10 Essays That Defined "Drift Signal" in 2025
How power, capital, and industry have been shifting this year
In January 2025, I rebranded this publication from European Straits to Drift Signal, opening a new chapter with the edition titled From Startups to What’s Next.
I chose the name ‘Drift’ to reflect how the world appears to be moving sideways or even unravelling in an increasingly uncertain environment. ‘Signal’ represents my commitment to cutting through the noise to provide actionable insights for those ready to move in business, finance, and policy. With this change, I shifted away from a primarily European focus to adopt a global perspective, as the most critical developments today often transcend regional boundaries.
Since that reset, I have used Late-Cycle Investment Theory to explore a world that I believe is living through the structural equivalent of the 1970s for the age of computing and networks. My essays have traced the emergence of a New Industrial Order, where value is moving away from pure code toward the tangible systems that make production, energy, and compute possible. I have argued that software adoption has plateaued and that innovation is shifting from bits to atoms, with defining ventures now found in advanced manufacturing and electrification. I have also explored how AI functions as an efficiency tool within this mature paradigm rather than the start of a new technological revolution. This journey involved assessing the US acting as an investment behemoth called America Capital Partners to China’s rise as the world’s first “electrostate”.
The following 10 editions are my personal favourites from 2025. They represent the best signals I discovered this year while documenting a world that is being fundamentally rewired.
1/ Late-Cycle Investment Theory
I believe that to navigate the coming decade, we first need a new map. This edition sets out my “Late-Cycle Investment Theory”, which posits that we have finally entered the maturity phase of the computing and networks revolution. The era of chaotic installation and speculative frenzies is giving way to a period where the fog of uncertainty has lifted, and the focus has shifted from raw disruption to radical optimisation.
In this essay, I explain why the startup funding collapse of 2022 wasn’t just a market correction, but a structural shift marking the end of the traditional startup era. I argue that the winners of this new phase will be those who stop chasing “the next big thing” and instead master the art of embedding mature technologies into the physical world at an unprecedented scale. If you want to understand why the old venture capital playbooks are failing, this is the place to start.
2/ Welcome to the 1970s of Tech
I’ve often remarked that we are currently living through the structural equivalent of the 1970s, a time when a dominant technological paradigm reaches its limits and triggers stagflation.
In this piece, I explore how AI’s insatiable appetite for electricity is driving the first energy-led inflation since the OPEC shocks. Just as the 1970s version was crushed by high interest rates, today we face a crisis where those traditional tools are essentially broken.
I dig into the “technology-productivity paradox” where the very tools meant to boost efficiency are instead driving costs higher across the grid. We are witnessing a perfect storm of inflationary forces, from software shifting to volatile usage-based pricing to the crushing supply constraints of deglobalisation.
Read this to discover why the solutions to today’s malaise are as elusive as the problems are novel.
3/ Why Manufacturing Is Harder Than You Think
I’ve noticed a dangerous nostalgia in the West, where politicians promise to “reshore” manufacturing as if they could simply flip a switch.
In this essay, I argue that manufacturing is strategically vital again, but rebuilding it requires far more than just capital. The real obstacle is the loss of “process knowledge”—the intuitive, hard-won expertise that lives in the minds of workers rather than in manuals.
I explore the “capital-to-intelligence gradient” and explain why hardware is now eating software, reversing a decade-long trend. While the US excels at low-volume, high-spec production for defence, it has largely lost the institutional capacity for true mass manufacturing. I invite you to go deeper into why a nation of lawyers and consultants is currently being outplayed by a nation of engineers.
4/ Outmanufactured: How China Leapfrogged the West
For a long time, I was dismissive of Chinese tech, believing they would never export anything relevant to the West. I was wrong.
This edition traces China’s evolution from a low-cost assembly hub to a master of “imitation-driven competition”. I examine how China used copying not as an endgame, but as a launchpad to build the deep industrial ecosystems and process knowledge that now define its global dominance.
I also analyse Xi Jinping’s crackdown on consumer tech as a calculated move to redirect capital and talent toward “embodied AI” and advanced production. By commoditising the software layer, Chinese firms are shifting the global profit pool back to the physical world of atoms.
This is a long-form study of an economic engine built not for the 20th-century focus on consumer services, but for a 21st-century world where industrial scale and high-tech manufacturing are the ultimate sources of power.
5/ Who Will Be the Japan of the AI Era?
I’ve come to see AI not as a new core technology, but as a revolutionary approach to organising production, much like lean production was for the age of oil, automobiles, and mass production.
In this piece, I ask which country possesses the institutional DNA to become the ‘Japan’ of this new era. It turns out that success in AI adoption depends less on technical sophistication and more on institutional readiness and workforce management.
I explore the “process knowledge paradox” and the different ways AI can be integrated into the workforce. Do you amplify senior workers’ judgement, or do you try to replace them with cheap junior-AI combinations?
I argue that Europe and Japan, with their traditions of long-term employment and vocational training, might actually have a hidden advantage over the US in this race.
6/ From Petrostates to Electrostates
I’m convinced that we are at a historic turning point where energy abundance is finally decoupling from geography.
This essay introduces the rise of the “electrostate,” where the primary source of national advantage is the ability to manufacture power rather than dig it up. I look at how China is building a software-defined, programmable grid that treats electricity as a dynamic, strategic edge.
I also examine the “solar-nuclear spectrum” and how it determines which nations can become exporters of manufactured energy. While the US remains anchored to petroleum geopolitics, other nations are using synthetic fuels and modular reactors to leapfrog traditional energy powers.
Read this to see why the AI race is, at its heart, an electrification race.
7/ The Secret History of France’s Civil Nuclear Programme
I love a good ‘secret history’, and the story of how France built 58 reactors in just 15 years is one of the most remarkable industrial feats of the 20th century.
I frame this story not through science, but through institutions—specifically the “Napoleon-era engineering templars” known as the corps des mines. These elite technocratic guardians were designed to protect France’s energy grail for eternity.
I detail how a centralised, standardised approach allowed reactors to be treated as manufactured products rather than bespoke engineering projects. But I also explore the tragic ending: how the Chernobyl disaster shattered trust and how export markets eventually destroyed the domestic manufacturing rhythm.
This edition offers vital lessons for any state currently struggling with eroded industrial capacity.
8/ America Capital Partners: The World’s Greatest Investment Platform
I’ve started viewing America not just as a country, but as the world’s most successful investment management platform.
In this essay, I explore the paradox of the global dollar journey: how American trade deficits flow abroad only to return as investments in American assets. This recycling mechanism allows the US to borrow at low rates while capturing “carried interest” through asset appreciation.
I argue that foreign nations act as the “Limited Partners” in this national-scale fund, while the US uses that capital to finance its innovation engine—from the dotcom boom to the fracking revolution.
However, I also warn about the risks of ‘America Capital Partners’ turning toward extractive diplomacy and the potential backfiring of a tech-heavy, high-risk strategy.
9/ Britain Then, America Now
I’m a true believer in the idea that history doesn’t repeat, but it certainly rhymes, and the parallel between 19th-century Britain and today’s US is striking.
This piece examines how Britain, at the peak of its power, grew complacent and allowed its industrial base to erode in favour of easy returns from finance and empire. I suggest that the US is currently showing the same “late-cycle” symptoms.
I dig into the “DCF trap”, where corporate managers choose to leverage existing assets rather than invest in risky, long-term industrial capacity. As American manufacturing employment peaked and then contracted, Wall Street and Silicon Valley’s software became the primary exports.
If you want to know if financial dominance can survive without a productive base, this historical comparison is essential reading.
10/ The Programmable Capital Revolution
I conclude my 2025 highlights with a look at the future of the global financial architecture: tokenisation.
I argue that we are witnessing a “Big Bang” moment, where programmable assets will replace the binary divide between public and private markets. I compare this systemic reset to the 1971 collapse of Bretton Woods and the subsequent era of financial innovation.
I explore how smart contracts can automate complex transactions that once required armies of intermediaries, allowing capital to flow with unprecedented transparency. For investors, this marks the end of “volatility laundering” and the rise of a more efficient, data-driven system.
This essay maps out the opportunities for those prepared to build the digital rails of the next monetary order.
During my recent conversation with Demetri Kofinas on the Hidden Forces podcast, we explored how today’s financial upheaval mirrors the transformation that occurred between 1971 and 1986.
What strikes me most clearly is that we’re witnessing the same three-stage pattern: first a shock to break the old system, then regulatory adjustments, and finally the emergence of entrepreneurs who build the new infrastructure:
When we examine the history of the previous financial market reset between 1971 and 1986, we see a clear pattern emerging. First comes a shock—and we have the equivalent this year in what I call the Trump shock, which comprises several distinct elements: the trade war launched in April, the push for stablecoins through the GENIUS Act, and Trump’s attempts to assert control over the Federal Reserve through pressure on Jerome Powell.
These components together constitute an initial shock that fundamentally reshapes the financial system. Indeed, the dollar has been weakening for months, signalling that substantial change is underway.
After the initial shock, regulatory adjustments typically follow, such as the 1975 transformation of the New York Stock Exchange known as Mayday, when fixed brokerage commissions were abolished and the modern stock market was unleashed.
The final element is the emergence of entrepreneurs who create the infrastructure for the new financial markets. Michael Bloomberg exemplifies this perfectly—he invented the Bloomberg terminal in the late 1970s, which traders initially adopted for its instant messaging capabilities but which evolved into essential infrastructure for financial markets. Today, everyone working in finance uses a Bloomberg terminal to connect with other market participants, and this innovation made Bloomberg one of the wealthiest Americans. We need to identify today’s equivalent entrepreneurs who are building the solutions that will collectively form the plumbing and infrastructure for our emerging financial system.
Listen to my whole conversation with Demetri here: Late-Cycle Investment Theory: Foundations for the Coming Decade | Nicolas Colin 🎧
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From Frankfurt, Germany 🇩🇪
Nicolas
