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Yet in the twilight of AI’s training epoch, where titanic GPUs devour watts like ambrosia, the humbler realm of inference beckons-a purgatory of diminished ambition but pragmatic utility. Here, where the infernal heat of matrix multiplications meets the frugality of edge deployments, Intel discerns its last crusade. Model training demands Promethean theft from the fire of computational gods; inference merely requires the tending of embers, the quiet labor of scribes copying neural weights upon the vellum of everyday devices.

And now, as the calendar turns yet another page, let us glance back, not with the excitement of those who delight in profits, but with the sober contemplation of those who wish to examine the truth.

The year opened with AI zealots chanting “progress!” as if it were a liturgy. But when President Trump’s tariff theatrics struck Wall Street like a farcical opera, the crowd’s faith wavered. How quaintly human: to flee the storm only to return when the sun reappears. Since April’s nadir, the index has vaulted 20%-a phoenix-like resurgence that proves markets, like fashion, thrive on reinvention.

Lilly’s tirzepatide is the current king of GLP-1/GIP agonists, and their triple agonist, Retatrutide, is the crown prince. It’s all very impressive, like watching a chess grandmaster set up a checkmate. But here’s the thing: Vikings didn’t just pillage; they innovated. Their VK2735 is a dual GLP-1/GIP beast, and they’re already toying with a quadruple agonist-GLP-1, GIP, Amylin, and Calcitonin. It’s the biotech equivalent of building a four-player co-op game where everyone wins… or everyone crashes. (And yes, I’m aware I just compared drug development to a video game. Don’t judge me.)

However, the trajectory of such rapid growth, though striking, cannot continue unchecked. In the next five years, two other companies stand poised to eclipse Palantir in market value, albeit through very different routes. One is a retail giant, ready to capitalize on a rebound in housing and infrastructure. The other is a semiconductor innovator, vying to disrupt the AI hardware market.

Behold the pharmaceutical colossus that forgot to duck when the market swung its bat. First came the post-pandemic comedown-a hangover from vaccine euphoria. Then patent cliffs loomed like Dickensian debt collectors. Even tariffs, those international gamekeepers, threatened to poach profits. But Pfizer, ever the chess player, now reveals a gambit.

Behold, then, two of Berkshire’s holdings-Visa and Occidental Petroleum-each a gilded mirage, each a potential trap for the unthinking admirer. Let us dissect them with the precision of a lepidopterist, noting not the wings but the fragile chitin beneath.