# Collison’s NBER Paper, Durant’s History, and a Film for Thinking About AI Agents

*By Recommended Reading from Tech Founders • April 10, 2026*

Three authentic recommendations made the cut: Patrick Collison's NBER paper on respiratory pathogens and birth order effects, Elon Musk's nod to Durant's The Story of Civilization, and Lena Waters's recommendation of The Corporation for thinking about AI agents and legal standing.

## What stood out

After filtering for direct, organic recommendations, three resources made the cut. The strongest pattern was **use-case clarity**: Patrick Collison shared a paper because it sharpened a specific causal story about birth order and wages, Elon Musk pointed readers to Durant for a civilizational lens on societal decline, and Lena Waters recommended *The Corporation* as a way to think about AI agents and legal standing [^1][^2][^3][^4].

## Most compelling recommendation

### Working paper on respiratory pathogens, birth order, and wages
- **Title:** Not specified in source material
- **Content type:** Working paper
- **Author/creator:** Not specified in source material
- **Link/URL:** [NBER PDF](https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29524/w29524.pdf) [^1]
- **Who recommended it:** Patrick Collison [^1]
- **Key takeaway:** Using Danish administrative data, the paper argues that respiratory pathogens passed from older siblings to younger ones explain a large share of birth-order effects on long-run wages; Collison notes the paper claims **70%** [^1]
- **Why it matters:** This is the clearest high-signal recommendation today because Collison says he had not previously seen anyone convincingly show that standard respiratory pathogens impose long-term costs on infant siblings [^1]

> "I haven’t until now seen anyone convincingly show that standard respiratory pathogens impose long-term costs on infant siblings." [^1]

## Two other authentic picks

### *The Story of Civilization*
- **Content type:** Book
- **Author/creator:** Durant [^2]
- **Link/URL:** No direct book URL provided in source material
- **Who recommended it:** Elon Musk [^2]
- **Key takeaway:** Musk recommends it in response to a Teddy Roosevelt quote arguing that civilizations weaken when materialism, luxury, safety, and pacifism erode fighting capacity [^2][^3]
- **Why it matters:** The context gives the book a specific reading job: studying how civilizations lose resilience over time [^3]
- **Source conversation:** [X post](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2042287158120366333) [^2]

### *The Corporation*
- **Content type:** Movie
- **Author/creator:** Not specified in source material
- **Link/URL:** No direct resource URL provided in source material
- **Who recommended it:** Lena Waters, on *Office Hours with Tom Tunguz and Lena Waters* [^4]
- **Key takeaway:** Waters says the film is "prescient" for thinking about why an AI agent will not have the same kind of legal standing as a corporation [^4]
- **Why it matters:** It connects a non-AI film to a current question about AI agents and institutional structure [^4]
- **Source conversation:** [Office Hours with Tom Tunguz and Lena Waters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt_A_NpZuUE) [^4]

> "Everybody should watch that movie, the corporation, because it's kind of prescient..." [^4]

## Bottom line

Today’s strongest recommendation is Collison’s NBER paper pick because it comes with a direct URL, a concrete claim, and a clear explanation of what was new to him. Musk and Waters offer thinner but still useful recommendations, each tied to a specific question: how civilizations decay, and how to think about legal standing for AI agents [^1][^3][^4].

---

### Sources

[^1]: [𝕏 post by @patrickc](https://x.com/patrickc/status/2042218237807755455)
[^2]: [𝕏 post by @elonmusk](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2042287158120366333)
[^3]: [𝕏 post by @infantrydort](https://x.com/infantrydort/status/2042220146589049043)
[^4]: [Office Hours with Tom Tunguz and Lena Waters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt_A_NpZuUE)