Nivi · July 8th, 2010
Angel investor Thomas McInerney:
“Take a look at all the innovation happening today — Tesla has produced a beautiful 100% electric car. The cost of mapping the human genome has gone from $3 billion ten years ago to thousands today. Moore’s Law continues unabated and the rate of innovation in smart phones is staggering. The computer has moved from the desktop to the pocket, this trend alone reminds me of the World Wide Web in 1994. Social networking is in its infancy, and Twitter and Facebook are growing explosively. IP traffic is growing so fast that it has stunned the pioneering people who helped create it.
“Ray Kurzweil maps out an optimistic view of the future with a tremendous amount of data supporting his main thesis — that the rate of innovation is increasing on a geometric scale. This means that innovation is happening faster every day. So yes, there are macro-level concerns about the economy, but there is also a staggering amount of data that supports the case for being an optimist. The data supports the fact that we’ll see more innovation in the next ten years than we’ve seen in the last one hundred years.
“If you are an investor or entrepreneur, this is the best time in history to make a fortune and create a better world… So if you’ve run out of ideas, buy gold. But I argue this is the best time to find innovators and invest in the future. Fortune favors the bold.”
[Emphasis added.]
Topics AngelList · VC Industry
I couldn’t agree more. Very uplifting post in a time when news seams to be all bad.
That would be “seems” not “seams”.
😛
i know lots of people don’t understand gold, and they mistakenly think it is about fear. no, it is actually about economic freedom. see alan greenspan’s essay, “gold and economic freedom,” available for free on the web through a simple search. gold is the best performing asset since 2000 — the time when the era of bubbles began. also, the US has gone from a nation of one income households with a positive savings rate to a two-income household with a negative savings rate, a trend that really took off when the gold standard was fully abandoned in 1971, which is also when the money supply began to explode.
these are not mere coincidences, they are deeply significant facts. those who wish to see capital markets return to being a vehicle that helps build innovations that change the world may benefit from appreciating the role gold and sound money play in creating such markets. gold is the barometer of the markets that serves to keep government honest, which is precisely why big government hates gold.
Positive! Yes.
Warren Buffet also said something like “if I were to be born again and could choose which country to live in, I will still choose the US” to explain why he is still bullish on the US. And most people will still do the same!
Exciting stuff for sure, Thomas, but the pragmatist in me hopes we’re creating goods and services with real value rather than just amazing each other.