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Big Ideas 2021 [pdf]

87 points by jger15 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
person_of_color 6y ago
This is super conservative. Where are the ideas that are seemingly impossible?
throwawaygh 6y ago
Why do these decks always contain truly innovative stuff like the next generation of IT systems, massive breakthroughs in ML, stuff like EVs and self driving, etc alongside.... cryptocurrency. Just the financial bias or what? 2 crypto mentions in the TOC but EVs get only one slot in the toc and a bunch of truly innovative stuff happening in biotech stuff gets zero mention. I don’t get it.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  Crypto is profitable for a lot of people. ARK is an investment firm.
jeffreyrogers 6y ago
This wouldn't be my list, but that's fine. I saw delivery drones on the list. I'm skeptical of this idea for consumers but could see the military using it for resupply logistics or something like that, but what always surprises me is how they use quadcopters (or some other type of multicopter with no swashplate). Seems like you'd want something like an autonomous Chinook (scaled down obviously) or other heavy lift helicopter if you were really going to pursue this idea. And while electric is sexy, from a cost perspective some sort of piston or turbine engine seems more reasonable unless distances traveled are really short and the batteries are swappable.
- conductr 6y ago
  I think most people who think drone delivery is going to be huge don’t realize how loud drones are. Once it reaches any level of scale there will be noise pollution groups wanting to shut it down.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
The best argument they could come up with for Bitcoin is "If all of the S&P 500 companies moved 1% of their cash into Bitcoin, it would go up by this much". No real explanation of why companies would move their cash into Bitcoin instead of literally any other investment. This sounds a lot like the tired "If we could capture 1% of the TAM..." argument used by startups that haven't really fleshed out their value proposition.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  If the best argument for an investment is "if other people buy it, it will go up"... that's a pretty unimpressive sales pitch.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  The best argument for Bitcoin growing in value is it's a social phenomenon that will continue for some indeterminate time. Over half a trillion dollars buys a LOT of people becoming intellectually invested in Bitcoin. Almost like a religion, but it's like money so even better.
  - umeshunni 6y ago
    So, it's an irrational bubble. Got it.
  - esja 6y ago
    The market cap is very misleading, as it values the entire pie based on what someone paid for the last slice. Much less than half a trillion has gone into BTC.
    - Robotbeat 6y ago
      Absolutely. But people THINK they have half a trillion in Bitcoin “assets,” so that impacts their behavior. They will engage in all sorts of motivated reasoning to justify why it makes sense, to protect that and grow its a perceived value. And don’t underestimate the power of that, collectively.
0xb0565e486 6y ago
Interesting to see some of their work here. The strongest suit of ARK Invest in my opinion is their marketing, which is clearly demonstrated by the high inflows into their ETF. Curious to see how they will perform on the long term, given that their portfolio is pretty heavily weighted into medium and small caps stocks.
- cinntaile 6y ago
  I wonder if their profits are basically the result of a momentum strategy? Since their investment thesis is based on investing in future technology and after a few years those ideas become mainstream which will lead to an increased investor apetite for that particular technology which will lead to a price appreciation.
  - 0xb0565e486 6y ago
    Could very well be. My guess is that the inflows generated by their clever marketing is enough to move the market in their favor, and thus, creating a positive feedback loop. See the inelastic market hypothesis (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3686935 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3686935).
- msoad 6y ago
  Yup! By listing their trades, they encourage others to follow suit, giving them a buying a selling edge
TRcontrarian 6y ago
Putting hockey stick shaped lines on graphs with buzzwords on the x axis and dollars on the y axis does not a big idea make. I am disappointed to see ideas that have failed to deliver for a decade like drone delivery (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-unveils-futuristic-plan-delivery-by-drone/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-unveils-futuristic-plan-...) and 3D printing (https://www.economist.com/briefing/2011/02/10/the-printed-world https://www.economist.com/briefing/2011/02/10/the-printed-wo...) have a very long buzzword shelf-life, presumably because they are enduringly futuristic. First principles should tell us that most manufactured goods will never be 3D printed. There are entire fields of engineering dedicated to manufacturing processes, because the final material properties and cost of an item are affected by things like cooling rate, grain orientation, surface finish, tensile strength, and tolerances. 3D printing is another tool in the toolbox, not a replacement for the toolbox. I personally find them useful for ideation, but useless for creating finished products. It is worth considering that the entire market for 3D printers consists of rapid prototyping and Etsy knicknacks, and that it has been saturated.
- jryle70 6y ago
  You seem to be more qualified than I am, but Relativity is 3D printing the entire rocket, which to me is really impressive [0] Small launch market is a tough one, especially given SpaceX's cost advantage, but Relativity keeps racking up investment. It's been rumored that their 3D expertise make them future-proof in case plan A, launching rocket, doesn't pan out. [0] - https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/the-worlds-largest-3d-metal-printer-is-churning-out-rockets https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/the-worlds-...
- ehnto 6y ago
  I don't believe that's the entire market. There are still some incredible advances happening, and the move toward fully finished production ready parts is continuing. SLA printing has had recent innovations pushing results ahead quite far, with automakers beginning to use parts in production vehicles straight from the printer. There are heaps of other niche applications, from remote location manufacturing to automating customer configured products that couldn't be done with traditional approaches, to parts for small fabricators in a range of industries such as aviation and motorsports. Inconel printing is enabling some truly incredible parts for motorsport. I do agree it will unlikely replace mass manufacturing of cheap products, but I think it's role in manufacturing has far from peaked. You are right about Etsy knicknacks, but I think even prototyping hasn't reached saturation yet.
hehehaha 6y ago
This reads like...Big Ideas from the past decade. I came away with nothing. And Bitcoin mentioned twice? No thank you.
- fwiwm2c 6y ago
  I mean arkk has massive credibility given their recent etf performance. What is your credibility and why should we trust you? Easy to criticize but tough to come up with well thought out ideas (even if you don't agree with them).
  - hehehaha 6y ago
    My point is don’t advertise your fund as “disruptive technology” and then proceed to list technology trends from the past decade. Not really disruptive is it? More like trend and momentum following.
    - loeber 6y ago
      You think that ARK is late, but we're actually still very early. Guarantee you that "technology trends from the last decade" will be bigger than ever before in the next one.
  - msoad 6y ago
    In a Bull market everyone is a genius. I would take your performance argument in a Bear market
avrionov 6y ago
They missed the biggest idea of 2021 - Gamestop!
- trhway 6y ago
  Power of the hive mind - the cloud of angry bees killing a bear. The WSB today is a fascinating read, kind of a small window into that mind. One thing when crowd decides to virtually character/twitter assassinate somebody, and another when they intentionally impact several $B losses to hedge funds (classic asymmetry - a bee can lose all its money, few grands, etc. and the loss of a number of bees wouldn't really affect the power of the hive while the single loss of a few $B can be a mortal wound to the bear). A power just a couple steps below say changing a government. No wonder that the best minds in tech are working on harnessing that power.
bromquinn 6y ago
Missing: psychedelic therapeutics
nbzso 6y ago
I have a serious question. In sight of technologies like GPT3 and investment preference toward AI, why we are telling kids thats important to learn to code?
- croissants 6y ago
  I genuinely don't follow why GPT3 and investment in AI would make coding ability obsolete, if that's what you're suggesting?
  - nbzso 6y ago
    https://blog.seekwell.io/gpt3 https://blog.seekwell.io/gpt3
streetcat1 6y ago
Just want to note that GPT-3 does not understand anything, It has no logic, it is a language model. Also, the rise of deep learning is based upon the rise of big labeled data.
- ml_hardware 6y ago
  If you had a language model whose responses were indistinguishable from a human, would you call that understanding? I agree GPT-3 is * just * a language model, but then again, so are you.
  - streetcat1 6y ago
    Not correct. I can write a computer program (logic) and gpt-3 can't.
    - ml_hardware 6y ago
      GPT3 can write correct computer programs. There are many demos online. Stepping back it is just a translation problem e.g. English idea -> Python code, which an ideal language model would be able to do. I think what I’m picking a gripe over is that “language model” is a very general term. Calling GPT3 just a language model is like calling a human just a bunch of atoms. It’s not actually limiting. What I’d love to talk about is how useful of a language model is GPT3? And how useful do you think GPT4, 5, etc. are going to be?
      - streetcat1 6y ago
        No, GPT-3 is a lang model. I can call it like than since there is a logical definition of a lang model. We do not yet have model of human or human brain definition
lambdatronics 6y ago
Did anyone catch this: >Beyond financial services, digital wallets could become lead generation platforms for offline and online commerce, potentially adding another $9,000-$10,000 to the net present value of their revenues. That's a privacy nightmare.
hynco 6y ago
Even though it's good marketing - they have some good points. Does anyone has other white papers in similar directions? Would be interesting to compare that stuff.

87 points by jger15 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

person_of_color 6y ago

This is super conservative. Where are the ideas that are seemingly impossible?

throwawaygh 6y ago

Why do these decks always contain truly innovative stuff like the next generation of IT systems, massive breakthroughs in ML, stuff like EVs and self driving, etc alongside.... cryptocurrency. Just the financial bias or what? 2 crypto mentions in the TOC but EVs get only one slot in the toc and a bunch of truly innovative stuff happening in biotech stuff gets zero mention. I don’t get it.

MattGaiser 6y ago
Crypto is profitable for a lot of people. ARK is an investment firm.

jeffreyrogers 6y ago

This wouldn't be my list, but that's fine. I saw delivery drones on the list. I'm skeptical of this idea for consumers but could see the military using it for resupply logistics or something like that, but what always surprises me is how they use quadcopters (or some other type of multicopter with no swashplate). Seems like you'd want something like an autonomous Chinook (scaled down obviously) or other heavy lift helicopter if you were really going to pursue this idea. And while electric is sexy, from a cost perspective some sort of piston or turbine engine seems more reasonable unless distances traveled are really short and the batteries are swappable.

conductr 6y ago
I think most people who think drone delivery is going to be huge don’t realize how loud drones are. Once it reaches any level of scale there will be noise pollution groups wanting to shut it down.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

The best argument they could come up with for Bitcoin is "If all of the S&P 500 companies moved 1% of their cash into Bitcoin, it would go up by this much". No real explanation of why companies would move their cash into Bitcoin instead of literally any other investment. This sounds a lot like the tired "If we could capture 1% of the TAM..." argument used by startups that haven't really fleshed out their value proposition.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
If the best argument for an investment is "if other people buy it, it will go up"... that's a pretty unimpressive sales pitch.
Robotbeat 6y ago
The best argument for Bitcoin growing in value is it's a social phenomenon that will continue for some indeterminate time. Over half a trillion dollars buys a LOT of people becoming intellectually invested in Bitcoin. Almost like a religion, but it's like money so even better.
- umeshunni 6y ago
  So, it's an irrational bubble. Got it.
- esja 6y ago
  The market cap is very misleading, as it values the entire pie based on what someone paid for the last slice. Much less than half a trillion has gone into BTC.
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    Absolutely. But people THINK they have half a trillion in Bitcoin “assets,” so that impacts their behavior. They will engage in all sorts of motivated reasoning to justify why it makes sense, to protect that and grow its a perceived value. And don’t underestimate the power of that, collectively.

0xb0565e486 6y ago

Interesting to see some of their work here. The strongest suit of ARK Invest in my opinion is their marketing, which is clearly demonstrated by the high inflows into their ETF. Curious to see how they will perform on the long term, given that their portfolio is pretty heavily weighted into medium and small caps stocks.

cinntaile 6y ago
I wonder if their profits are basically the result of a momentum strategy? Since their investment thesis is based on investing in future technology and after a few years those ideas become mainstream which will lead to an increased investor apetite for that particular technology which will lead to a price appreciation.
- 0xb0565e486 6y ago
  Could very well be. My guess is that the inflows generated by their clever marketing is enough to move the market in their favor, and thus, creating a positive feedback loop. See the inelastic market hypothesis (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3686935 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3686935).
msoad 6y ago
Yup! By listing their trades, they encourage others to follow suit, giving them a buying a selling edge

TRcontrarian 6y ago

Putting hockey stick shaped lines on graphs with buzzwords on the x axis and dollars on the y axis does not a big idea make. I am disappointed to see ideas that have failed to deliver for a decade like drone delivery (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-unveils-futuristic-plan-delivery-by-drone/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-unveils-futuristic-plan-...) and 3D printing (https://www.economist.com/briefing/2011/02/10/the-printed-world https://www.economist.com/briefing/2011/02/10/the-printed-wo...) have a very long buzzword shelf-life, presumably because they are enduringly futuristic. First principles should tell us that most manufactured goods will never be 3D printed. There are entire fields of engineering dedicated to manufacturing processes, because the final material properties and cost of an item are affected by things like cooling rate, grain orientation, surface finish, tensile strength, and tolerances. 3D printing is another tool in the toolbox, not a replacement for the toolbox. I personally find them useful for ideation, but useless for creating finished products. It is worth considering that the entire market for 3D printers consists of rapid prototyping and Etsy knicknacks, and that it has been saturated.

jryle70 6y ago
You seem to be more qualified than I am, but Relativity is 3D printing the entire rocket, which to me is really impressive [0] Small launch market is a tough one, especially given SpaceX's cost advantage, but Relativity keeps racking up investment. It's been rumored that their 3D expertise make them future-proof in case plan A, launching rocket, doesn't pan out. [0] - https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/the-worlds-largest-3d-metal-printer-is-churning-out-rockets https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/the-worlds-...
ehnto 6y ago
I don't believe that's the entire market. There are still some incredible advances happening, and the move toward fully finished production ready parts is continuing. SLA printing has had recent innovations pushing results ahead quite far, with automakers beginning to use parts in production vehicles straight from the printer. There are heaps of other niche applications, from remote location manufacturing to automating customer configured products that couldn't be done with traditional approaches, to parts for small fabricators in a range of industries such as aviation and motorsports. Inconel printing is enabling some truly incredible parts for motorsport. I do agree it will unlikely replace mass manufacturing of cheap products, but I think it's role in manufacturing has far from peaked. You are right about Etsy knicknacks, but I think even prototyping hasn't reached saturation yet.

hehehaha 6y ago

This reads like...Big Ideas from the past decade. I came away with nothing. And Bitcoin mentioned twice? No thank you.

fwiwm2c 6y ago
I mean arkk has massive credibility given their recent etf performance. What is your credibility and why should we trust you? Easy to criticize but tough to come up with well thought out ideas (even if you don't agree with them).
- hehehaha 6y ago
  My point is don’t advertise your fund as “disruptive technology” and then proceed to list technology trends from the past decade. Not really disruptive is it? More like trend and momentum following.
  - loeber 6y ago
    You think that ARK is late, but we're actually still very early. Guarantee you that "technology trends from the last decade" will be bigger than ever before in the next one.
- msoad 6y ago
  In a Bull market everyone is a genius. I would take your performance argument in a Bear market

avrionov 6y ago

They missed the biggest idea of 2021 - Gamestop!

trhway 6y ago
Power of the hive mind - the cloud of angry bees killing a bear. The WSB today is a fascinating read, kind of a small window into that mind. One thing when crowd decides to virtually character/twitter assassinate somebody, and another when they intentionally impact several $B losses to hedge funds (classic asymmetry - a bee can lose all its money, few grands, etc. and the loss of a number of bees wouldn't really affect the power of the hive while the single loss of a few $B can be a mortal wound to the bear). A power just a couple steps below say changing a government. No wonder that the best minds in tech are working on harnessing that power.

bromquinn 6y ago

Missing: psychedelic therapeutics

nbzso 6y ago

I have a serious question. In sight of technologies like GPT3 and investment preference toward AI, why we are telling kids thats important to learn to code?

croissants 6y ago
I genuinely don't follow why GPT3 and investment in AI would make coding ability obsolete, if that's what you're suggesting?
- nbzso 6y ago
  https://blog.seekwell.io/gpt3 https://blog.seekwell.io/gpt3

streetcat1 6y ago

Just want to note that GPT-3 does not understand anything, It has no logic, it is a language model. Also, the rise of deep learning is based upon the rise of big labeled data.

ml_hardware 6y ago
If you had a language model whose responses were indistinguishable from a human, would you call that understanding? I agree GPT-3 is * just * a language model, but then again, so are you.
- streetcat1 6y ago
  Not correct. I can write a computer program (logic) and gpt-3 can't.
  - ml_hardware 6y ago
    GPT3 can write correct computer programs. There are many demos online. Stepping back it is just a translation problem e.g. English idea -> Python code, which an ideal language model would be able to do. I think what I’m picking a gripe over is that “language model” is a very general term. Calling GPT3 just a language model is like calling a human just a bunch of atoms. It’s not actually limiting. What I’d love to talk about is how useful of a language model is GPT3? And how useful do you think GPT4, 5, etc. are going to be?
    - streetcat1 6y ago
      No, GPT-3 is a lang model. I can call it like than since there is a logical definition of a lang model. We do not yet have model of human or human brain definition

lambdatronics 6y ago

Did anyone catch this: >Beyond financial services, digital wallets could become lead generation platforms for offline and online commerce, potentially adding another $9,000-$10,000 to the net present value of their revenues. That's a privacy nightmare.

hynco 6y ago

Even though it's good marketing - they have some good points. Does anyone has other white papers in similar directions? Would be interesting to compare that stuff.