The Capital View - Q4 2025 - The Attention Tax

The desk phones never stopped ringing. They wedged our four-foot cubicles into a repurposed JCPenney at South Roads Mall in Bellevue. The website was down again, overwhelmed by a flood of newly empowered retail traders. When the screens froze, they reached for landlines, desperate to place orders.

“I want to buy 100 shares of XYZ,” one caller said.

“I can’t find that ticker. What’s the company name?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “It’s an internet stock my friend told me about.”....