AI Breaks, Resilience Pays (practice)
Nick Hencher 馃嚭馃嚘@hench
+0.2%
since Oct 7
The idea
I built this as a hedge to the AI-growth story, betting that if AI breaks something big, the response favors resilience over disruption. The core sits in biodefence and pandemic infrastructure like vaccines, diagnostics, sterilisation and bioprocessing, backed by gold, gold royalties, timber and farmland to hold value if knowledge-work income shrinks, plus repair-and-maintenance companies owning physical work. Cyber and grid holdings stay smaller and focused on critical infrastructure rather than data-center buildout, with a European tilt and cash kept on the side.
What it owns
- Gold, timber and farmland keep their value when income from knowledge work shrinks. 路 SPDR Gold SharesIt holds physical gold, which tends to keep its value when incomes and confidence fall., Franco-NevadaIt collects a cut of gold and other metal output from mines it doesn't run, so it gets the gold price with fewer mine-cost headaches., Wheaton Precious MetalsIt buys future gold and silver output from miners at fixed low prices, so it gains when precious metals hold value through hard times., Farmland PartnersIt owns US farmland that earns rent from farmers, value that doesn't depend on knowledge-work paychecks., WeyerhaeuserIt owns millions of acres of timberland, a physical asset that keeps its worth whatever happens to office jobs.22%
- If capable models make an engineered pathogen easier, the companies that can make vaccines and tests fast get paid. 路 SanofiIt is one of the biggest vaccine makers in Europe and sells COVID shots, so it gets called when a designed pathogen shows up., GSK plcIt runs large UK and European vaccine plants, which is the capacity governments lean on in an outbreak., BioNTech SEIts mRNA platform can turn a new genetic sequence into a candidate vaccine in weeks, the speed that matters if engineered pathogens become easier to build., Emergent BioSolutionsIt sells anthrax and smallpox countermeasures directly to governments, so public health concerns and stockpile replenishment cycles shape its growth., Bio-Rad LaboratoriesIt makes the lab instruments and tests, including PCR tools, that labs use to find and track a pathogen early.22%
- Sterilisation, bioprocessing and air filtration get bought in any outbreak, whichever vaccine wins. 路 STERIS plcIt sterilises hospital equipment and medical products, work that jumps in any outbreak and can't be done by software., Donaldson CompanyIt makes industrial and building air filtration, the kind of physical fix that gets installed at industrial speed after an airborne outbreak., Danaher CorporationIt supplies the bioprocessing equipment drugmakers use to make vaccines and biologics, plus diagnostics, so it gets paid whoever wins the vaccine race., Sotera HealthIt sterilises medical devices and runs lab testing for drugmakers on contract, the plumbing behind any pandemic response.18%
- Hands-on service work automates slowly and doesn't depend on data-center spending. 路 RollinsIt runs pest-control services that customers pay for on a schedule, physical work that automates slowly., WatscoIt supplies the contractors who replace broken air conditioners and furnaces, and most of its sales are replacements, not new buildings., ABM IndustriesIt cleans, maintains and repairs buildings, the hands-on facilities work that robots and AI can't take over quickly., FrontdoorIt sells home warranty plans and sends contractors to fix appliances and systems, steady repair work done by people.16%
- Security and backup power for networks, payments and grids that autonomous agents could break. 路 National Grid plcIt owns regulated power networks in the UK and the US northeast, where regulators approve returns on money spent hardening the grid against attacks and failures., Check Point SoftwareIt sells firewalls that banks, governments and utilities already run, so it gains if autonomous agents start breaking networks and payments., FortinetIt protects factory, utility and other industrial networks, and large industrial security platforms are adding its firewalls to their service., Generac HoldingsIt sells home and business backup generators, what people buy when they stop trusting the grid.14%
- Cash8%