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In what areas are the massive fortunes of the future going to be made?

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Re: In what areas are the massive fortunes of the future going to be made?

#2

Post by ccbrandenburg »

I would say one of them could be in making the utility (electricity, gas, water) more user friendly. Transparency hardly exists and there are seldom interactions between companies and subscribers. Focusing on user experience in this area could be an opportunity...

Re: In what areas are the massive fortunes of the future going to be made?

#3

Post by oracuk »

Agriculture.

An aging industry, small margins for the older economic structure of small/medium holdings, little existing use of new technologies at scale.

As the industry demographic shifts and as 'new' technologies such as drones, robotics, remote sensing, pervasive wireless data, vat-grown meat and mixed land/marine farming are adopted there will be a lot of money to be made feeding the world.

Re: In what areas are the massive fortunes of the future going to be made?

#6

Post by josephpmay »

-Food (agriculture, livestock, protein from insects, lab grown meat, etc.)

-Transportation (if you can find a way to decrease fuel costs)

-Disruptive medicine (traditional drug companies will be making less and less money, but companies that develop cheaper cures to common world-wide ailments will be extremely successful)

Basically, things that are necessities for living. Media/entertainment will become an increasingly zero-sum game.

Re: In what areas are the massive fortunes of the future going to be made?

#8

Post by saryant »

ccbrandenburg wrote: post #2

I would say one of them could be in making the utility (electricity, gas, water) more user friendly. Transparency hardly exists and there are seldom interactions between companies and subscribers. Focusing on user experience in this area could be an opportunity...

So long as the power doesn't go out and the price is reasonable, why do I care if my utility company has a nice website?

Re: In what areas are the massive fortunes of the future going to be made?

#9

Post by zt »

pg wrote: post #5

Always hard to predict, but one area where I'm sure there's lots of room is starting startups in industries that didn't previously have them. To use one example of many, LendUp.

The cliche phrase "software is eating the world" doesn't quite do the future justice. "Startups in industries that didn't previously have them" does it much better: that's agriculture (Sourcerly), payments (WePay, Stripe, Balanced, Slidepay, Square), lending (LendUp, Lending Club), startup investing (Anglelist, WeFunder), banking (Palintir, Standard Treasury), insurance (Oscar) fashion (La Tote, Crowdery), and more. So many industries can still be improved with the startup ethos of disruption, growth, efficiency, data, etc.

Re: In what areas are the massive fortunes of the future going to be made?

#10

Post by PeterisP »

ccbrandenburg wrote: post #2

I would say one of them could be in making the utility (electricity, gas, water) more user friendly. Transparency hardly exists and there are seldom interactions between companies and subscribers. Focusing on user experience in this area could be an opportunity...

Your post implies that rare interactions with the utility are somehow a problem - IMHO a perfect true utility would get even fewer interactions, ideally 0; just bill my account for what I owe for water and ensure that water always works...

In an ideal world should have exactly 1 interaction with my utility ever - when I move in, give them my details and sign an agreement. If they need a second interaction, then that's likely due to some problem or failure.

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