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Happy Wednesday!

Émile Borel once said that given enough time, a bunch of monkeys banging on typewriters would come up with Shakespeare. And yet, despite the innumerable X Articles on software moats in the face of AI, I haven’t read a single one that’s satisfying.

I think it’s because thinking about software moats, how a software company might protect itself from abundant code, is the wrong frame altogether, and that the more interesting and relevant frame is which companies, SaaS, hardware, or otherwise, stand to benefit the most from newly abundant inputs.

Those companies, not vibe coders, are the ones that point solutions should be worried about. They will win enormous market shares and fortunes. They will come to dominate large industries by using new technology to compete, capturing the High Ground, and expanding further outward than companies with lesser technological tools could have ever dreamed of. They will be the Standard Oils of this era.

This essay is about those companies.

Let’s get to it.

Today’s Not Boring is brought to you by… Silicon Valley Bank

In 2025, crypto returned to the financial mainstream. It is, as they say, so back.

What’s ahead for 2026? I’m glad you asked. Silicon Valley Bank is out with their annual crypto outlook, featuring proprietary insights and data from over 500+ crypto clients. We love a bank that banks crypto.

Silicon Valley Bank makes five predictions for the year ahead, including:

1. Institutional capital goes vertical with increased VC investment and corporate adoption.

2. M&A posts another banner year after the highest-ever deal count in 2025.

3. Real-World Asset (RWA) tokenization goes mainstream on prediction market strength.

Last year, Silicon Valley Bank predicted that stablecoins would be the big breakout use case. That was correct. They think that will continue this year, too. Read their take on what comes next, free:

Power in the Age of Intelligence

One of the more head-scratching anomalies in the market is the valuation gap between Stripe and Adyen. The two payments companies handle similar amounts of Total Payment Volume. Stripe is growing faster. Adyen reports exceptional margins and cash conversion. Stripe is reportedly doing a tender offer at a $140 billion valuation in the private markets. Adyen is valued at $34 billion