I started writing this during my winter break but never finished the last few bullets below, and then the Crypto and march crashes seemed imminent this last week, so I am going to put this out there and revisit later this year, on how it turned out. Some of these aren’t really predictions but more observations, coupled with my bets on what direction things are heading.
- Bitcoin struggles to find mainstream adoption, beyond the big funds and anti-inflation community. The Bitcoin MAXIs are screwing it up by acting like the Catholic church of the 16th century by driving away anyone who acknowledges other crypto-assets, and thereby limiting mass market adoption — this is an important dynamic emerging that I failed to notice a few years ago. It’s the arrogance that comes with a 145%+ YoY growth for their holdings for the past 6 years. That said, I’m still very bullish long term.
- Markets fail to really correct as everyone is predicting. Big Tech dominates the stock market (30% of S&P 500) and since technology is a deflationary asset, the traditional outlook of looking at fundamentals based on cost ratios and earnings will just fade to the background. Technology will continue to create more value with greater adoption, at a lower cost. We’ll see new highs for $TLSA, $APPL, $AMZN. Goldman Sachs predicts a +9% gain for the $S&P500. PS: We are today in officially the correction territory (~10%) but I believe this is ‘transitory’ (Powell pun intended)
- Web3/Crypto developer movement grows — There will be a ton of noise, it’s WWIII on Twitter, between the web3 VCs and true developers and this debate will be on. But all this dialogue will cause some new ideas will emerge, true use cases that will make a difference to everyone — I don’t think a “single password for the internet” or “data sovereignty” is it though! But web3 movement should be/will be led by the developers not the “arm-chair developer-VCs”. Here is a thread I wrote on this earlier in the year: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1480958498750050306.html
- AI beyond experimentation — AI becomes more and more invisible and standardized — It won’t be just a cool piece of technology, but I think there is enough momentum in the market to create makers and consumers of AI. A core set of companies will keep building core AI infrastructure (take for example the Transformer Deep Learning models, thread by @karpathy) and the broader market will adopt using an Applied AI approach — no point trying to build new MLOps frameworks and algorithms from scratch, it will be a game of speed to value and business value realization.
- AI Ethics will continue to be a buzzword, but won’t go mainstream yet. The background work that is happening is all of the public policy work by all the governments. NY State passed the law — the good news: societal implications of the 4th industrial revolution starts getting discussed, bad news: Nothing concrete comes out, there may be a GDPR moment in AI later this year but I doubt that. Listen to Navrina Singh, CEO of Credo AI during our discussion in Stories in AI (https://youtu.be/dJD1oiX8s38)
- DAOs become the new SPACs. **As a quick-funding vehicle, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) will become as hyped in 2022 as special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) were in 2021. There will be the rise of VAOs (VC DAOs) as well. (The Guardian)
- Manufacturing is sexy again — The labor shortage, stalled cargo ships created global supply shortage on everything in 2021. This can create a local/near shore manufacturing boom around the world, relying on far-away lands to manufacture toilet paper or all the chips that go into your cars and washing machines may not be very efficient. Also the TMSC risk and the flexing Chinese muscle highlighted the need to reduce reliance on manufacturing in adversarial land!
- The Metaverse Wars — Beyond the marketing hype, this truly is bringing attention to the missing elements of the current internet to really create a medium for collaboration, communication and livelihood that can get closer to the physical world and it truly is the next evolution of the internet. Take a look at this conversation with Hrish Lotlikar on the Metaverse, on the Stories in AI podcast (https://lnkd.in/g9buk4J7)
- Financial Inclusion makes headway: Crypto hangovers, fintech boom and Unicorns will make it easier for individuals and businesses access capital, without the red tape and bureaucracy. We saw this with the first wave of DeFi and crypto creating rich young kids all over the world, but these disruptive forces are already opening up traditional finance to the underserved and the underbanked. I expect this to continue!
- Private Valuations hit a peak — It’s so crazy that more than 900 tech start-ups are each worth more than $1 billion. In 2015, 80 seemed like a lot (reported by NYTimes). @Dan Primack wrote a thoughtful tiny piece on this, and I believe this was long coming. Easy money in the markets, inflation and other macro phenomenon had investors looking for private investments and the whole process just got a bit too frothy. I’m confident this year will see more realistic valuations!
I hope these age well, and I’m happy to be wrong about a few of these (and hoping too!). Tell me what you think and what you are betting on.
