Banyan Hill

3 weeks ago | banyanhill.com | Ian King

I remember hearing about thorium back in my Wall Street days. For decades, analysts pitched it as a “cleaner, safer” alternative to uranium because it couldn’t be weaponized and produced far less radioactive waste. The U.S. had even built a working molten-salt thorium reactor at Oak Ridge National Lab in the 1960s. But despite its success, the project was ultimately abandoned.

3 weeks ago | banyanhill.com | Ian King

Nvidia just reported a $44 billion quarter. That’s up 69% from a year ago…And nearly enough revenue to buy General Motors outright. Its data center business alone brought in $39 billion. And despite U.S. export restrictions that hit sales to China, the company posted $18.8 billion in profit. But as impressive as those numbers are, the real story from Nvidia’s earnings call didn’t come from the company’s balance sheet. It was what CEO Jensen Huang said about Tesla.

3 weeks ago | banyanhill.com | Ian M. King

2001: A Space Odyssey left an indelible mark on me when I was a kid. HAL 9000, the ship’s AI, was an age-old idea that a creation could rise up against its creators. And the scene where HAL refuses to open the pod bay doors still haunts me. But what was once science fiction seems to keep bleeding into real life. And recent developments in artificial intelligence suggest that we’re inching closer to HAL’s reality.

1 month ago | banyanhill.com | Ian King

Last Friday, I walked out of the grocery store shaking my head. I had just picked up a bottle of wine that used to cost $18. It was now $27. This wasn’t a fancy Bordeaux or some exotic vintage either. It was just a bottle of Italian table wine that my wife and I occasionally like to enjoy with dinner. And I realize this bottle of wine shot up 50% because of shifting supply and demand and the lingering effects of inflation. I understand how the global economy works.

1 month ago | banyanhill.com | Ian King

The other day, I came across this post on X:Unfortunately, what followed was a lot of AI hype without a lot of substance. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman did not offer a fully-fleshed timeline for AI when he testified at the Senate hearing on AI competitiveness earlier this month. There was no roadmap given. That wasn’t the purpose of this bipartisan hearing anyway. But what he did say tells us a lot about where AI is heading.