Capital cycles and retrenchment

In this Ideas Lab episode, Kevin Coldiron speaks with venture capitalist and former founder Aubrie Pagano about what stands between today’s AI hype and a truly transformative AGI economy. Rather than treating AI as destiny, Aubrie maps the frictions that hold it back: hard power limits, fragile industrial data, and agents that still cannot coordinate with humans or each other. She explains why we may be a full capital cycle or two away from real AGI and why that delay is precisely where the best opportunities lie. The conversation then widens into the “Aquarius Economy,” a possible future in which human agency, not algorithms, becomes the scarcest and most valuable asset.

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Episode TimeStamps:

00:00 - Why agent coordination is still clunky and unreliable

00:38 - Intro to Top Traders Unplugged and performance risk framing

01:34 - Kevin sets up the Ideas Lab and today’s focus on AGI

02:59 - Aubrie’s background as founder, researcher and VC shaping her lens

06:04 - Why she wrote about AGI and the Aquarius Economy

07:21 - AGI as the last cycle built on labor scarcity

10:41 - The blockers framework and why AGI may be a cycle or two away

12:58 - Blocker 1: energy constraints and the race for firm power

15:17 - Where investment opportunities emerge in power and grid resilience

17:43 - Blocker 2: foundational industry data gaps and Moravec’s paradox

22:00 - Skilled trades as a bottleneck and a long term opportunity

24:34 - Blocker 3: agent to human coordination and walled gardens

29:04 - Early agent marketplaces and trust mechanisms

34:41 - The Aquarius Economy as a framework for future societal structure

42:09 - Outlier groups, human agency and implications for investors

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