6 opportunities for the next 6 decades
These are 6 of the biggest entrepreneurial, business, academic, professional opportunities I see for our lifetime. This is not an assessment based on objective or thorough research (that’s why there are no references). This is based purely on my personal understanding and interpretation of the weak signals I get. The ranking is from the most obvious to the least obvious (and most impactful).
6. Shared Mobility
To clarify from the get-go, shared mobility means car-sharing (free-float: ShareNow, CityLink; P2P: Turo, Getaround), bike-sharing / micro-mobility (Lime, Bird, Voi, Tier), ride-sharing (BlaBlaCar, Waze Carpool), ride-hailing (Uber, Lyft, Didi, Grab), as well as on-demand transit / DRT (Via, Chariot, ReachNow, door2door).
To some, “shared” has a communitarian, even communistic sounding. Despite global efforts to further socialise public transport, there is an ever growing demand for private, on-demand mobility. The real reason future mobility is shared is as capitalistic as it gets: it’s more efficient, thus cheaper.
Just like in many other areas of life (accommodation — Airbnb, etc), people are starting to realise mobility is not an end in itself, but a goal to an end: in this case, reaching the destination. When speed and cost come more and more into play, both personal vehicle ownership and traditional public transport (route based, fixed schedules) become evidently obsolete. But what is often overlooked when analysing changing behaviours is that people have a limited mental capacity, and every micro-management decision eats into that. Otherwise said, owning your means of travel incurs precious mental costs. The same way driving a car in the city was in the past seen as a status symbol of the upper class, in the future it will also be a status symbol — of the lower class.
Nonetheless, I see 2 important reasons for which people (including myself) will still want to own a car they can easily access:
- leisure and family travel: there are some who predict the car will become a synced family mobile hub, acting as the backbone of mobile entertainment (music, personal development, travel etc).
- Black Swan emergencies: having your own car is a great insurance during catastrophes, from earthquakes or other natural events that paralyse a city, to pandemics that restrict public (shared) travel.
I’m most optimistic about P2P car-sharing and ride-sharing (because they help offset existing fixed costs stemming from depreciating assets), and on-demand mobility (because it offers comfort similar to that of ride-hailing, at costs similar to that of traditional public transport). All of these have not been possible before, and now are — all because of mobile technology and changes in human thinking.
5. Contextual & Transactional Social
Why are the Like and the Feed the Holy Grail of Social Media? Because they currently work and they have been continuously optimised to deliver views, and thus — advertising money.
But the Like says less and less about the quality or relevance of content. The number of Likes just shows how catchy or click-baity a post is.
Meanwhile, the Feed is no longer an elegant way to catch up with friends and news, but a tiring and overcrowded mindless (but endless) low quality entertainment stream.
When experts predict the future of Social Media, they talk about the complete switch to mobile, the need for privacy or security, the increase in video consumption, ad-free or freemium business models etc.
While these are all valid trends, I believe the biggest trend of them all is the evolution of Social Media into Contextual and Transactional Media. Context over Content. Pull over Push. Relevance over Engagement. Action over Feeling. Capital over Social Capital.
The current social media landscape is yet another anomaly of the early web age. Online social media will start mimicking our real (social) lives. Both online and offline we are presenting a polished image of ourselves, but offline social is (or was — and will be again) less about content and more about context. Offline socialising was (and — I repeat myself — will be again) about context, about interests, about activities.
Content was all about a persona’s timeline: the who and the when. Who (plus with whom) is doing something and when is it happening (posts are about the past, scheduled events are about the future).
On the other hand, Context is all about the setting: the what and the where. What are you engaging in and where are you. It might sound like scheduled events answer these 2 questions (what and where), but this was the old push approach. Creators pushing something to happen. The new what and where are pull — the platform observes what is happening and attracts co-creators. Happenings will be less defined and more serendipitous, and thus better suited to our social needs. Where will no longer be about location (understood as an objective geographic address), but about locus (a subjective place, product of our imagination). Physical geography is not the same as mental geography. An activity space 10 km away might be mentally closer than an activity space 100 m away. And the social platform will know this, because it has access to our mobility patterns, as well as our intentional and relational patterns.
A contextual social platform will understand our behaviours, our habits, our moods, our fears, our struggles, or our aspirations, all placed neatly on a sort of mindmap that the future social platform will connect with others’ mindmap. This will all stem from a geo-located sentiment analysis AND personalised recommender system.
Instead of scrolling and seeing posts from friends (who) having done or planning to do things (what), you will get a notification / open a mindmap of social possibilities (what & where).
You will find compatibles (friends of the past or of the future) in a similar current mindset, and happenings within your target area. For example, a parent might be “directed” to a relevant playground together with their kid. That playground will not be the closest one, nor will there be an event scheduled there. But there, they will find a happening (play date) with compatibles (other parents). The system knows the parents will enjoy that specific playground (because of their individual preferences, which have matched that playground’s attributes), that those parents have that place easily within their mental map (close to a place they know or frequent), that those parents will enjoy each other’s company (due to their respective personalities, current moods and personal challenges), and that they were available during that interval of time (the system knowing their typical patterns, as well as their daily plans). The social platform will have created a happening with people who might not know each other — but who it knows are compatibles. There is no need to set or confirm anything in advance. There is no need to coordinate with anyone. If you miss the happening, there will be plenty of others to co-create it. If you liked or didn’t like the happening, the AI-driven platform will know how to adjust accordingly in the future. I have many possibilities in mind, but I’ll leave those to your imagination.
The second core feature of the future social platform is that it will be (more) transactional. Many of our social relationships are transactional and the fact that social media doesn’t mimick this is mind-boggling. Whether you’re buying or selling products or services, it makes sense to have it all placed in a online social context (much like it is now offline). This will enable not just more (efficient) trading, but also more efficient reputation systems (again, just like we had in the past — and worked wonders for quality control and consumer protection).
Online has pushed brands to act more and more like people — personas with their own communication style, tone of voice, even feelings and social interactions. This is yet another temporary exception that our grandkids will learn about in disbelief. The best way to sell is through people, based on their own reputations and recommendations. This is why influencer (and referral) marketing is growing — but it’s not enough. What will change the game for social e-commerce is an online currency, one that is global and freely-transactable (but more on this, later). Add to this a neutral, federative and trust-minimised, reputation system and you’ve got yourself a killer combo for international P2P commerce.
So what will that social platform look like? First of all, it has to be a platform that is not out of this world, running parallel to it (such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter), but is of this world. A visually intelligible platform where the offline and the online can merge seamlessly. A platform that is not a social network, but a(n existing) network that is social at its core.
The social platform of the future might emerge from an e-commerce platform, a payment system, or — my personal favourite — a maps provider. So whether the future social network will come out of Amazon or Alibaba, PayPal or Revolut, Google (Maps) or Apple (Maps), that’s to be seen. Personally, I believe Google (through Maps) has an unfair advantage that will be hard to overcome.
4. Nude Property / Usufruct
As we move into more unfamiliar territory, this might be the first time you learn about Nude Property. But before enunciating the term’s definition, let me first talk about an emerging societal problem for generations to come.
On the one hand, we have an aging population which puts a heavier load on depleting public pension systems. On the other hand, people are already having less and less children (which is why the Ponzi schemes called public pensions are falling apart). Also, due to ever-growing inflation, we have increasing amounts of money meant to buy a fixed amount of real estate. So young people with little savings simply can’t afford to buy a house.
What this means is that pensioners are (apparently) growing poorer and homeowners are getting fewer. What changes the game is the fact that more and more pensioners do not have kids (or, even sadder, have become alienated with them). This means they have nobody (they love) to inherit their properties.
This shows us that even if poor in cash, pensioners are actually rich in assets. Meanwhile, while aspiring home-owners are also poor in cash, they are (typically) richer in another limited asset: time.
What if there would be a way for young people to buy houses from old people, but with the latter being able to continue living their lives in their current homes, and the former getting a better deal than through mortgage / bank financing.
This is all possible through a legal agreement that deals with Nude Property and Usufruct. In our example, this is what it means: pensioners sell the title to their house, while retaining the right to live there. Young people / future home-owners essentially buy what is called the “nude property” (i.e. technically they become the new owners, without having the right to evict the current residents), while the current dwellers (the pensioners) have the right to use (hence the “usufruct”) the house during their lifetimes.
Why is this a great deal? Pensioners get to sell their house (cash in) AND continue to live in it. Young people get to buy a house at a fraction of its value, either as a future residence or as an investment. The deal can be sweetened even more: there can be little upfront and payments can be done monthly — this makes it ideal for elderly who simply want to double or triple their pensions, and for young people to save/invest in a (generally) safe asset class: real estate.
Ok, why haven’t you heard about this?
To be honest, I have no clue. In my naivety, I thought I came up with this brilliant idea and when I researched it, I found out it does exist — of course. Why people (young and old) don’t take advantage of what seems like a no-brainer option for many I don’t really understand. It might have to do with elderly people being scared of “selling” their only house, or young people lacking long-term vision. It might be that we’re reluctant to trying things that seem odd, or that having a less than optimal home ownership arrangement is just business as usual.
The fact that this isn’t happening on a massive scale, despite the obvious (to me, at least) opportunity, hints there could be many taking it up in the near future.
3. Income Share Agreements
This is a topic I know very little about. And I’ve been meaning to read more on it and write a decent summary. But I didn’t do it and probably won’t do it any time soon, so here’s my brief:
When a startup fails, it means it’s closed down, it ceased to exist. When a person fails, they learn valuable lessons and continue developing their career. So why do investors invest in startups and not in people? Why not buy equity stakes in people’s working capacities and revenue streams?
Income Share Agreements are both sensible and doable. Business leaders like to brag about investing in people, but that doesn’t mean anything. How long until they actually invest in people?
2. Free Cities
I’ll share here some extracts from a podcast I was on to talk about Free Cities:
My interest in software, bitcoin, and, more recently, private cities, stems from the idea of maximising individual liberty, either through platforms, currencies, or cities.
Private cities can choose to adopt any of the available currencies.
A good example of private cities were the ones in the Hanseatic League, which were formed by and around travelling merchants. These traders needed stability, security, and predictability. Local princes understood the benefits brought by trade, so they supported it. What’s interesting is that there were examples where merchants had a real contract with the local administration, which also included a sort of insurance against theft. So cities had real liabilities in their dealings.
Private cities are sometimes also called charter cities or are even associated with special economic zones. I’m not excited about special economic zones, because these don’t have autonomy over governance issue [later edit: someone more knowledgeable pointed out this is incorrect].
The reason China allowed special governance rules in Shenzhen, for example, is so they could experiment with new (capitalistic) economics policies. Their aim was to raise people out of poverty, through whatever means. Deng Xiaoping said “it doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice”.
There’s also the example of the International Financial Centre in Dubai, where they implemented Common Law in a special governance zone.
These examples demonstrate the power of special governance zones. They work!
I don’t think this kind of city would be possible in the European Union. A private city would have the right to discriminate, for example to accept or refuse residents.
A charter city could have autonomy in: infrastructure, local transport, construction, business registration and licensing, labour law, insurance (including medical), taxes, immigration, internal security, arbitrage, etc. A private city wouldn’t necessarily have to tick all of these, but just some.
Giving the example of Honduras, where they amended the Constitution to allow autonomous Special Development and Employment Zones. The first example is Prospera, which is an internationally-funded zone, and is now accepting residents. They must fully obey the Honduran Constitution, but they have autonomy for commercial aspects, for example starting a company. In a way, it’s a little onshore offshore. It might succeed, or it might fail, we’ll see. It’s not guaranteed that a private city will be successful, it’s just that private cities are more likely to be successful.
Lichtenstein is one of the most decentralisable [editor note: “decentralised or decentralisable? It seems that with the introduction of the Constitutional amendment, granting the ability to seceed, it would be the former rather than the latter.”] states in Europe. The prince introduced a Constitutional amendment so that local communities are allowed to secede from the state. This creates a greater equilibrium between the interests of the government and the governed.
Potential investors want to invest in places where economic policies and taxation are predictable, but more importantly, governance is predictable. If you sign an agreement with a government and the next government comes and breaks the contract, then you’re wasting your investment. [editor note: “That is not necessarily true; it may just mean that the benefits you derive from the investment will be diminished”]
There are initiatives for private cities in third-world countries, for example in Africa. These are meant to showcase a different development model. A private city is not meant for rich people, it’s meant to attract people who want to be economically productive: entrepreneurs, freelancers, employees.
Seasteading appeared some 20 years ago, to establish “cities” in international waters. The concept has partially failed, because although you’re not under the jurisdiction of a certain state, any state can come and break your “toy”. There were also initiatives to bring a ship outside Sillicon Valley, for IT people who couldn’t qualify for a US work visa.
I wouldn’t want to discourage anyone, but I don’t think this kind of city development is possible in Romania. Not because Romanians are less open, or anything like that, but because we’re part of the EU. I would rather look at Serbia, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia.
It’s not mandatory for the operator to be a company or corporation. It could be an NGO, a foundation. It could be a holding which includes corporations, sovereign wealth funds, banks, the host-state, third-party states, it might as well be a cooperative. It doesn’t have to be a capitalist paradise, it can be an alternative development zone, maybe even a religious association.
The entrepreneur’s bet with the state is: give me this uninhabited, unused, and worthless land for 30–50–100 years, and I’ll try to do something with it. If I succeed, it will bring investments, jobs, taxes, and so on. If I fail, you (the state) would have lost nothing. If a state would allow 100 such zones, it’s impossible for none of them to succeed.
The problem with some host-countries is that many politicians are corrupt, and although they understand the concept and the opportunity, they want upfront cash bribes to allow such initiatives. I think this problem might find its answer in third-world countries, where they so badly need poverty alleviation and development, so even smaller investment can make a big difference, and this would translate into more tangible political capital for the enablers. I think think-tanks and academia can use these positive use cases to put pressure on their politicians. In the end, what we want to achieve is competitive governance. More and more people in the 21st century want to choose their governments. Digitalisation accelerated this trend, this competition between governments. For example, some governments now welcome digital nomads without requiring the typical work visa. In the next 10 years, a billion people want to change countries. The main reason for emigration is economic, of course.
We need to attract socialists in this movement. Because if their goal is to lift people out of poverty, international mobility enables this. People should be able to move to new jurisdictions, and we should learn from what those jurisdictions did well.
The idea that the state would simply take over successful special governance zones is false. The majority of countries are signatory to international conventions (e.g. New York Convention), which forces states to implement arbitration decisions when states don’t respect contracts signed with private entities.
The private city model in a nutshell: let’s take an area that is unused (or even underused) and allow free initiative to do its magic, and abstain from intervening (as a state). It’s neither a left-wing nor a right-wing approach, and there’s nothing radical about this.
1. Bitcoin
Bitcoin is inevitable.
These are the 6 opportunities I see for the next decades.
If you found this or my other articles* interesting, follow me here and on LinkedIn for updates.
*I previously wrote on How to build a Ride-hailing Venture (based on my experience building “the Uber of Mongolia”), Why China Matters [more valid now than 4 years ago], and Crypto Pioneers on Twitter.
PS: A very kind and knowledgeable person offered me some relevant comments on this article. Article has been slightly changed where there were language mistakes, and editor insights have been added in a few places. Thank you, SM!
