Insights Hub

This dataset rolls up the content that I post on external platforms, including BlueSky, LinkedIn and X.

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Showing 1-25 of 437
of 18
Date Summary Notes Image File Details View
07/11/2025

Because of AI, this lab is now completing experiments in a month that would have take hundreds of thousands of year to accomplish using traditional methods. Their focus is longevity and age reversal, with clinical trials starting next year, and the goal of age reversal pills by 2035 that all of us can use.

     
07/10/2025

That article is a masterclass in disruption. The carriage-to-car transition is a rich metaphor for what’s happening today—but it’s far from unique. History is full of examples where incumbents were disintermediated by new technologies and nimble upstarts: Blockbuster → Netflix, Kodak → Digital photography, Nokia/BlackBerry → Apple & Android, Yahoo → Google, Intel → NVIDIA, Department stores → Amazon, Bookstores → eBooks & eCommerce, Taxis → Uber & Lyft. I could go on and on. The lesson? If you’re holding onto legacy skills and institutional knowledge that served you well over the past decade—and you’re part of a legacy brand more than a few years old—you may be the walking dead and not know it. We’re living in a precarious moment. AI, political and geopolitical realignment, and climate pressures are supercharging disruptive technologies and business models—making traditional expertise and structures vulnerable to sudden collapse. The upside? We have all this history to learn from. The question is: will we? Unfortunately, most won’t. Human nature being what it is, we tend to ignore the past and repeat its mistakes—forgetting that none of this is new. It’s all happened before. As a simple exercise, I had AI take my Playbook Of The Future tool for consumer brands, and create 2 columns: if you know and do the left, you are ripe for disruption; if you know, do or at least working on the right, you are future-proofing yourself and will the disruptor. Which column do you land? See this Google sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qW_5FaZzR9rmJ3yamRPHPHHRbPD0RkS2uAx9lpgZ_bA/edit?usp=sharing

https://steveblank.com/2025/07/08/blind-to-disruption-the-ceos-who-missed-the-future

     
07/09/2025

It is really important that everyone understand the strategic context of stablecoins. Bitcoin is just noise - ignore it. But stablecoins have enormous ramifications for the future of...well, everything. The Genius Act implementing federal legislation on stablecoins is one step away from passage. Look under the surface, and there is huge activity in the private sector to leverage this act, should it pass (which looks that way). I explain stablecoins with respect to what I call "The Generational Reset" in the google doc link below. The last generational reset was the 1930 Depression, wiping out immense incumbent wealth. The same looks like it will happen again. Don't get caught on the wrong side of this shift. I explain more in my working doc here:

https://eddiesoehnel.com/ReckoningAndResurgenceSummary


https://x.com/100y_eth/status/1942181557042896939?...

     
07/09/2025

This is a short article with some inside perspectives on the future. Most of us grasp the severity of our problems, as do our elected leaders, but none of us wants to compromise or work together, and our elected leaders reflect that view. We are repeating history like we have done so many times before. Unfortunately, how this ends is that our challenges will get far worse than they should until shock events bring us to an existential crisis, which forces us to work together. That is why I am pessimistic on the near-term future (10 years), but incredibly optimistic about the long-term future for our country, because time and again, the U.S. has shown when its back is finally against the wall, it is able to act in ways where no challenge prevails.

https://lnkd.in/gA5pwzGB

     
07/09/2025

For governments seeking full visibility into everything their citizens do, the future looks incredibly promising. Apps and privacy protocols like this latest one From Jack Dorsey matter a lot less, because the real key to total visibility—and ultimately, control—lies in transactions. Our current system of monetary exchange is being replaced by blockchain networks that support stablecoin transactions. With blockchain, every transaction is digitally recorded and permanently immutable. Nothing can be erased or hidden. Now add the accelerating power of AI—soon to be supercharged by quantum computing—and the result is a deeply surveilled society that doesn’t just observe. It understands. It predicts. It preempts. There will be no opting out. Even disconnecting will be monitored, interpreted, and flagged—categorized as a psychological anomaly. In the near future, “off-grid” won’t imply freedom. It will suggest suspicion. I explore this shift toward full transactional visibility—spanning not only our financial lives but nearly every aspect of daily activity—and the rise of the surveilled state, which in many ways is already here, in my paper here: https://eddiesoehnel.com/ReckoningAndResurgenceSummary Is this scenario still decades away? I don’t think so. We could cross this threshold within 10 years, especially if financial shock events accelerate the transition toward digital, centralized, and fully controlled systems.

https://www.engadget.com/apps/jack-dorsey-just-released-a-bluetooth-messaging-app-that-doesnt-need-the-internet-191023870.html



     
07/09/2025

Many transformative technologies follow an S-curve: slow buildup, then a sudden “bang” moment when everything changes and adoption skyrockets. Think: the PC boom in 1984 with the release of the Macintosh, the Internet boom in 1995 when Netscape IPO'd, the smartphone boom in 2007 with the iPhone, cloud/SAAS boom in 2012, and AI most recently in November 2022.

Carlota Perez, in Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital, outlined how every major tech revolution follows a cycle—installation, collapse, and deployment—punctuated by explosive breakthroughs that realign entire economies. So what’s the next “bang” moment? I believe one could come when AI overcomes its persistent memory limitations. When models can persistently remember and learn from every interaction with each individual, tailoring responses over time like a true assistant, we’ll see a step-change in usefulness. Is that one or two years away? Hard to say—but we’re close. And just beyond that? The next bang comes from humanoid robotics.


https://paritoshmohan.substack.com/p/the-chatgpt-moment-in-robotics-and?utm_source=tldrai

     
07/01/2025

This is a win—but a pyrrhic one, at best. The freight train is still coming. It’s just math. Our national debt is staggering, and when it comes to budget priorities, public lands rank nearly, if not, last. As the economy deteriorates this decade, with job incomes tightening and resource scarcity biting harder, Americans will focus on immediate personal needs. In that context, public lands—generating $1 billion in annual revenue within a $30 trillion economy—barely register. If you care about protecting these lands—whether for recreation or because your business depends on them—it’s time to stop relying on government support or hopes of killing public land sales in the next bill. Start exploring how the private sector, emerging technologies, and new business models can step in and carry the load. Can we avoid this looming collapse? Maybe. Our next economic boom could arrive just in time to spark the next supercycle. But that is looking increasingly unlikely. Better to prepare for the worst and act now, while we still have the option.

https://www.outdooralliance.org/blog/2025/6/28/public-land-selloff-provisions-removed-from-senate-budget-reconciliation-bill

     
07/01/2025

What does the 100-year history of gold prices reveal? Every previous parabolic rise has coincided with periods of fiscal and monetary upheaval. Through this lens, it's clear we’re heading toward a crisis that will profoundly reshape wealth, money, and the global economy—one few are truly prepared for. I explore how this crisis may unfold, what to expect, and how we can ready ourselves, our families, and our businesses. See my Google doc here:

https://eddiesoehnel.com/ReckoningAndResurgenceSummary
   
07/01/2025

Robotics innovation is moving at light speed. There's a bunch of well-funded startups with humanoid robots already in factories and the road is being laid for consumer applications that should start to hit in 2027. We're seeing more and more open sourced efforts and here, we see advances in robotics that may not need a connection to the cloud, allowing operation with much greater autonomy. This reduces costs and makes robots operate much faster (no latency or waiting for cloud servers to process actions).

https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/06/google-releases-first-cloud-free-ai-robotics-model

     
07/01/2025 China no longer holds a dominant share of U.S. debt. Over time, it has been steadily reducing its exposure, shifting into gold and other assets as U.S. debt becomes increasingly viewed as both a financial and geopolitical liability. If there was ever a notion that the U.S. could selectively devalue Chinese-held Treasuries as a strategic maneuver, that option is largely off the table now.    
06/27/2025 This article helped close the loop on a concept I’ve been noodling on for a while: lifestyle subsidies.

American consumers have been blessed over the past few decades—especially since the rise of the internet—with lifestyle subsidies. How so?

  1. First wave (2000s tech boom): We got incredible free tools—Google Search, Gmail, social media platforms, YouTube, and more. These were high-quality services, given to us at no cost.
  2. Second wave (DTC era): Startups flooded the market with free shipping, generous return policies, and great customer service—all subsidized by VC money fueling unsustainable growth.
  3. Third and perhaps most significant: The subsidization of the global tech boom by China. Massive state and private capital poured into manufacturing infrastructure that gave us powerful, affordable devices. The tech in your pocket wouldn’t be nearly as good—or cheap—without this.

Each of these waves created immense consumer benefit, but they’re largely behind us now.

So what’s the new wave? AI.
We’re now living through the next great lifestyle subsidy: high-quality, near-free access to astonishing intelligence tools via large language models. These tools are being bankrolled by billions in investor capital, all in a race to capture our attention and build a moat.

But, like the previous waves, this won’t last.

Eventually, these tools will either become paid services—or worse, they’ll be monetized via advertising, making them less objective, more manipulative, and aligned with ad dollars instead of users. Just like search and social before them.


https://digitalseams.com/blog/the-ai-lifestyle-sub...

     
06/20/2025

This chart shows two consecutive months of sharply elevated estimates in the CPI — a potential red flag or just an anomaly? What you’re seeing is the percentage of prices the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is estimating rather than directly surveying. In May, that figure jumped to over 30% — meaning nearly a third of the CPI data is now based on imputation rather than real-world price collection. Without accurate, observed data, our ability to measure inflation — and make sound policy or investment decisions — is significantly compromised. Is this a temporary disruption or a sign of deeper systemic issues?

When this much CPI data is estimated instead of observed, the risk of misstating inflation grows. If prices are rising faster in the real world than the BLS’s models assume (like now), we could be underreporting true inflation. The reverse is also possible in a disinflationary environment. Either way, with 30% of prices now imputed, the margin for error — and confusion — is much larger.
   
06/20/2025 AI’s accelerating capabilities continue to astonish, especially when compared to historical efficiency gains in transformative technologies like electric power and computer memory. As shown in the chart, the cost per output for AI—measured here as a 75-word ChatGPT response—has dropped astonishingly faster than those earlier technologies did in their early years. And yet, we are still at the very beginning of AI’s journey. What concerns me most is the disparity this rapid evolution may create. It’s as if the technology is stretching out a rubber band: at the leading edge are early adopters and technologists achieving extraordinary gains, while the rest of the population is scattered further back along the band—with a significant portion so far behind they may never catch up. This imbalance threatens to concentrate the benefits of the coming economic supercycle in the hands of a few. If AI’s development isn’t democratized—ensuring broad participation and access to its gains—we risk deepening existing wealth inequality to a point where it undercuts the very prosperity AI promises to deliver. I lay out ways we can prevent this in my working document on build the next American growth engine: https://eddiesoehnel.com/HowToMaximizeTheNextAmericanEconomicSupercycle    
06/17/2025

Amazing chart on residential costs. The cost of buying a house is a factor of real estate values, interest rates, and much more recently, insurance. It has gone parabolic in the last few years, which is very bad sign because any chart that shows parabolic rises like this means it is unsustainable and prone to crashing back down. What is fascinating is going back and seeing similar parabolic rises, followed by periods of deflation that can last decades, before the next parabolic blow-off comes once again. Are we setting up for another decade or two deflation in real estate values? It sure looks that way to me.

   
06/17/2025

US household holdings of equities as % of total financial assets. When viewed over many decades, it swings widely based on market valuations. By many measures and valuation ratios, we are at a historical peak now. Does not mean it can't go higher, just means that at some point, we are looking at a multi-year or even decades of decline.

   
06/17/2025

As shown in this chart, the price of solar panels has dropped from over $1.20/watt in 2011 to under $0.20/watt in 2024 — an 85%+ decline. This demonstrates Swanson’s Law, which states: For every doubling of cumulative solar production, prices fall by about 20%. Swanson’s Law is a specific case of Wright’s Law, the broader principle that costs fall as experience and scale increase. These learning-curve dynamics have defined the rise of solar and they show up across many other segments, like batteries, EVs, chips. As we move more and more into AI and robotics/automation, we will see the same.

   
06/16/2025

The U.S. spends more on healthcare per person than any other developed nation, yet we remain among the least healthy and face significant barriers to timely care—especially when it comes to same-day or next-day appointments. This problem is largely structural: (1) There’s a shortage of primary care doctors, as many medical professionals opt for higher-paying specialties. (2) Our fee-for-service model prioritizes revenue-generating procedures over quick, accessible care. (3) The healthcare system is highly fragmented, leading to inefficiencies and coordination issues. (4) Insurance complexity and administrative burdens create further delays. (5)Rural areas face chronic provider shortages. (6) Widespread burnout among healthcare workers limits capacity even further. AI is already stepping in to fill some of these gaps, as individuals begin using it in place of traditional providers to address their health needs.

   
06/16/2025 Cellular agriculture can't arrive soon enough, as many of the foods we enjoy are increasingly threatened by climate change and geopolitical instability in key growing regions. But when reshored, the future of these foods looks exceptionally promising.

https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/california-cultured-cell-based-cocoa-chocolate-scale-up

     
06/16/2025 How does this compare to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis? At that time, auto loan delinquency rates peaked around 4.5%. According to Y-Chart data for Q1 2025, rates have now reached 4.99%—surpassing the peak levels seen during the GFC.    
06/16/2025 This long-term chart of consumer loan default rates (1987–2024) is revealing. Defaults remained elevated through the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, with brief spikes down, touching normal levels in the mid-1990s and around 2006. For most of the last decade, however, delinquency rates stayed well below that elevated threshold. Now, we're seeing a notable rise again—back into historically elevated territory—though still well below the peaks seen during prior downturns.    
06/16/2025

The level of innovation happening right now just blows my mind. I see stuff like this almost daily. A photonic quantum computer recently completed a complex benchmarking task in under a minute—something classical supercomputers would need thousands to millions of years to simulate. Even more impressively, it ran at room temperature. While the problem wasn’t practically useful, it marks a big step in proving quantum advantage using light. The age of photonic quantum computing is just beginning. Photonic systems differ from traditional superconducting qubit systems, which require bulky cryogenics to operate. The community is now expecting commercial deployments around 2030, and photonics isn’t far behind—potentially leapfrogging established platforms due to its scalability and temperature resilience. While we’re rightly awed by the pace of AI breakthroughs, quantum will be orders of magnitude more transformative. It has the potential to reshape everything—and in the world of consumer products, it will revolutionize material science in ways we can’t yet begin to imagine. I cover some of that in my working document on AI, DFT and Quantum-Based Material and Ingredient Design:

https://eddiesoehnel.com/AIMaterialDiscovery


https://spectrum.ieee.org/photonic-quantum-computing

     
06/16/2025

It’s honestly wild how much money the federal government pours into countless programs and initiatives—especially into what I think of as the major industrial complexes of the U.S.: defense, intelligence, pharma, food, ag, banks, and more. A huge chunk of it ends up being a transfer of wealth from taxpayers, and at this point, just adds to our national debt. Here’s one small example that props up financial institution profits. The Fed uses it as a monetary policy tool—paying interest to banks on the reserves they hold. I looked into it, and while it is a tool for managing rates, there are apparently other ways to accomplish the same thing. This fact sheet was put together by a senator and is making the rounds in D.C., urging the repeal of those interest payments to banks. Honestly, it sounds like a smart move—but we’ll see if it actually passes or if the bank lobby kills it. Side note: I find it kind of hilarious that they’re using printed fact sheets like this in 2025. Don’t we have email and internal message boards for this stuff?

   
06/13/2025

Government debt is crowding out other investment vehicles, leaving less capital available for productive investment in the broader economy. Deficit spending, in macroeconomic terms, represents negative savings—and the U.S. government's negative savings have now grown large enough to offset private savings and investment. This imbalance threatens future economic growth. It will become increasingly difficult to fund the reindustrialization efforts we urgently need—efforts that will be critical to driving job creation as AI disrupts much of today’s knowledge-based work. So where will the investment capital come from? I believe we’ll see a wave of creative, unprecedented, and in some cases, unwanted solutions emerge.

   
06/13/2025

The federal debt/deficit is low on the consumer's list of concerns—only 3% of respondents in the May 2025 Gallup poll ranked it as their top issue. But its effects are insidious and largely invisible until, now, when they are finally showing up in very real ways. (1) Massive government borrowing diverts investment dollars away from private enterprise, weakening long-term economic growth. This crowding-out effect limits funding for business expansion, innovation, and infrastructure—key drivers of job creation and rising wages. (2) Rising debt levels pressure the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates higher for longer, which trickles down to the consumer as more expensive mortgages, car loans, and credit card interest. (3) It increases the risk of future inflation as fiscal discipline erodes, slowly eating into purchasing power. (4) As more taxpayer money goes toward interest payments instead of essential services, we see reduced government capacity for healthcare, education, and safety net programs—hurting the very people least prepared to absorb the impact. After decades of few visible consequences, the bill is finally coming due.

   
06/11/2025

The share of first-time home buyers has dropped from 50% in 2010 to just 24% today. As housing becomes increasingly unaffordable—driven by limited supply and the long-term effects of flawed monetary policies—many young people are unable to purchase homes, start families, or invest in their communities. This growing sense of exclusion has led some to disengage from both work and education, fueling a loss of hope about the future. That disconnection is contributing to the rise in political extremism and a range of broader social challenges. We must reverse this trend—and I believe we will—as new technologies, innovations, and business models begin to reach every corner of society, revitalizing the economy in more inclusive and dynamic ways. However, the next decade of transition will be turbulent as we navigate these deep structural shifts.

   
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