1 like = 1 prediction for the next year and / or decade
(Until I go to dinner)
(Until I go to dinner)
There are entities that will still only accept fax in 2030
These will mostly be government agencies
Bytedance will eclipse Facebook in valuation this year
The focus on privacy from tech that we've seen emerge over the last ~2 years will prove transient and the general public will never actually come to care
Bitcoin will go above $15k this year but won't eclipse $20k
Bitcoin will eclipse gold in terms of market cap by 2030
It will be commonplace to see Alipay accepted at checkout counters all over the United States (from Walgreens to Warby Parker) by the end of the year
There will be one or more $1bn+ companies founded to create new avenues of content discoverability (as everyone becomes their own podcast host / newsletter creator / influencer)
Some form of FaceID will be used for *everything* in the next 5 years - unlocking your bike; checkout; passport control
Voice assistants (Alexa, Siri, etc.) will not have made meaningful progress on accuracy by the end of the year
But they will have made strides on privacy (although, per above, no one will care over the long term anyway)
Every decently funded public school in US coastal cities will be offering Mandarin as a standard language option by 2030
At least 1 of 2020's Grammy-nominated best new artists will have gotten her / his start on TikTok
By 2030, we will see some classic movies fade into relative obscurity simply because they have never been made available on Netflix / Amazon Prime / etc.
We will see at least a 10% gain in the S&P 500 this year (not a recession in sight)
We won't actually go to war with Iran this year... at least not in the way people think we will
Trump's gonna get re-elected. For sure.
London will remain one of two main hubs of innovation in Europe despite Brexit
The other is Berlin
We will all still be using MacBooks in 2030
At least through 2030, conventional religion and spirituality in the west will continue it's long decline in relevance
There will be at least one $1bn+ company that emerges that replaces the church / synagogue / mosque as a place of connection, meaning, etc.
As the huge and wealthy population of boomers start to feel increasingly old, there will be a huge amount of funding poured into research around preventing the effects of aging... it will be too late for the boomers, but millennials (the boom-let) will reap the benefits
Along those same lines, old folks' homes and hospice care is going to come under huge pressure from outsized demand by 2030
The *vast* majority of knowledge work will be at least part-time remote by 2030
Partially as a result of this, we will see a rise of new types of "third spaces" - social clubs, bars, parks... not quite sure what this looks like yet
There is going to be a huge scandal around a privacy violation by a tech company that collects health data in the next year
People will be spending as much time in VR in 10 years (2030) as they were on screens 10 years ago (2010)
Society won't like a lot of the early VR use cases... it's not all going to be virtual meetings and video games
The fact that credit cards were ever a thing will seem *insane* by 2030
Despite all the negative PR, SoftBank will float through the next year just fine
But by 2030 we will look back on the SoftBank phenomenon as totally insane -- 2008 levels of "how did we let that happen?"
Europe's negative interest rate regime will implode in some fashion in the next ten years
The whole plant based diet thing will be looked back on as a passing fad... 2019/2020 zeitgeist
This goes along with FaceID prediction above, but within 5 years we will rarely ever use passwords in the form they exist today
Europe will experience a brain drain of its technical talent over the next ten years... they will be headed to China
Coal and oil will both be irrelevant as energy sources by 2030
Massive industries (and swaths of the country and the world) will collapse as a result -- it will be painful
But of course ultimately good for the planet
The internet will still not have a good identity standard
Facebook's cryptocurrency, Libra, will not launch this year, held up by regulators. But it will launch eventually. And be a pretty decent answer to Alipay et. al.
By 2030, people won't be thinking much about who they bank with -- all they will know is the various apps they have on their phone that they use to manage income, expenses, payments, savings, investment, etc.
We will all still be using 12 different messaging apps in 2030
I commented above that the general public will not come to care about privacy...
But for certain key segments of the population, privacy will become more important (and valuable) than ever
But for certain key segments of the population, privacy will become more important (and valuable) than ever
Uber's product will be unrecognizable by 2030... or else the company will no longer be around
We still will not have fully autonomous passenger vehicles in 2030
But we will have fully autonomous trucking (along pre-designated routes)
The shift in the trucking industry will have major political effects as a huge portion of the young, white, male population of the United States gets left behind for the second time in half a century (the first being post-2008)
A large minority of the eligible population of the western world will not be conventionally employed by 2030... but will instead be cobbling together a bunch of gig work, freelance jobs + income from the sharing economy
And that population will be happy about it. This will happen by choice.
We will see big experiments in how governance happens in small jurisdictions over the next ten years, e.g. experiments with direct democracy.
Certain psychedelics will become legal in certain states by 2030.
There will be no substantial changes in gun control laws in the United States by 2030.
There will no longer be elected heads of state in prominent countries calling climate change a hoax in 2030.
Schools and colleges will still exist as physical locations in 2030, but those locations won't be that relevant to the actual education. Most classes and exams will be taken online.
We'll all still be relying on Wikipedia in 2030.
Same with Craigslist.
Which will also still be privately held.
By 2030, we will be able to communicate via text just by thinking.
For those who *do* care about privacy, the combination of facial recognition technology plus the next generations of Google glass (embedded in contact lenses, etc.) will prove nightmarish.
By 2030, the proliferation of deep fakes will have made nihilists of us all when it comes to understanding the truth.
Every bit of footage will finally be treated with the skepticism it deserves thanks to deep fake technology going mainstream.
Europe + emerging markets will be hit the hardest in the next economic downturn. Of the two, Europe will fare worse.
San Francisco will still be the US hub of technology and innovation.
Okay going to make dinner now. TTYL
Disclaimer: many of these are hand-wavy or vague because I am trying to rattle them off rapid fire.
Disclaimer 2: just because I predict something to happen doesn't mean I want it that way. In fact, often, quite the opposite.
Disclaimer 2: just because I predict something to happen doesn't mean I want it that way. In fact, often, quite the opposite.
The aging population of the United States will be a hot topic in 2030.
Marriage satisfaction rates will be at all time highs and divorce rates will be at local lows in 2030.
Email will still be used but it will no longer be our primary form of professional communication... this won't happen in the next year but will happen long before 2030.
Private home ownership in the US will be at a low in 2030.
The Euro will no longer be around in 2030.
More people in Africa will speak Mandarin than English in 2030.
No one will use resumés anymore in 2030.
In the next decade we will see a revival of more formal dress -- we will cringe at the fact that we were all wearing yoga pants around everywhere.
Equifax, Transunion, and Experian will no longer be around in 2030 -- or if they are, they will be unrecognizably different.
It will cost more than ever to give birth to a baby in a hospital in the United States in 2030.
By 2030, we will look back on the state of hormonal birth control that exists today as barbarically unacceptable.
The United States' immigration laws will come under scrutiny and become a major policy issue in the next ten years due to loss of talent.
By 2030, attention to climate change will have led to heavy taxation of air travel -- reverting it to something only the very wealthy can access on a regular basis.
By 2030, the gay rights movement will be taught in elementary school history classes the way the civil rights movement is taught about today.
In 2030, teams with at least one female founder will still be receiving <30% of all VC funding.
But in 2030, >30% of partners at major VC funds will be women.
And their stake in those funds will finally reflect that.
