It’s only natural that Americans would worry about the deal. At first glance, the memorandum of understanding (MOU) looks like a wish list drafted in Tehran and rubber-stamped by President Donald Trump. It grants Iran consultations with Oman on regulating traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and even a $300 billion reconstruction and economic development fund to help rebuild and modernize Iran. In return, the U.S. receives little more than what Tehran has traditionally offered: a vague and completely dishonest commitment not to pursue a nuclear weapon.

The agreement proposes a grand windfall for Iran, including economic modernization, rebuilding infrastructure, and the removal of international sanctions. It envisions restoring Iran’s position as a major energy supplier, reopening international trade and investment, and providing access to frozen assets.

To many supporters of Trump’s stated war aims, this vision looks like a complete collapse of the American position. Words such as surrender, appeasement, and capitulation come easily. Before endorsing that assessment, however, let’s rewind to February 4, 2025, and recall the surprise that Trump sprang at a White House press conference alongside Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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“I love Taylor Swift and I love mah-jongg, so I put them together,” said Magid, who added that it was “exciting” for her friends to learn the game. “I’m patient with them.”

Mahj is life for Magid. “I always ask my mom, ‘Can I play mah-jongg with you?’ ” the rising sixth grader told me. “I want to play mah-jongg all the time.”

Mah-jongg—a four-person tile-based game that originated in 19th-century China—used to be associated with 80-year-old bubbes glued to the table for hours a day at their retirement homes. But recently, it’s taken Gen Zers and millennial moms by storm. Mah-jongg nights have replaced the group girl dinner. There are $15,000 luxury mah-jongg sets for the truly elite. Even Blake Lively is a fan—she had her mah-jongg set delivered to court during the Justin Baldoni fiasco.

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Welcome back to Great Americans, a countdown to our country’s 250th birthday. We’re bringing you a writer we love on an American they love, every weekday between now and July 4. Previously, Christopher Cox honored Alice Paul, the suffragist who picketed the White House without saying a word, was force-fed in prison at 60 pounds, and still rewrote the Constitution. Today Philip K. Howard pays tribute to Mary Parker Follett, the social thinker who understood the secret of group behavior—and why American democracy keeps getting it wrong. —The Editors

Mary Parker Follett was a seminal thinker in management theory. In the early days of large industrial organization, when Frederick Winslow Taylor was preaching the gospel of “scientific management,” Follett emphasized the social aspects of any group enterprise. Taylor was not wrong—improving efficiency remains an ongoing goal of successful manufacturers. But his efficient workplace could result in mind-numbing repetition. Follett understood that workers had human needs—for variety, for agency, for mutual understanding.

Follett originated the idea that, in the words of former Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria, “organizations perform best when they operate on the basis of shared responsibility and not . . . command and obedience.” Rigid organizational hierarchies, Follett argued, were counterproductive; the people on the spot should have the authority to adapt to “the law of the situation.” This, she saw, requires a system of “management with authority all down the line.” Follett understood that a “final authority” is always needed, but explained how better choices and better understanding resulted when “decisions are usually reached through a process” of interaction. The practice of exploring solutions and reconciling differences melds people into a common unit: “The strength of the group,” she wrote, “does not depend on the greatest number of strong men, but on the strength of the bond between them.” Healthy organizations have an “invisible leader—the common purpose.” (Unless otherwise noted, the quotes by and about Follett are from the 1995 book Mary Parker Follett: Prophet of Management.)

Follett (1868–1933) came to her understandings not through study but through life. Her father, a shoe-factory machinist in Quincy, Massachusetts, died when she was a teenager. With an ailing mother and a young brother, Follett was thrust into the role of head of the household. She taught school in Boston and could pursue her studies only intermittently, eventually graduating summa cum laude at age 30 from the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women—what we now call Radcliffe College. While teaching and studying she published her first book, The Speaker of the House of Representatives (1896), which described how the speaker consolidates and wields power. In a laudatory review, Theodore Roosevelt called it a “really notable contribution to the study of the growth of American governmental institutions” and praised Follett for presenting “facts as they are.”

After graduation, Follett became a social worker, creating a network of community centers for vocational training in Boston. These hubs for self-improvement succeeded, Follett realized, when people felt a sense of ownership and a part of how the centers worked. Their success would inspire hundreds of other American cities to build similar programs.

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“It was a visceral reaction,” she said.

Ten years ago, the woman and her husband left Israel to move to Bristol, Vermont—a 3,782-person town she described as the kind of place where you let your kids run outside barefoot and leave your doors unlocked. A child of the Second Intifada, she thought she had left behind the violence of the Middle East. But sitting in a folding chair, hearing words like land theft and occupied land of Palestine, the woman said she “no longer believed that I was safe.”

In early March, hundreds of towns across Vermont met for their annual town meeting—a tradition that stretches back to 1762. Bristol was one of nine considering a pledge condemning Israel as an “apartheid regime” guilty of “settler colonialism” and “military occupation.”

“The minute people hear I was born in Jerusalem, they stop listening,” the woman told the crowd. “You don’t have the lived experience to understand what really happens there and how difficult it is.”

“It’s a very, very complicated conflict,” she said. “My own dentist was an Arab from Jerusalem.”

She tried to tell them about the reality of Israel—how Arabs and Christians and Jews live there side by side, with equal rights. Her 80-year-old mother, she said, had spent the last weekend sleeping in a bomb shelter.

“Which one of you in this community who knows me, who knows my husband and knows my kids, have called or texted to check how my family is doing?” she asked. “None of you.”

“Oh, because it’s Israel, they’re the colonialists,” she said.

An hour later, at 11:01 p.m., the town passed the pledge.

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My wife and I both work full-time, and I grew up around working women: My mother and my grandmothers had careers. My mother-in-law did, too. In fact, she is what you’d call an old-school feminist: educated, opinionated, independent, the kind of woman who spent decades rejecting traditional gender roles. Which is why I find her marriage so baffling.

My father-in-law is treated like someone who cannot function independently. When they visit us, he sits at the table waiting to be served. If food arrives while others are still bringing dishes from the kitchen, he simply starts eating. When he finishes, he leaves the plate there for someone else to clear. If he wants something, he asks his wife to get it. If he wakes up before her, he waits for her to get up and make breakfast. It’s honestly astonishing to watch.

What bothers me isn’t some abstract political issue about household labor. I have three boys, aged between 10 and 15. And though I’m not trying to raise my sons according to internet slogans about fairness—in fact, we’re probably more conservative than liberal in most ways—I do want them to grow up understanding that a competent adult man should know how to take care of himself, contribute to a household, and not behave like a dependent child waiting for women to orbit around him.

My kids see me cook, clean, fold laundry, and do dishes. I take them to doctor and dentist appointments because my schedule is more flexible than my wife’s. Not because I’m trying to make a statement but because that’s what functioning adults do.

Now, my oldest son is beginning to notice his grandfather’s behavior and is asking: “Why doesn’t he help?” I usually say something diplomatic like “he grew up in a different time,” but what I really think is: Because everyone around him enabled him to become spoiled and helpless.

The truth is that watching this dynamic unfold in my house makes me angry. Not occasionally irritated—genuinely angry. Partly because of the example it sets, and partly because my wife and I are both exhausted professionals and he contributes nothing, spending most of the day watching videos on his phone. Increasingly I find myself wanting to say, politely but firmly: “When you visit our house, you’re expected to participate. Clear your plate. Help carry things. Get up and get what you need.”

Am I being unreasonable? Is this something I should address directly? Or is it one of those family dynamics where keeping the peace matters more than trying to correct behavior that will realistically never change?

—Eli, 49

Dear Eli,

All marriages are idiosyncratic. Every single one “baffling” to outsiders. How can she smile while he bloviates? How does he deal with her crazy?

I sometimes imagine that, like George Washington in his lifetime, I’d never seen a bicycle. An inventor approaches me with his prototype. “This is my human-powered, two-wheeled transporter,” he says. There’s no doubt I’d have laughed, thinking this thing was obviously going to topple over and crash the moment the rider climbed on.

And yet it moves.

Despite so many glaring offenses to your ideal of parity or even your mother-in-law’s, their marriage balances, rolls forward, and works.

Which is enough for them, apparently, and ought to be for you. If you don’t like the bargain your mother-in-law has struck with your father-in-law, then I suggest you don’t marry him.

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But first: Hard-selling the Iran deal.

President Donald Trump signed perhaps the biggest deal of his life yesterday, and so far, he’s struggling to sell Americans on its merits. It isn’t hard to see why. The first proposed benefit to the U.S. is Iran’s promise to open the Strait of Hormuz—a pledge it has repeatedly made and betrayed. Meanwhile, once the deal is negotiated in its first 60 days, Iran would gain access to up to $300 billion in foreign investment. That would help rebuild Iran’s arsenal, which the U.S. spent months attempting to destroy.

By Wednesday afternoon, Trump seemed to admit that he struck the deal under pressure. “I didn’t want to see an economic catastrophe,” he said, suggesting that the stock market would have tumbled if he’d failed to reach an agreement.

Trump condemned any comparison between his agreement and former president Barack Obama’s 2015 deal, saying Iran’s leaders “laughed at Obama” after that deal and “said he’s a stupid son of a bitch.” Trump also defended allowing funds into Iran: “What do you expect me to say: No one is allowed to invest?”

He’s now relying on Vice President J.D. Vance to help sell the deal, and Eli Lake suggests that Vance isn’t faring much better. As a leader among right-wing skeptics of war, but also loyal to the president, Vance is at pains to portray the outcome in Iran as a win for America. Read Eli’s take on Vance’s tightrope walk between the hawks and the doves.

Our columnists also decipher the deal, sorting fact from fiction and exposing its potentially fatal flaws. Niall Ferguson is cautiously optimistic, arguing that a cascade of misfortunes among America’s enemies could yield a new status quo in the Middle East. Douglas Murray takes a contrary view, suggesting that Iran’s record of aggression means there’s little chance of good faith today.

Trump’s deal not only withdraws America from the conflict; it also requires Israel to halt its war on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuffed Trump this week, saying “the struggle has not ended,” yet Trump says he shouldn’t worry because Syrian forces may head into the breach. Tanner Nau games out the scenario with Ahmad Shawari, a researcher on the region and Hezbollah.

And finally, Mark Dubowitz considers how we got to the deal, and the details Trump and Iran will hash out in the coming two months. Watch Mark on the latest episode of School of War.

—The Editors

Are Jews still welcome in today’s Democratic Party? That’s a question that an increasing number of Jewish Americans have asked themselves as the political left abandons its support for Israel, while inviting antisemites into the party under the guise of progressivism. But it hasn’t always been this way. Jewish Americans are pivotal to the formation of today’s left, according to Batya Ungar-Sargon in her new book, The Jews and the Left. Batya, a Free Press contributor and host of Batya! on NewsNation, sits down with Rafaela Siewert to discuss the state of American Jewry on the left—and how it got this way.

Supporters of Israel—both left and right—vary in their stances on how best the United States should support its ally in the Middle East. Some stand with Benjamin Netanyahu, who has advised it’s best to gradually wean Israel off military aid, both for the sake of Israel and the United States. Former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant says this is a mistake, as U.S. “aid” to Israel is not charity, but a key to technology and investments in security. He lays out his case calling for a shift in perspective when evaluating whether the U.S. should provide aid to Israel.

American boys are in trouble. And yet, few seem to care. Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, sat down with Shilo Brooks for the season finale of Old School to talk about why men have fallen behind, the unique challenges they face, and how a future that embraces masculinity instead of deriding it as “toxic” should look.

For the last week, we have paid homage to Great Americans who blazed new frontiers or broke barriers. We will continue to do so until our country’s 250th birthday, now less than a month away. Today’s installment of Great Americans will have to wait, but catch up on some of our latest favorites in the meantime.

Speaking of great Americans, our own River Page will answer all of your questions at 2 p.m. today in The Free Press Forum. Ask him about the scene at the UFC fight, the Libertarian who may spoil the Texas Senate race, or whatever is on your mind!

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THE NEWS

• President Trump abruptly called off the confirmation hearing of his director of national intelligence nominee Jay Clayton, bucking Republican senators, who were scheduled to consider Clayton later Wednesday afternoon. Trump said that Bill Pulte, the embattled federal housing director, will remain acting director, and said he would not sign a bill renewing a key intelligence program if it did not include provisions establishing voter ID laws and banning mail-in voting.

• Rex Heuermann, known as the Gilgo Beach serial killer, was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to killing eight women between 1993 and 2010. Heuermann was arrested in July 2023 and will spend the remainder of his life in state prison.

• The Federal Reserve unanimously held interest rates steady in what was a highly anticipated June meeting, the first of Kevin Warsh’s tenure as Federal Reserve chair. “Economic activity is expanding at a solid pace despite elevated uncertainty that owes, in part, to the conflict in the Middle East,” read the Federal Reserve’s statement on the decision.

• The Federal Trade Commission, along with a handful of Republican-led states, is suing the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), alleging that WPATH recommendations misled parents and children about the medical consensus and medical necessity of gender transition surgeries.

• Luigi Mangione plans to argue at trial that he was suffering from an extreme emotional disturbance when he fatally shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024. The defense, if successful, would not exonerate Mangione, but could significantly reduce his prison time if convicted.

• The Justice Department is suing the New York State Department of Health, the state’s Medicaid director, and Public Partnerships, LLC, which operates a $10 billion home health program for New York. The lawsuit alleges that PPL made false or misleading claims about its ability to take over and manage the state’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program.

• Louisiana Republican senator Bill Cassidy called the memorandum of understanding with Iran “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.” “Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed,” the senator wrote on Wednesday, “and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future.”

But according to Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, it’s the men who now need support.

From childhood, boys are falling behind in school. Men are trailing women in college completion by an even wide…

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It’s a serious question now that negotiations on an agreement to end the war are about to begin between the United States and Iran. President Donald Trump’s patience with Israel’s military operations in southern Lebanon against the terrorist proxy group already was wearing thin when he said at the G7 summit in Paris, “Frankly, I think Syria would do a better job.”

In early June, Trump told Benjamin Netanyahu that the Israeli prime minister was “fucking crazy” after Israel struck Hezbollah targets, resulting in an Iranian threat to walk away from the negotiating table, according to Axios. Last weekend, Trump told NBC News, “I’d like to see Lebanon have a better life. I’d like to see a more surgical attack on Hezbollah.”

Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda fighter who became Syria’s president in January 2025 after the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad, has said that any suggestion that planning is underway for such a “surgical attack” is unfounded.

I asked Ahmad Sharawi, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, how realistic it is for Syria to go after Hezbollah and what that would mean for the Middle East, Israel, and the U.S.’s presence in the region. His responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Tanner Nau: Two years ago, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime was a close ally of Hezbollah. Now, President Trump is pitching the idea that Syria will take over Israel’s fight against Hezbollah. How did we get here?

Ahmad Sharawi: Bashar al-Assad was a close Hezbollah ally at its peak in 2017. Hezbollah maintained about 10,000 fighters inside Syria. But with the fall of the regime in December 2024, that military entrenchment disappeared. And Hezbollah had to withdraw from Syria, because they lost a key ally in Assad. Since Ahmad al-Sharaa’s government has taken over, there has been severe degradation in Hezbollah’s ability to use Syria as a corridor for its weapons. But that is still operational to a lesser extent, using local actors and remnants of the regime.

The Syrian government has thwarted multiple plots to attack targets within Syria and also Israel from using Syrian territory by Hezbollah. Hezbollah has tried to continue destabilizing Syria, mainly for the goal of reestablishing that corridor so they can rearm with Iranian weapons. This new al-Sharaa government is no ally of Hezbollah. They’ve stopped multiple shipments from going through. And I think that’s a basis for why President Trump is advocating for this position. He’s trying to find a creative way to solve the Hezbollah issue.

TN: Do you think what Trump is calling for is realistic?

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For many mainstream Republicans, the new memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the U.S. and Iran is nothing more than American surrender. Sharp-tongued Louisiana Republican senator John Kennedy summed up this sentiment on Tuesday when asked if he believed Iran’s regime would abandon its nuclear ambitions during the 60-day negotiation period that starts Friday. “Unless you were homeschooled by a day drinker, no one’s confident that Iran is going to do anything,” Kennedy replied.

To Vance, though, the doubters have it all wrong. The vice president argued that America wins either way with the agreement. “Either they get nothing, we’ve destroyed their nuclear program, and the Strait of Hormuz is open,” he told Fox News on Tuesday. “Or they fundamentally transform themselves, and that’s a big win, too.”

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It is often said that international agreements are not worth the paper they are written on. Fortunately, the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that the U.S. is reportedly signing with the revolutionary Islamic regime in Iran is, fittingly, a virtual document, and has so far been signed electronically.

At present the Trump administration seems to have united its critics from left and right, foreign and domestic, over the deal to end current hostilities.

Three aspects of the deal symbolize the problem.

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This question comes amid rumors that a forthcoming U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding will curb U.S. aid to Israel.

No matter where you fall on this issue, almost everyone seems to agree on the premise that American support for Israel is a donation, and that the only remaining question is how generous the benefactor should be.

But that premise is wrong. It has been wrong for a long time. And because it is wrong, the debate built on top of it misrepresents to the American people what their money has actually been doing for the past half-century.

I served as Israel’s minister of defense during the most difficult period in our modern history: the seven-front war that began on October 7, 2023. In that first year of war, I sat across the table from American counterparts to discuss our relationship. And I watched, on the battlefield, what American and Israeli capabilities look like when they are combined against a common enemy.

Here is what the U.S.-Israel relationship actually is—and what it is not.

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As questions continue to swirl, we turned to historian and Free Press columnist Niall Ferguson to help us understand just what we should make of this agreement. Is the deal really “surrender,” as some in Washington have claimed this week? And what will it mean for the U.S., Iran, and the balance of power in the Middle East? Read Niall’s piece to find out. —The Editors

In January 1918, President Woodrow Wilson published his 14 Points, which were designed not merely to end World War I but also to serve as a blueprint for an enduring global peace. Delivered as an address to Congress, they are perhaps the most ambitious peace proposals the world has ever seen.

Wilson called for an entirely new international order based not on the old secret diplomacy but on “open covenants of peace, openly arrived at” (Point 1). He envisioned “absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas” (2). He proposed global free trade (3)—“the removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations”—and general disarmament (4). There should also be “impartial adjustment” of all colonial claims, taking account of the wishes of the colonized (5); no interference in the Russian Civil War then raging (6); the liberation of German-occupied Belgium and northern France (7 and 8); national self-determination for ethnic minorities in Italy (9) and Austria-Hungary (10); an end to military occupations in the Balkans (11); autonomous development for the non-Turkish peoples of the Ottoman Empire (12); and Polish independence (13).

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No amount of document dumps will ever put to rest the conspiracy theories surrounding what happened in places such as Dallas, Texas, in November 1963 and Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024. To that list can be added New York City in June 1776.

Two hundred fifty years ago this week, New York investigators uncovered a plot against George Washington and the Continental Army. At the center of the conspiracy were members of an elite unit that served as the American Revolution’s version of the Secret Service: Washington’s “life guard.”

The guard had formed only months earlier when Washington had issued orders for each of his regimental commanders to send him four of their best soldiers. From this group, he had chosen the members of a new unit charged with protecting himself and his most prized possession: the personal papers that he believed would determine his place in history. Although “sobriety, honesty, and good behavior” would serve as the baseline for candidates, Washington explained that it would take more to make the final cut: Members had to look the part. “The commander in chief. . . wishes them to be from five feet, eight inches high to five feet, ten inches,” read his orders. “And as there is nothing in his eyes more desirable than cleanliness in a soldier, he desires that particular attention may be made in the choice of such men as are neat and spruce.”

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But first: Meet the new tech elite.

SpaceX’s massive IPO last week did more than make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. It also minted 4,000 new millionaires. Anthropic and OpenAI are on track to go public later this year, and will no doubt create many more millionaires in the process.

This brings us to the big and obvious question. No, not what the rise of these tech juggernauts means for the future of the economy. How are these people going to spend all that cash?

Thankfully, the one and only Suzy Weiss has the answer. “My phone has been ringing off the hook since these IPO filings started dropping,” one big-time Bay Area real estate agent told her. “The liquidity event hasn’t fully hit yet and I’m already seeing the demand shift.”

Every boom is different, and this one is just getting started. But in a country where wealth inequality has become a major political concern, plenty of the new AI rich folk want to live quietly and safely while giving away vast sums. Yes, they want the pied-à-terre in Paris. But they also don’t want a lot of attention while embarking on projects like fighting hunger, or helping people who are set to lose their jobs to AI.

And, naturally enough, they also want to invest in their hobbies and passions. “I’m obsessed with expanding volleyball as a sport and expanding my role in it,” one member of the AI set told Suzy. “I wouldn’t have done this without OpenAI. It’s a YOLO play.”

Read Suzy’s in-depth look at America’s burgeoning tech elite and how they plan on spending their money. And, as such, a view into the future. The money being made by the AI.

—The Editors

With America’s 250th birthday just a few weeks away, we’re honoring some of the Great Americans who made their mark on these United States. Today, former California congressman and SEC chair Christopher Cox remembers suffragist Alice Paul, without whom the Nineteenth Amendment would have taken years longer to pass. She silently picketed the White House, was force-fed in prison at 60 pounds, and was essential to giving women the right to vote. Read Cox’s piece to find out how one tenacious woman’s nonviolent protests shifted public opinion so dramatically that Woodrow Wilson reversed his opposition and endorsed the amendment before Congress.

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THE NEWS

• The agreement to end the Iran war will end oil sanctions on the Islamic Republic immediately, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. So far, at least one Iranian tanker carrying crude oil has left port and made it past the U.S. naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz—the first such journey to take place since the U.S. placed its ships there in April.

• An Idaho judge ruled yesterday that the state cannot enforce its law criminalizing using a restroom that does not match one’s biological sex. The law, federal judge Amanda Brailsford rules, is unconstitutional on the grounds that it requires law enforcement personnel to subjectively evaluate a person’s sex on the scene to decide whether or not a criminal offense has been committed.

• A group of people who allegedly planned to attack this weekend’s UFC fight on the White House lawn using drones, snipers, and explosives were arrested and charged this week, law enforcement officials said yesterday. The plot was discovered, according to court documents, by the concerned mother of a 19-year-old suspect who was incensed about the government’s handling of the Epstein files.

• Federal prosecutors have charged 15 Minnesotans with conspiracy to violently oppose immigration enforcement during last year’s “surge.” U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Daniel Rosen claimed those charged conspired to interfere “by force,” while critics claimed the cases against the 15 were based “on false testimony.”

• Apple is planning to debut camera-equipped AirPods and a foldable iPhone in 2027, the year of the smartphone’s 20th anniversary, Bloomberg reported yesterday. The new AirPods are meant to be the company’s first AI-focused wearable product.

• A top Southern Poverty Law Center official has been accused of directing $1.2 million in donations to an informant placed inside a white supremacist group who was also allegedly her lover, the New York Post reported yesterday. The report follows a recent superseding indictment filed by the Department of Justice against the SPLC accusing the nonprofit of redirecting donor money to the alleged hate groups they purported to be fighting.

• Samuel Adams announced that its Boston Taproom depleted its entire stock of Boston Lager over the weekend, attributing the shortage to a surge of Scottish soccer fans. According to the brewer, consumption between Thursday and Sunday was roughly four times what it typically sees during a major four-day holiday weekend such as the Fourth of July, forcing the company to arrange an emergency resupply on Saturday morning.

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Data show that fathers are investing record amounts of attention, affection, and time in their children. As Derek Thompson and Aziz Sunderji wrote in April, dads are spending nearly quadruple the number of hours their grandfathers spent with their kids. Richard Reeves, the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, wrote in May that men “have massively increased the amount of childcare and housework they are doing.” This month, University of Southern California psychologist Darby Saxbe celebrated the fact that “parenting time for fathers has been trending upward for decades.”

Thompson and Sunderji summarized it well: Today’s dads are becoming “the parents their fathers never were.”

What is behind the rise of the Super Dads? The answer lies in an underreported societal shift: Marriage in America is becoming stabler. Over the past decade, divorce and single parenthood have fallen so much that a majority of American kids will grow up with their father in the home for the entirety of childhood. And married fathers spend 13 times more time caring for their children than fathers who don’t live with them.

For children and fathers alike, it’s the best of times.

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He’s one of a cohort of tech workers gearing up to spend big. Last week, SpaceX floated at a $1.77 trillion valuation, making 4,000 new millionaires out of current and previous employees—and turning its founder, Elon Musk, into the world’s first trillionaire. And earlier in the month, two of the world’s leading AI labs—Anthropic (valued at $965 billion) and OpenAI ($852 billion)—each filed S-1s with the Securities and Exchange Commission, formally signaling their intentions to go public too.

Some say we’re in a stock bubble and that it’s only a matter of time until sky-high tech valuations come crashing down to Earth. Others say the technology unleashed by these juggernauts will transform the economy and trigger a wave of mass unemployment. Either way, the employees—including engineers, researchers, and even some mechanics and welders like Juan Hernandez, who once worked at SpaceX and now works at Blue Origin—are set to cash in.

And so, they’re making big plans.

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