It is the next big thing that makes investors the big bucks. This is why technology is always the place to be through thick or thin.
When you look back with a hindsight telescope to the history of the stock market, it is always new tech that is setting the markets ablaze.
Its not necessarily a story that ends in glory, often it ends in bust, but it is the one moving the dial.
The railways like the sailing ships before them nearly took down the economies of the developed nations in the same way as the banks did in 2009. Whether you consider novel and complex derivative technology or not, often while the core technology piece is revolutionizing society, it at the same time pushing the financial system into a manic frenzy that ends in near bankruptcy for all.
Boom bubble and bust is driven by technology.
The key for the investor is to either ignore the whole crazy process entirely or to get in at the early boom stage and out at the late bubble stage.
I kind of empathize with passing on the whole thing, but that’s not how most feel. Investors love the hope of the new.
So what is the next game changing wave?
I believe it will be robots and that this era is coming fast.
I realized today I own three functional robots and have access to a further two.
I have two irobots cleaning droids, bobby and Scoubi, a underwater treasure hunting submarine drone as yet unnamed, and two tele-presense robots dismantled by my own office jawas frightened for their existence.
Suddenly that’s a lot of robots.
I would also buy a lawn mowing robot if I had a lawn for it and a swimming pool cleaning android slave too if I had a pool. Robots are fun.
They are are also not ready for prime time.
As a winner of a world robot maze solving robot back in the early seventies, I’m prepared for the fact robots don’t do the real world well. The world is too fiddly.
They do however do human interaction brilliantly.
People love robots. The most mundane box of circuits soon earns empathy from homo sapiens.
It’s the old story of the 3 thing humans cant watch enough of: Fire, running water and other people working.
When it comes to getting on with people even the dumbest machine is a star. The comedy potential alone is worth the stocker price.
It is going to take just a single spark to ignite robotics into a trillion dollar industry.
This I believe will come from the consumers rather than big business, in the same way as it was the kids with home computers that created the sling-shot that became the Pc juggernaut.
It will be scrappy teenage nerd who make the break through.
You can see this wave forming now.
It’s the 3D printing makers who will morph into the robot builders. In turn they will build the demand for bits and create the exciting outcomes that will invent robots that people want to own.
They wont be what we think they will be. They will be something we can’t imagine now but oh so obvious when we see one.
They will be useless of course just as the PET’s and early Apple’s were little more than excuses to buy expensive toys.
However that’s not to say these machines won’t quickly become the platform for billions in corporate value.
We are on the cusp of that wave and I can already see that world in my minds eye.
I see people walking around with their personal robots, they might be their own personal butlers, child carriers or moving personal assistants. They might be mainly for show. Likely it won’t be for productivity at all. I’d buy a bag carrying robot right now even though Im quite capable of dragging my own.
There will be robots everywhere, like a pharaonic plague.
“Tell my wife I’m on the train and ask her what is for dinner?” someone will tell their white translucent plastic robot as they walk along. “Send her kisses.” The world will be crammed with people and their personal robot entourages.
I bet you can see that I your mind’s eye. The old people will shake their heads, they got along just fine with a smart phones, who needs 3 robots to get in everyone’s way?
It’s going to happen and it’s going to start soon.
It will be like the tech days of the 80s all over again and we know what to do. Buy the leaders and hold them for the long and bumpy ride up.