Edoardo Giglio — Author of Tech Tides: How Innovation Shapes Global Power
“Bytes are more important than bullets.”
A $200 commercial drone can now neutralize a multi-million dollar Cold War asset. In this episode, geopolitics meets innovation strategy as Hunter sits down with Edoardo Giglio — author of Tech Tides: How Innovation Shapes Global Power — to explore how innovation ecosystems are redefining the modern battlefield and reshaping the global balance of power.
From the unique success stories of Silicon Valley and Israel to Europe’s fragmented and failing approach to AI, Giglio breaks down why some nations lead the future while others are left behind — and why the answers are less about technology itself than about the political will and human systems surrounding it.
What We Cover
The Shift in Warfare: How cheap commercial drones are neutralizing expensive Cold War assets and why the “bytes over bullets” paradigm is now the defining feature of modern conflict.
Defining Innovation Ecosystems: The critical difference between basic, sustaining, disruptive, and moonshot innovation strategies — and why most governments conflate them to their detriment.
The “Silicon Shield”: How Taiwan’s accidental semiconductor dominance — through TSMC — became its greatest geopolitical defense, and what that means for US-China competition.
Europe’s Innovation Crisis: Why the EU’s “buckshot approach” and fragmented regulatory environment — including the AI Act — are causing Europe to fall dangerously behind in the AI race against the US and China.
The Cost of Failure: Case studies on Nigeria’s “resource curse” and Ethiopia’s challenges in sustaining agricultural innovation — and what they reveal about the institutional conditions required for technological progress.
The Human Factor: Despite all the technological complexity, Giglio argues that human intuition and political will remain the ultimate driving forces behind any breakthrough — technology is only as good as the systems built around it.
About the Guest
Edoardo Giglio is the author of Tech Tides: How Innovation Shapes Global Power (Bloomsbury). His work sits at the intersection of innovation strategy, geopolitics, and defence technology. Find his book at Bloomsbury or Amazon, and follow his analysis on Substack.
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