Thematic Analysis: The Relation Between Semiconductors and Oil
Prepared 2026-04-23. Synthesis is a human activity — this document surfaces patterns, contradictions, and open questions. Conclusions belong to Bliss and Dustin.
All References to This Theme Across the Record
Steve Blank, Jan 22, 2026 (Advisor Meeting)
The oil-analog framing enters the record here as Blank’s core recommendation — not as metaphor, but as a research methodology:
“Study oil industry as template for semiconductor supply chain opportunities. Oil has 100+ years of evolved financial models, business structures, trading mechanisms. Multiple ways to profit without touching the commodity itself. Hedge funds, private equity, information providers, equipment suppliers all make money.”
Blank’s key structural comparison: “Semiconductor industry only ~50 years old globally, ~20 years using foundries — missing equivalent financial instruments and business models.”
He flags the single most important disanalogy in the entire record: “Unlike oil (can store strategically), semiconductors obsolete in 9 months.” He notes this creates a need for “guaranteed orders to justify domestic production facilities” — a fundamentally different risk architecture.
[Steve Blank, Jan 22, 2026]
Steve Blank + Bliss + Dustin Zoom, Mar 6, 2026 (Partner Session)
A dedicated session on the oil vs. semiconductor value chain structure. Key outputs as documented:
“Original thesis: ‘semiconductor is the oil of the 21st century.’ Research approach: Study oil value chain structure → map differences with semiconductor/critical value chains → identify gaps for future opportunities. Focus on US national interest applications. Biggest difference identified between oil and semiconductor chains.”
The “biggest difference” is noted but not recorded in the interview file. This is a gap in the vault — the conclusion of the session’s most important analytical thread is missing from the written record.
[Steve Blank + Bliss + Dustin Zoom, Mar 6, 2026]
Charter Document, March 2026
The founding thesis statement explicitly builds from the oil analogy:
“Project TBD began with a simple observation: if semiconductors are the new oil, why don’t we have similar market intelligence and risk management tools? Oil has price indexes, hedging instruments, insurance products, and deep supply chain visibility. Semiconductors — despite underpinning the entire modern economy — have none of this.”
The Charter also cites a specific oil-to-financial-products pathway: “The Munich Re/battery company model proved that digital twins enable parametric insurance underwriting. If you can simulate the state of a physical system digitally, you can price risk precisely.”
[Charter, March 2026]
Cross-Industry Oil-Analog Scan: Final Winner (undated synthesis)
The most rigorous application of the analogy in the vault. The scan formalizes the oil model into a target arc:
“Proprietary Data Asset → Intelligence Authority → Risk Pricing → Financial/Insurance Products → Market Infrastructure. This recreates the oil ecosystem pattern where volatility + scale + third-party risk intermediation enables durable value capture by non-producers.”
The scan evaluates nuclear components, defense industrial base, robotics, specialty chemicals, batteries, and rare earths against this model before concluding semiconductors are the primary focus. The deciding factors: largest market ($600B+), most whitespace in financial infrastructure, strongest regulatory catalysts (CHIPS Act, UFLPA, export controls).
The scan also identifies conditions required for an industry to reach the oil-like financialization endpoint: “(a) large and standardized enough to benchmark, (b) recurrent shocks and measurable volatility, (c) supports multiple non-producer profit centers.”
[Oil-Analog Scan: Final Winner, undated]
Signal Chat Synthesis, Jan 14 – Apr 11, 2026
The synthesis documents how the oil-analog sprint functioned as a structuring device rather than a research conclusion:
“The oil-analog research sprint is a structuring device — using well-understood commodity market dynamics as a lens for understanding where supply chain intelligence products have succeeded and failed.”
Crucially, the scan returned a surprising output: batteries, not semiconductors, as the higher-conviction Day-1 wedge (EU Battery Passport as forcing function). The founders seriously considered a pivot. By March 18, null hypothesis returned to semiconductors — but the Signal synthesis flags: “The reversion happened and was accepted. What’s less clear from the Signal record: what new information or reasoning drove the return?”
[Signal Chat Synthesis, Apr 14, 2026]
Ann Miura-Ko, Mar 6, 2026 (Advisor Meeting)
Miura-Ko uses a capital markets analog for the long-term aspiration:
“Start with data aggregation/matching vs building financial instruments. Become ‘JP Morgan of the industry’ over time.”
Her explicit caution: “Focus on compliance data collection now, worry about derivatives/insurance later.” She cites Steve Blank’s parallel warning: avoid 50-domino business plans.
[Ann Miura-Ko, Mar 6, 2026]
Managed Rivalry Research, Dec 2, 2025
Geopolitical framing of the analogy: the oil-as-geopolitical-weapon dynamic has a direct semiconductor parallel:
“US developing ‘Manhattan Project’ to escape rare earths dependence. China reducing reliance on US technology imports (chips, biotech, jet engines).” Also: “China played rare earth card successfully, everyone scrambling for alternatives.”
This is the weaponization dimension of the oil analogy — the idea that both commodities function as geopolitical leverage instruments, not just economic inputs.
[Managed Rivalry, Dec 2, 2025]
Entry Wedge Library (undated)
The wedge patterns catalogued — Shadow Clearinghouse, Capacity Reservation Layer, Risk Absorption Wedge, Price Discovery Without Settlement — map directly onto the stages of oil market development. The document doesn’t name oil explicitly, but the pattern library is a structural encoding of how oil market infrastructure was built over a century.
[Entry Wedge Library, undated]
Patterns Within the Theme
Pattern 1: Oil as North Star, Not Day-1 Target
Across every source, the oil analogy functions as a destination, not a starting point. Blank, Miura-Ko, and the Charter all frame financial instruments (indexes, hedges, parametric insurance) as long-term endpoints. The Day-1 wedge (compliance) maps onto nothing in the oil ecosystem — it’s a software/data acquisition play. The analogy is load-bearing for the vision; it is not a guide for the first 18 months.
Pattern 2: The Missing Infrastructure Is the Opportunity
Both Blank and the Charter frame the absence of oil-equivalent financial infrastructure in semiconductors as the central market gap. The oil industry took ~50 years to develop its current financial layer. The argument is that semiconductors — now equally critical, equally global, equally subject to geopolitical weaponization — will follow the same arc, and that being early to build the infrastructure creates durable value.
Pattern 3: Dual Use of the Analogy (Geopolitics + Finance)
The “semiconductors are the new oil” framing appears in two distinct registers that are rarely separated in the record:
- Financial infrastructure analogy: Oil has price indexes, hedges, insurance products. Semis don’t yet. Build them.
- Geopolitical leverage analogy: Oil can be weaponized by producers (OPEC embargo). Semiconductors can be weaponized by manufacturers and governments (export controls, entity lists, UFLPA). Both create systemic vulnerability that requires intelligence and risk management infrastructure.
These are related but not identical arguments. The financial infrastructure gap follows from the geopolitical leverage argument only if semiconductor supply chain volatility is measurable and tradeable — which is a non-trivial assumption.
Pattern 4: Standardization as the Critical Prerequisite
The oil-analog scan explicitly states that the financialization pathway requires a commodity to be “large and standardized enough to benchmark.” Oil has WTI, Brent, and a small set of grades. Semiconductors are extraordinarily heterogeneous — 5nm vs 28nm chips, memory vs logic vs analog vs power management, TSMC vs Samsung vs Intel fabs. No benchmark pricing exists. Every source in the record treats this as a known gap but none resolves how it gets crossed.
Contradictions & Surprises
Contradiction 1: The Analogy’s Own Scan Temporarily Preferred Batteries
The oil-analog scan — the most rigorous application of the framework — returned batteries, not semiconductors, as the higher-conviction Day-1 wedge. If the oil model is the guiding framework, and the oil model analysis pointed toward batteries, the return to semiconductors requires an explanation that the current vault doesn’t fully provide. This tension has not been resolved in the written record.
[Oil-Analog Scan vs. Signal Chat Synthesis, Mar 18 reversion]
Contradiction 2: The “New Oil” Framing Assumes Standardization That Doesn’t Exist
Oil can support price indexes, futures, and parametric insurance because a barrel of WTI crude is fungible — identical to another barrel of WTI crude. A 5nm TSMC logic die is not fungible with a 28nm GlobalFoundries chip. The analogy works at the level of strategic importance and geopolitical leverage but may break down precisely at the level required for financial products. This is the most consequential potential weakness in the analogy, and it does not appear to have been directly confronted in any source.
Contradiction 3: Blank’s Most Important Disanalogy Is Underdeveloped
Blank named the most structurally significant difference in the Jan 22 session: “Unlike oil (can store strategically), semiconductors obsolete in 9 months.” This has major implications for risk product design. Oil has a Strategic Petroleum Reserve; there is no semiconductor equivalent. Oil forward curves are shaped by storage economics; semiconductor forward curves would be shaped by obsolescence. The Managed Rivalry document notes this creates a need for “guaranteed orders” rather than inventory buffers. But this structural difference is not integrated into the financial products vision in any downstream document.
[Steve Blank, Jan 22, 2026 — flagged but not developed]
Contradiction 4: National Interest Frame vs. Commercial Buyer Frame
The McMaster meeting produced an insight not present in the oil analogy: cost engineers, not compliance officers, hold the relevant budget. The oil analogy maps naturally to risk officers, commodity desks, and insurance actuaries — not to cost engineers managing supply chain economics. If the actual Day-1 buyer is a cost engineer, the oil-financial-products arc may be describing a customer that doesn’t enter the picture until much later.
[HR McMaster Signal debrief, Mar 18, 2026 vs. Charter framing]
Surprise: The Battery Pivot Was Briefly Recommended by the Founders’ Own Framework
The founders commissioned the oil-analog scan as a structuring device to help select their target industry. The scan recommended batteries over semiconductors. The founders overrode their own framework’s output. This is not necessarily wrong — the decision may reflect information not captured in the scan — but it is notable that the methodology’s own conclusion was set aside without a formal documented reason.
Open Questions
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The biggest oil/semi difference was identified in the Mar 6 Zoom but never written down. Blank + Bliss + Dustin agreed there was a “biggest difference” between the oil and semiconductor value chains. What was it? Does it affect the viability of the financial products vision?
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Standardization prerequisite. The oil-analog scan requires semiconductors to be “large and standardized enough to benchmark.” How does Project TBD intend to bridge from a highly heterogeneous product market to a benchmarkable one? What entity in oil played this role historically — Platts, NYMEX, someone else?
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Obsolescence vs. storability. If semiconductors go obsolete in 9 months and cannot be stored, what does this do to the risk transfer logic? Parametric insurance for oil presupposes that supply disruption has a durable financial impact. Does a 9-month obsolescence cycle change who bears that risk and who is willing to transfer it?
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No conversations with financial risk buyers. The thesis endpoint is parametric insurance or financial derivatives on semiconductor supply chain risk. The vault contains zero conversations with an insurance carrier, commodity desk, hedge fund, or corporate treasury function. The Munich Re / battery analogy is cited in the Charter but never verified with an actual counterparty. Does the buyer side of these products actually exist in the form the thesis assumes?
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Are the two “oil” analogies pointing in the same direction? The geopolitical leverage analogy (semis as weapon) and the financial infrastructure analogy (semis need indexes and hedges) may attract different customer types and require different product architectures. Which one is the primary thesis, and which is supporting framing?
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Did the batteries pivot question get fully closed? The oil-analog scan returned batteries as the higher-conviction Day-1 wedge. The return to semiconductors happened in ~1 month. What specifically changed? Has the battery option been formally ruled out, or is it in a “paused” state?
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What does the oil industry’s actual development arc look like? NYMEX launched oil futures in 1983 — roughly 100 years after the first oil wells. Who built the early price discovery infrastructure? What was their wedge? Are there analogs to the compliance-as-data-acquisition approach in oil’s history?
Sources: Steve Blank Jan 22, 2026; Steve Blank + Bliss + Dustin Zoom Mar 6, 2026; Oil-Analog Scan Final (undated); Charter March 2026; Signal Chat Synthesis Apr 14, 2026; Ann Miura-Ko Mar 6, 2026; Managed Rivalry Dec 2, 2025; Entry Wedge Library (undated)
All claims cited to source. Synthesis is preparatory — conclusions belong to Bliss and Dustin.