The Collapse of Patience: How AI, Capital Efficiency, and Bitcoin Break the Cycle

Last week, I referenced how certain books can leave lasting impressions—memories that echo back throughout life. This week, I want to highlight a sports memory.

I’m a devoted New York sports fan and have attended important playoff games for nearly all of my teams—except the Jets, which may never happen. But interestingly, the sports moment that’s had the most profound impact on me didn’t involve one of my teams. In 1980, I vividly remember one of the greatest moments in sports history: the U.S. Olympic hockey team’s stunning victory over the Soviet Union. Even at 13, I could feel the weight of that moment. Years later, the movie Miracle rekindled that feeling—and introduced me to someone who would come to symbolize a broader lesson: Coach Herb Brooks.

What’s stayed with me even more than the win itself is what Brooks had to solve in the months leading up to it. He wasn’t just trying to win a game—he was trying to build a miracle with no time. He didn’t have the luxury of choosing the most talented players and letting chemistry develop over seasons. Instead, he had to compress trust, training, and belief into a tight window, turning time from something to endure into something to weaponize. He used intensity and clarity to make urgency his advantage.

That story—once just a sports memory—has taken on new meaning as I watch something similar unfold in the world of investing. The old rules of time, patience, and long-term structure are being rewritten. Like Brooks, we’re in a moment where waiting is no longer safe—it’s a liability.

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”
— Leo Tolstoy

This famous quote by Tolstoy has served for generations as a guiding principle, both in life and investing. Patience and time—long considered virtues—have been foundational to traditional capital markets. But that wisdom assumes a world of linear change. Today, that world no longer exists. In a landscape shaped by exponential technology, patience and time aren’t strengths—they're vulnerabilities. Two once-inseparable concepts are now diverging. Just as the historical link between corporate debt and company growth has fractured (as evidenced by the rise of the debt-light “Magnificent 7”), we must now reconsider whether time still works in our favor.

To understand why this matters, consider how long-duration assets have traditionally worked. These are investments—such as private equity, venture capital, infrastructure, and commercial real estate—that require locking up capital for long periods, often 7 to 15 years. In exchange for that illiquidity, investors expect higher returns. The logic is simple: time and patience should be rewarded. These assets typically rely on two elements to generate returns: growth over time and leverage to accelerate it. Embedded in this model is a repeating historical pattern—economic recessions followed by cycles of lower interest rates. That pattern, enabled by fiat credit and central bank stimulus, helped to make long-duration bets work.

But that era is ending. The modern interest rate regime is resetting. And investors in long-duration assets—who tolerated illiquidity based on the assumption that value would be created steadily over time—are now confronting a very different reality. What happens when that timeline collapses?

In the past week alone, long-duration assets have been under intense scrutiny. The White House is openly clashing with some of the nation's top endowments—among the biggest holders of these assets. Bill Ackman gave an interview at the University of Texas warning of hidden risks. Major Middle Eastern investors are voicing frustration over weak returns and the lack of liquidity. While rising interest rates are a key factor, I believe another force is equally important: the accelerating rise of AI.

This collapse in duration-based thinking didn’t start with AI. It began over a decade ago with the rise of software, smartphones, and the cloud. Suddenly, startups could reach millions without ever building physical infrastructure. Code became the new capital. The need for debt—and the long timelines it supported—began to shrink. Companies could scale without owning factories, hiring armies of workers, or sinking capital into fixed assets. The growth curve compressed. And with it, the assumptions behind long-duration investing began to unravel. The link between capital intensity and long-term value was weakening.

Now AI is finishing the job. In today’s world, companies can replace labor with models and inference engines. They generate intelligence without hiring. Code is no longer a scarce commodity owned by a few. They scale through automation, not capital. The modern capital structure is no longer built around debt or duration—it’s built around adaptability. Businesses now resemble living systems, not factories. And that changes everything. When the economic landscape shifts this quickly, time becomes a liability. The longer your capital is locked up, the more exposed you are to disruption. Long-duration assets, once a symbol of disciplined investing, now look like a risky bet on a slower world that no longer exists.

This acceleration is already visible in the data. In the recent Stripe Sessions keynote, the founders highlighted a striking trend: AI-native companies are reaching $5 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) faster than any previous generation of startups. What used to take years of hiring, fundraising, and infrastructure can now be achieved in months—often by teams of fewer than ten people. This isn't just a story about speed; it's about capital efficiency. When companies no longer need massive funding rounds to scale, the traditional venture model—built around early capital picking future winners—starts to break down. In an environment where anyone can go from idea to market dominance in record time, picking winners becomes exponentially harder. The barriers to entry have collapsed, but so have the moats. Capital isn’t the edge anymore—execution is.

This breakdown of patience and time is not just financial—it’s cultural. Younger generations no longer hold the same attachments to long-term loyalty, whether in careers, products, or platforms. Brand and job loyalty are eroding. People switch apps, jobs, and tools fluidly—guided by real-time feedback loops on TikTok or X, and empowered by mobile ecosystems that fit in their hands. The gig economy and app-based workflows reflect the broader shift in capital markets: frictionless, opportunistic, and always optimized. Where older generations valued staying power, younger ones value optionality. In an AI-driven world where every product and every job is constantly under threat, loyalty becomes inefficiency. Movement is survival.

This same dynamic is reshaping investment cycles. Historically, cycles played out over years, allowing patience to be rewarded. That rhythm has collapsed. We’ve seen 20% stock market drawdowns and full recoveries in months and sometimes weeks, not years. From the pandemic crash and rebound of 2020 to the tech-driven repricing of 2022–2023, cycles are now compressed into weeks or even days. Narrative shifts and capital flows move at breakneck speed. Investors using models built for a slower era—when patience was a stabilizer—are being punished, not rewarded. The idea that staying the course protects you is breaking down. Duration, once your shield, now exposes you to volatility, obsolescence, and missed opportunity.

This collapse of duration-based thinking demands a new benchmark—one that reflects the liquidity, speed, and belief-driven nature of today’s markets. Bitcoin, now the fifth-largest asset in the world, may be that benchmark. Unlike long-duration assets, Bitcoin is global, open 24/7, liquid, and doesn’t require debt or labor to grow. Its value isn’t rooted in future cash flows or corporate projections but in network adoption and digital scarcity.

Many traditional investors dismiss it for lacking “intrinsic value.” But that may be its greatest strength. Intrinsic value takes time to build—it assumes a world where patience is rewarded and slow compounding is safe. Bitcoin, by contrast, fits a cultural and economic shift where time is no longer a luxury but a liability. Among its mostly young and digitally native user base, Bitcoin is more than an asset—it’s a symbol of taking back control over time. It represents a rejection of the old system: the corporate ladder has broken, upward mobility feels out of reach, and belief in long-term reward has eroded. For many, Bitcoin is hope—for the time they’ve lost and the autonomy they want to regain.

So I find myself thinking again about Herb Brooks. He didn’t win by waiting. He won by recognizing that the rules had changed—and by re-engineering everything around that truth. He understood that in moments of extreme transition, it’s not the best system from the old world that wins. It’s the one built for this moment.

The two most powerful warriors may still be patience and time—but only when deployed with intention. Otherwise, they become anchors in a world that’s already moved on.

“Great moments are born from great opportunity.”
— Herb Brooks

And this, right now, Bitcoin may be one of those moments.