political

Rivers, railroads, and political bribes: How every state capital was chosen

From railroad hubs and river towns to hard-fought votes and alleged bribes, America’s state capitals took wildly different paths to power.Today, in 17 states, the capital is also the most populous city. Phoenix, the nation’s most populous state capital, has more than 1.6 million residents, while Montpelier, Vermont, has fewer…

The engineer who became Anthropic’s political secret weapon

When Anthropic found itself in a high-stakes standoff with the White House over its newest AI models, it wasn’t CEO Dario Amodei who smoothed the tensions. Instead, one of the company’s quietest cofounders stepped in.Tom Brown, Anthropic’s chief compute officer, helped negotiate a deal that persuaded the Commerce Department to…