Predicting the Future at the Sohn Investment Conference
Will Wright ’26, a student in the Master’s in Asset Management program, gained a clearer understanding of how AI will affect markets by attending an annual New York City Conference.
I had an incredible time at the 2026 New York Sohn Investment Conference, which convenes some of the best and brightest hedge fund and alternative investors in the industry to share market insights, all while raising funds in support of research on pediatric cancer and other diseases. It was a privilege to spend the day with investors from across the industry, from private credit to endowments. A special thanks to Yale alum, Graham Duncan and the Swensen Institute for making this possible for me and several peers.
Unsurprisingly, AI was the dominant theme, with presenters making comprehensive pitches across the value chain. We heard ideas on the "picks and shovels" of inference from Jacob Rubin of Philosophy Capital on Galaxy Digital's (NASDAQ:GLXY) Helios data center build in West Texas; on the high-complexity printed circuit boards and memory chips feeding every rack from Alex Sacerdote of Whale Rock (NASDAQ:TTMI) and Leon Shaulov of Maplelane Capital (KRX:000660, SK Hynix); on the power semiconductors enabling it all from Kevin Salimian on Infineon (XETRA:IFX); on the energy security layer underneath from Alex Silver of Ananym Capital on BWX Technologies (NYSE:BWXT); and on the AI-native applications taking real share from Rahul Kishore of Epicenter Capital on Axon Enterprise (NASDAQ:AXON). We were also able to witness SOM's own Professor James Chanos hosting a short-selling panel.
The fireside commentary was very relevant to current debates across the industry. Alex Sacerdote of Whale Rock and Leon Shaulov of Maplelane sketched a thesis in which AI is inflationary in the near term, given persistent infrastructure cost growth and an unexpected hiring boom in software engineering, before becoming deflationary as agentic adoption scales well beyond the small fraction of the white-collar workforce using these tools in advanced ways today. Gavin Baker of Atreides argued that this cycle may rhyme more with the true capacity cycle of the mid-1990s than with the more familiar memory downcycles of recent decades, implying we are still early. Orlando Bravo of Thoma Bravo gave a thoughtful but defensive view on AI inside the software stack, noting that bookings across his roughly 77 portfolio companies are now around 35% agentic and that leadership quality is now the differentiator. Scott Goodwin of Diameter Capital provided a measured perspective on private credit, locating the pocket of stress in AI-vulnerable software loans rather than in the broader system. David Einhorn closed the main pitch session with his trademark cartoons and five transition stories, and Ilana Weinstein wrapped up the day emphasizing that talent is the only thing with durability in an AI world.
