BlackRock's Meteoric Rise ...

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I don’t usually write about individual companies, but an infographic highlighting BlackRock’s impressive growth caught my eye.

BlackRock has been around since 1988. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that it really took off, but since then, they’ve clearly been doing something right. 

Now, they are the world’s largest asset manager.

 

Voronoi via visualcapitalist

In 2006, BlackRock acquired Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, nearly doubling its AUM, but its CAGR shows that it’s not just luck that has helped BlackRock achieve its current position. 

In 2023, when I reviewed their equity holdings, they held approximately $9 trillion in assets. Now that has grown to more than $12 trillion. 

While they aren’t as transparent as Berkshire Hathaway about what they do or how they do it, according to its website, BlackRock positions itself as a systematic investor that leverages vast datasets and new technologies.

Comparing again to Berkshire Hathaway, both have invested heavily in Apple, which isn’t particularly surprising. 

While I enjoy insights into other investors' playbooks, it’s not the be-all and end-all. It’s simply one way to invest ... and might be a reasonable way to get from a lot of money to even more money - but their trading strategy isn’t necessarily going to work for the average investor (or you). 

Still, when there is blood in the streets … asking, “What would Warren or Blackrock do?” might be a great place to start.

However, it is challenging to maintain an edge if you use the same process and data as your competitors (especially when they have enough assets to use time or trade size to their advantage).

As the flywheels of commerce spin faster, edges will emerge and decay faster than ever before. Finding a solution is only a step in an ongoing process.  

Robust, reliable, and repeatable innovation at scale is a meaningful competitive advantage. That implies that idea factories will become as important (if not more so) than factories that produce material products. Likewise, innovation funnels will become more important than sales funnels. 

The world changes at the speed of thought ... and as technology continues to improve ... even faster.

Thankfully, we live in interesting times.