The breakdown of a decades-old bargain between the US government and its research universities threatens the engine that has driven American productivity and economic growth since the end of World War II, the Top1000funds.com Fiduciary Investors Symposium at Harvard heard.
Reports of America’s decline as a geopolitical and economic power are exaggerated, and the noise investors should learn to ignore is really only the presidency itself, celebrated historian Stephen Kotkin told the Fiduciary Investors Symposium at Harvard.
The looming SpaceX IPO has put the spotlight firmly on the so-called ‘space economy’, but asset owners have been urged to exercise caution about investing in a sector that still resembles the wild west, with no legal or governance framework to protect capital. That’s not to say money will not be made, but it might not be in the areas investors first expect.
Portfolios built for the old world will be severely tested as emerging forces rewrite the rules of investing. The Fiduciary Investors Symposium heard that geopolitical and macroeconomic upheaval, together with the disruption wrought by AI, should force asset owners to rethink the structure and composition of portfolios.
Tokenisation of traditional assets will lead to a boom in on-chain trading, and that in turn opens the door to AI-agentic trading. But there are risks that AI agents may behave in unpredictable ways and, despite the hype surrounding the technology, still produce unexpected investment losses. In these cases, it will typically still be the CIO who bears responsibility – so they’d better understand what their AI agents are up to.
The principles of high-performance leadership – whether in business or sport – remain remarkably consistent and include the ability to maintain clarity, integrity, and conviction under immense pressure. Former Australian test cricketer Usman Khawaja told the Fiduciary Investors Symposium that the only time you really lose is when you stop trying.
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FIS 2026 at Harvard University