised to encounter an actual subscriber.) www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Some Justices socialize with one another over the summer, he added, but, as for himself, “I’m a—I think I’ve got the group right—Four Seasons fan, and my approach is ‘See You in September.’ ” (He got the group wrong—the song was recorded by both the Tempos and the Happenings.)

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Shouldn't Dum Dum Girls sing "Rimbaud Eyes" like (copies and pastes urgently) "ræmˈboʊ eyes"?

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Happy album release day to L'Rain btw!

The author interviewing L'Rain's Taja Cheek and her band in I guess it had to be 2022. Not an intentional advertisement for a burrito delivery app.

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

For today's issue of The Allocator newsletter (With Intelligence/S&P Global), I talked to the authors of two academic papers addressing the family office landscape. pardot.pageantmedia.com/l/284832/202... On confidential disclosures, and more:

Family Office Matters
The most sophisticated family offices would face new confidential disclosure requirements under regulations proposed in a new academic paper.

The aim is to help other investors avoid contagion from undisclosed blow-ups, although how the effects of such new disclosure might ripple through the financial plumbing—or the jobs landscape for institutional allocators—is unclear.

“All in the Family: Family Offices and the Limits of Financial Regulation” contends that while single-family offices may not require financial regulators to perform their traditional role of investor protection, the 2021 collapse of Archegos Capital Management shows that these institutions may still generate systemic risk.

Melinda Roth, a visiting professor of practice at New England Law Boston who wrote the paper, assured The Allocator in an interview that she wants to keep the exemption that removes qualifying SFOs from the definition of an “investment advisor” under federal securities law. “I want to be really clear,” she said. “The exemption is critical.”

However, the paper recommends a few new disclosure requirements:

Family offices whose total leveraged exposure or aggregate derivatives position exceeds certain thresholds would confidentially file periodic position reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Likewise, family offices managing above a particular level of assets under management would confidentially file annual reports with the SEC. The disclosure would be a simplified version of Form PF, the SEC’s existing confidential filing for private fund advisors.

Prime brokers, meanwhile, would be required to report aggregate credit and swap exposure to any SFO client that exceeds $500m.

“We regulate financial institutions for a reason,” Roth said. “And while there’s not that same reasoning for family offices, a little bit of disclosure would go a long way to allowing regulators to be able to at least not fly as blind as they are flying with regard to these vehicles.”

That said, the likelihood of such regulations being implemented anytime soon looks remote. “The SEC is moving in the absolute opposite direction,” Roth acknowledged. “Even if the opposite political party was ruling the SEC, I don’t think this would be a priority.”

Elsewhere, a separate academic paper offers an unusual look behind the curtain at how family offices are viewed by private banks.

“Psychographic Value Articulation: Assessing The Family-Office Industry and its Value Articulation Based on Segmentation” uses Banco Santander’s wealth management division as a case study to demonstrate how a global institution can win family office business by segments.

A CIO at a large multi-family office, for instance, may recognize their own institution in the “Complex Multi-Family Offices” segment in the paper’s “market attractiveness matrix.”

Banks keep an eye on the long haul when approaching family office clients, said Raphael Dakik, a consultant pursuing graduate studies at Cranfield School of Management who wrote the paper, in an interview. He told The Allocator, “Especially in the family office industry, you really benefit from generation-for-generation strategic alliances instead of just those that are short-term.”

Despite academic proposals for tweaks around the edges, the SFO disclosure exemption appears here to stay too.

— Marc Hogan

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

(turns toward own peculiar niche): At least it wasn't a U2 album

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Joy Press @joypress.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

As someone who's specialized in underappreciated shows, I love Judy's list! Here's a few more from my running mental list: Beforeigners, Borgen [Scand] Catastrophe, Detectorists, Green Wing [UK] Deadloch, Fisk [Aus] The Curse, Fantasmas, High Maintenance, Patriot, You're the worst. What else?

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Bailey McCann @baileymcc.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

There has got to be some better solution than giving every single website your biometrics or having to log in, text verify, email verify, answer three riddles from a troll, verify your device, pluck a hair off a fairy and use that to enter the website

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jill mapes @jillmapes.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I wrote about the end times

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Private equity–owned life insurers' aggressive investments in private credit have an overlooked public backstop, a new paper contends. Wrote about it, and the angle for my readers (for them, this broader taxpayer issue could be weirdly good?), for The Allocator (With Intelligence/S&P Global).

“Circular” Reasoning

Discussions on private credit risks are missing a crucial area that may paradoxically be a boon for most allocators, a recent academic paper indicates.

It’s familiar by now to hear concerns raised around lack of transparency in parts of the private credit market or whether semi-liquid funds can meet withdrawal requests. “Private Credit’s State Backstop: How Private Equity Socializes Risk Through Insurers” contends that private equity–owned life insurers, through aggressive deployment to private capital, manage to extract value while shunting off potential losses to taxpayers.

The risk transfer, co-authors Andrew Granato and Pranjal Drall contend, comes through the obscure mechanism of state guaranty funds, which bail out policyholders when an insurer goes bust.

State guaranty funds charge surviving insurers a fee to cover the shortfall. But because the insurers can often subtract that amount from the taxes they owe, the paper argues, the public ends up footing the bill.

The prospect of quiet bailouts for PE-backed life insurers whose private credit bets go bad may not be great for policy wonks or, let’s face it, society at large. However, an implicit backstop could help LPs at endowments, foundations, and other institutions deploying to private debt, the authors suggested in an interview with The Allocator.

“If you are an institutional investor at a private credit fund, this is actually good, because the fund manager has this kind of permanent option of being able to offload poorly performing assets to the insurer at inflated prices,” said Granato, an assistant professor at the UT Austin Law School.

Other recent research has shown that PE-owned insurers pay seven basis points more when buying from affiliates, and 40 basis points more in deals involving privately placed securities, said Drall, a JD-PhD student in financial economics at Yale.

The paper arrives as US life insurers maintain a robust appetite for private credit and alternative assets. Life general accounts held $1.97tn in private bonds at year-end 2025, accounting for 45.6% of general account bonds—both records, according to a recent report by S&P Global Market Intelligence (S&P Global owns With Intelligence, which publishes The Allocator). Total assets in life general accounts reached $5.97tn, up 6.2% from a year earlier.

Private equity sway over life insurance also remains undiminished. At the end of June 2025, there were 139 PE-owned life insurers, NAIC figures show, up from 137 at the end of 2024.

US insurance watchdogs have begun ringing alarm bells. Among the issues drawing their attention are “circular ownership” and “interconnectedness,” according to a document published ahead of this week’s summer meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the umbrella group representing state insurance regulators.

As regulatory scrutiny increases, arbitrage opportunities due to insurers’ private credit allocations look poised to fade, for better or worse.

The authors’ recommendations include penalties on insurers for opaque balance sheets and on ratings agencies for systematically positive ratings. Another proposal would end tax credits for guaranty-fund premiums and make insurance holding companies at least partially liable for the guaranty-fund costs of affiliated insurers’ collapses. If state regulators and lawmakers can’t get the job done, the paper contends, the federal government should apply pressure.

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Nolan Hicks @ndhapple.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Good news for me, Nolan!

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Glad these finally went up—it was a fun challenge earlier this summer getting the style right and learning how organizations are thinking about (sigh, yes) AI for IBM's Think Leadership series. Found the gig through a fellow former Pitchfork reviewer, believe it or not! www.ibm.com/think/leader...

ibm.com

Why transforming your operating model for AI is imperative | IBM

Despite widespread investment in AI, only a small group of companies is seeing significant returns. High performers are redesigning how they operate around AI, systematically embedding intelligence, a...

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

My spam texts just suddenly shifted from political fundraising to asking me to buy tickets for a Big Thief tour for which I have already bought tickets. Who is behind Big Big Thief?!

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Sean Carroll @seanedmund.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Really sad news. If all he'd produced was She Cries Your Name, Ray of Light, Pure Shores and Coffee & TV he'd have contributed more than most to the world of music, but did so much more. And on top of everything else responsible for the most 1990 song imaginable.

youtube.com

Bass-O-Matic - Fascinating Rhythm

YouTube video by BassOMaticVEVO

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👻👻Cinchel👻👻 @cinchel.com · 05/08/2026

This sucks. So much.

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Aaron Meyers @aaronmeyers.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

"Today is August 4, 2026" There Will Come Soft Rains By: Ray Bradbury

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

I forget, are any of my friends still in Astoria?

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

It's not our first day on the internet so I'm not going to continue the trend of dunking on people from the bad site, but "people will say I'm wrong so I'm obviously right" is a heck of a way to argue. It's also the logic of the attention economy that got us here.

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

WashU's Scott Wilson received about $12 million in compensation for the most recent fiscal year, the highest I've come across in public tax filings. My latest, a co-byline with the newsletter's one-of-a-kind founder, Leanna Orr, for The Allocator (With Intelligence by S&P Global).

Such misery loves company.

Alice Ruth, CEO of the investment office at Dartmouth College, secured about $5.1M in reportable compensation for the year ending in June 2025, according to another of the latest filings to surface.

That’s broadly similar to Ruth’s pay the previous year. Dartmouth CIO Kelsey Morgan, for her part, collected $2M, also close to her nearly $2M a year before.

The $9B allocator’s return was a little below the median at 10.8%. But back in FY2022, WashU’s blowout year, Dartmouth itself posted an eye-popping 46.5%.

Elsewhere, Cornell University CIO Kenneth Miranda received $2.2M, down from $2.8M, per the filings.

Former Johns Hopkins CIO Jason Perlioni got almost $4.9M, up from $2.1M.

Hamilton College CIO Lauren Jacobson’s $1.7M last year rose from nearly $1.5M in FY2024.

Amherst College’s Letitia Johnson also scored nearly $1.7M, up from $1.5M.

Former Williams College CIO Collette Chilton — “the GOAT,” as The Allocator declared quite accurately in 2023 — got $1.6M, up from $916,166. (Her successor, Abigail Wattley, received $585,520, up from $565,011.)

Also in the $1.5M+ range, Georgia Tech CIO Brian Pellegrino secured $1.6M, up from $1.5M, while Boston University CIO Clarissa Hunnewell collected $1.5M, up from $1.4M.

Virginia Tech CIO David Greenberg’s FY2025 comp rounds up to $1.5M, compared to his $921,129 (and former CIO Daniel Ward’s almost $1.4M) the previous year.

Meanwhile, over in foundation-land, the Metropolitan Museum of Art CIO Lauren Meserve and the Museum of Modern Art’s Lou Fernandes each received more than $1.6M, up from about $1.5M apiece a year earlier.

Spokespeople for Williams and Hamilton declined to comment to The Allocator. Media reps for the other universities and the two foundations didn’t respond to requests for comment prior to deadline.

One CIO told us we shouldn’t publish their salary, but them's the breaks of tax-free investing.

Happy Friday, Allocators,

—LO & MH

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jesse jarnow @bourgwick.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

wow, immediately added to the @livetapes.heads.social.ap.brid.gy feed: legendary nyc taper jeff lazar's stash is getting digitized by some of the @ajc-project.bsky.social gang! now up, a bunch of tom verlaine, tall dwarfs, butthole surfers, thinking fellers, & more. archive.org/details/LazA...

archive.org

The Jeff Lazar Audio Collection

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Marc Hogan @marchogan.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

A show I am looking forward to tonight for any followers in my area. Cootie Catcher at Locals. Apparently there are a couple of openers: tickets.midwestix.com/event/cootie...

tickets.midwestix.com

Cootie Catcher at Locals Bar & Stage

Tickets for Cootie Catcher at Locals Bar & Stage in Des Moines from MIDWESTIX.

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Natalie Weiner @natalieweiner.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

there are fewer and fewer ways to keep up with improvised music/jazz but nate has stayed the course - if you're into it you gotta be following his work (i imagine you know this but just in case)

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Eric Harvey @ericdharvey.com · 01/07/2026

at least the Vice journalists who outnumbered attendees at the Gathering of the Juggalos were witnessing the creation of Art

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Nate Chinen @natechinen.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

You can’t always go to the show. But man… really try to go to the show.

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