Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“It started in a London coffee house in the 1680s. Merchants and ship captains crowded the tables, and somewhere between the gossip and the gambling, they began betting on the things everyone else was afraid of. Hurricanes. Pirates. Ships lost at sea. Three hundred years later, the same place would ensure Bruce Springsteen’s voice and the legs of a Hollywood actress. It’s called Lloyd’s, and most people think it’s an insurance company. But it’s something stranger and far more interesting. Lloyd’s is a risk marketplace. And buried in how Lloyd’s works is a schematic for reinventing government itself.” (06/22/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/the-united-states-of-underwriters