Jana Hlistova

Episode #161 with Kirsty Gibson, Investment Manager at @BaillieGifford is live. We talk about: - Why AI is a true platform shift (not a cycle) - How to separate noise from signal in volatile markets - Why culture, not forecasts, anchors long-term conviction - And what most investors are still underestimating. Please enjoy! Listen on Spotify+ (see links below) 👇

Quite the chart

Jane Street outpaced its major peers, including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, when the market maker set a record in 2025 with trading revenue of $39.6 billion. A trading haul of $16.1 billion in the first quarter of 2026 is more than 40% of what Jane Street posted last year. #Bloomberg

The AI supercycle will last 15 years. We're in year 3. Most investors are still buying Phase 1 names while the real money is already rotating into Phase 3. I mapped the entire cycle into 4 phases with the tickers that matter at each stage: The AI supercycle is the biggest investment theme of our generation. Bigger than mobile. Bigger than cloud. A 15 year structural shift that will reshape every sector of the global economy. Hyperscalers just committed $725 billion in capex for 2026, nearly doubling last year. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta each spending over $100 billion individually. This is not speculation. I've mapped the entire supercycle into four phases so you know exactly where we are and where the asymmetric opportunities sit. 🔴 Phase 1: Already Ran (2023 to 2025) The foundation layer is complete. $AMD ran 78% in 2025, $NVDA 39%, and $INTC just posted a blowout Q1 that sent the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index above 10,000 for the first time. Chips still power every phase but the generational entries are gone and risk/reward has compressed. - $NVDA, $AMD, $ARM, $INTC, $AVGO, $MU, $GLW - Semiconductors, Memory & Storage,Photonics/Optics - Foundation complete. Still growing but priced for it. 🟠 Phase 2: Peak Buildout (2025 to 2027) The phase most investors just woke up to. $CEG acquired Calpine to become the largest U.S. private power producer at 55 GW. $GEV up over 200% in a year. $VRT co engineering cooling for NVIDIA's Rubin architecture. $GLW up 74% YTD on optical fiber demand. Nuclear SMRs are the breakout with $OKLO, $SMR, and $BWXT positioning to power data centers directly. Still upside but the obvious names have moved. - $CEG, $GEV, $VRT, $VST, $TLN, $ANET, $GLW, $MOD, $EQIX $OKLO, $SMR, $BWXT, $NNE - Power/Grid, Cooling, Networking, Nuclear/SMR Peak buildout. - Nuclear SMRs are the sleeper. 🟡 Phase 3: The Positioning Window (2026 to 2028) Where AI escapes the data center and enters the physical world. Most will be late. Tesla converting Fremont to Optimus production, $25B capex, mass production targeted H2 2026. Rocket Lab posted record $602M revenue with $1.85B backlog. $LUNR up 47% YTD with $943M in contracts. $KTOS Valkyrie drone selected for the Marine Corps. The window to position is open right now. - $TSLA, $RKLB, $LUNR, $KTOS, $AVAV, $PATH, $ISRG $MP, $FCX, $ALB, $ASTS - Robotics/Autonomy, Space/Defense/Drones, Rare Earths - This is where the asymmetric risk/reward lives. 🟢 Phase 4: Final Frontier (2028+) The endgame. Microsoft capex $190B. Alphabet $190B. Amazon $200B. Meta $145B. Google Cloud backlog past $460B. They're building the rails for AI software dominance and AGI. Quantum still early but $IONQ and D Wave are laying groundwork. The platforms that control the software layer win the entire supercycle. - $MSFT, $GOOGL, $AMZN, $META, $ORCL, $IONQ - AI Software Dominance, AGI Infrastructure Decade long thesis. - Accumulate on weakness. 💊 Key Takeaway - Phase 2 is confirmed ($725B hyperscaler capex) - Phase 3 is where the smart money positions nowRobotics, space, defense, nuclear - SMR are the 2026 to 2028 trades - Most will rotate into these names 12 months too late 15 year supercycle. Not a trade. Phase 1 ran. Phase 2 is priced. Phase 3 is where you want to be.

Fab article on WPP: -WPP stock has plummeted about 73% over the past five years, leaving it with a market cap of just $4 billion. WPP was dropped from the FTSE 100 index of top London Stock Exchange companies in December. -CEO Cindy Rose unveiled a sweeping three-year turnaround plan earlier this year, targeting $676 million in annual cost savings by 2028. WPP shrank its workforce by nearly 9% last year, and staffers are bracing for more cuts. - A big piece of Rose’s reorganization plan involves untangling WPP’s unwieldy operating structure, the result of a decades long shopping spree in which founder Martin Sorrell bought hundreds of agencies globally. Those agencies competed aggressively for clients, with leaders undercutting each other and sometimes trading petty insults, according to people familiar with the company. - The goal now: pull together the best talent to serve clients, regardless of which internal brand they represent. It is a business model that has worked well for her rival, Publicis. -Under Rose’s drive to deploy technology, WPP recently launched a self-service version of its AI platform that will let small businesses create and publish ad campaigns...Rose estimates the project could generate several hundred million dollars in revenue within five years. wsj.com/business/media…

Notes from our Crypto Fund 5 conversation: 1. Successful founders in this next era will tend to be product-focused, go-to-market-focused, and pragmatic rather than ideological. 2. The goal: get a billion people onchain through stocks, bonds, stablecoins, and remittances. Once they're onboarded to the infrastructure, adjacent services can follow naturally. 3. We don't have a global financial network. We have a patchwork of small networks glued together by humans and legacy processes. Stablecoins are global from day one: the WhatsApp moment for money. 4. Stablecoins are leading crypto's mainstream traction. ~$300B issued, transaction volume approaching major payment network levels, and growth uncorrelated with trading. 5. The Genius Act gave stablecoins a regulatory framework, and unlocked builder energy overnight. The Clarity Act (or SEC/CFTC rulemaking) could do the same for the rest of crypto. 6. Crypto is winning the revolution, now it's time to govern. That means working with the system, not overthrowing it. 7, A growing share of transactions (potentially the majority) will be done by AI agents, not humans. If you tell one to save you money on your monthly spending, it will use whatever software does that, and it won't care what gets disintermediated. 8, You cannot vibe code USDC or Hyperliquid. Network-effects businesses are the one thing the model companies can't easily replicate. 9. Privacy may be the most durable moat in crypto. Once an application's state is encrypted, it can't be trivially forked to another chain. Switching costs return. 10. If every human on earth gains access to a dollar-denominated, stablecoin-powered account, that alone would be a generational upgrade to the global financial system.

Oh good! "British Airways owner IAG warns Iran war will add €2bn to jet fuel bill. Company plans to recoup about 60% of higher costs through savings and raising ticket prices" #FT

"..Executives across retail, restaurants and packaged goods are increasingly worried about US shoppers with tighter budgets. Meanwhile, economists warn the disruptions from the war could lead to higher prices for a wider range of goods—including food..."

The majority of new jobs created since 1940 didn’t even exist in 1940. There is no fixed "lump of labor". Again and again, new technologies create new jobs. a16z's David George dismantles the "AI job apocalypse" myth: a16z.news/p/the-ai-job-a…

"..The amount of power consumed by US data centers is likely to more than double to 106 gigawatts in the decade through 2035, with natural gas set to play a key role. On a global basis, renewables will meet nearly 50% of the growth in data center electricity demand, though in the US gas will dominate, according to the International Energy Agency."

Interesting chart

Every firm will need to reconceptualize work as they build agentic systems. As AI and agents take on more of the execution, the opportunity is to expand human agency and redesign how work gets done. An in-depth look from the team at what this shift means and key considerations for every business: microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/…

If AI doesn't start showing results soon, Big Tech could slow down all that economically vital spending. PitchBook's Harrison Rolfes said: "The moment one of those hyperscalers doesn't succeed ... you break a link in the chain." That could cause a market correction with "ripple effects to everyone else. #Axios

Incredible change ahead: Anthropic says they can draft pitch decks for client meetings, review financial statements and escalate cases for compliance review. The new tools—10 in total—are directed squarely at professionals across banking, insurance, asset management and financial technology. #Bloomberg

Thomson Reuters shares fell as much as 5.1%, after Anthropic's announcement Tuesday. Anthropic said it is enabling its Claude AI model to work better across third-party software like Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, and integrate data from partners in the financial services industry, such as Dun & Bradstreet and Moody’s. #Bloomberg

Business AI spending is now contributing more to U.S. economic growth than consumer spending. Goldman Sachs: Big Tech companies are set to spend $700 billion on their AI ambitions this year, double last year's bill. That could swell to over $1 trillion next year, some estimates say. #Axios

Very nice 👏

Peter Thiel backs $1bn ocean data centre start-up powered by waves #FT

Solution: New companies.

In a world addicted to outrage, it’s striking to see leadership that persuades by aligning to values, and quietly resetting the standard.