Odd Lots

This week, NASA is scheduled to launch Artemis II, a mission that will send astronauts around the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. But this comes at a time when the space agency is facing some pretty big funding challenges, as well as growing competition with private players like SpaceX. In this episode, we speak with Alexander MacDonald, who served as NASA's first chief economist and is now a senior associate at the Aerospace Security Project at CSIS. We talk about why the space agency had economists, how space exploration is funded, and how NASA measures its own economic impact. Please note, this episode was recorded March 10.
Read more:Nasdaq Speeds Up Index Entry for SpaceX, Large IPOs With New Rule SpaceX Knocks Boeing From Dominant Role in NASA Moon Mission
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When we last spoke to Marco Argenti, chief information officer at Goldman Sachs, we were talking about how the bank was deploying AI, including the development of its own internal tools. But that was a year and a half ago and a lot has changed since then, especially with the arrival of agentic platforms like Claude Code. So what exactly is Goldman Sachs doing with AI now? And what has its experience with the new tech been like so far? On this episode, we catch up with Marco to discuss what AI deployment at the bank actually looks like at the moment — including how AI coding is changing the work of its developers and engineers — to all the data challenges and regulatory concerns that come with integrating this technology at scale.
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The last big story right before the war in Iran started was the collapse in the relationship between the Pentagon and Anthropic, with the latter objecting to any potential use of its models in either fully autonomous weapons or domestic surveillance. Of course, this story immediately become more relevant with the start of the war, and the reporting that Anthropic's technology was in fact utilized at the start of hostilities. But what does that mean? How are these models used? And what would a fully autonomous weapons system actually entail? On this episode, we speak with Paul Scharre, the executive vice president and director of studies at the Center for a New American Security. He has written two books on the subject of AI in warfare, and previously worked inside the Department of Defense on some of these very questions. We discuss the future of autonomous weaponry, and the various ethical and technological dimensions such weapons would entail.
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Ripple effects from the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continue to widen. There's yet another brewing shortage, this time in helium. While most people associate helium with balloons and funny voices, the element is used in a surprisingly wide variety of industrial settings, including semiconductor production, where its role in advanced lithography has been growing rapidly. But helium mining and exploration in North America has been practically non-existent for a variety of reasons. And while the US used to have a strategic helium reserve, the government started selling that down in the late 1990s. On this episode, we speak with Nicholas Snyder, the founder and CEO of North American Helium, which does helium mining in Canada. We discuss the properties of helium that make it so useful, as well as the difficulties of expanding global production and distribution.

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Markets are often said to be "headline-driven," but that cliché has rarely felt more true than it does right now. A single tweet or Truth Social post can send prices sharply higher or lower, and investors (especially in the rates market) have been forced to rapidly reposition in response. But even as volatility has increased, traditional safe haven destinations like gold haven't been rallying. So how are big accounts actually trading this market? In this episode, we bring back Ozan Tarman, vice chair of global macro at Deutsche Bank and someone who meets regularly with large investors around the world. He tells us what he's seeing right now, including the potential for a squeeze higher in equities and left-tail risks in private credit.
Read more:
Oil Drops Near $102 as Traders Weigh Outlook for US-Iran Truce
Iran War Shows BRICS Limits as India Pushed to Choose Sides
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