Will geopolitics cause AI agents to compete with locals for Portuguese Real Estate?

… and other musings from our Risk Club Dinner in Lisbon we hosted in partnership with Ricardo Sequerra Amram at Point Nine Capital.

Portuguese real estate woes as a proxy for where we are geopolitically

Portugal is about as far from active conflict zones as you can get while staying on the continent — neutral twice in the World Wars, Atlantic-facing, welcoming to expat families. Thousands of American families are moving there every year and the supply of homes cannot keep pace with demand.

In an era of geopolitical upheaval, many people who can afford to move here are doing so. Remote work has decoupled talent from geography — especially when you might just be co-working with your AI agents. And the countries that make it easy to arrive — a clear path to residency, a functioning bureaucracy, quality of life — may well pull ahead of the ones that don’t. Countries actively hostile to immigration were among our short positions for a reason.

But…what if AI agents start optimizing for geopolitical safety when they allocate capital they are tasked to manage? Could we expect them to start buying real estate in places like Portugal? Will there be tension between expats, locals and AI agents in these safe-haven places?

As international pressure for a Ukraine ceasefire intensifies, the conversation turned to what any agreement needs to include

When the war started, millions of Ukrainians fled for their safety — among them a significant portion of the country’s top technical talent. These people want to go home. And the country needs them to return in order to rebuild. But what conditions would make that a rational choice for people who, rightly, sought safety for their families?

At the table, we talked about explicit non-conscription protections for returnees and possibly a credible multinational security presence as the necessary conditions for ceasefire and, eventually, recovery. Longer term, reconstruction in Ukraine would be a greenfield investment opportunity — with a highly educated diaspora ready to return and a potential EU accession path that would unlock capital to rebuild the nation in a way that could rival Poland’s post-1989 transformation.

European defense has come up at every dinner we’ve hosted this year

In Lisbon, we talked at length about the capabilities of European armies vis a vis the realities of the modern battlefield. Case in point: Germany is still producing Leopard 2 tanks — €10 million assets that are functionally obsolete in a war waged on €500 DJI drones and intelligence.

With the US signalling ambiguity about Article 5 compliance, the continent has little choice but to prepare for a post-NATO world — ironically, making that world all the more likely. Because if you are not actively working to affirm that the alliance holds, then you are (intentionally or not) building for its fallout.

As investors, we follow specific areas of defense closely but we’ve been in this space long enough to know that the best signals come from the founders themselves. We keep conversations like this going because we want to hear how they see the future and what they think it will take to keep everything from unravelling. Then we back them.

Bullish on India, bearish on manufacturing exposed to robotics

The table was bullish on India (manufacturing shift, consumer market growth, early tech adoption), the US (hard to bet against in an AI-dominated world, despite everything), and Switzerland (neutral positioning, financial infrastructure, talent concentration). Bearish on manufacturing economies exposed to robotics disruption, emerging markets without resource backing, and countries actively hostile to immigration.

Several policy proposals echoed themes from prior dinners: universal capital ownership from birth, higher inheritance taxes, global taxation modeled on the US approach. One idea we hadn’t heard before was publishing all government spending on a public blockchain — every transaction from any public actor, immutable and accessible, making data manipulation structurally impossible.

BlueYard Capital hosts regular Risk Club dinners across Europe and the US. The conversations are off the record; these notes reflect themes and ideas. We’re looking for the next generation of founders making civilizational bets. If that’s you — or if you’re an investor, policymaker, or operator thinking about these questions — we’d love to talk.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article has been prepared solely for informational purposes and is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any entity managed by BlueYard Capital (“BlueYard”). Any reference to a specific company or security does not constitute a recommendation to buy, sell, hold, or directly invest in the company or its securities. It may not be modified, reproduced, or redistributed in whole or in part without the prior written consent of BlueYard. Portfolio company information presented herein is for informational purposes only and not intended to be a guarantee of certain investment results. BlueYard does not represent that the information herein is accurate, true, or complete, makes no warranty, express or implied, regarding the information herein and shall not be liable for any losses, damages, costs, or expenses relating to its adequacy, accuracy, truth, completeness, or use. All other company, product and service names or service marks of others and their use does not imply their endorsement of, or an association with this program.