Episode #57: Silicon, Sovereignty, and Speculation: The Stakes of AI’s Next Phase

In this episode of Stewart Squared, Stewart Alsop sits down with his father, Stewart Alsop II, for a wide-ranging conversation that moves from OpenAI’s massive semiconductor and Oracle deals, to the nature of money and the gold standard, to shifting dynamics in U.S.–China relations and modern warfare technologies like drones and cyber tools. They also trace the history of networking and video games—from LAN parties and Atari with Nolan Bushnell to immersive experiences like 2-Bit Circus and Meow Wolf—before circling back to how AI and robotics are beginning to reshape both business and reality itself.

Check out this GPT we trained on the conversation

Timestamps

00:00 OpenAI’s $10B Broadcom inference chips deal and the $60B Oracle agreement raise questions about money, stock surges, and financial credibility.
05:00 The concept of “funny money,” Oracle’s cash reserves, quantitative easing, and the gold standard highlight how value and trust shape economies.
10:00 Gold, fiat currency, and banks like JP Morgan tie into larger concerns about trust in institutions, from Epstein to government credibility.
15:00 U.S.–China relations surface with Xi Jinping’s control, economic fraying, and the rise of a new Cold War alongside military innovation.
20:00 Drones in Ukraine, Israel, and Iran show shifting warfare, leading to thoughts on biological weapons, genocide accusations, and changing battlefields.
25:00 Broadcom’s roots in networking, Ethernet, LAN parties, and the rise of the internet illustrate the path to SaaS and global connectivity.
30:00 Atari, Nolan Bushnell, Chuck E. Cheese, Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox frame the evolution of gaming from cartridges to immersive experiences.
35:00 Immersive worlds like Meow Wolf and 2-Bit Circus tie into the idea of reality disturbance and AI’s role in reshaping digital and physical life.
40:00 AI, multimodality, robotics, Unitree’s IPO, and China’s economic system show competition, monopolies, and involution spirals.
45:00 IPO regulations, Hong Kong’s role, Chinese subsidies, and shifting global markets close with the Great Firewall hack and surveillance systems.

Key Insights

1. The episode opens with OpenAI’s massive semiconductor push, including a $10 billion deal with Broadcom for inference chips and a $60 billion agreement with Oracle. These announcements triggered huge stock surges but also raised skepticism about how much of the money is “real” versus headline figures designed to impress investors. The Stewarts frame this as a story about business credibility, financial imagination, and the blurred line between commitments and speculation.
2. Money itself becomes a central theme. From quantitative easing in 2008 to the abandonment of the gold standard in 1971, the conversation highlights that all money is “made up,” a shared trust system that can inflate or collapse. This sparks questions about fiat currency, the role of gold as a store of value, and whether today’s trillion-dollar deals mirror earlier cycles of financial storytelling.
3. The U.S.–China relationship emerges as a new Cold War. Xi Jinping’s centralized control has propelled China’s economic rise but now risks overregulation and excessive competition. Meanwhile, the U.S. response has been to fuel entrepreneurship in defense technologies, leading to a flood of startups chasing military funding. Both powers appear locked in a long-term contest, each capable of surviving independently while worrying about the other’s strengths.
4. Modern warfare is shifting rapidly, with drones as a central tool. Ukraine’s drone strikes on Russian bombers, Israel’s targeted operations inside Iran, and debates over biological warfare illustrate how the battlefield now mixes precision targeting with the threat of indiscriminate devastation. This marks a move away from the older notion of “honor in war” and underscores the erosion of distinctions between combatants and civilians.
5. Technology history provides perspective, from Broadcom’s early role in networking and LAN parties to the rise of the internet and SaaS. These stepping stones enabled today’s hyperconnected world and help explain how companies like Broadcom can resurface as key players in the AI era.
6. The evolution of gaming is traced through Atari, Nolan Bushnell, and Chuck E. Cheese, through Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox, and into mobile gaming with Zynga. Consoles once defined the industry, but immersive experiences like Meow Wolf and 2-Bit Circus now show how games blur into physical, communal, and artistic environments.
7. Finally, the episode circles back to AI as a force of “reality disturbance.” Large language models are becoming multimodal, robots are gaining touch and sensory capabilities, and companies like Unitree Robotics show China’s intense push into automation. The Stewarts note the risk of involutionary spirals—too much competition cannibalizing itself—but also see AI as an inevitable layer that every business must integrate, whether as infrastructure, interface, or imagination.

What is Stewart Squared?

Stewart Alsop III reviews a broad range of topics with his father Stewart Alsop II, who started his career in the personal computer industry and is still actively involved in investing in startup technology companies. Stewart Alsop III is fascinated by what his father was doing as SAIII was growing up in the Golden Age of Silicon Valley. Topics include:

- How the personal computing revolution led to the internet, which led to the mobile revolution
- Now we are covering the future of the internet and computing
- How AI ties the personal computer, the smartphone and the internet together