Capitalogix

Major Asset Class Performance Since 2020

Last week, we highlighted the growth of cryptocurrencies. This week, we're taking a look at the performance of various asset classes during the previous 5 years - including Bitcoin. 

To start, let's get a sense of where things stand year-to-date.

This has been a "strange" year. As someone who follows Markets, I'm still surprised by how many times I'm tempted to say that.

In addition, I'm also surprised by how well global assets have fared year-to-date.

Here's a high-level overview.

via CapitalSpectator.

After a seemingly significant string of losses, U.S. stocks experienced a surprising rebound in May, marking their first monthly gain since January. This upturn propelled U.S. equities to the top of the performance leaderboard among major asset classes during the month. The rally was driven by broad strength across global markets, though some segments, particularly bonds in developed markets, faced declines.

Equities and bonds typically have an inverse relationship. Recently, both markets have been reacting sharply — stocks up, bonds down. This dynamic reflects uncertainty. The market is balancing hope and fear simultaneously — hope in economic recovery and corporate earnings, and fear of tighter monetary policy.

Game theory suggests that the conflicting incentives between growth-focused and risk-averse investors create a dynamic equilibrium sustaining this paradox. However, this brings up an uncomfortable question for investors:

 

What if the erosion of bonds’ safe haven triggers a systemic liquidity crisis when protection is most needed?

 

That is where a longer-term lens is particularly helpful, both for providing context and offering insights into portfolio mix and diversification strategies.

The infographic illustrates how major asset classes performed each year over five years, highlighting the impact of external shocks and policy changes. It emphasizes the importance of diversification by showing how different assets respond uniquely to economic shifts, enabling investors to identify risks and opportunities in recent market cycles.

 

via Visual Capitalist.

Bitcoin has performed better than I expected during the past five years, attracting both institutional and retail investors. Meanwhile, gold has seen renewed interest as falling interest rates and easing political uncertainty have led some investors to seek safer assets, reflecting a shift toward lower risk tolerance in segments of the market.

It's interesting to see the dichotomy between these two asset classes and their growth, despite their almost inverse profiles. 

Meanwhile, 2025 has been a rocky year for many asset classes. If you like potentially meaningful (but likely meaningless) factoids, 2025 has seen the S&P 500's fifth-worst start to a year in history. 

It will be interesting to see how the rest of this year plays out. 

Is Crypto Going Mainstream in 2025?

Humans are good at recognizing significant changes on the horizon, but not nearly as good at understanding the second and third-order consequences of those changes.

A great example is the Internet. As it spread, most adults understood that it would bring “big changes”. However, even as a tech entrepreneur at the time, I didn’t fully grasp what the rise of the Internet would cause or make possible.

I feel the same way today about the rise of AI. It literally will change everything.

Close behind that is what’s happening in Crypto.  

 

Where Attention Goes, Money Flows

I don’t claim to be a crypto expert or fan. Historically, I’ve been skeptical and resistant on many levels. Nevertheless, I've always argued the blockchain was here to stay. Now, even Crypto seems to be becoming an inevitability.

Governments are becoming supporters. Regulators are falling in line. Big banks and industry are building infrastructure. New giants are forming. Coinbase recently joined the S&P 500. Circle just had a wildly successful IPO. And the performance of stocks like these hints at the growing market appetite for crypto businesses.

Currently, Crypto’s market cap is over $3 trillion. At the beginning of Trump’s presidency, the cryptocurrency markets experienced a significant surge. Since Donald Trump’s re-election in November 2024, Bitcoin has surged 60 percent, reaching record highs. However, Bitcoin isn’t the only cryptocurrency experiencing a surge; even meme coins are seeing a massive increase in value. 

Nevada recently hosted a Bitcoin conference, featuring speakers such as Vice President JD Vance, Trump’s two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, as well as White House crypto advisor David Sacks. 

Despite the growth (and Trump’s support), there are still mainstream obstacles ... obstacles that may be addressed by increased investment in stablecoins. For context, countries such as the UAE and Vietnam boast higher rates of cryptocurrency ownership than the United States. 

 

Stablecoins Are Rising

A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a stable value, typically pegged to a reference asset like a fiat currency (e.g., U.S. dollar) or a commodity (e.g., gold). This contrasts with other cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, which can experience significant price fluctuations. They serve many purposes, but ultimately believe they’re an interesting way to store value on-chain and take steps into the crypto world. 

The stablecoin market in 2025 is dominated by a handful of major platforms and issuers, recognized for their scale, transparency, and integration into both traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystems. The two largest and most respected stablecoin platforms are Tether and Circle.

 

    Tether (USDT)

•Market Position: Tether remains the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, with over $140 billion in circulation and controlling more than 60% of the stablecoin market.

•Key Features: USDT is widely used across centralized exchanges, DeFi protocols, and global payment networks. It is primarily backed by U.S. Treasury bills and managed by Cantor Fitzgerald, providing a reserve base comparable to that of major national treasuries.

 

    Circle (USDC)

•Market Position: USDC is the second-largest stablecoin, with a market cap exceeding $60 billion.

•Key Features: Known for its transparency, Circle publishes weekly attestations of reserves, which are held in cash and short-term U.S. government treasuries.

 

Stablecoin funding is projected to 10X.

 

CBInsights via Voronoi

When cryptocurrency started to gain popularity, I expressed concerns about how banks and governments would resist widespread adoption until they could introduce regulation and gain control over it. I remember confidently saying that, throughout history, governments have always protected the right to print and tax coin. That is still true ... it just means something different to me, now, than it did when I said it.

I’m starting to pay more attention to Crypto, blockchain, and other emerging DeFi technologies.

I’m seeing an increasing flow of talent, opportunities, and resources to this space.

For example, major payment players like Mastercard and Visa are allowing stablecoin transactions and even creating their own coins. 

I do believe growth in stablecoins will also result in growth in other forms of cryptocurrency as well. 

For context, here are the best-performing cryptocurrencies of 2024. 

 

via VisualCapitalist

I still won’t pretend to be knowledgeable about the various coins, but I recognize that they are becoming more common and useful as speculation markets. 

All in all, I believe we are witnessing the birth of another blue ocean, and we can expect increased attention and investment to continue.

Onwards! 

Make Way For 2025's Biggest Unicorns

Billion-dollar startups are becoming increasingly common with VC funding surging, and an increased focus on exponential technologies. 

VisualCapitalist put together an infographic based on May's PitchBook that highlights the newest Unicorns.

If you are curious, PitchBook defines Unicorns as venture-backed companies valued at $1 billion or more after a funding round, until they go public, get acquired, or drop below that valuation.

Here is the list for 2025.

 

Pitchbook via visualcapitalist

Topping the list (and eclipsing every other company on the list) is Yangtze Memory out of China. They're focused on flash memory and solid-state drives. Yup, that's still a thing.

Also high on the list is Abridge, an American AI startup focused on turning doctors' conversations with patients into documentation. If you've ever talked with a clinician of any sort, you know how time-consuming documentation currently is. The combination of AI and longevity—or age reversal—is likely to become an increasingly hot area for investment.

Meanwhile, a rising tide floats many boats ... and with the continuing rise of funding in AI, you'll also find a growing list of AI unicorns, like Peregrine, Synthesia, AnySphere, Mercor, and The Bot Company. 

Although these individual companies are interesting, the larger trend is probably more significant. 

There have been 43 new unicorns in 2025 alone. And while the most profitable unicorns from 2024 are still OpenAI, ByteDance, and SpaceX, their competition is on the rise.

I've been a tech entrepreneur for decades, so I'm used to the constant march of progress. But this feels different. The pace is quickening!

We certainly live in interesting times!

The Rise of AI Art and Its Implications

The last time I talked about AI Art specifically was in 2022 when Dall-E was just gaining steam. Before that, it was 2019, when AI self-portraits were going viral. 

On both occasions, it still felt like the relative infancy of the technology. I compared it to VR getting another 15 minutes of fame. 

The images at the time weren’t fantastic, but it was a massive step in AI’s ability to understand and translate text into a coherent graphic response. The algorithms still didn’t really “understand” the meaning of images the way we do, and they were guessing based on what they had seen before - which was much less than today’s algorithms have seen. They were also much worse at interpreting images. As such, when you tried to use AI to recreate an image, there were a lot of hallucinations. The algorithms were essentially a brute-force application of math masquerading as intelligence. 

 

Fortunately, AI imagery has come a long way since then. However, with that improvement comes more ethical concerns. 

The rise of AI-generated art has sparked a complex and ongoing ethical debate, with compelling arguments on both sides. At the heart of the discussion lies the question of authorship, originality, and the impact of automation on human creativity and labor.

Proponents of AI art argue that it represents a powerful extension of human imagination. Just as past innovations—such as photography, digital editing, or sampling in music—were initially met with skepticism, Advocates argue AI-generated art is simply the next evolution in the artistic toolkit, and it democratizes access to artmaking. As a result, those with less skill - or time - can explore new styles, generate concepts, and be creative in a new form. To this end, they see AI not as a threat but as a collaborator—another brush or chisel in an artist’s hand.

However, critics raise concerns about the ethical implications of AI art, particularly in how these models are trained. Many AI systems are built on vast datasets scraped from the internet, including artwork by human creators who were neither consulted nor compensated, leading to accusations of IP theft. Moreover, they argue it sets a dangerous precedent where creative works can be replicated and commodified without consent or attribution. Lastly, on the idea of democratization, they would argue that art is already accessible to all and that people should be willing to explore skills not only to be good at them but to enjoy them. 

 

 

The most recent trend has been a great example of this argument. The launch of OpenAI’s new image generator, powered by GPT-4, has empowered users to transform their photos into various famous media themes - like Renaissance paintings or  Studio Ghibli anime images - which ironically goes against the ethos of Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki. The studio is known for its commitment to the craft, with carefully animated and hand-drawn scenes. Their films are known for glorifying nature and living in harmony with it. Miyazaki also believes that AI art is disrespectful to the “life” found in human-created art. 

 

“I feel like we are nearing the end times. We humans are losing faith in ourselves.” - Hayao Miyazaki 

 

I’m a massive fan of AI - and even AI art ... but as the technology continues to evolve, society must grapple with how to integrate these tools in ways that honor both progress and the rights of the artists (and people) whose work—and livelihoods—may be at stake.

What do you think?

AI: We're Not Just Prompts!

AI’s trajectory isn’t just upward—it’s curving ever steeper. From DeepMind’s groundbreaking models to Flow’s democratization of filmmaking, people are becoming used to how quickly AI technology improves.

 

Breakneck doesn’t even seem adequate to explain the scale of the movements. Because it isn’t just about the rate of change – even the rate of change of the rate of change is accelerating ... and the result is exponential progress.

 

Here is a simple example. Remember when you mocked AI-generated videos on social media for obvious flaws (e.g., six fingers, unnatural blinking or movement, etc.). Over the past few months, AI media quality has improved so much that spotting fakes is now difficult, even for tech-savvy people.

 

Well, we just took another giant leap.

 

This week, Google’s DeepMind unit released three new core AI models: Imagen for image generation,  Lyria for music generation, and Veo 3 for video generation.

It only takes a quick look at Veo 3 to realize it represents a significant breakthrough in delivering astonishingly realistic videos.

I’m only including two examples here ... but I went down the rabbit hole and came away very impressed.

Take a look – Everything in the clip below may be fake, but the AI is real.

 

via Jerrod Lew

The era of effortless, hyper-real content has arrived.

 

One of the big takeaways from tools like this is that you no longer need content creation talent other than your ideas.

 

An example of this comes from Google’s new AI filmmaking tool, Flow. 

What Is Flow?

What if creating professional-grade videos required no cameras, no crew, and no weeks of editing?

 

Flow can imagine and create videos just from your ideas. Kind of like telling a friend a story and having them draw or act it out instantly.

How Does It Work?

Think of Flow as a giant box of movie Legos. You can bring your own pieces (like pictures or clips) or ask Flow to make new pieces for you. Then, you snap them together to build scenes and clips that look like real movies.

Why Is This Cool?

It is becoming easier for almost anyone to create the type of content that only a specialist could produce before. The tool makes it easy in these three ways.

1. Consistent: The videos stick together well, so your story doesn’t jump around confusingly.
2. Seamless: It’s easy to add or change things without breaking the flow.
3. Cinematic: The videos look high-quality — like something you’d see on TV or in theaters.

If you want to play with it, it’s available to Google Ultra subscribers through the Gemini app and Google Labs. 

Ok, but what can it do?

Redefining “Real”

Don’t skip this next part. It’s what gave me the idea for the post.

To set the stage, imagine you’re watching a video of a person talking. Typically, you think, “This is real — someone actually stood in front of a camera and spoke.” But now computers can make a video that looks and sounds so real, you can’t tell it’s fake.

 

Anyway, this week, I saw a cool video on social media. At first, I thought it was cool simply because of the idea it expressed. But the video gets even more interesting when you realize how it was created.

 

“Prompt Theory” is a mind-bending exploration of artificial intelligence brought to life. The premise examines what happens when AI-generated characters refuse to believe they’re not real. From stunning visuals to synced audio, this video showcases AI’s new immersive storytelling power while examining some pretty trippy concepts.

 

Hashem Al-Ghaili via X

I predict you will see a massive influx of AI-generated content flooding social media using tools like this. 

Meanwhile, digital “people” with likenesses and internal objectives are increasingly going to become persistent and gain the ability to influence our world. This is inevitable. Yet, it’s still a little disorienting to think about.

 

As digital agents gain persistence and purpose, we face profound questions about reality, ethics, and human creativity.

 

And that is only the beginning!

 

Perhaps we are living in a simulation?

Is AI Making You And Your Team Smarter?

At the core of Capitalogix’s existence is a commitment to systemization and automation. 

At first, the goal was to eliminate fear, greed, and discretionary mistakes from trading.

Over time, we’ve worked hard at making countless things easier. Much like math, we found that the best practice is to simplify complex processes before trying to automate them.

I’m surprised by how many times I have had the same realization ... Less is more.

Likewise, I’ve learned the hard way that a great strategy is useless if people don’t get it. That is part of the reason that frameworks are so important.

Ultimately, the process, the system, and the automation should follow this basic recipe if you want it to succeed:  Simple, Repeatable, Consistent, and Scalable.

Finding ways to automate sounds great. Increasing efficiency, effectiveness, and certainty sounds great, too  ... but, routines and habits become ruts and limits when they become un-measured, un-managed, or forgotten. 

A practical reality of increasing automation and constant progress is that it becomes increasingly important to have expiration dates on decisions, systems, components, and automations. We need to shine a light on things to make sure they still make sense or to determine whether we have a better option.

Freeing humans to create the most value sounds great, too ... but, as the pace of technological progress increases, the importance of freeing people to do more diminishes if they don’t actively rise to the occasion.

 

My Use of Technology

I got my first computer in 1984. It was the original Macintosh. That means I’ve been searching for and collecting technology tools to make business and life easier and better since the mid-80s.

It has been a long and winding road. These days,  it seems like I’m constantly looking for new ways to use AI in my life.

As you might guess, I “play” with a lot of tools. Of course, I think of it as research, discovery, and skill-building ... rather than playing. Why? Because it is something I’m good at, it produces value – and it gives me energy ... so, I make sure to reserve a place for it in my routine.

While most of what I explore doesn’t make it into my “real work” routine, I now have a toolbox of dozens of tools that I use for everything from research, notetaking, brainstorming, writing, and even relaxing. 

It’s a little embarrassing, but my most popular YouTube video is an explainer video on Dragon NaturallySpeaking from 13 years ago. It was (and still is) dictation software, but from a time before your phone gave you that capability. 

As I focus on systemization, I also have to focus on optimization. 

Using generative AI tools for daily research has fundamentally changed how I approach information gathering. What began as a meditative practice—slowly reading, digesting, and reflecting on material—has evolved into a faster, more expansive process. With AI, I can now scan and synthesize a much broader set of sources in far less time. The quality of the summaries and takeaways is high, enabling me to deliver more value to others. I can write better articles, share timely insights with fellow business owners, and keep my team well-informed. The impact on others has grown — but something subtle has shifted in my own learning.

The tradeoff is that if I’m not as careful as I used to be while doing the research, and I don’t engage with the material in the same way I did before. When I did the research manually, I was “chewing and swallowing” each idea, pausing to make connections, reflecting on implications, and wrestling with the nuance. That process was slower, but it etched ideas more deeply into memory.

As a result, my favorite articles of the week or month would show up in how I spoke on stage, what I wrote about, and how I worked through roadblocks with employees. Now, I notice that although I’m exposed to more information, it doesn’t have the same weight or impact. I’m consuming more at scale ... but retaining less, or perhaps less deeply (at least in my head). In contrast, I store much more, both in terms of quantity and depth, in my second brain (meaning, the digital repositories available for search when needed).

This brings up a fundamental distinction between knowledge storage and knowledge retrieval. Storage is about accumulating information, while retrieval is about quickly accessing and using the correct information at the right time. It requires digestion. 

It’s kind of like Amazon. Amazon has made buying books and getting them on my shelves easier than ever. I’ve got 1000s of books with answers to many of life’s questions. But, I’d estimate that I’ve really only read around half of the books I currently have on my shelf. The point is that having a book on your shelf with the answer to a problem is not the same as having the answers. 

I now have many thousands of articles in my Evernote. There are probably over a hundred of them about better “prompt engineering” or using “prompting techniques better”... but I can’t pretend that each article has made me better at those things. I have gotten better at thin-slicing and knowing what I want to store to improve the quality of the raw material I search for.

So now, I’m exploring how to maintain a balance. I still want to leverage AI’s value, while reintroducing a layer of slowness and reflection into the process. Maybe that means manually summarizing some articles. Maybe it means pausing to journal about what I’ve read, or discussing it with someone. The goal is not to abandon the efficiency — but to ensure that efficiency doesn’t come at the cost of depth.

The priority is making sure I’m optimizing on the right thing. It’s not progress if you’re taking steps in the wrong direction.

Let me know what you think about that ... or what you are doing that you think is worth sharing.

Onwards!

The World Is Getting Older ... You Are Too

We're on the cusp of a major demographic shift. 

Fertility rates are dropping and life expectancy is rising, basically across the globe. On the surface, not explicitly bad. It's great that improvements in healthcare, technology, and quality of life are resulting in a larger senior population. 

 

via visualcapitalist

In 1980, the average person was 26.5 years old. Today, the average person is 33.6 years old. 

Meanwhile, population growth has halved in the same time period. 

Based on this chart, the global population would start declining in 2085, as the average age rises to 42. By 2100, the global population will begin declining. 

Of course, there's variation depending on the country. 

Most countries are thinking about how to increase fertility rates. If fertility rates decline, and your population lives longer, you end up with a larger percentage of the population that cannot or does not work anymore. That results in more expenditure - especially in pension and healthcare systems -  without an accompanying increase in GDP or productivity. 

It seems unlikely that something won't dramatically affect these trends over the next 60 years.

Even if expenditure becomes a non-issue, countries are unlikely to be happy with declining population growth, in part because of declining production resources and tax income, but also because of diminished global power. 

What do you think? 

Global Happiness Levels in 2025

Are you Happy?

What does that mean? How do you define it? And how do you measure it?

Happiness is a surprisingly complex concept comprised of conditions that highlight positive emotions over negative ones. And upon a bit of reflection, happiness is bolstered by the support of comfort, freedom, wealth, and other things people aspire to experience. 

Regardless of how hard it is to describe (let alone quantify) ... humans strive for happiness.

Likewise, it is hard to imagine a well-balanced and objective "Happiness Report" because so much of the data required to compile it seems subjective and requires self-reporting. 

Nonetheless, the World Happiness Report takes an annual look at quantifiable factors (like health, wealth, GDP, and life expectancy) and more intangible factors (like social support, generosity, emotions, and perceptions of local government and businesses). Below is an infographic highlighting the World Happiness Report data for 2025.

World Happiness Report via Gallup

Click here to see a dashboard with the raw worldwide data.

I last shared this concept in 2022. At the time, we were still seeing the ramifications of COVID-19 on happiness levels. As you might expect, the pandemic caused a significant increase in negative emotions reported. Specifically, there were substantial increases in reports of worry and sadness across the ninety-five countries surveyed. The decline in mental health was higher in groups prone to disenfranchisement or other particular challenges – e.g., women, young people, and poorer people. 

Ultimately, happiness scores are relatively resilient and stable, and humanity persevered in the face of economic insecurity, anxiety, and more.

While scores in North America have dropped slightly, there are positive trends. 

The 2025 Report

In the 2025 report, one of the key focuses was an increase in pessimism about the benevolence of others. There seems to be a rise in distrust that doesn't match the actual statistics on acts of goodwill. For example, when researchers dropped wallets in the street, the proportion of returned wallets was far higher than people expected. 

Unfortunately, our well-being depends on our perception of others' benevolence, as well as their actual benevolence. 

Since we underestimate the kindness of others, our well-being can be improved by seeing acts of true benevolence. In fact, the people who benefit most from perceived benevolence are those who are the least happy. 

"Benevolence" increased during COVID-19 in every region of the world. People needed more help, and others responded. Even better, that bump in benevolence has been sustained, with benevolent acts still being about 10% higher than their pre-pandemic levels. 

Another thing that makes a big difference in happiness levels worldwide is a sense of community. People who eat with others are happier, and this effect holds across many other variables. People who live with others are also happier (even when it's family). 

The opposite of happiness is despair, and deaths of despair (suicide and substance abuse) are falling in the majority of countries. Deaths of despair are significantly lower in countries where more people are donating, volunteering, or helping strangers. 

Yet, Americans are increasingly eating alone and living alone, and are one of the few countries experiencing an increase in deaths of despair (especially among the younger population). In 2023, 19% of young adults across the world reported having no one they could count on for social support. This is a 39% increase compared to 2006. 

Takeaways

In the U.S., and a few other regions, the decline in happiness and social trust points to the rise in political polarisation and distrust of "the system". As life satisfaction lowers, there is a rise in anti-system votes.

Among unhappy people attracted by the extremes of the political spectrum, low-trust people are more often found on the far right, whereas high-trust people are more inclined to vote for the far left.

Despite that, when we feel like we're part of a community, spend time with others, and perform prosocial behavior, we significantly increase perceived personal benefit and reported happiness levels.

Do you think we can return to previous levels of trust in the States? I remember when it felt like both parties understood that the other side was looking to improve the country, just with different methods. 

On a broader note, while we have negative trends in the U.S., the decrease is lower than you might expect. The relative balance demonstrated in the face of such adversity may point towards the existence of a hedonic treadmill - or a set-point of happiness.

Regardless of the circumstances, people can focus on what they choose, define what it means to them, and choose their actions.

Remember, throughout history, things have gotten better. There are dips here and there, but like the S&P 500 ... we always rally eventually. 

Onwards!

What Do You Do When AI is Better Than You?

When Beethoven was at the peak of his career, several of his contemporaries struggled to deal with the realization that they may never create anything that lived up to his creations. Brahms, for example, refused to make a symphony for 21 years. Schubert is quoted as saying, “Who can ever do anything after Beethoven?”

We’re seeing the same effect as a result of Artificial Intelligence. 

 

via visualcapitalist

The gap between human and machine reasoning is narrowing fast. I remember when AlphaGo, an AI program created by Google’s DeepMind, finally got better than humanity at Go. It was a big deal, and it prompted us to think seriously about competition in a post-AI world. If you can’t be the best, is it still worth competing? To one former Go champion, it wasn’t. He retired after “declaring AI invincible.” 

Over the past few years, AI systems have advanced rapidly, surpassing humans in many more tasks. Much like Beethoven, AI is discouraging competition. 

Was Lee Sedol, the former Go champ, wrong to quit? It’s hard to say ... but as AI gets better at more activities, it’s an issue we’ll encounter more often.

There’s always someone (or something) better. Taking a purely utilitarian approach isn’t always necessary or productive. It often helps to take a longer view of the issue.

Sometimes, it's okay to just do something because you enjoy doing it.

Sometimes you have to “embrace the suck” and be willing to put in the work to learn, grow, and progress.

Sometimes, you need to invest effort in understanding a process better to determine whether others (or automation) are achieving the right results.

The most successful people I know don’t try to avoid things with powerful potential. Instead, they leverage those things to achieve more and become better.

I advocate intelligently adopting AI, in part, because I expect the scale of AI’s “wins” will skyrocket. That means I know AI will soon be better than I am at things I do now.

It doesn’t mean I should give up. It means I have to raise the bar to stay competitive.

I have another belief that helps here. What if you believed, “The game isn’t over until I win ...”? With that belief in place, I won’t let a 2^nd place ceiling stop me if something gives me energy. AI may change how I play the game ... or even what game I choose to play ... but I will still choose to play.

 

 

What Happens to Human Work When Machines Get Smarter?

AI is changing the playing field at work, too. 

As a result, some say that AI-driven job displacement is not a future threat but a present reality.

This past week, several prominent  CEOs publicly mandated AI use, marking a shift to “AI-first” work culture, which prioritizes and integrates AI into the core of an organization’s strategy, operations, and overall culture.

Here is what I think (and you've probably heard me say this before): 

At this point, AI won't likely replace you ... but someone who uses AI better might.

Let’s face it, doing more with less is a core goal and strategy in business.

But that doesn’t mean humans are doomed. There are lots of historical parallels between AI integration and past technological revolutions. If you think about AI as a transformative force, you can hear the echoes of historical shifts that redefined work practices and intellectual labor (like the printing press, the calculator, or the internet).

We’re seeing significant changes in how we work. Instead of just having a mix of people working from home or the office (a hybrid workplace), we’re moving to a situation where people are working alongside smart computer programs, called AI agents (a hybrid workforce).

 

The rise of the hybrid workforce signifies a transformative shift in workplace dynamics. Gartner predicts that one-third of generative AI use cases will involve AI agents by 2028.

In the age of AI, success doesn’t come from battling technology — it comes from embracing our uniquely human powers and building systems that let those powers shine.

AI is coming - but it doesn’t have to be joy-sucking. Ideally, it should free you up to do MORE of the things that bring you joy, energy, and satisfaction. 

Onwards!

The Next Gilded Age ... This Generation's Carnegies, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts

Wealth is fascinating to those who have it, those who want it ... and even those who don’t.

Billionaires have always controlled significant amounts of wealth compared to the general population. However, now we’re seeing substantial wealth differences grow within the billionaire population itself. The very richest are getting much richer compared to just “wealthy” people. 

When Forbes published its first World’s Billionaire List in 1987, 140 billionaires accounted for a total of $295 billion in global wealth. Topping that list was Yoshiaki Tsutsumi from Japan, with $20 billion. A lot has changed since then. Elon Musk topped this year’s Forbes List and is now worth over $342 billion. His wealth is about 21 times more than Tsutsumi’s ... and over two million times more than the average American family’s.

A New Gilded Age

In 2017, The Guardian released an article stating that the world’s super-rich held the greatest concentration of wealth since the turn of the 20th century. According to The Guardian, 1,542 billionaires held approximately $6 trillion in collective wealth, which would put them as the fifth largest GDP at the time. 

Last year, less than a decade since the Guardian’s article, Forbes estimated that 2,781 billionaires had a combined net worth of over $14 trillion. For a little more context, some estimate that the world’s richest 1% own more than 43% of global financial assets. 

Currently, the world’s super-billionaire population is primarily made up of entrepreneurs who made their money in the tech sector, or whose industry was catapulted to new levels by technological advances. Six of the top ten wealthiest individuals on the Forbes list fall into that category.

In comparison, the first Gilded Age was established by a few entrepreneurs controlling monopolies in US rail, oil, steel, and banking.

 

The image is “Bosses of the Senate”.

The Vanderbilts amassed $185 billion (adjusted for inflation) from their railroad empire. Andrew Carnegie made $309 billion from his steel empire. John D. Rockefeller made $336 billion from an oil empire (that controlled about 90% of the American oil business). They were the stars of the Gilded Age ... and their control over major industries led to some of the largest individual fortunes in American history compared to the average population. 

It’s interesting to look at the transition from the richest in the late 1800s to the richest in 2025 ... the transition from industries like Steel, Oil, and Rail, into companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Tesla, and Walmart. While they certainly dominate the spaces they’re in, it is a far cry from the monopolies of the 1800s. 

While there are more “super-rich” individuals today than before, our wealthiest individuals still manage to have some impressive stat lines. As of the end of 2024, Bernard Arnault was worth an estimated $233 billion. Elon Musk was worth around $195 billion, and Jeff Bezos was right behind at $194 billion. Today, Bernard is sitting at $178 billion, Elon is up to $342 billion, and Jeff is up to $215 billion. Arnault is a clear example of how Trump’s tariff announcement impacted billionaires. 

With the AI gold rush in full swing, it will be interesting to see who gets added to the list in the coming years. 

Let me know when your name makes that list. I’ll do the same.