We considered, briefly, the ephemeral allure of Nintendo, the predictable comforts of Mondelez, even the audacious gamble of Rocket Lab. But these felt…distant. Too removed from the everyday, the tangible. My daughter, at ten years, possesses a clarity of purpose that many seasoned investors lack. She desires connection, a resonance with the objects of her affection. And so, Chewy emerged, not as a calculation, but as a…fitting companion.
SoFi, in its ambition, seeks to be a comprehensive financial house, offering a spectrum of services from the mundane – checking accounts and loans – to the more complex instruments of wealth management. It is a vision of wholeness, a desire to shepherd its members through all stages of their financial lives. One observes a certain paternalism in this approach, a belief that the company knows best, and that its members are best served by a comprehensive, if somewhat controlling, embrace. The numbers, as they are wont to do, tell a story of growth: a 35% increase in customer count, a surge in revenue, and a corresponding rise in earnings. Yet, such metrics, while comforting to the shareholder, often obscure the deeper currents at play. A rising tide, after all, lifts all boats, but does not necessarily indicate that any particular vessel is seaworthy.
You see, we’re entering an age of insatiable power demands. Not just for keeping the lights on (though that’s still important), but for feeding the digital gods. Artificial intelligence, data centers… these aren’t powered by good intentions and wishful thinking. They require serious juice. And while some continue to believe in the fairy tale of 100% renewables, reality has a habit of being stubbornly… atomic. Nuclear delivers. Safely, reliably, and with a carbon footprint smaller than a pixie’s footprint in a snowdrift.
My Aunt Carol, who believes 5G causes migraines, tried to explain AI to me over Thanksgiving. It involved a lot of hand-waving and references to “the cloud” as if it were a physical place. She thought Nvidia was building robots. I didn’t correct her. It was easier. But what I should have explained is that all those clever algorithms need somewhere to, well, remember things. And that’s where Micron comes in. They don’t build the robots, they build the brains’ short-term memory.
I’ve been quietly accumulating positions in a few companies I think will benefit. Not because I’m confident, exactly. More like… resigned to the inevitability of it all. Here are six. Don’t blame me if they don’t work out. I’m just a guy in a basement.
The logic is circular. Increased investment, predicated on projected demand, generates further technological advancement, which in turn reinforces the initial projections. Each data point, each incremental improvement in sensor accuracy, is not a step towards liberation, but a tightening of the network, a refinement of the control apparatus. The very notion of ‘autonomous’ is a misnomer; these systems will operate not independently, but as extensions of a far more complex, opaque infrastructure, governed by algorithms and protocols beyond the comprehension of any individual.
It appears the former Mr. Zhao-known to his friends (if he has any left who aren’t lawyers) as “CZ”-has been attempting to untangle a knot of speculation regarding his relationship with a former leader who has a rather…distinctive…hair arrangement. The core of the issue? A pardon. Granted. By him. The one with the hair. Naturally, this sparked the sort of frenzy normally reserved for sightings of the Lesser Spotted Marmoset riding a unicycle.
Now, whispers have begun to circulate, carried on the winds of commerce, suggesting a possible thaw in these strained relations. Reports, originating from those privy to the inner workings of the Chinese regulatory bodies, indicate that certain key technological enterprises – Alibaba, Tencent, even the entity formerly known as TikTok’s parent – have been instructed to submit orders for Nvidia’s H200 AI chips, awaiting the formal stamp of approval. This is not merely a transaction of goods; it is a shifting of power, a delicate dance between nations, and a testament to the enduring allure of innovation.
Much of the optimism stems from the current fascination with Artificial Intelligence, a technology promising either utopian bliss or existential dread – depending on which algorithm you ask. The sheer amount of money being poured into AI data centers is, frankly, astonishing. Investors seem to believe it will become a ‘multitrillion-dollar market.’ (Which, when you think about it, is just a very large number followed by a lot of zeroes. A concept humans seem strangely drawn to.)