AI Reviews 200 Podcast Episodes: Betting on Micron’s 180% Surge, Yet Missing Cursor’s $6 Billion Acquisition

Compiled & Edited by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Guests: EJ and Josh, Hosts of the Limitless Podcast

Podcast Source: Limitless Podcast

Original Title: AI Found the Trades We Missed

Release Date: July 8, 2026

Key Takeaways

The Limitless Podcast has reached its 200th episode. The two hosts did something a bit risky: they fed the transcripts of all 200 episodes to Claude and ChatGPT, asking the AI to help them find hidden investment themes they might have missed, review the calls they made over the past year, and predict AI's next destination. When they hit record for the first episode 14 months ago, SpaceX was still a private company valued at $350 billion, Anthropic was valued at $61 billion, OpenAI at $300 billion, and GPT-4o was the flagship model. Now, SpaceX's market cap exceeds $2 trillion post-IPO, Anthropic is nearing a trillion, and ChatGPT's user base has more than doubled.

The episode unfolds along two lines. One is a retrospective: when they first declared "Compute is national security," SanDisk had risen 35x; when they bet on memory chips, Micron was up 180%, SK Hynix became South Korea's most valuable company by market cap, and Samsung's profits surpassed Nvidia's. They even mentioned wanting to buy Cursor's stock just three months ago, and then Cursor got acquired by SpaceX for $60 billion. If you created a portfolio of the companies founded by the people they interviewed, the return over one year would be roughly 4x, with Valor Atomics being the best at 13x. The other line looks ahead: mentions of big words like Superintelligence and AGI have plummeted 90%, while mentions of Anthropic have quadrupled, overtaking OpenAI. The three areas they are most bullish on next are space-based training models, the application of AI in vertical sectors, and small edge-based models.

Highlights of Key Insights

On the Validation of Compute and Memory Bets

• "We were the first to say compute is a national security issue. Whoever owns the watts, chips, energy, and cooling owns the rest of the economy. Looking back after 200 episodes, this is even more true now than it was then."
• "The average return for memory manufacturers is 153%. If you bought Micron at the end of last year, you're up 180%. SK Hynix became South Korea's most valuable company, pushing Samsung down. Samsung just became the world's most profitable company, surpassing Nvidia."
• "Three months ago, we said we wished we could buy OpenAI stock, but there was one company that could ride that wave, called Cursor. Three months later, Cursor was acquired by SpaceX for $60 billion."

On the Limitless Portfolio

• "If you made a portfolio of the companies founded by people we interviewed on the show, investing from their interview day to today, the total return would be about 4x, with Valor Atomics being the best at 13x."
• "Valor Atomics' CEO Isaiah Taylor had just finished his seed round when he was on the show. Now he's valued at $2 billion. His logic is simple: data centers are starving for power, so he builds small modular nuclear reactors."
• "Boom Supersonic was building supersonic jets, but now they've also started making gas turbines for AI data centers."

On Trend Shifts

• "The term 'Superintelligence' was mentioned 60 times last year, only 6 times this year. AGI is down 54%, Robotics down 60%. Crypto has basically gone to zero."
• "Anthropic mentions were only a quarter of OpenAI's last year. This year, they've quadrupled and overtaken: 806 to 758. A year ago, we were saying Claude 3.7 wasn't great, that ChatGPT was king. This company has completely turned things around this year."
• "The AI company we mentioned the most wasn't OpenAI, not Anthropic, it was Google. But Google's momentum has clearly slowed down."

On the Next Bets

• "Fable 5 costs $10 per million tokens for input and $50 for output. If you're burning a few million tokens a week, that cost hurts. Uber and Meta are already cutting their AI token spending."
• "Most companies and ordinary people still haven't truly started using these AI tools. The models are incredibly powerful, but the dispersion of application is still very small. The core question for the next 200 episodes is: how does the world extract value from these tools."
• "Whoever solves the energy problem becomes one of the most powerful companies on Earth. Whether AI continues or not, energy is the ceiling for everything."

Episode 200: Feeding All Transcripts to AI

EJ: Welcome to episode 200. We've spoken 1.4 million words on this show, 99.9% of which is Josh and I arguing about who has more compute, whose model is better, and which AI company is most worth investing in. Before recording this, we did something a bit risky: we gave the transcripts of all 200 episodes to Claude and ChatGPT, asking them to find hidden investment themes we might have missed, sort through what we said and the calls we made over the past year, and figure out AI's next destination.

Looking back 14 months to when we recorded the first episode, the world was completely different. Back then, SpaceX was still a private company valued at $350 billion. Now it's public with a market cap exceeding $2 trillion. Anthropic was valued at $61 billion then, now nearing a trillion. OpenAI was at $300 billion, ChatGPT had about 500 million users, now it's more than doubled. The model landscape was even more interesting: GPT-4o was the flagship, Claude was at 3.7, Gemini at 2.5. The most mind-blowing thing is that when we recorded the first episode, almost all code in the world was still being written by hand. Now, the opposite is true.

So what we're going to do today is review what actually happened over the past year, and then look forward based on these trends. Let's start with the calls we got right.

Compute is King: An Early Bet Validated

EJ: Josh, do you remember episode 4? June 5, 2025. Our exact words were: Compute is now a national security issue. Whoever owns the watts, chips, energy, and cooling owns the rest of the economy. Our point was straightforward—compute is king; whoever owns the GPUs and can power them builds the best models.

Looking back after 200 episodes, this is even more true now than it was then. Anthropic has signed four new compute contracts in the past few months. OpenAI is ramping up production like crazy; their aggressive bets on acquiring compute have proven to be incredibly correct. They haven't set any limits on any users, which exactly supports the core demand for inference, allowing AI agents to run 24/7. Compute is king—it was one of our earliest calls.

Josh: I just checked. When we said that, SanDisk was up 3500%. 35x return. If you had told people in June 2025 that the federal government would invest in companies like Intel and these stocks would rise this much, we probably would have invested too, but we'd still be surprised this compute race had become so critical.The most scarce resource in the world right now is the energy and memory needed to power GPUs. Noticing this so early was really impressive. I really wish we had actually invested.

Memory Chips: 153% Average Return

EJ: Another asymmetric bet was on AI chips, especially memory. When we did the predictions episode at the end of last year, our core logic was: Memory is expensive, it's a big part of the entire AI system. For a GPU to run, it needs to remember the full context of the conversation with ChatGPT and Claude. Memory prices would likely go up, and so would the stock prices of memory manufacturers.

Guess what the average return for these three top memory manufacturers was?

Josh: Infinite. This was probably the best single investment you could have made in the past year.

EJ: Not that exaggerated, but pretty close. 153%. If you bought Micron at the end of last year, you're up 180%. If you could buy SK Hynix, it became the most valuable company in South Korea by market cap, pushing Samsung, which had a monopoly for decades, down. Samsung just became the world's most profitable company, surpassing Nvidia.

This is a full-scale arms race, and these companies keep surpassing each other.

Cursor: Acquired by SpaceX for $60 Billion

EJ: In March 2026, not too long ago, we said this was an asymmetric bet: I really wish I could buy OpenAI stock, but there is one company that can ride this wave, called Cursor.

Three months later, Cursor was acquired by SpaceX for $60 billion.

Josh, should we start managing a fund?

Josh: We need a fund. Anyone want to invest in us?

EJ: If we had actually turned these calls into real investments, the returns would have been quite substantial.

The Limitless Portfolio: 4x Return in One Year

EJ: Early in the show, we interviewed many founders working on cutting-edge technology. These were companies we carefully selected, seeing great potential. We got exclusive interviews with CEOs and founders.If we had invested the money on the day of the interview, the total return to today would be about 4x, in just over a year.

The best performer was Valor Atomics, at 13x. In episode 10, we had CEO Isaiah Taylor, who builds small modular nuclear reactors. The logic is straightforward: data centers are starving for power, and he solves this. He had just finished his seed round when he was on the show; now he's valued at $2 billion.

Same with OpenRouter. Founder Alex Atallah was valued at $500 million when he was on the show, now it's $1.3 billion. OpenRouter's logic is something we've repeated often: companies won't just use one model; they'll use different models for different scenarios. This is also why Cursor was favored, and why SpaceX paid $60 billion for it. OpenRouter gets early access to models before their official release—Claude, ChatGPT, and Chinese models. Developers can use various models without restrictions. The aggregated user intent data they have is incredibly rich, allowing them to determine what models to build next.

Zipline is also interesting; they do drone delivery. When they were on the show, they were showcasing an early prototype. Now, they're operational in several major cities. Perplexity went from $18 billion to $21 billion, mainly because Samsung set it as the default AI agent on all its phones.

Boom Supersonic is a special case. They were building supersonic jets, but now they've also started making gas turbines for AI data centers.

Josh: A 400% return is already crazy compared to the broader market. I wish we could have actually invested.

EJ: Me too. But this simulated portfolio tells us several clear trends have formed over the past year: energy is the bottleneck, nuclear is one solution; the model routing layer is a real need; and the application of AI on mobile devices has begun.

Trend Shifts: Superintelligence Exits, Anthropic Takes the Lead

EJ: Over the past 14 months, the topics we've discussed have changed significantly. After analyzing the 200 episodes of transcripts with AI, the trend shift is very clear.

The term 'Superintelligence' was mentioned 60 times last year, only 6 times this year—a 90% crash. Crypto has basically gone to zero; it's a winter now. Robotics is down 60%, AGI down 54%. We mention these big words less often, maybe because they feel almost here, the lines are blurring. You see these Mythos-level models and feel like this might just be AGI. Robotics is more interesting; we seem to be in a middle ground: many companies are building, but nothing is officially released yet. A new Optimus version is coming but not shown, Figure is also working on new robots but hasn't made them public. I suspect there will be a flurry of launches later this year, and the robotics topic will explode again.

The most stunning is Anthropic. Last year, we mentioned them about a quarter as often as OpenAI and ChatGPT.This year, mentions have quadrupled, overtaking them: 806 to 758. A year ago, we were looking at Claude 3.7 Opus, thinking it wasn't great, that ChatGPT was king. This company has completely turned things around this year. Claude Code has only been around for just over a year, almost nobody used it at the end of last year. Now everyone is using it.

There's another interesting finding: the AI company we mentioned most on the show wasn't OpenAI, not Anthropic, it was Google. But Google's momentum has clearly slowed down. In the first few months, their product iteration speed was incredibly fast, with new things almost every week, and they were all good. But then it slowed down. The real two major players now are OpenAI and Anthropic, and I don't see that changing in the short term. Maybe Grok could be the comeback player of the year; SpaceX's AI team is pushing hard.

The Next 100 Episodes: Three Tracks Worth Watching

EJ: If I had to pick the three most important trends going forward, the first is space-based training models. We first mentioned StarCloud, a Y Combinator startup that launched H100 GPUs into space to start training models. Now, SpaceX AI's entire strategy is to launch a massive number of satellites to train models in space, likely Grok and others. This trend will only get stronger, and SpaceX will be the leader.

The second is the application of AI models in vertical sectors. General-purpose large models are great for chatbots, but they don't perform well when applied to specialized fields requiring deep knowledge.Anthropic and OpenAI have been forming joint ventures over the past few months, raising billions of dollars and embedding engineers within these fields to find optimal solutions.