Episode Summary

Recorded from makeshift setups in Amsterdam and Oman, Michiel and Nisheta open this week's episode stranded by the Iran-US war — one stuck in a hotel room, the other finishing a desert trek. They unpack the geopolitical situation candidly: how a professor predicted the conflict two years beforeTrump was even re-elected, why the UAE government has handled over a thousand drone and missile interceptions with remarkable precision, and how the war has exposed a troubling gap in public media literacy — including the now-legendaryinfluencer who asked ChatGPT whether it was officially a war.

On the tech front, the hosts examine Palmer Luckey's defensedrone startup and the economics of asymmetric warfare, before diving into the week's AI headlines: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei refused to allow Claude to be used for mass civilian surveillance or autonomous weapons — landing the companyon the US government blacklist — while OpenAI quickly stepped in to take the contract. They also flag Meta's internal memo planning to exploit the war as cover to quietly introduce facial recognition into its AR glasses, and scrutinize the inflated figures in OpenAI's latest fundraising announcement.

The episode closes with a deep dive into markets: Bitcoin isconfounding history by behaving like a safe haven asset for the first time, rebounding after an initial dip even as gold hits record highs near $5,100 per ounce. The hosts walk through their personal trading competition portfolios — Solana, Ethereum, ASML, NVIDIA, Broadcom, and Tracer — and wrap with awarmhearted note on maintaining routine, walking dogs, and staying sane in turbulent times.