The Curious Mind: AI & Explosive Growth, Investing Regime Shifts, Is Bessent Burning It Down?, What Do Men Want & Divorce, How To Not Be Stupid, Meet Your AI Coworker, What's Next For GLP-1's....

July 31, 2025

You are a smart curious person, short on time and surrounded by noise.

The Curious Mind tries to offer the best signal to noise ratio across markets, technology and the good life. We hope to even surprise and inspire you with new beautiful ideas.

If you missed last week’s discussion: Unlocking Our World, What Superintelligence Will Look Like, You Are Using The Wrong Models, The Stories We Tell About Ourselves...

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Quotes I Am Thinking About:

"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed."

- William Gibson

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

- Charles Darwin

"In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

- George Orwell

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool."

- Richard Feynman

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

- Mark Twain

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A. 5 Signals In The Noise This Week

1. AI and Explosive Growth

The Economist explored whether AI could trigger "explosive growth" (20-30% annual GDP growth) as Silicon Valley predicts, examining the economics, constraints, and investment implications of such a scenario.

The Growth Explosion Theory:

• Historical context: Economic growth was virtually zero for 1,700 years, then accelerated dramatically after the Industrial Revolution - from 0.1% annually to today's ~2.8%!!! I was shocked at just how slow growth had been for 1,700 years and reminded me of this chart:

• The AI thesis: Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) could automate not just production, but the hardest task of all - making technology better. This could create runaway innovation without population growth, potentially driving GDP growth to 20-30% annually.

• Key mechanism: Unlike past growth (limited by population), AI can accumulate infinitely fast. Once AI can improve itself and conduct research, you get multiplicative progress where "ideas beget more ideas" without human constraints.

The Debate: Modest vs. Explosive Impact:

• Skeptics (like Daron Acemoglu): AI will boost GDP by only 1-2% over a decade, assuming only ~5% of tasks can be automated cheaply.

• Bulls: Much more automation is possible. Models suggest 20%+ growth once AI automates about one-third of tasks, with growth accelerating further as automation expands.

I am in the explosive growth, but then again I’ve always been an optimist!

The Economist article is heavily based on this Epoch AI piece, where the above charts are from.

So What: Spend some time thinking about how you and your business can benefit from the +20% growth AI could unleash.

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2. Stop Investing Like It’s 1999

I often wonder if the next decade will be like the last few. What has changed, what could change.

We just discussed AI and the potential for explosive growth as one of those themes, what else?

Henry McVey, Head of Global Macro & Asset Allocation and Firmwide Market Risk and CIO of the KKR’s Balance Sheet spoke to Meb Faber about other sources of regime shift.

The 5 BIG IDEAS:

• A Fundamental Regime Change is Underway: We've transitioned from the post-2008 era of low growth and low inflation to a new regime characterized by persistent government deficits, sticky inflation, and geopolitical tensions. The Federal Reserve acknowledges it will miss its inflation target for seven straight years—an environment almost no current investor has navigated. This doesn't doom markets, but it demands fundamentally different investment strategies than the past 15 years of central bank-driven growth.

• US Productivity Boom Supports Markets Despite Expensive Dollar: America is experiencing a genuine productivity revolution—the third major wave since the 1960s—initially driven by corporate digitalization and now evolving toward AI implementation. US productivity runs roughly double that of other developed economies, justifying recent market outperformance. However, the dollar sits at historically expensive levels (third highest in 55 years), creating a structural headwind that should favor international diversification over time.

• Traditional Asset Allocation is Broken—Go Private and Alternative: The classic 60/40 stock-bond portfolio faces a critical flaw: government bonds may no longer hedge equity risk due to massive sovereign debt burdens. When both stocks and bonds fall simultaneously (as in recent stress periods), traditional portfolios fail. KKR's solution emphasizes private equity during volatile public markets, infrastructure for inflation protection, and sophisticated credit strategies like asset-based finance that provide real collateral backing.

• Europe and Japan Offer Compelling Structural Opportunities: After 15+ years of US dominance, fundamental changes are creating opportunities abroad. Europe faces reform pressures unseen since 1989, potentially unlocking productivity through better capital markets, reduced cross-border service taxes, and lower energy costs. Japan presents even clearer value, with corporate conglomerates finally spinning off subsidiaries in the largest restructuring wave since KKR's early US deals. Both regions trade at significant discounts to US markets.

• Focus on Portfolio Tilts and Controllable Outcomes: Successful investing requires abandoning binary timing decisions for thoughtful portfolio positioning. The best and worst market days typically cluster around selloffs, making market timing nearly impossible—missing just the best 5-10 days per decade can cost thousands of percentage points in returns. Instead, focus on "making your own luck" through operational improvements in private investments, and capitalize on mega-trends like supply chain resilience (the "security of everything") and demographic shifts creating new market opportunities.

So What: Is your portfolio prepared for a future filled with change or are you relying on a repeat of 2010?

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3. Is Bessent Burning It Down?

I don’t always agree with

Dr Pippa

but she always has a fresh take on the news and always reminds me of one of my favourite movie scenes from Dead Poets Society: We must constantly look at things in a different way.

She published a piece titled: O Shocks and was also on the Macro Voices podcast.

Here are the 5 BIG IDEAS:

• The Complete Rearchitecting of Global Finance Through Stablecoins: Scott Bessent is orchestrating a revolutionary transformation of the entire global financial system, not just US policy. Stablecoins backed by US Treasuries will simultaneously solve America's debt funding crisis, bypass Wall Street's monopoly on startup financing, and create transparent blockchain-based government accounting that prevents the "deep state" money flows that have operated in shadows for decades. This isn't just about cryptocurrency—it's about creating a new foundation for how the world economy operates, with digital dollars becoming the global standard while making government spending completely trackable and accountable. Paid subscribers can read our ten chapter essay on Stablecoins and their implications.

• Systematic Exposure of Intelligence Community Deception: The declassification of documents isn't just about past scandals—it's revealing that US intelligence agencies have been systematically fabricating evidence and manipulating presidents for decades. Tulsi Gabbard's releases show the intelligence community created false narratives about Russian election interference while the real manipulation came from within the US government itself. This represents a fundamental challenge to the post-WWII power structure where unelected intelligence officials have operated as a shadow government, making decisions that override elected leadership.

• The Jeffrey Epstein Network as a Science and Technology Control System: Epstein's real significance wasn't his personal crimes but his role as a liaison between intelligence agencies, mega-investors, and cutting-edge scientists and technologists. His connections to Harvard, the Gates Foundation, physics conferences, and advanced mathematics research suggest a systematic approach to controlling the development and funding of breakthrough technologies. This pattern, which Malmgren traces back to figures like Robert Maxwell, represents a hidden infrastructure for managing scientific progress and technological development according to intelligence community priorities.

• Ontological Shocks and the Choice Between Truth and Comfortable Lies: We're experiencing multiple simultaneous "O Shocks"—revelations that shatter fundamental assumptions about reality, from the JFK assassination to 9/11 to COVID policies to election manipulation. These aren't isolated scandals but a pattern of institutional deception being exposed all at once. People must now choose between seeking uncomfortable truths about how power actually operates or retreating into denial and forgetting. The scale of these revelations is so vast that, like abandoned Nazi facilities after WWII, many may simply be ignored because confronting them is too psychologically difficult.

• The Transition to a Seventh Party System and Economic Abundance: America is moving beyond the current Republican-Democratic framework toward a completely new political structure—the seventh party system in US history. This transition coincides with technological breakthroughs that promise abundance rather than scarcity: falling costs of computing, energy, and delivery systems. The real battle isn't between traditional political parties but between forces that want to maintain scarcity-based control systems and those pushing toward transparency, abundance, and genuine democratic accountability. The outcome will determine whether humanity moves toward unprecedented prosperity or remains trapped in artificial limitations maintained by entrenched power structures.

So What: Can you see the world with fresh eyes? What in your life should you be looking at in a different way?

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4. The Divorce Myth & What Men Really Want

This research from the Institute for Family Studies challenges the common belief that "half of all marriages end in divorce."

The 4 BIG IDEAS:

• New marriages are actually more stable today: than they've been since the 1950s. Only about 40% of current first marriages are expected to end in divorce, not 50%.

• Why the Change: The 50% divorce rate idea comes from marriages formed during the "divorce revolution" of the 1960s-1980s. Today's marriages are more selective - fewer people are marrying (64% by age 30 now vs. 80% in the 1980s), suggesting those who do marry are more committed.

• Timing Matters: Modern marriages face their highest divorce risk earlier (around 5 years) compared to older generations (8-10 years), and couples who make it past this early period tend to stay together.

• Gray Divorce Caveat: While overall divorce rates are falling, divorce among couples over 50 has increased. However, this largely reflects the long-term effects of those turbulent marriages from decades past.

They also had this interesting piece titled: High-Status Men Are Attracted to Ambitious Women.

So What: If you are an ambitious man, go find a woman smarter and more ambitious then you, then convince her to marry you. That’s what I did. So far so good…..

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5. Don’t Be Stupid

Twenty years ago, some of the smartest people on Wall Street lost everything during one of history's greatest bull markets.

The Long-Term Capital Management collapse wasn't just a financial disaster—it was a masterclass in the limits of raw intelligence and a reminder that success requires a more nuanced understanding of what it means to be "smart."

This great piece by

Morgan Housel

piece dissects 5 crucial types of intelligence that academic measures often miss:

• Interdisciplinary thinking that connects dots across fields

• Paranoid confidence that balances bold moves with survival instincts

• Storytelling ability that makes facts memorable and persuasive

• Humility to recognize how little we truly understand about others

• Strategic patience that delays gratification through smart distraction rather than willpower alone

So What: Being smart is about more than just knowing the “facts”.

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B. The Science And Technology Section:

1. The Future Of Work

McKinsey’s Technology Trends Outlook asked: Which frontier technologies matter most for companies in 2025. Was a useful report to think about how our jobs and our children’s will be transformed.

The 5 BIG IDEAS:

• AI is Becoming Your New Coworker: We're witnessing the birth of "agentic AI" - artificial intelligence that doesn't just answer questions but actually does the work. These AI agents can autonomously handle complex tasks like processing insurance claims, writing and deploying software code, or managing supply chains from start to finish. Unlike today's chatbots, they can plan multi-step workflows, use digital tools, and even coordinate with other AI systems. The bottom line: Within the next few years, every organization will have AI employees working alongside humans, fundamentally changing job roles and requiring leaders to rethink everything from team structures to performance management.

• The Great Computing Gold Rush is Reshaping Global Power: The explosive demand for AI is triggering the biggest infrastructure transformation since the internet. Companies are racing to build massive AI data centers while creating specialized computer chips that are 100 times more efficient for AI tasks. This isn't just about technology - it's about economic and national power. Countries with the best AI chips and computing infrastructure will dominate the global economy. The stakes: Companies that secure access to advanced computing power will thrive, while those that don't risk being left behind. Meanwhile, energy grids worldwide are straining under this computational demand.

• The Physical World is Getting a Digital Brain: We're rapidly approaching a reality where robots, autonomous vehicles, smart buildings, and connected devices work together seamlessly through advanced 5G/6G networks and satellite systems. Imagine factories where robots autonomously repair equipment, cities where traffic flows are optimized in real-time, and supply chains that self-manage from production to delivery. The transformation: Every physical industry - from agriculture to construction to healthcare - will become a technology industry, requiring traditional businesses to develop digital capabilities or partner with those who have them.

• Trust Has Become the Ultimate Competitive Weapon: In a world of deepfakes, AI-generated content, and sophisticated cyber attacks, trust isn't just nice to have - it's a measurable business asset. The report shows trusted companies outperformed untrusted ones by 245 percentage points in stock returns. As AI systems make more decisions that affect people's lives, customers, employees, and regulators are demanding transparency, security, and accountability. The new reality: Companies that build trustworthy AI systems and robust cybersecurity will win customers and investment, while those that don't will face regulatory backlash and market punishment.

• Science is Entering Warp Speed Mode: AI is supercharging scientific discovery across every field imaginable. It's designing new drugs in months instead of years, creating materials that don't exist in nature, optimizing renewable energy systems, and even predicting how proteins fold. The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to researchers using AI to understand and design proteins. The implications are staggering: We may be on the verge of solving climate change, curing diseases, and creating abundant clean energy faster than ever thought possible - but this also means the pace of change will accelerate exponentially, requiring societies to adapt more quickly than ever before.

So What: Schedule an hour daily to play with, learn about and integrate AI deeper into your work flow and systems.

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2. The GLP-1 Inflection Point

Citrini had a new report on GLP-1 drugs last week. While consensus has grown comfortable assuming GLP-1 disruption was overhyped, Citrini identifies we're actually entering the phase where widespread adoption (4% prescribed, likely 8-12% total usage) finally translates into visible financial impacts across industries.

It’s useful intelligence for understanding how a single therapeutic breakthrough is reshaping multiple sectors simultaneously - and how to profit from that transformation.

The 3 BIG IDEAS:

• The Aesthetic Surgery Boom is Perfectly Timed: Millions of GLP-1 users who've lost dramatic amounts of weight are hitting a biological wall: loose skin, "Ozempic face," and body composition issues that can only be fixed surgically. The crucial timing factor is that doctors require 6-12 months of stable weight before procedures, meaning the initial wave of adopters from 2022-2023 are just now becoming eligible. This massive pent-up demand is colliding with an aesthetic surgery industry that's been decimated by a post-COVID cyclical downturn - creating the rare opportunity to invest in a powerful secular trend at distressed valuations.

• The Food Disruption Trade Has Been Masked But Not Canceled: GLP-1 users provably shift consumption away from junk food and alcohol toward high-protein, healthier options. But this fundamental change has been obscured by macro forces: a "rolling recession" drove consumers toward cheap fast food while punishing premium healthy brands. The report's insight is that as economic pressures ease, the underlying dietary shifts will finally overwhelm these temporary headwinds. The trade: short fast food companies that have been artificially propped up, while buying beaten-down healthy food providers positioned for the protein-focused future.

• Next-Generation Drugs Solve the Core Problems, Extending the Opportunity: Rather than facing commoditization, GLP-1s are evolving to address their main limitations. Eli Lilly's bimagrumab combination prevents muscle loss during weight reduction - essentially delivering the "lose fat, gain muscle" outcome everyone wants. Meanwhile, oral formulations and monthly dosing are removing the remaining barriers to mass adoption. The market is fixated on patent cliffs for current drugs, missing that superior next-generation treatments could create an even larger, more sustainable opportunity for the companies that crack the science.

So What: Would you benefit from using one of the GLP-1 drugs, I know they helped me move some very stubborn kilos in 2023. How will the drugs impact your industry?

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Believe it or not, that “♡ Like” button is a big deal – it serves as a proxy to new visitors of this publication’s value. If you got value out of reading, please let others know!

This chart helped me understand why so many young people are YOLO’ing in meme stocks. Financial Nihilism is real.