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.
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.
Now, let’s take a look at which industries are struggling to find qualified candidates or to keep them.
As AI becomes more prevalent, it’s essential to consider several key factors when thinking about jobs and the future of work.
One thing to consider is whether an industry is ripe for disruption ... or just replacement. Another consideration is whether a role can be easily automated.
Labor shortages are increasing globally, and yet many young adults are struggling to find careers.
That’s an interesting contradiction: lots of jobs need people, but lots of young folks can’t find work.
This is crucial because it shows there’s a mismatch — the jobs exist, but the skills, readiness, or interests aren’t aligned with what employers want. It’s not just about having jobs; it’s about having the right people for those jobs. Zooming out, this mismatch reveals a bigger gap in education, training, culture, and how we prepare people for work. Fixing this isn’t just about filling seats; it’s about building a workforce that can grow with the changing economy and replace the aging boomers as they begin to retire en masse.
This chart helps us understand where skilled workers are needed and which industries may be struggling.
Real estate tops the list with 60% anticipating hiring difficulties in the near term. With high interest rates and market volatility, it does make sense. People tend to look for easy wins, and volatility scares both investors and employees alike.
While we know that retail & fast food workers are still among the most common jobs, hospitality has been struggling. This could be caused by labor conditions and complaints about compensation.
Meanwhile, tech, healthcare, and telecom are the least affected by job insecurity. While these are saturated markets, they’re also growing markets with well-defined career paths and consistent demand.
People thrive when given autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Understanding motivation beyond money helps struggling industries rethink job design to attract and keep talent. And in the bigger picture, meaningful work fuels engagement and innovation, creating a cycle of growth and satisfaction.
The struggle to find good workers is a canary in the coal mine—a warning that the world of work is shifting beneath our feet. It matters because work shapes economies and lives. Leaders who grasp not just the “what” but the layered “whys” have a chance to build a future workforce that’s resilient, motivated, and human-centered.
In times like these, some people see the challenges ... while others see the opportunity.
Today’s my birthday. I woke up on the right side of the dirt, in America, grateful for the opportunities ahead.
So far, so good.
For me, birthdays also invite a moment to pause and reflect on where I am, where I want to go, and what it’ll take to get there.
On the health front, I’m reminded of a simple truth: A healthy person has a thousand dreams, while an unhealthy one has only one.
Thankfully, I still have many dreams.
We’re lucky to be born late enough in human history that medicine isn’t just about fixing what’s broken—it’s about regeneration and life extension. The real promise isn’t just living longer, but living well longer.
That’s a future worth investing in.
So today, I’m dusting off some notes from a meeting I had years ago—lessons that feel more relevant than ever.
A Chat With The Father of Biohacking
In 2018, I was in Alaska at Steamboat Bay for a CEO retreat. I was spending time with a friend, Dave Asprey, a successful serial entrepreneur, author of several great books, and a thought leader in biohacking. In many ways, he’s the father of modern biohacking.
We recorded a video where Dave did a great job of relating his world to the world of Capitalogix and trading. I share it in part so you can experience his wide range of interests and expertise. It holds up well. I encourage you to watch it.
In the video, Dave explains that life evolves through a series of algorithms operating at microscopic levels. Your body and brain are made of tiny parts working like clever little computers. These parts constantly talk to each other, sense what’s happening around them, and change their behavior to keep you alive and thriving.
Nature has been running this amazing program for billions of years, constantly improving through trial and error (that’s evolution).
Dave points out that there are striking similarities between genetics/epigenetics and modern digital algorithms. Markets and businesses make numerous small decisions and adjustments to achieve significant outcomes.
In a sense, Markets and industries function like biological environments where algorithms continuously evolve and adapt.
So really, life and business aren’t magic—they’re just lots of tiny choices happening at once. If you learn how to listen to these choices and guide them wisely, you become better at playing the game. And that’s how evolution, biology, and even markets all tie together.
The lesson? Build systems and habits that are flexible and adaptable, like living things.
It helped me reframe my perspective on my business. But it also got me thinking more about my health and how I wanted the next 20 years of my life to look. As a result, I started taking care of my health and paying more attention to preventive care.
Health is the foundation that gives all ambitions a place to stand.
Focusing on the positive is important, but extending your healthy lifespan starts by being honest with yourself and identifying what you and your body struggle with the most.
A doctor friend gave me some advice. He said it doesn’t matter if you’re on top of 9 out of 10 things; it’s the 10th that kills you.
The goal isn’t just to stay alive longer; it’s to live life to its fullest for as long as possible.
I recently joined a fantastic mastermind group called DaVinci 50, run by Lisa and Richard Rossi. It brings together a remarkable collection of medical professionals and entrepreneurs focused on the latest research, treatments, and opportunities in health and longevity.
Another great tool I rely on is Advanced Body Scan. Early detection is crucial, but so is tracking the history of your scans to monitor changes over time. In my opinion, the most valuable scan is always the next one.
Additionally, I utilize a growing list of trackers and biometric devices to monitor my heart rate, along with various apps and tools for mindfulness, breathwork, and journaling. It is essential to recognize that the mind, body, and spirit work together to shape how you live your life.
Where Biohacking Fits In
It’s not surprising that biohacking has become as popular as it has. In a society that encourages (and perhaps even necessitates) an impossible balance between work, responsibilities, and self-care, it makes sense to want to increase efficiency and effectiveness.
Biohacking helps you do more with less. Biohacking is popular because it promises to help you achieve peak performance via the path of least resistance.
Having trouble with sleep, but don’t want to stop using your phone before bed? Wear blue-light blocking glasses.
While biohacking started as tricks like that – nootropics to help your mind, light and sound machines to decrease stress – it’s becoming increasingly tech-centric and augmentation-based.
Long-term, it’s likely you’ll see it moving toward exoskeletons, AR/XR experiences, and, unsurprisingly, sex toys. It’s also being used to create artificial organs and counteract memory loss. Companies leading this movement are Neuralink, Biohax International, and Digiwell. While it’s currently being adopted primarily by fast movers and technocrats, it’s pragmatic to think that more widely adopted versions of this will emerge as technology becomes standardized and protections are put in place.
For all the excitement, it’s necessary to remain skeptical and patient. DIY biohacking raises several ethical concerns, particularly regarding data protection and cybersecurity. As a reminder, when it comes to cybersecurity, you, the user, are the biggest weakness.
There’s no stopping this train, but there’s still time to ensure it stays on track.
If you’re looking to get started, here’s an hour-long conversation with Dave Asprey about his favorite optimizations.
Here’s to having a thousand dreams, leveraging the best of today’s medical advances, and investing not just in years added, but quality within those years.
We live in a world where technology changes quickly and often, while human nature remains relatively unchanged.
For most of us, human nature is the key variable.
I suspect Henry Ford focused on that when he said, "Whether you think you can or you think you can't. You're right."
Processing the possibilities of tomorrow is often 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 comprehend exponential growth, let alone its implications. For example, consider what happened to seemingly smart and forward-looking companies like Kodak, Blockbuster, and 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 another way, you have to choose between chaos and nothing.
It's hard to keep up – and even 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 be doing "rocket science", but it's pretty close. We utilize exponential technologies, such as high-performance computing, AI, and machine learning, to amplify intelligence and make data-driven, evidence-based decisions in real-time, all the time.
But, as we get "techier," I get less so ... and my role gets less technical, over time, too.
Due to my age, experience, and tendency to be a pioneer, I've been battling technology for decades.
Don't get me wrong, technology has always been my friend, and I still love it. But my relationship with it is different now.
I recognize that there are things that change and things that stay the same. And for me, the things that "stay the same" tend to be more important.
Paradoxically, the part of me that stays the same can still change and grow – that is how you become more (and a more evolved version) of that thing.
The Bigger Picture
My father said that 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 is that often the case? Because technology that solves a problem is more profitable and popular than technology searching for a problem to solve.
Here's a video from 1974 of Arthur C. Clarke making some remarkably accurate predictions 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.
1998 was a long time ago. My oldest son was just a twinkle in my eye. Michael Jackson was touring the world for his ‘Bad’ album, and ‘Rain Man’ topped the movie charts. It’s also the year that Microsoft Office was released.
A lot has changed since then. For obvious reasons, the U.S. labor market has changed radically since then ... but how different is it really?
The data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, so we can assume it’s relatively accurate.
In 1988, consumer-facing roles, such as salespeople and cashiers, were the most common jobs in 46 states. Comparing that to 2024 highlights how much less reliance we have on brick-and-mortar stores.
While not entirely different, now fast food workers are the most common job in 15 states. This is unsurprising in light of the shift toward lower-wage & flexible-hour service jobs. Meanwhile, retail salespersons are still the top job in 11 states.
Operations managers, home health aides, and freight movers have made significant gains in the U.S. labor market.
I was surprised to see how many home health aides there were, but considering the aging U.S. population, it makes sense.
The U.S. is still clearly a consumer economy; however, the focus has switched towards logistics and supply chain, as people shop increasingly online.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of work. People talk about change, but so far, things have felt relatively stable. That’s about to shift. AI is advancing faster than most realize—we’re still early on the curve, but the steep climb is beginning.
We’re entering a phase where AI is no longer just a tool—it’s becoming a collaborator in both our personal and professional lives. This shift will reshape how we work, create, and make decisions. For business leaders, that means looking past the hype and focusing on real value, workforce readiness, and building trust. For employees, it means adapting to a new kind of teamwork—one that includes AI as a core partner in creativity and productivity.
How will those changes show up in a chart like this?
Back in 2020, I had a Zoom meeting with Matthew Piepenburg of Signals Matter. Of course, being the height of the Pandemic, it was over Zoom. Even though it was a private discussion, there was so much value in our discussion that we decided to share parts of it here.
While Matt's understanding of markets is based on Macro/Value investing, we use advanced AI and quantitative methods for our approach.
As you might expect, there are a lot of differences in how we view the world, decision-making, and the current market environment. Nonetheless, we share a lot of common beliefs as well.
Our talk explores several interesting areas and concepts. I encourage you to watch it below.
To summarize a couple of the key points, markets are not the economy, and normal market dynamics have been out the window for a long time. In addition, part of why you're seeing increased volatility and noise is that there are so many interventions and artificial inputs to our market system.
While Matt and I may approach the world with very different lenses, we both believe in "timeless wisdom".
Ask yourself, What was true yesterday, today, and will stay true tomorrow?
That is part of the reason we focus on emerging technologies and constant innovation ... they remain relevant.
Something we can both agree on is that if you don't know what your edge is ... you don't have one.
Hope you enjoyed the video.
Let me know what other topics you'd like to hear more about.
When I first became interested in trading, I would often consult many traditional sources and old-school market wisdom. I particularly liked the Stock Trader's Almanac.
While there is real wisdom in some of those sources, most might as well be horoscopes or Nostradamus-level predictions. Throw enough darts, and one of them might hit the bullseye.
Here's an example from Samuel Benner, an Ohio farmer, in 1875. That year, he released a book titled "Benners Prophecies: Future Ups and Downs in Prices," and in it, he shared a now relatively famous chart called the Benner Cycle. Some claim that it's been accurately predicting the ups and downs of the market for over 100 years. Let's check it out.
Here's what it does get right ... markets go up, and then they go down ... and that cycle continues. Consequently, if you want to make money, you should buy low and sell high ... It's hard to call that a competitive advantage.
Mostly, you're looking at vague predictions with +/- 2-year error bars on a 10-year cycle.
However, it was close to the dot-com bust and the 2008 crash, so even if you sold a little early, you'd have been reasonably happy with your decision to follow the cycle.
The truth is that we use cycle analysis in our live trading models. However, it is a lot more rigorous and scientific than the Benner Cycle. The trick is figuring out what to focus on—and what to ignore.
Just as humans are good at seeing patterns where there are none ... they tend to see cycles that aren't anything but coincidences.
This is a reminder that just because an AI chat service recommends something, it doesn't make it a good recommendation. Those models do some things well. Making scientific or mathematically rigorous market predictions probably isn't the area to trust ChatGPT or one of its rivals ... yet.
We're seeing bots improve at running businesses and writing code, but off-the-shelf tools like ChatGPT are still known for generating hallucinations and overconfidence.
According to S&P Global, the U.S. market cap rose by 4.7% in the past 6th months. This represents a modest gain compared to the average market capitalization growth of 12.2% during the same period.
Leaders in growth were South Korea, Spain, Germany, Italy, and Brazil.
We have previously discussed this, but in addition to investments in technology and artificial intelligence, global capital is also being directed toward emerging markets, where many businesses are being established.
At first glance, some may see U.S. underperformance, but it can also be read as a sign of relative maturity and stability. Another potential perspective is that U.S. companies have already experienced explosive growth in recent years, particularly in sectors such as tech and AI, suggesting the market may currently be in a phase of consolidation.
While it's always great to see explosive growth, people undervalue resilience and steady growth, especially in light of the volatile first quarter of the year.
Nature (and common sense) reminds us that equilibrium is important. For example, when you exercise too much, you get injured; when you drink too much water, you get poisoned; etc.
This concept applies almost everywhere.
It's why diversification is so important in portfolio construction theory.
Or, why you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket (concentrating your risk).
And, my favorite, it's also why you shouldn't only eat vegetables.
A related nugget of wisdom from the extreme ... Too much of a good thing is a bad thing!
Take AI as an example... even though I've been involved in this field for many years, I'm surprised by how rapidly it's improving now.
I suspect that part of the surprise comes from comparing the current pace of change to my memories of how long it took to improve in the past. Even though I had a sense of the quickening, the thing about exponential technologies is that there's a tipping point ... and clearly we're past that point on the curve.
I'm often met with surprise when I talk about my AI journey ... because it began in 1991, when it was still hard to spell AI.
Looking back, it makes a lot more sense to me than it did as I was moving through it. Here is a video about that journey and what it means for you and your future.
Looking back on my life and career, one could argue that I got my start in AI with my most recent company, Capitalogix, which was founded over 20 years ago. Or, perhaps, we could go back further and say it started with my previous company, IntellAgent Control (which was an early AI company, focused on the creation and use of intelligent agents). By today's standards, the technology we used back then was too simple to be considered AI, but at the time, we were on the cutting edge.
Maybe we should go further back and say it started when I became the first lawyer in my firm to use a computer ... or was it when I first fell in love with technology?
The truth is ... I've spent my whole life on this path. My fascination with making better decisions, taking smarter actions, and getting better results probably started when I was two years old (because of the incident discussed in the video).
Ultimately, the starting point is irrelevant. Looking back, it seems inevitable. The decisions I made, the people I met, and my experiences ... they all led me here.
However, at any point in the journey, if you asked, "Is this where you thought you'd end up?" I doubt that I'd have said yes.
I've always been fascinated by what makes people successful and how to become more efficient and effective. In a sense, that's what AI does. It's a capability amplifier.
When I transitioned from being a corporate securities lawyer to an entrepreneur, Artificial Intelligence happened to be the best vehicle I found to do that. It made sense then, and it makes sense now.
Like most things in life, it's easy to see the golden thread looking backwards, but it's a lot harder to see projecting forwards.
I wouldn't have it any other way. It certainly keeps things interesting.
BlackRock's Meteoric Rise ...
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.
Posted at 07:38 PM in Business, Current Affairs, Ideas, Market Commentary, Trading, Trading Tools, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)
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