Ask HN: Which industry will most likely produce the first trillionaire?

That rules something like finance out, which compounds very poorly, and hasn't produced trillionaires despite being around for centuries.

I'd bet on education. Colleges and universities can be worth billions each. While the billion dollar ones are pretty good, the sub billion ones aren't and are getting competed with by several month courses.

It seems something mostly neglected. Universities hire the smartest people, but teaching still uses the same old lecturing technique for decades, despite all this interactive technology. We've learned a lot about psychology and productivity. We have tried improving education technology, but it seems to just be a side gimmick. This can also be combined with upcoming new tech like AI to work better.

It seems like something that compounds very well. If you can hack your brain to have, say, 90% comprehension, and comprehend harder things, you can also discover better education techniques and train others.

Energy would be second. Oil has already produced trillionaire families, but it's too big to concentrate on one person.

I'd imagine Bill Gates's shiny new nuclear plants could push him into trillionaire territory. Combined with the new electrical vehicle trend, people could be migrating from oil to electricity.

Palladium today is $1704.73 per ounce, but the price of palladium comes from the fact that it's extremely rare on Earth. But what if someone comes back from an asteroid with an amount of palladium that suddenly triples the worldwide supply? What will the effects be on the price point? I'm sure the costs of getting it back planetside will be factored in and slow down any inflation, but I am still curious.

And what kind of things could we create, given a vastly increased supply of rare elements?