Introducing Inflections: Where We’re Going
Humans like making predictions. The problem is that we’re not very good at them.
Part of the reason is data. We can’t measure everything that matters. Part of it is weighting. We don’t know what matters most. Part of it is hubris. We’re not as smart as we think we are. Some of it could be timing. You can be right, but that doesn’t matter if you’re too early (or too late).
Most important of all, we rely on history, which can only be understood retroactively. It’s hard to understand what’s happening especially when we don’t have the benefit of hindsight.
History is full of augurs, prophets, and oracles. Few have successfully predicted the future in any way that matters. Even when they do, their prophecies tend to miss the mark.
We’re quick to believe the stories that make intuitive sense, even when they lie far from the truth. Thus any form of predictions should be taken with hesitancy. This is hard because even though we can’t see the future, we still want to know what it looks like. Everyone, from farmers to investors, feel this tug for knowledge. The challenge is that the world is in constant flux. It’s a foolish proposition to assume anyone can accurately analyze, synthesize, and prophesize the future.
Nonetheless, we proceed.
While preordaining the future is futile, by identifying directional trends of progress, it’s possible to see where we’re going. Given the increased rate of change in the world, this form of knowledge is more important than ever.
This is why we’re launching INFLECTIONS. Inflections is an exploration into the different arcs of the future. This series examines different industries' futures while analyzing what theses scenarios mean, and why they matter.
All the information needed to make these observations is freely available. No matter where are you are in the world or who you are, as long as you have access to the Internet, you can see the same information as everyone else. The challenge is figuring out how to identify the signals from the noise.
Fortunately, plenty of brilliant people freely share their premonitions, and we can triangulate in on those that repeatedly anticipate change. Even more, at any given point in time, there are entrepreneurs building and living in the future. Some of their visions will happen sooner than others, but their imaginations give us a starting point. Finally, while the future remains unwritten, history acts as a (loose) guide — especially for human behavior. These are useful tools, because as we mentioned, forecasters’ track records on an individual basis, are abysmal. Inflections approaches this problem from a different approach: we’re crowdsourcing our analysis.
Starting with the collaborative beliefs of others allows us to employ our judgements to whittle away the background static. Inflections illuminates the potential paths forward. As you’ll see, there is no pre-ordained future. Instead, we see a range of outcomes, each with their own set of consequences. Some of these will never be anticipated, such is the nature of history. But some will be foreseeable. We’re striving to find the inevitable inroads — trends that have minimal likelihood of reversing.
Of course, the world is constantly changing. We welcome feedback and criticism — we want to learn what contradicts what we’re seeing. These musings may be right or wrong, but decidedly it's worth having a stake in the outcome rather than sitting on the sidelines.
Investment opportunities exist because history, and data, don’t tell us when these different futures will merge with the mainstream. Analysis will always be incomplete, because no one can perfectly say what people will do next. So with this in mind, use Inflections not as a prescriptive map of the future, but use it as a tour guide, helping point you in the general direction. Inflections won’t paint a complete picture, but we’ll strive for our best Monet impersonation (as opposed to Dali).
Inflection points are moments of step-function change. Today we are short-pressed to find entire industries and markets that are not undergoing some form of a seismic shift. Timing these inflection points is hard, if not impossible, but armed with the proper knowledge you can be prepared for when these inflection points occur.
The winners are ready — they’re resilient, ready to evolve as needed.
We’ve been crafting Inflections for the past year, and we’re excited to begin sharing it publicly. Our goal is to chisel statues that stand the test of time. We won’t be right about everything, but we’re aiming to get the general contours correct. Expertise is a predictive model about the future that works. Here’s to our journey to get there.
Introducing Inflections: Where We’re Going.
