America’s AI Boom Is Science Fiction Funding Financial Fiction | Warwick Powell & Radhika Desai

Is the AI boom just the latest chapter in a stock market story that was already fiction? I'm joined by Warwick Powell to trace the line from China's Kimi and DeepSeek shock through what I've called America's "sci-fi/fin-fi" model — science fiction promises like AGI dressed up to justify financial fiction, a bubble with roots in the dot-com crash and Reagan's fabricated Star Wars program. Warwick explains how venture capital functions as a closed, rule-bound game for insiders, how Silicon Valley Bank behaved more like a members' club than a bank, and how decades of buybacks and privatised monopolies have concentrated stock ownership until 93% of market value sits with just 10% of Americans. We contrast this with China's state-driven finance system and its decades-long investment in literacy and human capital.