Need help with this one

I saw how Greg solved this. But as far as I know about the exponent rule if there is bracket then only we can multiple exponents otherwise we have to take it as power. So as per that 32 to power 32 to power 32, that’s look scary.
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Can I get help on this?

Why didn’t we start from 2^0. In that case the repeating pattern would have been 1, 2, 4 right?