Dan Beksha

Private audio notes

Learning podcast

Lessons I create to understand AI, energy, and housing. Each starts with a question and works toward a useful explanation, with research and excerpts from people who know the subject. Episode notes are public; listening access is shared individually.

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Start with a question

AI · Start with 01How does a language model learn anything? →Energy · Start with 08Why can’t new power plants just connect to the grid? →Housing · Start with 14Does building housing really lower rents? →

Jul 18, 202612:06

15 — YIMBY — How does “luxury” housing become ordinary housing?

Filtering, moving chains, and why market-rate supply and subsidy solve different problems.

Available in the private feed.

Episode notes & sources

The impetus

Nolan Gray on ‘luxury’ housing becoming affordable ↗

The one-line intuition prompted the deeper question: through what mechanisms, on what timeline, and under which market conditions does filtering work?

Source audio in this episode

Evidence and further reading

Jul 17, 202612:24

14 — YIMBY — Does building housing really lower rents?

How supply absorbs demand, starts moving chains, and changes rents across a market.

Available in the private feed.

Episode notes & sources

The impetus

Nolan Gray: build lots of housing and rents fall ↗

The claim is simple but politically contested. The episode begins with the harder question: what causal evidence connects a new market-rate home to rents elsewhere in the market?

Source audio in this episode

Evan Mast on moving chains of affordability ↗

Evan Mast, in a video produced by Pew. 13 seconds, about 2:44 into this episode.

More source audio

Evidence and further reading