About

Second Order by TKN is a research letter on the AI trade — for investors who’ve noticed that everyone is watching Nvidia, and almost no one is watching what Nvidia’s customers, suppliers and landlords are doing.

Second-order thinking is the whole idea. The first-order AI trade is priced. The second-order trades — power, cooling, neoclouds, networking, data-centre landlords, server builders, and the software that finally has to make money — are where the mispricing still lives. This letter maps that stack layer by layer and follows the money as it moves through it.

It’s written for international investors — what the trade looks like from the outside, and how to actually get exposure to it.

What you’ll get

• The Wire — what moved in the stack, and the second-order read.
• The Map — evergreen reference: one layer, company, or term explained.
• Research — single-name and single-layer analysis (paid stream; free during launch).

We publish when something actually moves, not to a quota. Some weeks that is two or three pieces; some weeks it is none. One email a week, on Thursdays — nothing else lands in your inbox.

Start with the The Stack (nine layers) and the manifesto The Layers of the AI Trade.

Who writes this

Sean writes Second Order by TKN.

He is an enthusiastic investor with a habit that turned into a publication: when a story is loud, he wants to know who else gets paid. Everyone was watching the chip. He started asking who sells the chip its memory, who powers the building it sits in, and who owns the building.

That is the whole method. Find the next thing in AI by looking one link further down the chain than the headline — then write down what would prove it wrong.

Second Order maps nine layers of AI infrastructure and tracks which one is binding. Sean is not a licensed adviser and does not publish buy lists. Every page states what would change its view.

Second Order is made by TKN, the team behind The Kopi Notes.

Not investment advice. Do your own research.