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Pete Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matt Wrather 10x the company stock price by announcing a pivot to the lucrative lithium refinement services sub-industry, for which they have no expertise, equipment, or preparation, figuring the market will reward them anyway.

In a week dominated by the bubbly news of former environmentally conscious shoe company allbirds announcing its quixotic and lucrative “pivot to AI,” the Overthinkers discuss pivots major and minor, personal and cultural. To ground the discussion, they consider “The City,” a new-style video from a long-running YouTube Channel Historia Civilis, better known for specific narratives of narrower historical events. Is this a pivot? Is  ir more or less than one? With the memory of the History Channel not fully faded, is there something about histrotainment that lends itself especially to pivots?

Inevitably the gaze turns inward, to our own beloved show, its constancies and changes, and whether or if it ought to chase some greater or lesser change. For now, it is more of the same, which we all love in a world with one foot planted, spinning in circles.

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Further Reading

• “Sneaker Company Allbirds Plans to Pivot to A.I. Yes, A.I.” (NY Times)
• “Ens***ification” (Wikipedia)
• “The City.” (Historia Civilis)
• “The Battle of the Axona (57 B.C.E.)” (Historia Civilis
• What Happened to the History Channel? by darknite125 (Funk’s House of Geekery)
• Private Equity’s Quiet Takeover of YouTube Reshapes Online Media, by Ernes Berna Killic (Türkiye Today, Jul 24, 2025)