FYI - For Your Innovation

In this episode of The Brainstorm, Sam, Nick, and Brett open the Anthropic S-1, maybe the most impressive twelve months of revenue growth in corporate history, and debate whether a major AI-enabled cyberattack would be good or bad for the frontier labs. Then Nick breaks down Meta’s $90 billion raise, the filing suggesting Zuckerberg could raise $700 billion before losing voting control, and why the math on monetizing Muse may require Meta to build a bank. Finally, Elon Musk is publicly warning of an extinction event for neoclouds with chips they cannot plug in, and the team asks who that warning is really for.

Key Points From This Episode:

• What the Anthropic S-1 reveals about gross margins, research and development (R&D) efficiency, and the risk factors everyone is quoting
• Why Meta’s consumer agent math may not reach Instagram-level Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) without owning payments
• Why compute now rents above $50B per gigawatt, and what that squeeze likely does to the neoclouds

If you know ARK, you know we focus on long-term innovation. But that doesn’t mean we ignore breaking news. Every day, we debate the latest developments in tech and markets. Now, we’re bringing those conversations to you in “The Brainstorm,” a co-production from ARK, WOLF, and Public. Tune in weekly for our quick takes on what’s shaping innovation right now.

Learn more about WOLF: https://wolf.financial

Learn more about Public: https://public.com/

Disclosure: http://arkinv.st/39rzF94

In this episode of The Brainstorm, Sam and Brett cover a week of exciting developments. Brett was at the Tesla Roadster unveil in person and argues the event was primarily marketing for a prospective SpaceX Tesla merger, pointing to the swapped order of the earnings calls, SpaceX executives quietly following Tesla accounts over the weekend, and the window a shareholder vote would require. Then to CoreWeave, whose bonds are trading at a fifteen percent yield after being raised at nine, with no visible softening in Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) demand to explain it. Brett’s suspicion is that a leveraged fund is being liquidated rather than anything fundamental breaking. Plus Anthropic’s reported numbers, why growth decelerating to 340% may still be the most remarkable twelve months of business performance ever recorded, and the non-consensus case that the closed labs are pulling away rather than getting caught.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Why Brett reads the Roadster unveil as potential merger marketing, and what a combined SpaceX Tesla could unlock for both shareholder bases
• Why CoreWeave’s bonds are trading at 15% while GPU demand shows no sign of softening
• Why having the frontier model is what lets you build the cheap one, and why trading down to open weight may be the expensive choice

If you know ARK, you know we focus on long-term innovation. But that doesn’t mean we ignore breaking news. Every day, we debate the latest developments in tech and markets. Now, we’re bringing those conversations to you in “The Brainstorm,” a co-production from ARK, WOLF, and Public. Tune in weekly for our quick takes on what’s shaping innovation right now.

Learn more about WOLF: https://wolf.financial

Learn more about Public: https://public.com/

Disclosure: http://arkinv.st/39rzF94

In this episode of The Brainstorm, Sam, Nick, and Brett open on OpenAI’s release of 722 mathematical proofs and the one subject conspicuously missing from it, cryptography. Brett argues the nearer term threat to crypto is AI rather than quantum computing, and that the danger sits not in the cryptographic primitives but in everything built around them, from self-custody hardware to the exchanges now holding enormous honeypots. He also suggests quantum-safe encryption may be the more vulnerable life raft, and that a scrambled bank ledger could be far more disruptive than stolen coins. Then SpaceX reportedly pays $8 billion for Nextel’s old spectrum and wins Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval for 15,000 direct-to-cell satellites, turning a service that was going to clip a dollar off your phone bill into a bid for the entire bill. Plus why SpaceX collects far more per gigawatt of compute than the neoclouds can.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Why AI, not quantum computing, may be the nearer term threat to crypto, and why quantum-safe encryption could be more vulnerable than assumed
• How SpaceX plans to turn home Starlink dishes into cell towers, and why the cellular business likely depends on selling broadband first
• Why SpaceX collects $30 to $40 billion per gigawatt on short term compute deals while the neoclouds settle for far less

If you know ARK, you know we focus on long-term innovation. But that doesn’t mean we ignore breaking news. Every day, we debate the latest developments in tech and markets. Now, we’re bringing those conversations to you in “The Brainstorm,” a co-production from ARK, WOLF, and Public. Tune in weekly for our quick takes on what’s shaping innovation right now.

Learn more about WOLF: https://wolf.financial

Learn more about Public: https://public.com/

Disclosure: http://arkinv.st/39rzF94

In this episode of The Brainstorm, Sam, Nick, and Brett work through OpenAI DevDay, where one of the most interesting announcements was the one that never shipped. Ultra Ultra Fast did not reach public availability because the inventory was reportedly sold out to Jane Street, which is paying something like $200 billion per gigawatt for it, several times what Anthropic pays to rent capacity from SpaceX AI. Brett argues speed is becoming its own axis of competition alongside intelligence, and that the pull of enterprise money keeps starving consumer agents of compute. Nick covers Robinhood’s Hood Summit, where retail traders got agentic accounts, paid data connectors, and backtesting, and asks whether that is democratization or lambs walking into a Goliath. Then Starship reaches orbit carrying commercial satellites, and the team sizes up a launch business that could add a billion dollars of annual revenue per flight.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Why Jane Street is paying roughly $200 billion per gigawatt, and what speed as a competitive edge potentially does to AI pricing
• Whether Robinhood handing agentic trading to retail is democratization or fodder for high frequency traders
• Why full Starship reusability could take launch costs below $100 per kilogram, and what that could mean for revenue per launch

If you know ARK, you know we focus on long-term innovation. But that doesn’t mean we ignore breaking news. Every day, we debate the latest developments in tech and markets. Now, we’re bringing those conversations to you in “The Brainstorm,” a co-production from ARK, WOLF, and Public. Tune in weekly for our quick takes on what’s shaping innovation right now.

Learn more about WOLF: https://wolf.financial

Learn more about Public: https://public.com/

Disclosure: http://arkinv.st/39rzF94

In this episode of FYI, Daniel Maguire and Tasha Keeney speak with J. Clay Sell, CEO of X-energy, about the company’s approach to reinventing nuclear power with advanced small modular reactors. Sell explains X-energy’s TRISO fuel and helium-cooled reactor design, why the company believes safety and repeatable construction can drive nuclear costs lower, and how regulatory reform is accelerating deployment. They also discuss X-energy’s partnership with Amazon, the role of AI in nuclear engineering and licensing, competition with China, supply-chain constraints, and Sell’s vision for making nuclear power abundant, affordable, and easy to buy.

• 00:00:00 Highlights and intro 
• 00:02:58 Clay Sell's background and X-energy's goal of reinventing how nuclear is deployed 
• 00:05:23 Why a pebble-bed, high-temperature gas-cooled design — and moving nuclear down the cost curve 
• 00:10:09 TRISO fuel, helium coolant, and why a reactor that can't melt down needs fewer safety systems 
• 00:16:44 Building a fuel business alongside the reactor business, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) license for commercial fuel fabrication 
• 00:20:01 Why Sell’s believes regulation is no longer the main constraint — construction execution is 
• 00:24:00 Amazon's commitment to five gigawatts, and why X-energy is chasing nth-of-a-kind scale over being first 
• 00:28:37 Earning community support and social license for plants and data centers 
• 00:31:53 Applying AI to nuclear development with Amazon Web Services (AWS), NVIDIA, Idaho National Lab, and the Department of Energy (DOE)
• 00:38:40 Competing with China on advanced reactors, supply-chain buildout, and nuclear as a routine option within a decade

Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com)

In this episode of The Brainstorm, Sam, Nick, and Brett unpack Meta Connect, where Muse quietly replaced the metaverse as Zuckerberg’s vision for the company. Nick walks through the hardware spread, from audio-only Ray-Bans with no camera, to a 100 gram VR headset at $1,300 that outspecs the Vision Pro at a third of the price, to the Muse Charm, a Tamagotchi-style agent device shipping for the holidays. Brett argues the real target was never virtual reality (VR) but Apple, and that loosening the smartphone’s grip is worth more to Meta than any single device. Nick counters that the three things people actually do on their phones are untouched by any of it, and that Meta should just build a phone. Plus whether consumer agents arrived a graphical processing unit (GPU) generation too early, and why owning the consumer may be the best dollar Meta can spend and the one Wall Street would hate most.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Why Meta’s $1,300 headset outspecs the Vision Pro, and why that may not matter if nobody wants VR
• How agent devices erode Apple’s ecosystem lock-in without ever replacing the smartphone
• Why consumer agents may take five years to monetize, and which balance sheets can fund the gap

If you know ARK, you know we focus on long-term innovation. But that doesn’t mean we ignore breaking news. Every day, we debate the latest developments in tech and markets. Now, we’re bringing those conversations to you in “The Brainstorm,” a co-production from ARK, WOLF, and Public. Tune in weekly for our quick takes on what’s shaping innovation right now.

Learn more about WOLF: https://wolf.financial

Learn more about Public: https://public.com/

Disclosure: http://arkinv.st/39rzF94

In this episode of The Brainstorm, Sam, Nick, and Brett dig into the opening shots of the AI shopping wars. Amazon blocked Meta’s Muse from crawling its site to protect a $70 billion advertising business, while Shopify did the opposite and opened Shop Pay and its agent-ready catalog to the same model. Nick argues Amazon is making a mistake and will have to reverse course the moment Walmart or Target defect and see the Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) lift. Brett makes the case that agents expand the market rather than divide it, pulling services, grocery, and home projects into e-commerce for the first time, and that Meta’s years of social commerce tooling on Instagram may be the most underrated head start in the whole fight. Plus ghost brands, proof of human, and why agents may develop brand taste of their own.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Why Amazon has a $70 billion reason to block agents, and why a 5% agent take rate may be the compromise
• How agents could push US e-commerce past 30% of retail by pulling services and expertise into the cart
• Why Meta’s social commerce tooling on Instagram is potentially an underrated head start in agentic shopping

If you know ARK, you know we focus on long-term innovation. But that doesn’t mean we ignore breaking news. Every day, we debate the latest developments in tech and markets. Now, we’re bringing those conversations to you in “The Brainstorm,” a co-production from ARK, WOLF, and Public. Tune in weekly for our quick takes on what’s shaping innovation right now.

Learn more about WOLF: https://wolf.financial

Learn more about Public: https://public.com/

Disclosure: http://arkinv.st/39rzF94

In this episode of Bitcoin Brainstorm, Rod Roudi, Cathie Wood, and Lorenzo Valente are joined by Rob Hamilton, Seth For Privacy, and Dhruv Bansal to discuss how rapidly advancing AI models are changing cybersecurity and Bitcoin security. The group examines the Coldcard vulnerability, the growing capabilities of open-weight models, and the resulting shift in the balance between attackers and defenders. They discuss AI-powered code auditing, self-custody and hardware wallet risks, the importance of domain expertise, and how teams can build continuous security systems around their software. The conversation also explores quantum computing threats, Bitcoin’s resilience, and why AI could ultimately strengthen software security.

Guests on this month’s Bitcoin Brainstorm include:

• Cathie Wood: Founder, CEO and CIO, ARK Invest 
• Lorenzo Valente: Director of Research, Digital Assets, ARK Invest
• Rod Roudi: Founder, Bitcoin Park
• Rob Hamilton: Co-Founder And CEO, AnchorWatch
• Dhruv Bansal: Co-Founder And CSO, Unchained
• Seth For Privacy: COO, Cake Wallet And Radar

Key Points From This Episode:

• How falling inference costs, rapid model advancement, and open-weight models have unlocked a new level of capability in software vulnerability research.
• The Coldcard weak-entropy vulnerability, and why we believe it represented a software and vendor problem rather than a failure of the Bitcoin protocol.
• The trade-offs between self-custody, third-party custodians, ETFs, hardware wallets, and multi-vendor multisig—and why security demands ongoing vigilance rather than a "set it and forget it" approach.
• Why we expect AI to benefit defenders more than attackers, from continuous repository scanning and faster audits to preparing Bitcoin for potential quantum computing threats.

Learn more about Bitcoin Park: bitcoinpark.com

Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com)

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Disclosure: http://arkinv.st/39rzF94f

In this episode of The Brainstorm, Sam, Nick, and Brett dig into Dario Amodei’s open letter calling on frontier labs to pace themselves, a position Elon Musk and Sam Altman both signaled agreement with. Brett argues the real risk is not extinction but agentic swarms mangling digital infrastructure that was never hardened for them, and that slowing the public frontier may hand closed labs both a wider lead and a defense business to sell. Nick pushes back on the competitive motives behind a federal AI regulator. Then Nick reports back from six days inside Meta’s Muse, the agentic consumer app that found him over $1,000 in unclaimed money sitting in Michigan.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Why frontier labs want to pace the public frontier, and what that does to 99.99% cost declines
• Whether an AI regulatory regime protects the public or locks in the incumbents
• How Meta’s Muse is built for the consumer, not the prosumer, and why commerce take rates beat subscriptions

If you know ARK, you know we focus on long-term innovation. But that doesn’t mean we ignore breaking news. Every day, we debate the latest developments in tech and markets. Now, we’re bringing those conversations to you in “The Brainstorm,” a co-production from ARK, WOLF, and Public. Tune in weekly for our quick takes on what’s shaping innovation right now.

Learn more about WOLF: https://wolf.financial

Learn more about Public: https://public.com/

Disclosure: http://arkinv.st/39rzF94

In this episode of The Brainstorm, Sam and Brett unpack Tesla’s Cybercab launch, a two-seat vehicle with no steering wheel and no pedals that Brett believes can operate at roughly 25 cents a mile, a level at which Waymo may not be able to stay gross profitable. They settle the debate over why Tesla would sell Cybercabs at all instead of owning the fleet outright, and what a 4.5x jump in robotaxi app users on the back of a deliberately low key event says about demand at half the price of an Uber. Then the team turns to OpenAI’s Astra, the model release behind a solution to Navier-Stokes, and why Brett thinks the closed frontier labs eating their own caviar are pulling away from open weight models rather than converging with them. Plus Apple’s folding iPhone Duo, which neither host is buying, and why they believe the Apple Watch is the more interesting announcement.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Why the Cybercab could run at 25 cents a mile, and what that price does to Waymo’s economics
• Why Tesla is selling Cybercabs to third party owners instead of keeping every mile for itself
• Why we believe closed frontier models are pulling away from open weight models, and why Apple’s walled garden becomes a liability in an agent driven world

If you know ARK, you know we focus on long-term innovation. But that doesn’t mean we ignore breaking news. Every day, we debate the latest developments in tech and markets. Now, we’re bringing those conversations to you in “The Brainstorm,” a co-production from ARK, WOLF, and Public. Tune in weekly for our quick takes on what’s shaping innovation right now.

Learn more about WOLF: https://wolf.financial

Learn more about Public: https://public.com/

Disclosure: http://arkinv.st/39rzF94