Inside the Room: Highlights from an Exceptional Day at the Robin Hood / J.P. Morgan Conference (October 15, 2025)

Overview

A day defined by optimism balanced with realism — from macro uncertainty and AI disruption to healthcare innovation and the evolving role of private credit. Speakers emphasized discipline, adaptation, and opportunity amid late-cycle conditions and technological acceleration. Themes of resilience, innovation, and prudence resonated throughout the day.

Private Credit Perspective

Panelists: Michael Arougheti (Ares), Marc Lipschultz (Blue Owl), Kristin Kallergis Rowland (J.P. Morgan)

Investor appetite remains undiminished despite lower base rates. Michael Arougheti of Ares noted that inflows remain robust as private credit has become an essential allocation rather than an alternative one. Marc Lipschultz of Blue Owl emphasized the structural shift created by banks’ retrenchment: “There’s plenty for everyone.” The market is expanding beyond direct lending into asset-backed and IP-based finance.

Roger W. Ferguson Jr. & Natalia Chefer (D.E. Shaw)

Ferguson drew historical parallels between today’s AI-driven productivity cycle and the late-1990s technology boom. He stressed that central banks are more data-driven today, and thus better equipped to manage inflation expectations. Natalia Chefer added that market liquidity remains abundant but fragile: “Liquidity is a privilege, not a right.”

Jamie Dimon Fireside Chat

Dimon struck a pragmatic tone: “We’ve been in a soft landing for a long time — it’s just getting a little weaker.” He warned that booming markets create their own risks as consumer buffers fade and corporate spending remains strong. Dimon underscored U.S. corporate resilience but cautioned that complacency may be the greatest risk.

AI Panel (Altimeter / Lux / Tiger / Maverick)

Brad Gerstner highlighted that AI capex now accounts for roughly 1 % of U.S. GDP growth — half of all incremental growth this year. Josh Wolfe warned that every technological boom risks hype, but the infrastructure build-out this time is real. Chase Coleman remarked that “foundational models are still in their infancy,” while Andrew Homan pointed to capital efficiency as the next battleground.

Key theme: AI’s trillion-dollar build-out is still in its early innings, with the greatest long-term value accruing to semiconductors, compute infrastructure, and scale platforms like Nvidia and OpenAI—while legacy software and intermediaries face structural disruption.

Healthcare Trends (Glenview & Atlantic Wolf)

Aaron Weiner of Atlantic Wolf described his philosophy: “Invest in great drugs that create real impact.” Larry Robbins of Glenview noted the sector’s lagging performance: “Healthcare’s been left behind — that’s usually when the best money’s made.” The panel discussed biotech innovation and the growing intersection of AI, software, and data-driven medicine.

Key theme: Valuations are compressed, but innovation is accelerating — a contrarian setup for long-term upside.

Paul Tudor Jones & Dario Amodei (Anthropic)

In a candid exchange, Jones admitted: “The only thing that’s ever made me anxious in life is AI — because there’s no end in sight.” Amodei elaborated on the technical and ethical challenges of AI alignment, emphasizing that governance must precede dominance. The conversation bridged finance and philosophy — exploring how exponential intelligence could reshape markets and society alike.

Deep Dive on Stablecoins (Galaxy / Circle / Apollo / Harvard)

Mike Novogratz opened with humor: “Stablecoins won’t blow up the world — maybe a few regional banks.” Timothy Massad stressed the need for regulatory clarity: “You can’t have a global stablecoin market with fragmented rules.” Christine Moy of Apollo added that tokenized real-world assets could redefine private-credit settlement and liquidity.

Key theme: The real risk isn’t collapse but fragmentation — competing regulatory regimes could slow innovation.

Betting on the Future (Polymarket & Saba Capital)

Boaz Weinstein and Shayne Coplan explored the institutionalization of prediction markets. ICE’s $2 billion investment in Polymarket validated the category. Weinstein described prediction markets as “markets of belief,” where conviction, not just probability, is priced.

Key theme: Markets of belief may become a leading indicator for political and macro volatility.

Ken Griffin Fireside Chat

Ken Griffin closed the day with humor and precision. On AI: “My guys are obsessed — and rightly so.” He described AI as the next arms race in data infrastructure and execution speed. “AI will reward execution, not experimentation.” Griffin emphasized that culture, speed, and rigor — not just technology — define enduring performance.

Top Quotes of the Day

Paul Tudor Jones

• “The only thing that’s ever made me anxious in life is AI — because there’s no end in sight.”

Jamie Dimon

• "Don’t blame capitalism — blame bad management"
• “If you want to accomplish anything in foreign policy — you better be tough and be willing to break a few eggs."
• "EV credits make rich people feel good about climate change — but they didn’t help rural or low-income folks"
• “We should fully engage with China — but when it comes to national security, there’s no negotiation.”
• "Furniture doesn’t matter. Shoes, simple manufacturing — doesn’t matter. Focus on the big things like subsidized steel and EV batteries"

Ken Griffin

• On AI: “My guys are obsessed — and rightly so.”
• "AI will reward execution, not experimentation.”
• I was at a meeting with executives from around the world; everyone said AI was transforming their business. We ran out of time after five or six stories — not one involved generative AI.
• Most of what’s happening is machine learning, optimization, and digitization — not generative AI. This is a moment for companies to finally do what they should have done over the past 25 years.

Roger Ferguson Jr.

• “The biggest difference from the 1990s is that policymakers today are far more data-driven.”
• "Jay [Powell] has got to do what he’s doing — stand firm, stay independent, and stay in control. What I like about him is that if you watch his press conferences, he’s just on the verge of losing his temper — and it’s a nice show."
• "He’s playing that balance really well. The other thing he’s done that most of you don’t know is he spends a lot of time on the Hill developing relationships on both sides of the aisle. Ultimately, the protection for the Fed starts with people in this room saying we want an independent central bank — and telling elected politicians this matters."

Boaz Weinstein

• If the probability of recession on Polymarket is 50%, but credit markets imply 2%, I can short credit at 2 and bet ‘no recession’ at 50. You could come up with an infinite number of pair trades you could never do before

Brad Gerstner

• “AI capex is half of U.S. GDP growth — that’s how profound this shift is.”
• "We’re in inning one or two of a decade-plus build-out that will transform compute, our businesses, and our lives"
• "When everyone’s talking about bubbles, we’re probably not in one"
• "I wouldn’t run away from scale. The elephants are dancing — and they’re gaining more advantage in the age of AI."
• "There’s a fight for the soul of the country. The answer isn’t to give up on capitalism — it’s to make everyone an owner"

Josh Wolfe

• “Every AI hype cycle looks the same — but the infrastructure this time is real.”
• "The most unsexy thing that’s about to become sexy: maintenance tech. Fix-ware will be the next software"
• "Everybody wants to be invested today where they should have been five years ago"
• "Half of all inference will happen on device, not in the cloud"
• "Quantum computing is mostly ‘quantum flapdoodle’ — ten million in revenue and five billion in market cap. It makes no sense"

Natalia Chefer

• “Liquidity is a privilege, not a right — and we’ve forgotten that lesson.”

Shayne Coplan

• “Markets of belief are the next frontier in how we quantify uncertainty.”
• "You can have derivative markets, or you can have financial markets on the outcome of anything."
• "Price discovery is the wonder of the world — it aggregates beliefs and distills them into a single probability"

Michael Arougheti

• "In the last five years, two markets have opened up to institutional capital that didn’t exist before — sports and digital infrastructure."
• "You can’t wave a magic wand and make an illiquid asset liquid. But semi-liquid products can work if designed right."
• "Our ‘Promote Giving’ program allocates 5% of our carry to global philanthropy — and now nine firms have joined that pledge"

Chase Coleman

• "Between Microsoft, Oracle, and Amazon, I’d go Amazon — it has the most interesting optionality".

Larry Robbins

• “Healthcare’s been left behind — that’s usually when the best money’s made.”

Aaron Weiner

• “Great drugs create great returns because they change lives.”
• "Managed-care companies are actually more cyclicals than they are compounding businesses"

Dario Amodei

• “We need governance before dominance — that’s the core AI alignment challenge.”
• “There’s maybe a 10 percent chance the music stops — that progress plateaus. It’s not a law of physics; it’s just been a remarkably consistent trend.”
• "We pioneered a field called mechanistic interpretability — the ability to look inside AI models and understand why they do what they do. For the first time, we incorporated it into our model-release safety testing"
• "I still stand by my estimate that AI could cause 5–20 percent white-collar unemployment within one to five years. The models are almost there; what’s uncertain is how fast enterprises will adopt them"
• "Our revenues went from zero to $100 million in 2023, to $1 billion in 2024, and are tracking $7–9 billion this year. That pace can’t continue forever — the curve will have to bend — but we’re still seeing economic value as far as the eye can see."
• "The risk I worry about most is authoritarian control of AI — the idea that a dictator could use AI to maintain power without popular buy-in. That’s a humanity-scale risk"

Mike Novogratz

• “Stablecoins won’t blow up the world — maybe a few regional banks.”

Christine Moy

• “Tokenized assets will be the bridge between private credit and digital finance.”

Marc Lipschultz

• "Maybe this is the time for a flight to quality — a flight to private credit"

Andrew Homan

• “Think of AI as a layer cake — chips at the bottom, models in the middle, and applications on top.”
• “The semiconductor layer will capture the economic rent of this AI decade.”