I’ve come up with 10 or so predictions about what the world might look like in the coming decades, and these underpin my investment philosophy. These have to do with how technology (AI and beyond) is the only lever by which we’ll reinvent societal infrastructure to give the resources enjoyed by 10% of the planet to the remaining 90%.
Curai and Limbic working to make primary care & mental health accessible for all, CK12 non-profit making personal AI tutors for every child on the planet; but incumbents among the disrupted could hurt adoption so we must protect their income.
Portfolio companies OpenAI and Replit set this off - a total paradigm shift. No surprise a marketing person just won a coding competition.
Bipedal robots have the capacity to transform every vertical from eldercare to factories & farms. Few are preparing for how this will radically change GDP, productivity, and human happiness. These robots could create enough value to support the people they replace.
Glydways has won multiple contracts to provide on-demand, point-to-point Personal Rapid Transit in their autonomous pods that fit in a bike lane width. This is easy to finance and introduce incrementally into a city, and cheaper than current public transit.
Splash (a music model not trained on internet music) and Inkitt, an AI publisher of fiction, are examples among many. Every consumer will be capable of rapping, writing great literary fiction, etc. AI will empower many more people to be creative.
Agents will be instructed by voice, as true, competent servants. AI chip fab capacity and electricity utilization - not AI capability - may slow this down.
As China tries to dominate Africa etc in its quest to own mineral supply lines, doubling down on AI & novel sensors to give us abundance in this vertical is key. Scaled approaches will let us search the whole planet from satellites telling us where to look. Imagine the possible!
Fusion is too consequential to not try. Commonwealth Fusion is the case study on how to invest in tough tech – patience, risk mitigation, talent. Goal is to replace all coal and natural gas boilers with fusion “boilers” by 2050! By replacing instead of building new plants, very fast scaling is possible including >1000 per year in the US alone! Try & fail but don’t fail to try.
Hermeus is not only the future of our country’s hypersonic autopilot steerable drone defense strategy to catch up to China, but also hopefully leads to commercial NYC to London flights in 90 minutes. LanzaTech turning steel mill and municipal waste into sustainable aviation fuel. Plenty of waste will finally have a use.
Starting with Impossible Foods & continuing with the likes of Leaft which is commercializing one of the most abundant proteins on the planet, RuBisCo, with better texture, taste, and nutrition profile than soy & whey-based products. We could have a major new source of protein for direct human consumption & maybe even cell culture.
Am always keen to meet the next person who will be the “instigator” – someone whose indelible challenge to the status quo forever alters the course of climate. Elon Musk did this for EVs, Pat Brown for better protein, and Bob Mumgaard for fusion.
Important to note the things that might slow down the realization of these predictions.