Mapping the AI Power Shift: Buffett’s Big Bet, Thiel’s Exit, Meta’s Language Play, and a Drunk Robot in Moscow

Good morning — it’s Monday, November 17th, and today’s “Map” traces the forces shaping the week ahead in tech, money, and global politics.

We start with something rare: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway quietly taking a $4.9 billion stake in Alphabet — one of the last and most unusual moves of his career, and a signal about where the long-term AI value is consolidating.

On the other side of the chessboard, Peter Thiel just sold his entire ~$100 million stake in Nvidia, a move that raises questions about timing, crowd psychology, and what it means when a legendary contrarian (among many, many other things) decides the party’s over.

I also pull from a conversation I moderated last week with consular officials and regulators from across Asia, where the loudest concern was simple: English-centric AI is failing the rest of the world. Meta’s new Omnilingual ASR model may change that — if they can turn 1,600 supported languages into something the world can actually use.

Then we take a detour to Moscow, where Russia’s heavily hyped new humanoid robot walked onstage looking… well… drunk, and promptly face-planted so hard its panels fell off. It’s an unintentionally honest reminder that the dream of a helpful general-purpose humanoid remains firmly in the realm of wishful thinking in spite of the nifty prototypes being trotted out each week.

Finally, we look ahead to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the White House, along with a package that includes $600 billion in investment, AI technology access, and a civilian nuclear deal — all coming at a time when AI-driven energy demand is exploding past America’s power capacity, and MBS’s people clearly know it.

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The theme cutting through all of this is simple:AI capital flows are steering the global agenda.Not the products, not the startups — the money. A third of America’s GDP growth last year came solely from AI infrastructure spending, and the upcoming Nvidia earnings call this week will tell us whether this frenzy is accelerating or hitting turbulence.

This week, we’ll watch the intersection of investment, policy, and power — and tomorrow, we’ll dive deep into one story that explains where all this is headed. Thanks for listening!

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