Quick Summer Bites

Keeping it short this week.

Inflation

Global shipping rates went parabolic during Covid (10x). Two years later those rates fell -90% snapping back to pre-Covid levels. After two years of normal prices, shipping rates have spiked once again up 5x compared to their historical norms. This is partly due to industry specific issues, but also heavily influenced by war, particularly in the Red Sea with the Houthis. Imports are 15% of GDP, so while this doesn’t have a massive impact on overall inflation numbers, it’s not a great sign. If any other major commodities show a return to Covid-like parabolic spikes then I would be suspicious that this particular era of inflation is over. That’s an “if”, not a prediction. Something to keep an eye on.

AI Spray and Pray

Eric Schmidt recently spoke at Stanford about his near term views for AI, which included his approach to investing in the future of AI. For some reason the video is now marked private, so I can’t quote it directly. In short he said startup teams work harder and he’s not sure which startup, founder or approach will be successful, so he’s investing in all of them.

If there was an index fund for AI startups I would absolutely invest in it. Given that Eric works closely with the government to push for heavy investments in AI for national security purposes, I propose that he starts a national AI index fund so that we can all go along on the ride together.