Citrini Research's apocalyptic Substack came from an ex-Citadel analyst early to AI
Two men, neither of whom work for large financial services firms, have spooked the markets. For anyone not yet aware of the Citrini Research Substack post titled "THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS," [all caps] it has caused a sensation. James Van Geelen, chief executive of Citrini Research, and Alap Shah, a Florida-based AI entrepreneur and investor have co-written what is described alternately as a "scary bedtime story" and a dystopian view of AI-driven civilisational and financial breakdown.
💥Follow us on WhatsApp for news alerts.💥
The (very) short version is their premise that the US economy has been built on a "giant rent-extraction layer on top of human limitations" in which companies have monetised "things that take time" and where "most people are willing to accept a bad price to avoid more clicks." This layer will no longer apply as AI agents "remove friction." The people doing the well-paid jobs in the rent extraction economy will be displaced. They will no longer be able to repay their debts. They will no longer be able to repay their mortgages. The mother of all financial crises will ensue.
The two charts below summarise the fundamentals of the thesis. Karl Marx would probably approve.
What equips Van Geelen and Shah to make such pronouncements? Geelen, a former medic, has been running Citrini Research since 2023 and says he's achieved "+100% net total return since inception" on the "Cintrindex Thematic Portfolio" (which you must pay to view). Shah himself worked briefly for Viking Global Investors and then for hedge fund Citadel as an analyst for two short years until 2011 before leaving to found an AI-powered financial search and information platform and venture capital firm. These days, he's also CEO of Littlebird, an AI assistant that accompanies you around the internet and automates tasks for you.
Shah might therefore be accused of talking his book, which he's been talking for 15 years already. If Littlebird and similar AI agents really take off, his scenario might come to pass.
For the moment, though, JPMorgan is struggling to achieve coding improvements of more than 10% from AI, and the technology has only led to annual savings of $150m despite the bank's enormous expense line of $2bn a week.
Littlebird's own employees include hopeful engineers drawn from the likes of Goldman Sachs. Most of its developers are based in India, where Van Geelen and Shah say engineering jobs are at particular risk of the agentic AI apocalypse. Shah's own staff need to hope that their CEO is wrong.
Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, Whatsapp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Signal: sarahbutcher.22 Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com.
Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: comments are moderated intermittently by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You must take sole responsibility for comments you post on this site. We will take reasonable steps to weed out anything that we consider to be offensive or inappropriate.
