Build Your Conviction Portfolio

Aschenbrenner built a fund around one radical thesis — now build yours, using your own field and your own read of where the world is going.

Name your thesis

State in one sentence the single biggest shift you believe is coming in your industry or field in the next ten years. Be specific — name a technology, a behaviour, a market force, or a structural change.

Sort your evidence

List three pieces of evidence that support your thesis and two that challenge it. Then mark the one challenge you are most underestimating — and write one line explaining why you are choosing to hold the thesis anyway.

Supports

Challenges

The infrastructure play

Aschenbrenner didn't bet on the winner — he bet on the pipes. Apply the same logic to your thesis: who benefits regardless of which specific player wins? Write the name of that company, role, or sector and one sentence justifying it.

Stress-test the bet

Look back at step 2. Does your infrastructure play still hold if the biggest challenge you identified actually happens? Name the one condition that would force you to abandon the thesis entirely — and assess how likely that condition is.

Very unlikely

Very likely

Name your position

Condense everything above into one word that captures your stance — not optimistic or pessimistic, but something precise: a verb, an adjective, or a single noun that a future reader would understand immediately. Write that word, then write one line explaining why it is the right word and not a safer one.

Why that word?

Discuss Share your one word with a partner — does theirs change how you feel about your own thesis?

Business01