In addition, here's an A.I. remastered World War II cartoon written by Dr. Seuss with a character named Private Snafu. It's one episode of a series of shorts that were banned post-WWII, and it's one of the more tame episodes. For an extra piece of trivia, the name of Private Snafu and his series of shorts was based on the military acronym for "Situation Normal: All F***ed Up".
While produced by Warner Bros., these shorts which were made for the US military did not have to go through the Production Code Administration and thus got away with raunchier humor, foul language, and what we would today categorize as racist propaganda against the Japanese and Germans.
While it's okay to acknowledge that we should be doing better today, I also think it's interesting and informative to watch older materials in the context and time period they were written.
Racism isn't okay, but if you don't know history, you're doomed to repeat it, and art can be discussed and enjoyed within that context as well.
Last week, Microsoft won a contract to provide the U.S. army augmented reality ("AR") headsets. It's worth up to $21.9 billion over 10 years, and they'll be providing over 120,000 AR headsets. Porn has been the leader in VR/AR innovation, but it's unsurprising that war is also being used to drive innovation. Human nature is human nature.
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality have been around for a long time, but there's been a massive boom in innovation and interest over the last 3-5 years. Not only are the technologies becoming more affordable, but the animation is becoming more realistic, headsets are becoming more portable and longer-lasting, and our physical and virtual realities are beginning to blend.
We're moving towards a world where technology envelops every aspect of our lives ... figuratively and literally. It's funny because I felt the same way in the late 90s as cell phones and the internet proliferated. It feels quaint in comparison to the ubiquity of technology today. Even our toasters are smart now.
The following (still fictional) video is thought-provoking. What happens when these new technologies are used to influence behavior, decision-making, and even your identity?
Like many things, these technologies make possible awesome new capabilities (if used well) and horrific consequences (if abused or used in authoritarian ways).
Your doctor or nutritionist could help you make better choices for yourself. Your therapist or coach could help you perceive and respond differently to the challenges life presents you. Marketers could better influence your purchases. Employers could better monitor and measure your performance and productivity. And governments will not be far behind ... doing what they do. It all toes the line between beneficial and creepy.
Because of where we are in the adoption curve, it is becoming more common to discuss bioethics and AI ethics. Likewise, as we accelerate into an age of exponential technologies and mindsets, be prepared for increasing scrutiny of the promise versus the peril of various new technologies and capabilities.
We live in interesting times, and only getting more interesting as it goes!
I enjoyed the chart, and had a couple of different takeaways:
Many companies tried to capitalize on the streaming wave by launching half-baked streaming services, but it's clear that the pioneers are still extending their lead on the fast followers.
Despite Netflix already being the industry leader, they saw a 34% increase in 2020.
China's largest provider - Tencent Video - only has 120M users, which is about 8% of China's population. In contrast, Netflix has 74M US users, which is about 23% of the population.
The New York times is the only News subscription source big enough to make the list, yet it's at the very bottom with 6M users. Though, it did see a 61% increase in 2020.
Disney+ grew 95M in its inaugural year, which is a credit to the brand recognition Disney holds.
Interesting stuff and large numbers!
How will the world re-opening impact those numbers? How about 5 years from now? What do you think?
Will virtual reality and augmented reality start to impact these numbers?
With that much money and on the line, I expect this to remain an industry segment primed for innovation, growth ... and a few surprises.
It's a feat of engineering and human will. It's also a good reminder.
History is littered with tales of once-rare resources made plentiful by innovation. The reason is pretty straightforward … scarcity is often contextual.
Imagine a giant orange tree packed with fruit. If you pluck all the oranges from the lower branches, you are effectively out of accessible fruit. From that limited perspective, oranges are now scarce. But once someone invents a piece of technology called a ladder, the problem is solved.
When we first went to the moon, calculators referred to people charged with doing the complex math needed for the Rocket to make it into Space (rather than the device that could do the math instantly with no errors) and the computing power it took to get to the moon took up many rooms at NASA.
In comparison, you now have dramatically more computing power in your pocket than NASA used to get to the moon.
Likewise, we now have people living in space, posting videos from the ISS, and the ability to stream high-resolution images (and even movies) of space and galaxies near and far.
What was once scarce and unobtainable has become abundant and accessible. It is a story repeated countless times.
Still, as humans, we're wired to think locally and linearly. We evolved to live our lives in small groups, to fear outsiders, and to stay in a general region until we die. We're not wired to think about the billions and billions of individuals on our planet, or the rate of technological growth - or the minuteness of all that in contrast to the expanse of space.
Nonetheless, we have created better and faster ways to travel, we've created instantaneous communication networks across vast distances, and we've created megacities. Our tribes have gotten much bigger - and with that, our ability to envision and enact massive change has grown as well.
Our quest to conquer Space became the poster child for a type of innovation we now call "moon shots". While 'moon shot' originally meant "long shot," it's increasingly being used to describe a monumental effort towards a lofty goal — in other words, a "giant leap."
Today, with technology as a catalyst, we see those leaps happen in many areas (like A.I., medicine, longevity, space exploration, etc.).
It's hard to comprehend the scale of the universe or the scale of our potential ... but that's what makes it worth exploring.
For all his great writing, and all the complexities, he simplified stories into a few basic story shapes.
Here is a graphic that explains the concept.
Here is a 17-minute video of Vonnegut discussing his theory of the Shape of Stories. You can get the basic concepts in the first 7 minutes ... but he is witty and the whole video is worth watching.
You can explore a bit more elaborate version of his "Shapes of Stories" from his rejected Master's thesis from the University of Chicago.
Whether you think you can or you think you can't. You're right. - Henry Ford
Processing the possibilities of tomorrow is very difficult for humans. Part of the problem is that we're wired to think locally and linearly. It's a monumental task for us to fathom exponential growth ... let alone its implications. For example, consider what happened to seemingly smart and forward-looking companies like Kodak, Blockbuster Video, or RadioShack.
The world changes quickly.
Change is constant. The wheels of innovation and commerce spin ever-faster (whether you're ready for it, or not).
As a practical matter, it means that you get to choose between the shorter-term pain of trying to keep up ... or the longer-term pain of being left behind. Said a different way, you have to choose between chaos or nothing.
It is hard to keep up – and harder to stay ahead.
Personally, I went from being one of the youngest and most tech-savvy people in the room to a not-so-young person close to losing their early-adopter beanie. Sometimes it almost seems like my kids expect me to ask them to set my VCR so it stops flashing 12:00 AM all day.
My company may not really do "rocket science", but it's pretty close. We use exponential technologies like high-performance computing, AI, and machine learning.
But, as we get "techier," I get less so ... and my role gets less technical, over time, too.
Because of my age, experience, and tendency to like pioneering ... I've battled technology for decades.
Don't get me wrong, technology has always been my friend. I still love it. But my relationship with it is different now.
I tend to focus on the bigger picture. Also, I tend to appreciate technology on a more "intellectual" or "conceptual level" – but in a far less detailed way (and with much less expectation of using the technology, directly, myself).
The Bigger Picture
My father said, not worrying about all the little details helped him see the bigger picture and focus on what was possible.
You don't have to focus on the technological details to predict its progress. Anticipating what people will need is a great predictor of what will get built. That means predicting "what" is often easier than predicting "how'. Why? Because technology doesn't often look for a problem; rather, it is the response to one.
Here's a video from 1974 of Arthur C. Clarke making some very impressive guesses about the future of technology.
Artificial Intelligence, quantum computing, augmented reality, neuro-interfaces, and a host of exponential technologies are going to change the face and nature of our lives (and perhaps life itself). Some of these technologies have become inevitabilities ... but what they enable is virtually limitless.
I recently had the chance to speak at a wealth summit helping to educate family offices on the different opportunities available to them. Because of my work around the hedge fund space - and with emerging technologies like AI - I was brought in to focus on both topics for their audience.
The financial industry is intimidating - especially to newcomers - and while this summit is targeted towards family offices with $5MM+ in liquid assets, the lessons are accessible to any level of wealth.
The presentation was somewhat of a departure from my normal talking points because it was more focused on the basics of hedge funds & trading in general. Nonetheless, I think it's worth watching. This clip shows my response to the moderator's previous presentation. The presentation provides an introduction to hedge funds and alpha generation now and into the future. We also talk about Madoff, performance fees, the 2008 crash, "why a hedge fund?" and a lot more.
Have you seen it yet? It has had 20+ million views across various social media and syndication sites. So, you've likely run across it even if you haven't watched it.
The short version is that a woman tries to communicate with her significant other about her headache, which he quickly identifies as (literally) a nail in her forehead, with a seemingly obvious solution: Let’s get rid of that nail. She insists that that is absolutely NOT the problem, and if he would just listen to her, that would be clear to him. She explains, clarifies, objects, etc. Eventually, he does see the light ... and gives her not the solution he found so (literally) painfully obvious, but the solution she asked for.
"Don't try to fix it. I just need you to listen." It's obvious.
Good for a laugh, but, also good as a reminder. Simply put, a problem that may seem apparent to you may not be so obvious to the person with a problem ... and that might be the real problem.
Whether your takeaway is that we often miss the answer right in front of our face, or that we have to be aware of what other people need, or that you can't help people that don't want to be helped ... you're right.
Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - May 23rd, 2021
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.
Lighter Links:
Trading Links:
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