Unhinged

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Unhinged

Cue outrage. 

I have mixed views on Elon, I’ve gone from not really believing in him (or Tesla) to just being wrong and him being right.

Elon was accused of being “completely unhinged” after his remarks about Optimus, which included that it will ultimately be better than any human medical surgeon. He is unhinged though. Isn’t that the point? Nobody can argue that he does send rockets to space or indeed that he then catches them with giant tweezers when they fall back to earth. His company built self-driving cars. His other company built one of the very best AI platforms from a standing start in about three months. He is absolutely unhinged, and absolutely detached from the reality of the rest of us. 

Amongst the many thousands of critics, where were their ideas for eliminating poverty? What about the general idea of expanding the opportunity set for everyone? There were no ideas. None. It was all confiscatory talk about taxes on the uber-wealthy and criticism about his “trillion dollar pay deal”. In fact, that pay deal is today worth zero. In order to earn it he has to 4x the market cap of Tesla, build and sell one million Robotaxis, build and sell one million Optimus robots. 

Of course, politicians chimed in too. Senator Roland Gutierrez of Texas might live to regret his intervention though. Complaining that American’s can’t afford groceries and ‘Elon Musk wants to become a trillionaire off our backs’. His skewering was one for the ages: 

“Let the makers make”. I for one hope he does it. 

Nuked

Lots of things are down. Like my mood.

When you consider that earlier in the week some of the top tech stocks are down 5-10% why are we down more? Perhaps the obvious answer is simply the volatility of this asset class is still much higher than others. We wish it wasn’t so, but we should of course be careful what we wish for. One day it won’t be, and we will be sad and bored. 

If we think a little longer term, like more than 7 days, perhaps 700 days. What have we got coming?

• The US is preparing $2,000 stimulus checks (Tariff dividends - lol). Naturally they will be timed with the US mid-terms next year. 

• Japan is preparing a $110 billion stimulus package 

• China has approved $1.4 trillion in stimulus

• QT ends in December

• The US is issuing a net $2 trillion in debt next year (minimum)

• More rate cuts incoming. 

The NVIDIA results on Thursday set the tone. They were excellent, demand for AI continues to soar and the machines are getting better and better. All the while the labour market gets worse and worse. 

The money printer is coming. It has to. 

Meanwhile Bitcoin? Doing what it always does. Disappointing us when we least expect it.  

Invisible prices

The majority of people have a binary view of Bitcoin. Love it or hate it. They also have a binary depth of knowledge. They know the price, but don't know anything else. So, if someone says to me “what about Bitcoin?” they mean price.

In today’s economy though there are far more important price moves. The single most important, I think, is the price of intelligence which just about collapsed to zero. It’s an invisible price though, so you never hear it.

“How are you John? what about the price of intelligence has collapsed to zero!”

Specifically, this week I am talking about Gemini 3 which came out on Wednesday. It swept the board on all measures of AI benchmarks. Most impressively in my view on MathArena Apex. These tests are previously unpublished problems that it is not possible for the AI to be trained on. Gemini 3 scored 23%, GPT5-High, 2%. It is a massive leap. 

For context, these problems are not something most of us could even attempt. Perhaps while you were in the zone at university you could have had a crack. Now, no chance. 

The full scoreboard below also includes something called Vending Bench. This is a monetary measure where the AI has to manage a vending machine over time. It's a fascinating test because the AI has to keep context throughout the test, something that they have not been very good at. They need to order correctly for their specific customer set, keep stock levels correct depending on conditions and get the pricing model right. Basically run a business. Gemini 3-Pro is a huge leap here. 

We obsess about the price of assets, houses, bitcoins, stocks but the number one asset that you own and command - your own intellect. It just got rugged. Arguably, your 20 years of schooling and university they just had a 1929 moment.  Yet nothing. Silence.

There is a good summary here about Gemini3 from Ethan Mollick.

So is this a PhD-level intelligence? In some ways, yes, if you define a PhD level intelligence as doing the work of a competent grad student at a research university. But it also had some of the weaknesses of a grad student. 

I mean LOL. Only a university professor could say it has “some of the weaknesses of a grad student”. In fact, that's actually how good it really is and it's basically free.   

Euro-Trash

The Democracy Shield is here. Phew! Another set of laws that absolutely nobody in Europe has asked for. Happily, these laws aren’t like other EU laws and will present no regulatory burden at all. I would urge you to read through this text heavy summary and I feel certain you will agree. 

1. Safeguarding the integrity of the information space

The Commission will further work with signatories under the Code of Conduct on Disinformation and prepare a Digital Services Act incidents and crisis protocol to facilitate coordination among relevant authorities and ensure swift reactions to large-scale and potentially transnational information operations.

What is disinformation? Interestingly a word derived from Josef Stalin's propaganda machine ‘dezinformatsiya’. I have no idea how the EU plans to decide what is and isn’t true. If anything is a matter for their beloved citizens then surely it’s that. 

2. Strengthening our institutions, fair and free elections, and free and independent media

The Commission will step up action to support the EU's existing framework to combat abusive lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs)

What? I don’t know. SLAPP? Turns out a SLAPP was invented in 2021 and the EU came up with some guidance to stop people being slapped (not physically, so they mean SLAPPed) 

The guidance on not SLAPPing was ignored and now we need new laws.

3. Boosting societal resilience and citizens' engagement

To help recognise and counter information manipulation, the Commission will roll out measures to foster media and digital literacy for all ages. 

The invocation of citizens! Is there anything creepier?

I wonder which citizens actually asked for this though. I know lots of Europeans and none of them ever bring up that the media is not free or independent. They are far more concerned that the government controls it or does stupid stuff that means they can’t watch YouTube.

The EU has promised huge funding in addition to the $9 billion already committed to its EU Agora program. What? Yes. Agora. It astonished me when I read it. If this is not the EU complaining that their propaganda machine is broken……….

The European media industries are a beacon of quality and creativity, but today they compete with global online platforms for the attention of citizens and consumers. Circulation of EU audiovisual content continues to be fragmented along national lines, and non-EU players capture most of the box office and streaming subscriptions. While the video game industry has gained a strong foothold in contemporary digital culture (more than half of the EU population regularly plays video games), the Union’s video game market continues to be largely dominated by global competitors. Finally, the integrity of the information space is at risk through the spread of disinformation and the growth of foreign information manipulation and interference by hostile actors, such as Russia. Threats against media pluralism are compounded by phenomena such as concentration of media ownership. In parallel, news media experience declining advertising revenues and sales, as digital competitors have captured an increasing share of revenue and shaped consumption habits. As a result of all these factors, media viability is under pressure.

Is it odd? People play foreign owned video games, ergo the ‘information space is at risk’. 

Of course, I mock them every week but they are not stupid. To control the population you have to control the message. Europe is grappling to do so and losing. The Democracy Shield is a Shield only for the rent-seekers of the EU bureaucracy and intelligentsia. 

Tactically they are also right. Foreign governments do try to interfere in elections, no question that they fund campaigns for or against particular themes. The problem is the EU will only intervene where that interference conflicts with their own world view. If I ran an NGO that claimed the climate was going to cool 2 degrees and we were entering an ice age it would be closed down in Europe. Not so the opposite view even though both might turn out to be wrong. Simply, one conflicts with the approved world view. 

As an arbiter of truth, do we really trust people who get paid €350,000 a year (and then for life after they retire) just to drink wine. Do we think they have our best interests at heart? Would those people pursue policies to protect themselves first? I think they would. 

Europe is slipping into authoritarianism. They rely on the fact that nobody actually reads these horrific documents. It’s breathtaking stuff just lobbed in a press-release.  

Further Information

Our October 2025 report to investors can be found here.