Industrial Capitalism on the Edge: Who Wins in a Crisis

A crisis is a time not for the best products, but for the fastest sales

When a systemic crisis hits, the winner isn't whoever has the coolest product — it's whoever can sell it fastest to whoever needs it most.

How semiconductors laid the foundation for Big Tech

In the 1960s the US bought up semiconductors at 30 times market price, because a Minuteman missile can't wait. That's how an entire industry was born — one that now feeds all of Big Tech.

Big Tech is betting on nuclear power

Today, Big Tech is the emergency buyer.

Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta have all thrown themselves at nuclear energy. Not because they love the planet — because without it they can't launch AGI, and without AGI they're just expensive hardware.

Western defense isn't ready for a real conflict

Western defense industries have decayed so badly that in a conflict with China, missiles would run out in a couple of days.

Geoeconomics of the new world: emergency procurement, zero backup

China controls 87% of rare earths, and the US has zero fallback. Europe has a €250 billion-a-year hole in equipment and infrastructure.

The winner isn't the startup — it's whoever can build and sell right now

The world is turning into one long chain of emergency purchases: from modular reactors and transatlantic cables to hurricane-forecasting AI in the Persian Gulf.

Politicians are pouring in trillions. Infrastructure has rotted away. Old corporations can't keep up. The winner is whoever can assemble, build, and sell right now.

This isn't a startup sandbox anymore. This is industrial capitalism running at DEFCON 2.