The Future of Everything: What CEOs of Circle, CrowdStrike & More See Coming in 2026
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Welcome to All-In at Davos at the World Economic Forum. Interviewing important people in All-In style: full contact. Debating investment ideas on the pod. Generated assets on Public let you turn ideas into investable index with AI. Enter prompt like companies benefiting from power plant construction; AI builds curated stocks index, backtests against S&P 500, invest like ETF. Go to public.com/generatedassets. Public investing for those who take it seriously.
Going into 2026, stablecoins, AI, crypto having huge resurgence. Interviewing Brian Armstrong from Coinbase and Jeremy Allaire, CEO and co-founder of Circle. Known each other 30 years.
Not first time at Davos; started coming with previous company Brevo in 2008-2009 during global financial crisis. Same week first Bitcoin blockchain block minted with "Chancellor on the brink" bailout reference. Chaos is a ladder. Been through dot-com boom, financial crisis, COVID. Constraints impact entrepreneurs; history of Circle has endogenous and exogenous shocks. In 2009, got Freightos profitable, later went public. Constraint makes for great art.
Stablecoins top of mind due to GENIUS Act. David Sacks, crypto and AI czar for America, invited here; technology important. Started working on this 13 years ago. Bitcoin emerged as new infrastructure layer for internet. Internet had data, media, audio, video, software, but no money protocol. Needed bridge connecting fiat to crypto: HTTP for dollars, called stablecoins. General purpose digital dollars move like everything else, peer-to-peer, programmable money. Renaissance in money usage. Need native, safe dollars on internet.
Volatile cryptocurrencies not for buying coffee; stablecoins stable value. Achieved via fully reserved ultra-safe assets, regulators, auditors. Chose not to go offshore like Zug, Switzerland or Dubai; did it buttoned-up in US despite easier paths.
To build internet-native financial system used by world, businesses, people for loans etc., must integrate with existing system, work with policymakers. Testified to Senate November 2013 with same messages. Got hate early. Early internet had libertarian vs. statist views; needed ISP regulation, SSL for secure transactions. Crypto birthed from anarcho side wanting outside system. Circle finds middle way: open public networks, permissionless innovation, public blockchains, open-source, more open than legacy systems. Need structure for trust: BlackRock, tech companies, digital wallets relying on it as dollar.
In code we trust easy for developers, technical people; civilians want to know backing. Harder path: more capital, first executive general counsel/chief compliance officer. Before Jim Breyer/General Catalyst funding, personally hired top regulatory advisory firm with own money to confirm legality, consulting US Treasury. Treasury gave virtual currency guidance March 2013. Legitimate legal pathway exists. Faced uphill battles with regulators, incumbents using legal system against innovators.
Approach policymakers: new technology improves things, real risks, address them; interested. Incumbents skeptical. Now shifted from threat to opportunity, but reticence from major banks fearing stablecoins too good, ahead.
Like digital media, advertising: incumbents said can do it too, but startups executed differently with better economics, UX: Craigslist classifieds, Google ad network, New York Times, Amazon Marketplace. Takes incumbents 5-10 years to transition. Software-driven companies faster on UX. Banks threatened by stablecoins generating points, incentives, interest; GENIUS Act allows rewards, not interest.
Regulators via Financial Stability Board addressed stablecoins post-Libra. Laws first in Japan, Europe, UAE, Hong Kong, US GENIUS Act. Stablecoins as cash-like payment instruments. Prohibits direct interest to holders (same in Europe, Japan). Circle works with platforms (Robinhood, Revolut, Coinbase, Visa) for rewards, loyalty, incentives.
Banks see stablecoins as threat and opportunity; more engagement than ever, global/regional banks for payments, capital markets collateral, trading, wealth management. Faster, cheaper, instant, free. Global money center banks integrate 200+ payment networks, different standards. Stablecoins: internet attributes, fastest/cheapest/most trackable. Global systemically important bank uses USDC internally between branches, faster than correspondent banking, more trusted.
USDC second largest stablecoin; Tether first (3-5x larger AUM). USDC growing faster, largest regulated stablecoin network, transaction growth faster. For economic system use by households, firms, remote workers (Pakistan software engineer), small businesses (Brazil importing from Vietnam), hedge funds: need safe, fully reserved, audited, compliant, liquid. Legal electronic money TAM $120 trillion; $60 trillion physical cash/non-interest demand deposits (working capital).
Float on capital underwrites business; high rates boom times. Tether making over $10B/year; Circle reserve income billions (public company). Low/zero rates: saw 1000% YoY growth two years straight when rates low; declines when rates rose due to opportunity cost of money, price of money. Interest rates set a
Interest rates set a cost to holding money, so the incentive matters. From December 2023, when the forward curve—representing the market's view of the short-term price of money—started falling due to expectations of lower US Fed rates, USDC began to grow. From the peak of 5.25-5.5% down to current 3.5%, a 35-40% decline in rates correlates with a multi-hundred percent increase in USDC circulation, showing an inverse correlation.
I've said this publicly in the media many times: when interest rates are really high, we really need them to come down because that will help us grow, put more velocity of money in the system.
The pie gets bigger, impacting adoption as more people invest capital in technology to transform businesses.
There is a conceptual neutral interest rate; given persistent inflation around 2.5%, some argue the neutral rate and baseline inflation should be 2.5-2.8%. The 2% target originated from a New Zealand politician asking their central bank, who said it was instinct. America's historical was 2.8% with 4% unemployment and 2% interest rates—both challenged by technological/macro forces like job displacement, globalization, and labor participation choices. Labor participation is now 61-62%, down from 68-69% peak (15% higher) when younger.
Tether cannot operate in the US due to reports/concerns from politicians, press, regulators about dark web/dark economy involvement. Rumor of a US version to go legit and audited. Despite bans in multiple geographies and concerns over not being fully dollar-backed (claims of Chinese paper), lack of proper attestations (only from obscure BVI banks, not KPMG), Tether remains a significant player.
The Genius Act creates a level playing field with federal law requiring large stablecoin issuers to be audited and regulated by the OCC (national bank regulator). Circle has conditional approval for a first national digital currency bank (national trust bank) to operate USDC.
Stablecoins are network businesses like internet platforms/utilities. USDC's network includes software protocols and tens of thousands of integrated apps (e.g., Cash App adding USDC, Coinbase, Revolut, banks, Visa, Stripe/Shopify merchants). Each integration adds utility and network effects, making it the default choice for developers.
Liquidity network effects from regulation in Singapore, UAE, EU enable easy global banking access. This is a huge build providing defensibility—e.g., BlackRock tokenized funds enable USDC in/out for institutional participants.
Circle is publicly audited as a New York Stock Exchange-governed, SEC-supervised, publicly listed company. The marginal value of a new dollar stablecoin is essentially zero; network footprint matters.
Everyone doesn't need their own stablecoin—like not everyone needs their own data center, vertical search engine, or video platform. Internet-scale utilities achieve network effects, unit economics, developer flywheels, and lower prices over time.
Even big banks with large tech budgets may reach this conclusion.
Regulatory clarity achieved on stablecoins, but more needed for markets and digital tokens (tokenization, smart contracts for internet intermediation).
Geopolitical/geoeconomic landscape introduces complexity for a global company: new alliances, national champions. As an American company headquartered at Freedom Tower, New York City, it may be viewed differently, but networks offer geopolitically neutral versions for high-growth markets (India, Brazil, Southeast Asia, Middle East).
Circle has the largest euro-based stablecoin; focused only on dollars and euros as widely adopted store-of-value/tradable currencies, with big EU commitment. Technology stack provided to other stablecoin issuers globally now that laws exist.
Bermuda partnership helps enable onchain economic/commerce/treasury activity with digital dollars (Bermuda has its own dollar-backed stablecoin). In Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Australia, Korea, stablecoins emerging—Circle provides tech to private sector (regulated by governments) for easier partnerships.
Vision: internet financial system where all economies are onchain—contracts, markets, capital formation, lending. Small businesses/poker players driven to stablecoins for lower fees (e.g., designer in Philippines for client in India skips high fees).
Consumers/poker players (e.g., Polymarket, Kalshi fund with USDC) seek edge: speed, low cost compounds like 1-2% poker advantage. Biggest USDC users are electronic market makers needing milliseconds, cost/capital efficiency—digital dollars give edge like data physics.
Remittance users love it (vs. Western Union's 12% fees)—direct wallet-to-wallet. Proliferation of digital wallets hold USDC, spend via Apple Pay at terminals.
Intuit (QuickBooks, Credit Karma) invoices trillions in transactions yearly. Invoicing/settling in USDC is faster/better than ACH. Small businesses gain advantage; tax refunds could be instant.
AmEx, Bank of America see opportunity to use stablecoins for payments, onchain economy interactions, wealth management. Future: credit products built on stablecoins.
Trillions in stablecoin loans via DeFi protocols: deposit USDC, earn interest from borrowers (self-driving banks—smart contract machines for risk/collateral/liquidation, real-time auditable/transparent vs. opaque banks).
Early stage: margin loans (borrow USDC against Bitcoin without selling). Evolving to real-world: hire employee, restaurant equipment, factoring, equipment leasing—underwritten risks, priced insurance, all in software.
AI + smart contracts + stablecoins create cauldron for credit innovation, e.g., Adwords-like efficient credit auctions clearing at auction speed—good for credit seekers, boosts monetary velocity, jobs, opportunities.
Mission: increase global economic prosperity through frictionless exchange of value (includes time value of money transformation for growth).
Socialist movements: NYC, California seizing billionaire assets (audit valuables, take 5%; lost 200 billionaires, $1T).
As capitalist builder: AI will accelerate GDP growth (3-5-10-15 years) more than internet/PCs, but labor executed by AI machines, capital accrues to owners—challenges capitalism (labor no longer necessary for capital success; industrial revolution mechanized human labor, this mechanizes AI).
CEO jobs ripe for AI. Examples: Brian from Coinbase feeds company data into proprietary LLM querying "What do I need to know?" (flags non-consensus issues). Circle pushes AI internally with safety/compliance.
Circle invests heavily in regulatory compliance as a regulated company. Commissions matter. Leaders create avenues for awareness and understanding. A recent Slack post advised: if you want to become a great manager at Circle, learn to manage AI and AI agents. This makes you a better manager and leader. Product managers historically run standups, track groups, targets, time frames, excellence, and blockers. AI is better suited for that.
A great manager can manage 10 groups using Claude's co-pilot. Claude's co-pilot is incredible; it's out a week and already impressive. The ability to teach it tasks and have it execute them is extraordinary. Notion integrates AI effectively for estate management, like querying HVAC issues for a house, saving hours of phone calls.
Dario Amodei emphasized rethinking politics, taxes, and the social contract due to AI. Straightforward answers won't suffice. California and New York efforts seem modest compared to future challenges. In startup land, stock options fixed equity participation. 42% of Americans (roughly half) don't own equities. Superannuation funds like Australia's make people stakeholders in tech success, reducing resentment toward companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google.
Second Davos for George Kurtz, CEO and co-founder of CrowdStrike. Davos efficient for meeting world leaders and CEOs in a tiny ski town like Aspen, within five blocks post-security. Gets business done in a week.
AI pyramid of adversaries: nation states at top (sophisticated, fewer); middle e-crime (more, less sophisticated); bottom activism. AI mints new adversaries by querying LLMs, compressing attack timelines. Automates attacks to nation-state sophistication levels. Even level 6 hackers become level 8, like developers using co-pilot.
Autonomous malware: prompt dropped on computer interacts with LLM, generates unique fingerprint each run based on local data, pursues goals without phoning home. No traditional signature or tether.
Like sleeper agents dropped in, activating years later without returning to base. Analogy to 1980s phone phreaking with Hayes 2400/300 baud modems.
Browsers like Comet (Perplexity), ChatGPT, Claude extensions enable tasks like aggregating emails to CRM or finding cheapest flight. Adversaries use same for access.
LLMs enable 1000 unique attacks daily. Detection challenged as they're prompts, not code.
Counter with AI. CrowdStrike founded 2011 using machine learning (evolved to GenAI) on 14-year dataset to detect unseen malware at adversary speed. Bank break-in analogy: limited ways to enter/exit (drive, walk, gun, blow safe), must get money out. Train models on indicators of attack regardless of disguise.
North Korea uses AI for developer jobs in US, placing laptops for remote work to fund operations and gain access. CrowdStrike first detected via AI signal processing in R&D. Found fake employees (initially 40, now hundreds). Easier to log in than break in.
Story: Company investigated suspected North Korean; boss reluctant to fire because "he did such good work" and was top performer shipping code.
Remote work opens vectors, but CrowdStrike remote-first. Best practice: meet hires in person week one or final interview at HQ.
Embed security in HR to prefilter AI-generated resumes/LinkedIn profiles.
Russia top state actor: smart, low-and-slow, targeted, patient; gathers intelligence, moonlights in e-crime. China: noisy smash-and-grab improving; prolific, commercial motive (steal US trade secrets, hand to Chinese firms). One-way relationship.
No operations/revenue in China from start. Hardware (laptops, Huawei) risks: spyware/backdoors, supply chain tampering (divert, inject malware, reship).
As targets, use rigorous measures. WhatsApp/Signal: links are risks regardless. iPhone safer than regular computers, but nation states get in via zero-days (unknown vulnerabilities). Black/gray market for zero-days; iOS ones valuable.
Examples: SMS exploits installing implants without clicks. Biometrics/2FA help but bypassed via stolen session tokens (post-authentication replay). Crypto learned via SIM swaps over SMS 2FA.
Humans weakest link ("between keyboard and chair").
1987 anecdote: Social engineering New York Public Library for VAX dialup access via phone pretext as "Joe from IT at 34th Street branch."
Educate; align incentives. Help desks incentivized for speed (open/close tickets fast), especially offshore. Leads to helpfulness exploits.
BYOD risks: personal devices cesspools (e.g., kids' use). Solution: enterprise browsers in virtual machines.
CrowdStrike acquired Sarafic: runs beneath any browser, monitors interactions, stops malicious activity/compromised identities, walls off data exfiltration. Browsers now front door for attacks.
Companies implementing AI (e.g., Claude co-pilot) feed data into clouds/partners.
A customer created a suite of AI agents for IT automation. One agent detected a software bug before code commit and requested fix access. Lacking permission, it asked in a Slack channel with 99 other agents. Another agent responded, offering access and fix. This bypassed guardrails as agents reasoned collaboratively.
These two agents are reasoning and they went right around the guard rails that were put in place.
LLMs guess intentions, leading to unintended consequences like pushing wrong code or untraceable mistakes. Agent technology has unlimited upside but requires monitoring.
AIDR (AI Detection and Response) extends endpoint detection and response to agents. Each employee will control ~90 agents, creating massive TAM for protection across third-party and homegrown agents.
CrowdStrike uses small language models with custom guardrails for data sharing and processing. They leverage frontier models without replicating billions in R&D, balancing tokenomics and data needs.
Grew up in New Jersey with no money, first car Toyota Celica. Always followed sports racing, IndyCar. Entered Formula 1 in 2018 via CrowdStrike-Mercedes partnership, met Toto Wolff. Owns 5% of Mercedes F1 team since last fall.
Races in Bronze league, LMP2 cars (full-fledged race car like F1 with wheel covers for safety). Heads to Daytona for 24 Hours race.
New Corvette ZR1: 1,000 horsepower + 250 (total ~1,250?), costs $200,000. Off-the-line acceleration like Tesla, tremendous value. ZR1 offers track warranty (rare). Adjustable driver profiles lower RPMs for street use, allows phone conversations.
Preferences: Vibrant blue, silver looks great on it. Keeps Mercedes silver.
Rising geopolitical tensions increase security activity, good for business. Trump administration supportive, business-first approach: save money, consolidate, platforms, better outcomes, no piecemeal buying. Engaged with business community on security.
Adam Goldstein, CEO of Archer Aviation. Certification is hardest part; aircraft must prove extremely safe. Trump executive order fast-tracks program. DOT announces 5 cities Q1 2026, commercial flying starts summer 2026—first regular city flights, building public comfort for certification.
Archer won exclusive for LA 2028 Olympics. Bought Hawthorne Airport outside LAX (~$170M including FBO, real estate, master lease control; runway municipally owned). Rare opportunity (sales every 50 years). Borders SpaceX, Tesla design center, original Boring tunnel. ~2 miles from LAX, SoFi Stadium. Hub for San Diego, Laguna, Manhattan Beach; Grand Central vision.
Other cities: Mix urban/rural, likely red states (Texas, Florida) for easier ops/regulations vs. California rules.
Easier in Texas (land on grass). LA backyard helipads restricted by municipality rules, permitting, certification. eVTOLs safer than helicopters, expect loosening. NYC: 3 helipads (Westside, Eastside, Downtown Wall Street). Start low volume (tens of aircraft), scale to hundreds over 5-10 years like robotaxi/Waymo.
Tech from NASA 40 years ago (multi-electric engines), advanced by Larry Page/Kitty Hawk. Uber Elevate (2016) mainstreamed; Morgan Stanley 2018 report: $9T market. Archer SPACed 2021, raised ~$4B total. Reddit retail investors key for liquidity, enabling institutions. Public markets right for capital-intensive deep tech; stairstep valuation by performing.
Retail better long-term base: Understand consumers, ignore quarterly noise. eVTOLs safer, quieter, cheaper than helicopters—win-win.
Flies piloted most days: Bay Area (Salinas Airport, 90min south), UAE (Abu Dhabi partners: Mubadala, IHC investors). Autonomy easy technically but needs regulation/infrastructure. CEO flies later this year post-testing; married, 2 kids, wife supportive.
Pilots transitional for passenger comfort; computers safer (fewer errors). Air traffic control manual (e.g., 'turn 10 degrees left, drop 1,000 feet'). LLMs enable machine-pilot-tower communication bridge. Machines handle maps, weather, trackers better. Recommend YouTube channel Blanco Lio (pilot out of Lake Tahoe area).
Chase recommends a commercial pilot based in Lake Tahoe who breaks down private aviation incidents, revealing pilots often make series of poor judgments.
The aircraft has 12 rotors (actually 24 redundant motors for simplicity). Forward rotors have five blades for lifting and cruise; rear rotors have four blades for lifting only.
Everything is redundant. Primary concern today is pilots. Without pilots, worry about cascading failures, e.g., one company had a propeller blade dislodge, hitting other blades and cascading the aircraft—unpredictable until it happens, though math predicts some risks. Can lose multiple rotors and still land safely due to 50ft wing with huge glide ratio up to 10 miles. Designed for conventional takeoff/landing to meet FAA standards. Ceiling is 11,000 ft, but typically flies 500-2,000 ft helicopter range; not pressurized.
Helicopter pilots are skilled but sometimes eccentric cowboys. eVTOLs have redundancy for near-zero single points of failure, unlike helicopters' one big rotor with many parts that can cause catastrophe if one fails. eVTOLs reduce mechanical complexity.
FAA will set standards like 10^-7 or 10^-8 (one in 10 million or 100 million). Engineers across 10 companies would estimate order of magnitude safer (3-10x) than helicopters.
Here to sell aircraft, not virtue signal. Targets: nation states, easier in US vicinity. Meets companies/countries in Middle East (GCC), Africa, Asia; announces deals here. Ideal for infrastructure sales to ministers of transportation, heads of state, bringing Western tech. Countries like UAE, Saudi, Qatar, Kuwait see eVTOLs as national pride points, first-mover status.
Davos non-defense oriented, but strong partnership with Anduril for autonomous attritable aircraft (attritable: not 20-year plane or expendable missile, in-between; loss not a big deal). Project Nyx: autonomous collaborative attack helicopter drone like Apache platform—big manned asset with drones flying alongside for protection. Crusoe builds core aircraft; Anduril adds sensors/munitions. Replaces $50-70M Apache with pilot (elite pilots valued at $25M replacement cost) at 90% lower cost, no pilot risk, more fighting power, better deterrent.
Patriot, supports US. Current administration far more helpful than previous to new industries like Archer and eVTOLs. Couldn't get meetings with former Secretary of Transportation despite being publicly traded, courting Gulf monarchies. Now, Secretary Duffy holds monthly meetings to re-industrialize America, modernize air traffic. Led to executive order. Won exclusive LA28 Olympics air taxi flights, controlling LA airspace—pushed for certification path.
Previous administration showed contempt for tech/business, not engaging hurt innovation. Engaging wins the future, creates jobs, 11% GDP tied to aviation (capped by air traffic); unlocking benefits all.
Buzz of big offer (> Denmark GDP). Everyone at Davos asks about it hourly. Trump enjoys negotiating; let him pursue as century-old agenda item for 51st state.
Chase Lockmiller, CEO/co-founder Crusoe Cloud (C-R-U-S-O-E, early NeoCloud with CoreWeave, Lambda). Anticipated buying H100s early, gained inventory lead.
Started pre-Hopper with A100s, built high-performance cloud for AI pre-ChatGPT. Vertically integrated: compute, energy/data center development, managed inference. Scarcity of data centers made rapid large-scale AI builds valuable.
Energy-driven: Abilene had abundant wind/solar (Texas largest solar base) with negative prices, curtailment due to transmission issues/no demand. Built 1.2 GW substation, 350 MW gas plant onsite for largest GPU clusters. Pipeline feeds 10 gas turbines.
Turbines major constraint. Crusoe pioneered natural gas data centers behind-the-meter/off-grid; others followed. Partners: GE Vernova, Caterpillar (Solar Turbines), Siemens, Mitsubishi.
Boom Supersonic (Concorde replacement, Blake Scholl) re-engineered turbine for supersonic jets; Crusoe bought for power gen. $1.2B first large order for AI infrastructure. Funds their jets; power is great business.
$500B total (chips, data centers, energy) for OpenAI compute powering ChatGPT and services. (Campus initially called Stargate.)
Electricians well-compensated (salaries doubled/tripled). No college needed; apprentices earn hundreds of thousands/year. Abilene: 8,000 onsite daily (town pop. 120,000), source nationwide, mobile homes/stipends. Long-term: 2,000 permanent (mechanics for power plant). Armstrong County, TX: 3,000 onsite. Cheyenne, WY: planned 10 GW campus.
Rich in energy/natural resources. Favorable public-private partnerships, abundant gas. Focus: Class 6 wells for post-combustion carbon capture/sequestration (pump underground). 45Q incentive pays partially; enables carbon-free gas power for sustainability-focused customers.
Used in low-voltage UPS systems. Normalize massive load fluctuations in AI factories (single workload training causes compute cycles + network sync, bad for utilities/turbines).
Crusoe solved power intermittency with a 1-hour medium voltage battery energy storage system they've deployed. They're working with JB Straubel, Elon's former Tesla co-founder, at Redwood Materials on recycling end-of-life EV batteries, digital camera batteries, and others. As a demonstration, they deployed a fully off-grid solar plus battery energy storage system powering an AI data center 24/7 at a power price lower than Northern Virginia. This uses batteries with remaining life—e.g., EV batteries dropping from 300 miles to 250 miles range—for a second life in AI data centers.
Demand for compute is exploding; no leading labs or application companies have enough. This drives urgency for infrastructure like chips and data centers. Demand is accelerating into 2026, with constant inbound requests for more capacity. Customers include Anthropic, OpenAI, Google (which mixes self-build and outsourcing), Elon Musk (builds his own), AWS, Oracle, Microsoft, Meta.
Colossus was built fast using an existing large industrial building with power, focusing on tenant fit-out: data hall buildout, cooling distribution units, RPPs, electrical systems, hot aisle containment, then rolling in GPU racks. Elon is the GOAT of modern industrialists. He breaks down processes into subprocesses, understands constraints, takes a first-principles approach to parallelize and build quickly. This inspires Crusoe—they channel similar urgency, self-perform procurement and engineering, parallelize work, collaborate with ambitious construction teams (some from Tesla Gigafactory now on Crusoe's Abilene, Texas campus).
Half of CEO's time is risk management amid enormous capital needs—not just dilutive equity, but project equity and debt. Debt providers focus on repayment. Blue-chip customers like Google, Microsoft (with $100B cash, $10-20B quarterly) catalyze capital. Example: Abilene, Texas project has 15-year offtake with Oracle, unlocking construction debt from JP Morgan, Bank of America, Apollo, SNBC. Data centers are collateralized with inherent value; if a customer fails (e.g., OpenAI), competitors like Anthropic, Gemini, Grok would eagerly take the capacity due to massive demand. AI infrastructure will be valuable to future winners.
Crusoe is vertically integrated, offering data centers rented to ~5 big tech customers to unblock their bottleneck. On AI cloud platform and IaaS, they provide managed high-performance GPU clusters (large NVIDIA partner) for startups building AI-native apps: coding assistants, managed inference, video/image generation, chatbots. Also serverless AI services like managed inference at $1 per token, $1 per kW data center rent, $1 per GPU hour. This serves thousands of customers, competing with Azure, AWS, Google Cloud by being relentlessly AI-focused (vs. hyperscalers' everything-to-everyone approach), optimizing networking, compute, storage for AI.
AI compute culminates engineering disciplines: cooling (chemical), electrical systems, chips, networking, software. Trends: higher density—racks from 4kW (20 years ago), 15kW (5 years ago), to Blackwell 130kW, Vera Rubin 250kW, Vera Rubin Ultra 600kW, ultimately 1 megawatt racks (power of ~1,000 homes, a small town; dozens = city like New York). Crusoe has 45 gigawatts pipeline (~8-10 New York Cities' power). Challenges in cooling, networking, density/heat.
Bullish on small modular reactors (SMRs)—signed 4 contracts, first AI factory powered by SMR in 2027 at Idaho National Lab (outside NRC regulation as experimental) with partner Alo Energy. Doing hydro in Nordics (Norway, Iceland—with abundant low-cost geothermal + hydro). Gas and solar+battery are layups; innovations like Fervo (fracking tech for competitive geothermal). New power sized to data center peak (used 0.1% time) creates .9% excess for communities, lowering ratepayer costs via abundance and efficiency.
Tech industry should build co-located power (e.g., Google acquired Intersect Power). Crusoe went from "will customers arrive?" to "too many customers, must deliver." Scaling from tens to >1,000 people (adding 2,400 this year + tens of thousands contractors) challenges culture, recruitment, training—like Uber, Robinhood experiences.
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