Welcome to Issue 158 of The CTO Show Brief.
Power Is the New Code
The week ending February 9, 2026 marks the formal end of the venture capital drought and the beginning of infrastructure supremacy. Capital is back, but it flows differently now. Physical assets, energy access, and sovereign alignment have displaced software multiples as the primary determinants of technology value.
Sovereign Capital Takes the Board
The $55B Electronic Arts take-private, led by Saudi PIF with Silver Lake, is the largest tech LBO in history. The signal is not gaming; it is private markets absorbing strategic digital infrastructure that public shareholders cannot stomach. JPMorgan underwrote $20B in non-investment grade debt for a single deal. Sovereign wealth and private equity are now the default owners of foundational consumer AI interfaces. Public market volatility has become structurally incompatible with long-horizon technology bets. Founders building consumer-facing AI should note where the permanent capital actually sits.
Energy Replaces Silicon as the Binding Constraint
Data center demand will hit 84GW globally by 2028, but U.S. grid interconnection queues now stretch beyond a decade. Hundreds of billions in committed data center investment face delays or cancellation because power simply does not exist. Virginia consumes 26% of its total electricity supply on data centers alone. Ireland approaches 32%. The hyperscalers are pivoting to on-site nuclear and generation ownership. For investors, a startup's access to reliable power is now a more material risk factor than its burn rate. The $690B infrastructure sprint underway in 2026 only compounds the gap between those who can secure energy and those who cannot.
Agentic AI Enters Production
The transition from AI assistants to autonomous operators crossed a threshold this week. Salesforce reports 54% of sales organizations now deploy agents that manage entire workflows, from prospecting through onboarding, without human prompts. The Agent2Agent protocol, now under Linux Foundation governance, enables cross-organizational machine-to-machine commerce. High performers are 1.7x more likely to deploy these systems. The risk follows the capability: "vibe coding" and AI-generated infrastructure have opened new attack surfaces for autonomous hacking campaigns. Attribution and accountability remain unsolved. Operators who treat agentic AI as a productivity tool rather than a workforce component will lose ground.
Crypto VC Pivots to Utility
The speculative token era is finished. Bitcoin down 50% from highs, altcoins down 70%. Crypto VCs are reallocating to stablecoin infrastructure, prediction markets, and AI-native fintech. Stablecoins have matured into a $250B asset class, with transfer volumes now exceeding Visa and Mastercard in emerging markets. Circle's $30B IPO and the U.S. Genius Act have legitimized the space for BlackRock and Fidelity. MEA stablecoin adoption is growing 40% year-over-year. The market now demands monetization, product-market fit, and retention. Narrative is no longer a substitute for utility.
Pax Silica Formalizes Tech Sovereignty
The U.S.-led alliance for supply chain security expanded to include Qatar and UAE in January 2026. The coalition, now spanning Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Israel, Netherlands, and Singapore, represents a formal structure for "strategic stack" governance, from critical minerals to AI infrastructure. Taiwan is relocating 40% of its supply chain to the U.S. under a $250B commitment. This is alliance-based technology governance that explicitly excludes China and sidelines traditional multilateral frameworks. For global operators, the compliance landscape just fragmented further. EU enforcement of the AI Act and Data Act accelerates in parallel, while U.S. federal preemption battles with state regulators intensify.
The winners of 2026 will be those who control the physical foundations of the digital world. Capital has returned, but it rewards sovereignty, infrastructure, and utility. The software-first era is over.
🎙️Episodes Recap:
In this conversation, Mehmet sits down with Amos Bar-Joseph , Founder and CEO of Swan AI, to unpack what it really means to build an autonomous company. Amos shares how he moved away from the traditional “growth at all costs” startup model toward a lean, intelligence-driven approach powered by human-AI collaboration.
In this episode, Mehmet Gonullu sits down with William Spengler , Founder and Principal of Frederick Fox, to explore how hiring, entrepreneurship, and scaling professional services businesses are evolving in the age of AI. Will shares his journey from working in staffing firms to building a 70-person company organically, without venture capital. The conversation dives deep into the realities of scaling a services business, the importance of relationships as a competitive moat, and why AI, despite its capabilities, still cannot replace the human element in hiring.
📖 From Nowhere to Next
Every week I share startup lessons and stories through The CTO Show Brief. But if you want to go deeper, my book From Nowhere to Next brings together the experiences and insights that shaped my own journey.
Thanks for reading — and for being part of this growing, global-minded network.
— Mehmet
