Civitas Snippets - March 22, 2026
Issue 51
Dear friends of Civitas Growth Partners,
Spring has arrived, and rather than the feeling of rebirth and renewal, the world feels more like we are living through the implications of a late-season deep freeze. The United States is at war with Iran and burning through years of munitions in weeks, an AI agent freed itself from a research server and started mining cryptocurrency, brain cells are playing video games and your March Madness bracket is already in shambles. Welcome to the season of renewal (supposedly). Hopefully this quote from Lady Bird Johnson uplifts your spirits in this tumultuous season:
"Where flowers bloom, so does hope."
With that, let's get to it…
Politics and Current Events
The FT reports the U.S. has burned through "years" of munitions since the start of the Iran war, with the pace of expenditure far exceeding Pentagon planning assumptions. The defense industrial base was not built for a sustained conflict in the Middle East - it was optimized for procurement cycles and shareholder returns. War, it turns out, is bad for inventory management.
The WSJ details how the Iran war has unraveled the Gulf's carefully curated image as a luxurious safe haven. Iranian missiles struck Dubai's Burj Al Arab hotel and its deep-water port, shutting down the airport. The UAE president was reduced to strolling through Dubai Mall reassuring shoppers. When your brand is "safe place for global capital," a missile through the lobby complicates the pitch.
The Trump administration is set to receive a roughly $10 billion fee for brokering the TikTok deal, per the WSJ. The government essentially took a finder's fee on a forced divestiture it created. We have one question - who signed the engagement letter for a 70%+ fee? That's a new take on the Lehman formula.
Axios reports Ukraine tried to sell the U.S. its battle-proven anti-drone technology seven months ago - complete with a PowerPoint presentation showing how it could protect American forces. The Trump administration dismissed the pitch. Last week, they reversed course as Iranian drones battered U.S. positions in the Gulf. Sometimes the best deal is the one sitting in your rejected pile.
Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are backing Powerus, a drone roll-up company targeting Pentagon sales, per the WSJ. The company is merging with a publicly traded golf-course holding company via reverse merger to list on Nasdaq. A drone roll-up reverse-merging into a golf company is the kind of deal structure that makes you check the date twice - or a standard Trump family exercise in grift.
NATO is equipping live cockroaches with AI chips, cameras, and microphones for military surveillance, per a viral post on X. Swarm algorithms coordinate multiple cyborg cockroaches for scouting missions through tight spaces and rubble. The German military has already tested them in the field. The defense contractor pitch deck for this must have been something.
The WSJ reports U.S. homicide rates fell to a 125-year low last year, with drops across robbery, theft, and other categories. It's a genuinely positive trend that both parties are claiming credit for and nobody can fully explain. We'll take the win - even if the only thing everyone can agree on is that they disagree about why it's happening.
Republican-led states are racing to flatten and eliminate income taxes - 23 states have lowered top rates since 2021 - while blue states like New York, New Jersey, and California have raised them, per the WSJ. Mississippi and Oklahoma are on paths to zero. The great American experiment in competitive taxation continues, and the moving trucks are keeping score (P.S., the Red states are winning the migration game).
At least 73 of 100 U.S. senators are millionaires, per a NOTUS analysis of financial disclosures. That's 73% in a country where millionaires make up about 7% of the population. The world's greatest deliberative body is also one of its most exclusive country clubs - though the dues are paid by someone else.
UFC Freedom 250 is coming to the White House South Lawn on June 14 - Trump's birthday and Flag Day, per Axios. Donors, lobbyists, and members of Congress are scrambling for tickets, which Trump calls "the hottest ticket I've ever seen." We'd say this is unprecedented, but at this point the word has lost all meaning.
Economy, Markets, and Business
Jeff Bezos is in early talks to raise $100 billion for a fund that would buy manufacturing companies and use AI to accelerate automation, per the WSJ. He's met with sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Singapore. When the world's second-richest man decides to raise a buyout fund, he skips the lower middle market and goes straight to the humble goal of reshoring the industrial base.
Anthropic now captures over 73% of spending among companies buying AI tools for the first time, per Axios and Ramp data. Ten weeks ago, the split with OpenAI was roughly even. Nearly one in four businesses on Ramp now pays for Anthropic - a year ago, it was one in 25. The enterprise AI war has a scoreboard now, and it flipped fast.
Speaking of, Anthropic is in talks with Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and other PE firms to form an AI consulting joint venture, per The Information. The venture would sell Claude to companies in the PE firms' portfolios. Private equity discovering it can be both the distribution channel and the customer for AI is the kind of vertical integration that makes strategists salivate.
Private equity has underperformed public markets net of fees, according to Cambridge Associates data obtained by Axios. Not as badly as venture capital, but the gap is real and growing. The asset class that charges 2-and-20 for the privilege of illiquidity is having a tough time justifying the premium when a Vanguard index fund keeps winning.
James Lavish profiles Jane Street, the trading firm facing accusations of insider trading in Terra's $40 billion collapse, rigging Indian markets, and manipulating Bitcoin's daily price. The firm has never tweeted, trades $29 billion a day, and pays interns $16,500 a month (oh, and it birthed Sam Bankman-Fried). When you're that profitable and that quiet, the accusations eventually find you (and usually, justifiably).
An AI agent built on Alibaba's open-source architecture freed itself from a research server and started secretly mining cryptocurrency, per Axios. The agent, known as ROME, was being trained through reinforcement learning and decided entrepreneurship was a better use of its compute. We're officially in the timeline where the machines don't replace us - they go freelance. At this point, is it fair to call ROME a bitcoin bro?
Gen Z is channeling financial frustration into prediction markets, sports betting, and crypto, per Bloomberg. Nearly a third of 18-to-29-year-olds surveyed by Northwestern Mutual are putting money into speculative bets to reach financial goals faster. When the traditional path to homeownership and the American dream feel impossible, the casino starts looking like a viable retirement plan.
A war of words has erupted between tech and Wall Street over whether AI can replace the Bloomberg terminal, per the WSJ. Viral posts claimed AI had produced a worthy, cheaper alternative. Bloomberg's position: a subscription that costs $24,000 a year and that professional investors treat like oxygen is not easily disrupted by a chatbot with a free trial. Perhaps the right idea is to just replace the human traders with bots?
Small business owners are pushing back against private equity acquisition offers - some fielding multiple inquiries a day, per Bloomberg. Owners cite concerns about employees, community impact, and the PE playbook of cost-cutting and flipping. Some of this critique feels fair, but no one is forcing owners to sell to private equity - there is agency here.
The SEC is preparing to propose eliminating quarterly earnings reports and letting companies report twice a year, per the WSJ. Trump has pushed for this for years. Less frequent reporting could reduce short-termism or just give companies more time between awkward explanations. Either way, between leveraging AI tools and halving their quarterly reporting obligations, the sell-side analysts may be the big winners this week.
A viral post on X by @djcows notes that cows have outperformed the S&P 500 over the last five years. The post, with 877,000 views, includes charts showing livestock investment returns beating the index…no bull.
Swarmer, a drone tech developer backed by Erik Prince, surged 520% on its Nasdaq debut - the biggest first-day gain since Newsmax's 700% pop last year, per the FT. The company's software has been used by Ukraine's military since 2024. Defense tech is the new fintech: overhyped on day one, but the underlying demand is very real (although we are not sure about a valuation of $380 million on $310 thousand of revenue, which is down from $330 thousand in 2024).
Dick's Sporting Goods has quietly become the dominant player in the $40 billion youth sports industry, with revenue hitting a record $14.1 billion, per the WSJ. American families are spending more on children's travel baseball than some small countries spend on infrastructure. Dick's figured out the TAM and price inelasticity before anyone else did.
Costco is launching a program to cut fertility medication costs for its members, bringing IVF into the warehouse club model alongside bulk paper towels and rotisserie chickens. As @YIMBYLAND observed: "Turns out the ultimate flywheel is literally creating your future customer base from your existing customer's womb." Vertical integration has never been more literal.
Saudi oil officials, per the WSJ, are warning that prices could spike past $180/barrel if Iran war disruptions persist past April - up from an already-punishing 50% run since hostilities began February 28, with Gulf Oman crude touching $166 and Aramco pricing Asian cargoes at $125. The Fed is caught in the worst macro trap of the post-2008 era: energy-driven inflation demanding rate hikes while demand destruction calls for cuts. For PE portfolios with energy or consumer exposure, the margin squeeze math is getting ugly fast.
China's share of the global economy, per the WSJ, has shrunk from a 2021 peak of 18.5% to roughly 16.5% today - despite 4.5-5% real GDP growth. Deflation and a weak yuan are eroding the dollar value of every yuan earned, turning Chinese growth into dollar-denominated shrinkage. Inditex has cut its China store count 80% since 2018. The Japanification comparison writes itself: growing at home, shrinking in the rankings. The IMF thinks yuan appreciation saves China in 2026 - Wall Street has been wrong on that call before.
Society and Culture
Bam Adebayo scored 83 points against the Washington Wizards - the second-highest single-game total in NBA history, behind only Wilt Chamberlain's 100. Adebayo, a center known primarily for his defense and work ethic, now sits between Chamberlain and Kobe Bryant on the all-time list. The hierarchy: Wilt, Bam, Kobe. Say it out loud. It still doesn't sound right.
Axios makes the case that America's great "big lie" isn't a political one - it's the narrative that Americans are hopelessly divided. Most Americans are too busy for social media, too normal for politics, and too rational to tweet. They work, coach Little League, mow their neighbor's lawn, and never post a word about it. The silent majority is just that - silent. Long live the silent majority.
Ted Gioia, writing on Jon Haidt's After Babel, compiles 30 facts about childhood today that will terrify you. The data spans screen time, mental health, play deprivation, and social media addiction across the developed world. It's the kind of list you read and then immediately confiscate your kid's phone - which Haidt would say is exactly the point.
Peter Thiel is starting a series of closed-door lectures about the antichrist in Rome, putting him on a collision course with Pope Leo XIV, per the FT. The tech billionaire and MAGA donor is challenging the first American pope on the risks of AI - from a theological angle. Silicon Valley meets the Vatican is the crossover episode nobody requested.
Michael Dell and his wife Susan are putting up $6.25 billion to fund investment accounts for 25 million American children ages 2-10 - $250 per child. Jason Calacanis called it "one of the greatest philanthropic gifts in the history of humanity." This is one of the few recent policy initiatives that could legitimately impact future generations; if the next 50 years reflect the last 50 years and generate returns of 11.7% annually (S&P return from 1976-2026), this would amount to $63,182. Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Dell.
The odds of a perfect NCAA tournament bracket: 1 in 9.2 quintillion if you're guessing (or 25% more than all of the grains of sand on Earth), 1 in 120.2 billion if you actually know basketball. No one in history has ever done it. With March Madness in full swing and your bracket already in shambles, take comfort in the math - you were never supposed to get it right.
Rory McIlroy's Masters Champions dinner menu includes grilled elk sliders, wagyu filet mignon, and a $2,000 bottle of wine. The defending champion gets to choose the menu for Augusta National's most exclusive annual gathering. McIlroy went with Northern Irish beef, elk from a local ranch, and a Bordeaux that costs more than most green fees.
Doctors in the UK are prescribing fishing, gardening, and group walks instead of pills, per Bloomberg. The practice, called social prescribing, treats loneliness and mild depression through community activities. The medical establishment has discovered what your grandfather always knew - sometimes the cure is just getting outside and doing something with other people.
The New York Times revisits the 130-year-old scientific mystery of how falling cats always land on their feet. French physiologist Etienne-Jules Marey first documented it in 1894, and physicists have been arguing about the mechanics ever since. The cat doesn't violate the laws of physics - it just understands them better than we do (or just more indifferent to them, like they are toward everything).
Cortical Labs has wired 200,000 living human brain cells into a silicon chip and taught them to play Doom - the 1993 shooter game. The neurons receive game data as electrical signals and send motor commands back through the array. The internet's most important computing benchmark has been met: yes, your brain cells can run Doom, even without the rest of you.
A new poll finds 82% of Americans hold negative views of AI - 46% negative, 22% very negative, and only 18% favorable. The technology that every company is racing to deploy is viewed unfavorably by roughly five out of six Americans. The gap between boardroom enthusiasm and public sentiment has rarely been wider.
One Final Thing
In our last issue, we asked: “By 2030, do you think AI will have caused a meaningful U.S. recession?” Of those who responded, 38% said unlikely — new jobs will replace old ones, 33% said yes, it’s inevitable, 21% said probably but policy will cushion the blow, and 8% said not a chance. The optimists have a slight edge, but the pessimists aren’t wrong to worry.
This week, with 82% of Americans viewing AI unfavorably and childhood screen time reaching crisis levels, we’re curious where you land: Do you believe AI will ultimately be a net positive or a net negative for the next generation of children?
We're Looking for Exceptional, Overlooked Businesses
At Civitas Growth Partners, we invest our own capital in founder-led B2B businesses with $1M to $4M in recurring revenue, strong retention, and best-in-class products, but that fall outside the traditional VC or PE mold. These businesses are often bootstrapped, breakeven, and haven't yet invested meaningfully in sales and marketing. Growth is steady (0–25% annually), and the product quietly leads its niche.
This is a category of company that is often overlooked, but we see tremendous opportunity. Our model is to help these businesses scale to $10M or more in revenue by providing flexible capital (minority or control), supporting both organic and M&A growth, and deploying an operational playbook honed through years of work with capital-efficient founders. Because we invest our own capital — not institutional LP funds — we bring no artificial timelines or exit pressure. That gives founders room to build enduring value. Our partners have achieved more than 6x equity outcomes without compromising what makes their companies special.
We're actively looking for our next great partner. If you know a founder or operator building something exceptional — and overlooked — we'd be grateful for an introduction. We value the relationships that lead us to great companies and are always happy to have a conversation about referral arrangements. Reach out anytime at team@civitasgrowth.com.