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Exponential Learning

Exponential Learning

Written by: The Team
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Humans can absorb multiples more audio content than written. To that end, this podcast is for absorbing as much intelligence as possible as the catch-all for interesting articles, research reports, or podcast summaries. I hope you enjoy the knowledge as much as we do.© 2026 The Team Economics Personal Finance Self-Help Success
Episodes
  • The Data Centre Is a Factory

    The Data Centre Is a Factory
    Oct 19 2026
    Hosking Partners' Q3 2026 letter, via MastersInvest: a London value manager beat global markets by 6.3% YTD owning almost none of the AI winners — and its diagnosis of the AI buildout is the sharpest we've read. Cap ex doubled to T (a railway-boom share of GDP); 00B+ of IG debt issued in 2026 alone, .1T more by 2030; credit investors now run the industry through SPVs and off-balance-sheet leases while token prices fall. The core claim: the data centre is a factory, compute is a commodity — load-the-plant economics will push token pricing toward marginal cost, the way solar was commoditized (and China-dominated). The .5T OpenAI/Anthropic flotations are the exam. Plus: how they won without AI (Greek refiners, Norwegian tankers +440% since 2017, Saga's 25% ROIC, 80 Japanese small caps), the honest 260bp cost of missing mega-cap tech, a full steelman of the other side, and why the factory thesis actually CONFIRMS the energized-land view — factories commoditize, tollbooths don't.
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    15 mins
  • Three Bond Markets, Three Different Worlds

    Three Bond Markets, Three Different Worlds
    Oct 19 2026
    Alpine Macro's Chen Zhao on the three macro stories that matter right now. (1) America: the bond selloff has likely crested — 10Y down 30+ bps to 5.1%, and the contrarian evidence (bearish crowd, 6% calls, Economist cover, heavy shorts) says yields topped; hot CPI/PPI produced curve flattening, not a selloff — the long end fears growth. Tech rout is 'healthy'; roadmap stays 'wobble now, new highs later'; rebalance 70/30 to 60/40. (2) France: OAT-Bund 140-150bp, a state spending 58% of GDP, 5.4% deficit, 120% debt, borrowing at 4.8% vs 2% nominal growth — the debt-trap math; Le Pen's plan lacks a 'how'; no Draghi moment yet — short the CAC on strength, EUR toward parity in 2027. (3) China: easing + weak economy + record-low yields + one of the world's strongest currencies — explained by internal depreciation (15% undervalued REER) and a Japan-1990s-style capital recycling problem (00B+ surplus with nowhere to go); the CGB bull continues while CNY stays strong, and China's excess savings quietly subsidize global bond yields. Plus: where the thesis could break — oil shock, French contagion, China's flows reversing.
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    15 mins
  • One Customer, Many Checkbooks: The Economics of Defense Primes

    One Customer, Many Checkbooks: The Economics of Defense Primes
    Oct 19 2026
    A sharp new essay — 'A Defense Primer: The Economics of Having One Customer' — argues defense investors keep making the same mistake: valuing a genuine military requirement as durable cash flow without checking which pipe the money flows through. Alex and Jordan walk the budget machine (authorization vs appropriation, CRs, supplementals, reconciliation), three wars that show what funding paths do to contractors (the textbook Gulf War supplemental, Iraq's 0B-a-year parallel budget, and today's 'rabbit-duck' 84B acquisition budget that's really 95B in base), and the core concept: Funding Path Risk. Plus Taiclet vs Warden at the Morgan Stanley conference — same demand story, two very different exposures — and why, for primes, politics is the prism. Note: the essay's account of 2026's Iran operation is presented as the author's case study; details not independently verified.
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    13 mins
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