How Hormuz Exposed (again) the Gap Between Knowing Risk and Building Resilience - and What Comes Next?
Join Shani Zanescu, Founder & General Partner of Universe Partners [www.universe-partners.com]and board members Cameron Geiger (former SVP Supply Chains, Walmart and COO at SMEs) and Laura Segafredo (former Blackrock and a Senior Economist) for a discussion on what does the current panic around Harmuz actually reveals.
It’s no longer about a systemic shift. We are the systemic shift.
This episode starts with a familiar flashpoint, Strait of Hormuz- but quickly reframes the narrative. This isn’t just about oil. It’s about food, fertilizers, and the fragile architecture of the systems we’ve built around both.
Because the real issue isn’t supply chains. It’s decision-making.
We’ve engineered a world of choke points - whether it’s Hormuz, the Suez Canal, or the Strait of Malacca. Different geographies, same pattern: too many eggs in too few baskets. And every time disruption hits, we act surprised - like the system didn’t behave exactly as designed.
But this isn’t just geopolitics. It’s portfolio theory applied poorly to the real world.
We’ve spent decades optimizing financial systems for diversification: indexing, risk distribution, redundancy. Yet when it comes to physical systems - food, energy, logistics - we’ve done the opposite. Hyper-efficiency. Maximum concentration. Minimum resilience. And now we’re paying for it. BIG TIME.
From a venture lens, the signal is clear: what do we prioritise? Seem as if at least over 50% of bottlenecks sit in maritime and physical infrastructure. At the same time, capital and attention have been disproportionately captured by digital and AI - while the material world, the one that actually feeds and fuels us, remains under-innovated.
Take food systems. Entire global supply chains depend on fossil-fuel-based fertilizers. One input. One dependency. One point of failure.
We wouldn’t build a portfolio like that -so why did we build a civilization that way?
And then there’s insurance - the silent engine of the global economy. When war risk premiums spike 500% overnight, it doesn’t just reflect risk -it creates it. Decisions made by insurers ripple across trade, pricing, and access. Suddenly, the cost of moving physical goods isn’t just higher—it’s structurally unstable.
Which raises a bigger question:
If resilience reduces risk, why isn’t it priced that way?
What’s missing is a new decision architecture. Not more data! We’re drowning in dashboards - but the ability, incentives, and authority to act on it in real time. Decision rights exist. What’s lacking is the system around them.
And that’s where the opportunity is.
Because every gap - every bottleneck, every mispriced risk, every outdated policy is an entry point for innovation. Not just technological, but systemic: incentives, governance, and the rules of the game itself.
At Universe Partners, the thesis is simple: don’t just play the game better, change the game entirely. Build for diversification. Price resilience properly. Align incentives with long-term stability.
This isn’t a future problem. It’s a present design flaw.
And the question isn’t whether disruption is coming.
It’s whether we’ll finally build systems that can absorb it.
