Updated 22 hours, 37 minutes ago
Photo by Jeffry Surianto on Pexels
Rather than simply renting assets, lessors are expanding into MRO services and parts supply, deepening their role in airline operations as leasing penetration of the global fleet hits the 50% milestone.
Mixed
Engine lease rates for current-generation equipment are beginning to ease from historic highs as airline demand dynamics shift incrementally, though rates remain far above what market participants would have anticipated even a few years ago.
Lease rates for current-generation aircraft and engines have begun to soften from historic peaks, though they remain significantly above long-run historical averages
[1]
Aviation Week's MRO Podcast
The New Dynamics Of Engine Leasing
— Alex Derber
"Engine lease rates for current-generation equipment are starting to soften a bit from historic peaks. While still exceptionally strong, rat…"
03:21
. The moderation reflects incremental shifts in airline demand rather than any structural reversal, with lessors continuing to hold strong pricing power. Notably, roughly 50% of the global fleet is now leased
[1]
Aviation Week's MRO Podcast
The New Dynamics Of Engine Leasing
— Alex Derber
"Engine lease rates for current-generation equipment are starting to soften a bit from historic peaks. While still exceptionally strong, rat…"
03:21
, and lessors are evolving beyond pure asset-rental models by investing in MRO capabilities and parts businesses to become full-service strategic partners for airlines
[1]
Aviation Week's MRO Podcast
The New Dynamics Of Engine Leasing
— Alex Derber
"Engine lease rates for current-generation equipment are starting to soften a bit from historic peaks. While still exceptionally strong, rat…"
03:21
.
The dot-com crash followed a predictable sequence: B2C companies fell first, then B2B, then infrastructure. That same domino pattern is now forming in AI. The echoes are unmistakable — and for anyone who lived through 1999, the moment is recognizable.
Brad Gerstner says it's highly likely both Anthropic and OpenAI go public within 6–9 months. SpaceX's IPO at $1.75T proved the playbook works — early index inclusion, staged lockup, $75B raised — and now Anthropic's rumored $100B+ revenue run rate could make it an even bigger listing.
Trump earned $2.2 billion in a single year while in office — up from $622 million — including $1.4 billion from crypto he simultaneously regulates. Scott Galloway says this isn't a conflict of interest, it's a deliberate business model monetizing the full faith and credit of the White House.
Markets assign a company's lowest valuation multiple to its best businesses when they're bundled with bad ones. Comcast's media business grew 40% while connectivity shrank 3% — holding them together was destroying value, so the spinoff unlocks a pure-play growth story.
Major indices rewrote their inclusion rules specifically to accommodate blockbuster IPOs like SpaceX, cutting the Nasdaq seasoning period from 3 months to just 15 trading days. Goldman Sachs estimates this alone could trigger up to $60 billion in forced buying — creating artificial demand that no other IPO in history has enjoyed.
When SpaceX hit $2.6 trillion, it was trading at 145 times revenue. Google at IPO was under 10 times revenue — and people thought that was expensive. In finance, the bubbles get bigger every generation.
Creators have displaced ad-agency executives as the true power brokers at Cannes Lions. With 500 creators attending in 2026 — up from 400 the year before — the festival that was built to celebrate the ad industry now belongs to the people the industry used to ignore.
Not all bubbles are equally dangerous to navigate. Today's AI bubble is concentrated in US equities, meaning investors can shift to international stocks and still hold a normal risk portfolio. In 2007, every asset was overpriced and there was no escape without going to cash.
Emerging markets span vastly different income levels, growth drivers, and political risks. Korea and Taiwan are high-income AI supply chain plays; India is a domestic demand story; LATAM sits in between. Lumping them together misses the opportunity.
The US government banned Anthropic's Fable model, expecting to suppress it. Instead, Anthropic's share of paid AI business subscriptions surged to 41% in May, beating OpenAI's 39.5% for the first time. Forbidden fruit is the world's best marketing.
Every major market valuation metric is simultaneously at its most overvalued in the historical dataset — but that doesn't mean you should exit the market. Overvaluation signals lower forward returns and volatility, not an immediate crash. The real opportunity is in the parts of the market that haven't been bid up.
A single Google compute deal — $920 million per month, $11 billion per year — rewrote the SpaceX valuation story overnight. The IPO allocation was double-oversubscribed at $150 billion committed before it even priced.
Damodaran's intrinsic valuation of SpaceX lands at roughly $1.3 trillion — less than half the market price of $2.7 trillion. The gap is not about doubting SpaceX's engineering brilliance or market position; it's about what the price already assumes about AI unit economics, gross margins, and future growth that haven't materialized yet.
Anthropic trades at 20x forward revenues while Walmart sits at 1.5x — because investors are pricing in a non-zero probability this becomes the most valuable company in the world. The TAM feels infinite; the software margins, once breakeven hits, will be extraordinary.
Markets exist to connect those who need money with those who have it. The IPO is the most critical expression of that purpose — it transforms private companies into entities that can raise equity, reward employees, and fund growth at scale.
SpaceX raised $86 billion in its IPO — the largest in history — after demand blew past the initial $75 billion target. The stock rose over 30% in the first week, but Ed Elson warns lockup expirations will put serious downward pressure over the next six months.
SpaceX's IPO alone raised more than every single IPO that happened during the dot-com peak of 2000. Add Anthropic and OpenAI — both targeting trillion-dollar-plus valuations — and 2026 is unquestionably the biggest IPO year ever recorded.
Investors in the SpaceX IPO aren't buying a rocket company on fundamentals — they're betting on Elon Musk's unprecedented personal control and his government entanglement. The underwriters haven't said a word about his meddling in Irish riots or his stranglehold over Starlink battlefield technology, because Wall Street has abandoned its moral compass in pursuit of returns.
Bitcoin is the new digital gold. But the real story is what happens when AI agents — not humans — become the dominant economic actors. Armstrong predicts stablecoin rails will be the default payment layer for the agentic economy, which will eventually dwarf the human economy.
Bill Maris quit his Wall Street job in 1997 after spotting a server in an office closet and realizing he'd seen the future of the internet. He built a data center startup from his Vermont apartment — on credit cards, with servers in one room and a Home Depot rug for a bed in the other.
The Ellisons aren't killing 60 Minutes out of ideology — they've done the math. Scott Galloway argues that the economic upside of currying favor with Trump — deals like TikTok worth tens of billions — dwarfs any value 60 Minutes provides to CBS. It's a cold trade, not a journalistic attack.
SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI are all heading to public markets in 2026, potentially constituting the three biggest IPOs ever. SpaceX alone is targeting a $75 billion raise at a $1.75–$2 trillion valuation — numbers never before seen in the history of capitalism.
The unicorn economy is up 70% since September 2024, but the gains are hyper-concentrated. AI has taken over fundraising while the number of new unicorns has collapsed to pre-COVID levels — meaning the funding per unicorn has risen 5x since 2021.
Engine lease rates for current-generation equipment are starting to soften a bit from historic peaks. While still exceptionally strong, rates are responding to incremental shifts in airline demand and fleet capacity.
You're at the end of this conversation.
New podbits will appear here as podcasts discuss this topic.
No sections match your search.
We use essential and analytics cookies to run Vuci. To understand how the site is used: Privacy Policy.
Install Vuci on your phone
Add it to your home screen for a faster, app-like experience.
Install Vuci on your phone
Tap the Share button, then “Add to Home Screen”.
A new version is available
Reload to get the latest Vuci.