Weekend Reading #299

This is the two-hundred-and-ninety-ninth weekly edition of our newsletter, Weekend Reading, sent out on Saturday 25th January 2025

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What we're thinking.

Another all-time high for US markets this week as Donald Trump was inaugurated for the second time. The animal spirits are out in full force as Trump announced Project Stargate, led by Softbank with apparently $500 billion to be spent on AI infrastructure. Elon wasn’t convinced especially since his nemesis, Sam Altman, is involved. It’s quite tempting to look at Elon vs Sam as a superhero vs a super villain. They both fit the stereotype. The issue is that some will view Elon as the superhero and others as the villain. Our view is Elon is broadly a force for good, with caveats and Sam, well, he really does seem like a super villain, without any major caveats. Then again there are many who maybe rightly look at the so-called broligarchy with great trepidation.
 
Markets wise the major point to note which came later in the week was the release of Deepseek, A Chinese open source AI chat service seemingly on par with OpenAI’s o1 version of GPT, which claims to have been trained for a total cost of around $5 million and most importantly without any of Nvidia’s top range (and scarce) chips. If this is true and it is effective then a whole bunch of megacap tech capex just went up in smoke and it does not bode well for Nvidia and its buddies. What’s more interesting is that what we would call top-tier newsletter writers and X influencers have been talking all about this over the past few days, which makes it even more relevant to keep an eye on.

Elsewhere the Trump meme coin seems like such a long time ago already (it was last weekend). Our takeaway is that despite Trump himself seeming to minimise it and pretend he didn’t know much about it, he just worked out a way to raise billions (tens thereof). He really doesn’t need anyone else’s money. His power and influence are arguably greater than any president in many decades, if not ever. He has started his reign (oops, we meant his regime) like a man possessed and we are simply fascinated to see what comes next.
 

What we're doing.

I spent half the week in Barcelona attending the ICE gaming conference, and it was quite the eye opener. Occupying 5 halls of the Fira Barcelona exhibition centre, there was everything from gaming providers, equipment vendors, regulatory consultants, payments and finance providers, and even an esports betting section. On one hand, it was pretty much a “traditional” exhibition, with businesses having their wares (software included!) on display, looking for new business or strategic partnerships. On the other, the level of technology on display – including one stand by Evolution Gaming containing what seemed very much to be a 30m long, floor to ceiling height single LCD display in high definition – was pretty much cutting edge. I certainly couldn’t tell the difference between one roulette wheel vendor and another, or how some of the gaming algos work as compared to another, but one thing is clear: despite the apparent taboo around online gaming (and gaming in general), the industry is booming, with abundant innovation across the industry. EL 

What we're reading.

After the phenomenon that is the Telepathy Tapes, I latched onto a book by Jess Kerzen, who we were introduced to in the series. Kerzen is the teacher and mentor of one of the kids featured in the series, Asher. Her book goes into much more detail about this extraordinary kid (now a man) and his gifts, which extend way beyond telepathy. In this book, many of the secrets of the universe have apparently been unlocked. The question is whether anyone is paying attention? While healthy scepticism is naturally warranted in any scenario, the congruence of what is revealed in this one is simply too much to completely dismiss. My personal curiosity and near obsession with the nature of consciousness means that this one for me was a home run. If you are dismissive of anything that is not materialist, then don’t bother but if you are legitimately open-minded, this really is deeply valuable.
 
One of the most exciting applications of AI is for the potential for new drugs and cures to disease. Demis Hassabis, of Google Deepmind, was at Davos and “he expects to see pharmaceutical drugs designed by artificial intelligence (AI) to be in clinical trials by the end of the year.” “Hassabis said AlphaFold has now predicted the structures of 200 million proteins known to science — work that would have taken an estimated billion years using traditional methods. The latest version, AlphaFold3, has expanded capabilities to analyse protein interactions with other proteins, ligands and DNA/RNA.” This is just so incredibly exciting.
 
About a month ago, I was on the underground and I saw a woman reading what appeared to be a fantasy book by an author I hadn’t heard of. As I do, I googled the author and read the summaries of a few titles. However this time the plot summary was a bit weird. It was fantasy, complete with all the dragons, magic etc but it seemed more like a romance. I shelved it quite quickly as that’s not really my thing. Then yesterday I came across this brilliant article about a completely new genre of fiction called romantasy! Turns out its huge. And almost entirely read by women. The author in question is Sarah J Maas. Her first book, A Court of Thrones and Roses, became popular during covid. These titles are apparently quite sexually explicit – so much so that her series was reclassified from young-adult to adult. But they are selling like hot cakes. It seems to be the natural successor to the Fifty Shades of Grey series which seemed a one hit wonder at the time. This, along with the AI boyfriends craze I’ve written about before does beg the question – what gap are they filling? I’ll stop there. DC 
 
If ever you felt that you’d missed out on seeing long-extinct animal species like the dodo, Tasmanian Tiger and the woolly mammoth, you’re in luck. Colossal Biosciences Inc reportedly raised $200m at a valuation of $10.2bn in an attempt to do exactly that. The ultimate aim of the company’s business is to use the tech developed in this de-extinction effort to expand into livestock breeding, veterinary medicine, fertility, drug development and testing, as well as create wildlife reserves and tourism opportunities around the de-extinct species. It’d be quite an interesting prospect – though one can’t help but wonder if this turns into Jurassic Park. As they say, life finds a way, and there may well be some things that probably shouldn’t be given a way back. EL 

What we're watching.

I gave a chance to the Day of the Jackal with Eddie Redmayne incarnated in a modern version of the famed assassin. Surprisingly it is really good! Twists and turns and good thorough fun. DC