Record Highs, Negative Gas Prices, and the Discipline Dividend

Host Richard Cunningham sits down with co-host Luke Roush and returning guest Jordan Strebeck of Fortress Energy Partners for a conversation that starts at the S&P 500's all-time high and ends at a Permian Basin wellhead where operators are paying to get rid of their own natural gas.

The numbers alone are worth the listen: four hyperscalers on pace for more than $700 billion in AI infrastructure spending this year, an IPO market that just absorbed the world's largest offering, and a global oil supply chain that's quietly burned through 400 million barrels of inventory since February. Jordan brings the view from the ground in Midland, Texas — where the domestic shale industry is showing more capital discipline than anyone expected, even as Middle East conflict keeps rewriting the energy math in real time.

Key Topics:

• Markets hitting record highs despite tariffs, an unresolved Middle East conflict, and zero rate cuts in 2026
• The AI CapEx arms race: how Wall Street is starting to separate real cash-flow return from spend for spend's sake
• What SpaceX's blockbuster IPO signals for Anthropic and the rest of the 2026 IPO pipeline
• 1,500 unicorns and counting — why so many private companies are stuck waiting to go public
• Inside the Permian Basin: negative natural gas prices, the AI power crunch, and why the U.S. needs more of everything — nuclear, gas, solar, and wind
• What 400 million barrels of drawn-down global oil inventory means for prices over the next five years
• A closing word on presence, parenting, and what it means to steward the time we're given

This episode is a masterclass in reading past the headline number — whether that's an index level, an IPO valuation, or a barrel price — to the stewardship question underneath it. For faith-driven investors trying to separate signal from noise in a genuinely strange market, this is a conversation worth sitting with.

Watch the full episode on YouTube or continue to stream audio on your favorite podcast platform.