Oil Exploration & Research Sprint Plan

Attendees: Dustin J Ross, Bliss Perry Date: January 25, 2026 Type: Research

Summary

Research Framework for Supply Chain Analysis

• Created 6-part framework for describing industries (developed with AI in 30 minutes)
  1. Physical and network structures - layers, dependencies, bottlenecks
  2. Geography and politics - node concentration by country, US ally relationships
  3. Money and time - capital expenditure, margins, investment timelines per layer
  4. Technology - proprietary vs commoditized layers, barriers to entry
  5. Unit economics - margin distribution, market power across supply chain
  6. Governance and regulation - export controls, tariffs, legislation impacts
• Framework progresses from descriptive analysis to normative analysis

Risk and Opportunity Analysis

• Four risk categories identified:
  1. Node risks - political instability, labor strikes at critical locations
  2. Link risks - transportation, logistics, shipping vulnerabilities
  3. Systemic risks - war, tariffs, broad economic disruption
  4. Temporal risks - bullwhip effect, cascading failures
• Opportunity types:
  • Structural changes - reducing bottlenecks, eliminating geographies, retooling chains
  • Optimization - improving existing structure performance
  • Financial - risk sharing contracts, supply chain insurance
  • Policy levers - regulatory changes

AI-First Strategic Pivot

• Reframing approach: building AI product, not software product
• Current moment parallels mobile boom (2007-2020: $1T to $15T market cap growth)
• Software market cratering as AI disrupts $8T application market
• Internal productivity focus: leverage AI for research, automate daily tasks

Timeline and Deliverables

• Thursday meeting: Oil exploration exercise review and framework validation
• Oil exercise deliverable: comprehensive analysis document due Thursday morning
• Presentation scheduled for February 18th
• Practice session: Tuesday 7:30 PM with 1.5 hour prep block

Next Steps

• Both: Complete individual oil exploration analysis by Thursday morning
• Dustin: Focus on AI-assisted research with human validation on key findings
• Thursday meeting: Compare approaches, refine framework, plan division of labor for remaining 4 supply chains